In the near future three anniversaries are to be celebrated: Hans-Joachim Schoeps, German-Jewish scholar and full Professor of Religious and Intellectual History, would have been 100 years old in January 2009. Jointly together with Ernst Benz, full Professor of Theology at the University of Marburg, Hans-Joachim Schoeps launched the Journal of religious and intellectual history, which is now entering its 60th volume. Also, the Scientific Association for religious and intellectual history, which was as well founded by Hans-Joachim (...) Schoeps, is going to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The article depicts biographical data and scholarly highlights of Schoeps, and combines them with a view to the development of ZRGG and GGG. (shrink)

§ 1. “To the mind of the philosopher”, according to Plato,1 “there belongs a vision of all time and all being"; and certainly many of the great thinkers have made it their business to speculate about the omnitudo realitatis or the ens realissimum—about the universe as a whole and in its wholeness, or about that which is supremely real—in short about ‘ the Absolute ‘. It may be that this interest in the Whole lies at the heart of all genuine (...) philosophy, giving to it its distinctive inspiration and character. It may be, on the other hand, that it is a misdirected solicitude—an anxiety to solve the inherently insoluble. The Absolute, we shall perhaps be told, is a vox nihili—a name for that which, being nothing, has no attributes ; or we, at least, can never hope to characterize it. All our available predicates, being drawn of necessity from a limited field, must ‘ come short‘must prove inadequate for so immense and so august a subject. (shrink)