In order to achieve the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
we need a new great transformation as conceptualized by Polanyi,
reintegrating and re-embedding different spheres like the economy,
society, politics and science. This great transformation is merely a
moral project including technological, economical, institutional and
cultural processes. Different actors are part of this project, such as,
civil society, science and corporations. In this paper, I want to focus on
the role of corporations as change agents within the Great
Transformation.
The SDG are, in this respect, the moral compass (Schneidewind
2018) for the Transformation, but the true question is what makes
corporations start to go in the direction the compass shows. To answer
this question, I want to use a pragmatist framework relating on Hans
Joas’ work on action theory in an interdisciplinary manner. I want to
investigate when and how change agents have an impact on societal
change by taking a close look at the interdependencies of individual
and collective action, rational and emotional aspects, intended and
non-intended results etc.
Asuman Lätzer-Lasar is going to present a working paper on ‚Religious Ancient Placemaking – first draft of a conceptual framework‘
The choice of location of a sanctuary was mainly dependent on its sacred
geomancy, for instance recognized through an augurium during the
Roman period. However, in dense and crowded places such as a city, there
were also other needs and requirements that had to be respected, such as
urban topography, infrastructure and accessibility, as well as policy,
economy, local legislation, or even traditions. Establishing a place for
religious communication, be it a sanctuary, a grave or the erection of a
dedication for a deity therefore had to be some kind of a negotiation
between the religious communicator and the physical and non-physical
pre-existing environment.
However, even in antiquity the establishment of places of religious
communication in dense and diversely crowded cities cannot have been
taken place as mere top-down processes decided only by elite, ruling
actors without taking any significant and urban-related factors into
account. I argue that the decision-making process, when creating a place
for religious communication, is an interplay of spaces, objects, actors,
practices and imagination (which is aspirations and semantics) that lead
involuntarily to reciprocal formations.
This paper is a first attempt to describe the term “placemaking”, which
derives from the disciplines of urban planning and geography, in order to
elucidate its advantages and disadvantages for the research of ancient
cities and religions. I would like to apply the term and specify it as the
concept of Religious Ancient Placemaking. In this paper I will introduce
a first sketch of my understanding of the theoretical framework of the
concept, which shall be part of my habilitation project.
My plan for the second book is firstly to develop the concept and make it
suitable for the discipline of archaeology, then secondly enrich it with
examples from the ancient city of Rome – because it is an exceptional city
that provides a plethora of material and written sources and therefore
guarantees a qualitative broad variety of phenomena – and then thirdly try
to apply the conceptual framework on a specific case study, which will be
the Provincia Hispania.
Elisabeth Begemann gives a working paper on ‚Determinism, Fate, and Freedom‘
The present paper discusses two texts of the tripartite discussion of
theology in Cicero’s writings. The texts belong to the second period
of philosophical production and mirror Cicero’s desire to apply Greek
philosophy to the Roman context, thus establishing Roman
philosophy. The topic under discussion is one that is central to Roman
politics, addressing the practice of divination, the practice of divining
whether the gods consented to human decisions or actions or not.
The centrality of the practice in political terms makes it hard for
Cicero to reject the practice, though he is openly skeptical, earning
him the reproof of being a cynic, dishonest and opportunist in things
political and philosophical. However, what he addresses are rather
everyday practices (and beliefs) that should have no bearing on the
administration of the (ideal) res publica and which he sees as
expression of exceeding religiosity, of superstitio, that politics must
do without.
Congratulations to Jana Ilnicka on winning the university award for her dissertation
Jana Ilnicka is the first winner of ‚Promotionspreis‘ at the University of Erfurt. In her Dissertation Jana Ilnicka worked on new found Manuscripts of Meister Eckhart and the concept of ‚Relatio‘. Her Dissertation was awarded with the ‚Promotionspreis‘ – Congratulations!
For more infomation:
Sarah Al-Taher presents a working paper on ‚Meister Eckhart – a second Socrates?‘
In this paper I compare (the platonic) Socrates with Meister Eckhart regarding four comparative criteria. First I describe their life from the perspective of the circumstances surrounding the end of their lives. Second I describe a central aspect of both philosophies. The unity with the good in the concept of Plato, and the unity with God in the concept of Eckhart. This leads to the third step, in which I analyse the way both Plato und Meister Eckhart pursue in order to reach their goals: the unity with good or God. And lastly, I turn to the methodology used by Plato und Eckhart to convey their way of knowledge.
These procedure allows to give a first answer to the question whether Meister Eckhart can be understood as a second Socrates.
A Workshop is taking place at the Max Weber Kolleg on „Geschichten und Legenden um Meister Eckhart“
Within the Meister Eckhart Tage in Erfurt the Max Weber Kolleg offers a Workshop:
For more Information please see the following link:
https://aktuell.uni-erfurt.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/FlyerLegendenWorkshopEckhart_2019.pdf
Carsten Hermann-Pilath gives an interview on ‚On the Art of Co-Creation: A Contribution to the Philosophy of Ecological Economics‘ at the 13th international conference of the european society for ecological economics (ESEE)
Hermann-Pilath gives a Key note Lecture:ESEE 2019 | CO-CREATION – MAKING ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS MATTER, Turku, Finland, June 18-21 2019
Today, the status of science in society is increasingly contested. One reason is immanent to science: Facing hypercomplex systems and ‘wicked problems’, science cannot provide an unequivocal and binding basis for action and policy design. This problem is especially pronounced in systemic contexts in which epistemic subjects and objects are entangled in a co-creative relationship, as in the economy, which is the core driver of climate change, in turn. I argue that in these contexts, ‘art’ becomes an epistemic mode on equal status with ‘science’ conventionally understood: Art is the science of co-creation. This argument builds on the philosophy of post-Kantian German idealism and its intellectual metamorphoses, such as in American pragmatism. I discuss the essentials of this view, present examples from the field of Ecological Economics and draw practical conclusions for method.
In the Interview Herrmann-Pillath discusses the role of co-creation in designing sustainable economies by taking into account the interests of non-humans.
To see the Interview please follow this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIlBsaIQTss&feature=youtu.be
Ramón Soneira Martínez is going to present a working paper on ‚Repulsion and religious indifference: connections between unbelief and resonance theory‘
The second chapter of my dissertation deals with the Resonanztheorie of Hartmut Rosa. The chapter has two main parts. The first one is focused on the analyses of religious practices using the theoretical background of the theory of resonance. The second one develops the possible connection between the term unbelief and the Resonanztheorie. The main idea is that the framework of the theory of Resonanz can be an interesting tool to analyse the complexity of the phenomena related to unbelief as deconversion, blasphemy or atheism not only nowadays but also in other historical contexts. To conclude this paper, I introduce briefly the possibility of this study of unbelief considering the Resonanztheorie in antiquity, especially in Classical Athens.
Tiziana Faitini presents a working paper on ‚Officium and professional duty. Exploring a semantic field‘
This paper is intended as a contribution to the analysis of the
semantic field of “professional duty”. It will partially explore
various layers of meaning of the polysemic concept of officium
(which can be translated as “duty”, “service” or “office”), from
Late Antiquity to the Early Modern period, in a number of Latin
and Italian sources. In doing so, it will suggest that the
reelaboration of the concept of the officium is a condition of
possibility of the very concept of “professional duty” in itself, and,
for this reason, an essential step in the process of valorizing work
and the professions ethically. An analysis of this reelaboration can
thus serve to provide important insights into the genealogy of the
multifaceted valorization of work and professions.
Juhi Tyagi presented a working paper on ‚Workers leverage in peasant movements: how coal mine workers sustained a radical peasant struggle in India‘
I argue that industrial workers can become central to and support radical networks of the poor through utilizing the structural power that workers possess. That is, workers have the ability to interrupt production, causing a crisis of profitability for the capitalist. Landless and marginal peasants dont enjoy the same types of leverage. Workers are hence best situated to support the sustenance of radical organizations among peasants through being able to function autonomously, even during repression, by solidifying cross- caste unity through workspace organizations and through their involvement of women in the townships. The constant interaction of workers with the peasants, as well as coal unions own organizational choices, cross cutting usual divisions between geographical areas— partly the result of the structure of the workplace itself—I find, led to the creation of abeyant radical structures in the villages.