The paradigmatic importance of Humboldt's university reform today, is reason enough to question the historical significance and the current orientation force that pulses influenced by Schleiermacher, the Berlin founding 200 years ago. But to be in this band the ideas and initiatives with which Schleiermacher brought in the University of Berlin foundation, placed in the broader context of its reasoning, the science of theology character. Central to this is his definition of the relationship between religion and Christianity, church and culture, (...) attributable to the taking Schleiermacher a modern-grade theology, and church Christentums- understanding investigated. (shrink)

Gutes und Guter, Leben, Leib, Tugend - in diesem Band werden die Vortrage der ersten vier Symposien der Mainz Moral Meetings aus den Jahren 2009-2011 zu diesen Themen zusammengefasst. Ein interdisziplinarer Zugang durch Bibelwissenschaft, Judaistik, Altphilologie, Philosophie, Patristik, Systematische Theologie und weiteren Disziplinen eroffnet einen Blick auf die ethischen Normen des fruhen Christentums. Die Autoren der Beitrage fragen nach den Moglichkeiten von Norm und Normbegrundung einer fruhchristlichen Ethik in ausgewahlten Bereichen sowohl im Kontext antiker Philosophie als auch in gegenwartiger Verantwortung. (...) Mit Beitragen von: Jochen Althoff, Frederick D. Aquino, Wilhelm Blumer, Maximilian Forschner, Christian Hengstermann, Christoph Horn, Friedrich W. Horn, David Horrell, Manfred Lang, Sebastian Moll, Maren Niehoff, Jorg Roder, Eckart David Schmidt, Nikolaus Schneider, Lorenzo Scornaienchi, Notger Slenczka, Mira Stare, Gerd Theissen, Ulrich Volp, Jan G. van der Watt, Werner Zager, Ruben Zimmermann. (shrink)

English summary: From an international and interdisciplinary viewpoint, Thomas Aquinas was the most important scholastic philosopher and theologian. His life, work and legacy are set out in this four section handbook which provides orientation in what is currently known about the man, his affinities and character, his work and its impact. The volume offers a summary of research up until now, as well as a basis for further investigation. Comprehensive indexes and literature sources mean it can be used as a (...) work of reference whose articles can be separately or integrally understood. Writing from their different perspectives, philosophy and history scholars along with Protestant and Catholic theologians all help paint this portrait from their different perspectives. German description: Das Thomas Handbuch bietet eine Darstellung von Leben, Werk und Wirkung von Thomas von Aquin, dem wohl bedeutendsten Vertreter der scholastischen Philosophie und Theologie in interdisziplinarer und internationaler Perspektive. In vier Sektionen enthalt es Ausfuhrungen zur Orientierung in der gegenwartigen Forschungslage, zur Person des Thomas und ihren Verbindungen und Pragungen, zu seinem Werk und zu seiner Wirkung. Es bietet eine Zusammenfassung der bisherigen Forschungen zu Thomas von Aquin und eine Grundlage fur weitere Arbeiten. Erschlossen durch umfassende Register und Literaturangaben, kann es als Nachschlagewerk genutzt werden, dessen einzelne Artikel je fur sich verstehbar sind, aber auch als umfassende Gesamtdarstellung. Die interdisziplinaren Beitrage eroffnen eine Gesamtschau, in welcher verschiedene Perspektiven ihren Ort finden und ihren je eigenen Beitrag zum Gesamten bieten. Mit Beitragen von: Henryk Anzulewicz, Carmela Baffioni, Michael Basse, David Berger, Inos Biffi, Volker Henning Drecoll, Mechthild Dreyer, Stephan Ernst, Sabine Folger-Fonfara, Elias Fullenbach, Ruedi Imbach, Ingo Klitzsch, Ulrich Kopf, Pieter de Leemans, Volker Leppin, Jurgen Miethke, Thomas Prugl, Francois-Xavier Putallaz, Reinhold Rieger, Philipp W. Rosemann, Marianne Schlosser, Gury Schneider-Ludorff, Rolf Schonberger, Christoph Schwobel, Notger Slenczka, Wolfgang Sturner, Hubert Philip Weber. (shrink)

Here we explore whether mental training in the form of meditation can help to overcome age-related attentional decline. We compared performance on the attentional blink task between three populations: A group of long-term meditation practitioners within an older population, a control group of age-matched participants and a control group of young participants. Members of both control groups had never practiced meditation. Our results show that long-term meditation practice leads to a reduction of the attentional blink. Meditation practitioners taken from an (...) older population showed a reduction in blink as compared to a control group taken from a younger population, whereas, the control group age-matched to the meditators’ group revealed a blink that was comparatively larger and broader. Our results support the hypothesis that meditation practice can: alter the efficiency with which attentional resources are distributed and help to overcome age-related attentional deficits in the temporal domain. (shrink)

Decision-making has a high practical relevance for daily performance. Its relation to other cognitive abilities such as executive control and memory is not fully understood. Here we asked whether training of either attentional filtering or memory storage would influence decision-making as indexed by repetitive assessments of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The IGT was developed to assess and simulate real-life decision-making (Bechara et al., 2005). In this task, participants gain or lose money by developing advantageous or disadvantageous decision strategies. On (...) five consecutive days we trained 29 healthy young adults (20-30 years) either in working memory storage or attentional filtering and measured their IGT scores after each training session. During memory training (MT) subjects performed a computerized delayed match-to-sample task where two displays of bars were presented in succession. During filter training (FT) participants had to indicate whether two simultaneously presented displays of bars matched or not. Whereas in MT the relevant target stimuli stood alone, in FT the targets were embedded within irrelevant distractors (bars in a different color). All subjects within each group improved their performance in the trained cognitive task. For the IGT, we observed an increase over time in the amount of money gained in the FT group only. Decision-making seems to be influenced more by training to filter out irrelevant distractors than by training to store items in working memory. Selective attention could be responsible for the previously noted relationship between IGT performance and working memory and is therefore more important for enhancing efficiency in decision-making. (shrink)

English summary: Until well into the 18th century, the concept of the soul played a major role in the scientific, religious, aesthetic and metaphysical discussion of humanity representing the highest level of existence. In modernity, this concept of the soul has lost its significance. It seems to have been replaced by terms such as subjectivity, personality and individuality. At the same time a symbolic added value which deifies clear description appears to have attached itself to the definition of the soul. (...) These developments and their interpretation are examined by the contributions in this collection. The volume includes contributions from Roderich Barth, Ulrich Barth, Jurgen Brunner, Brigitte Boothe, Jorg Dierken, Dirk Evers, Ferdinand Fellmann, Daniel Fulda, Johannes Hubner, Marco Ivaldo, Malte Dominik Kruger, Martin Kurthen, Rudolf Lang Thaler, Wolfgang Mack, Notger Slenzcka, Florian Steger and Anne Steinmeier. German description: Der Begriff der Seele hatte bis ins 18. Jahrhundert hinein eine prominente Stellung in naturwissenschaftlichen, religiosen, asthetischen und metaphysischen Erorterungen des Menschlichen als hochster Stufe des Lebendigen. Diese Stellung hat der Seelenbegriff in der Moderne eingebusst. Er scheint von Begriffen wie Subjektivitat, Personalitat und Individualitat abgelost worden zu sein. Gleichwohl scheint der Bezeichnung der Seele ein symbolischer Mehrwert anzuhaften, der sich allerdings einer klaren Fassung entzieht. Diesen Entwicklungen und ihren Deutungen gehen die Beitrage des Sammelbandes nach. Eine Leitfrage ist dabei: Steht die Rede von der Seele fur die prareflexive Selbstgegebenheit der Subjektivitat, wie sie sich vorrangig in der Leiberfahrung und (allenfalls?) nachrangig in der Wissenschaftsreflexion ausdruckt? (shrink)