Medieval Philosophy and its Historical Significance
This professorship engages with teaching and research, with an interdisciplinary approach, in historical as well as systematical perspectives with regard to the Early, Middle and Late Medieval Periods (ca. 500 until 1500).
This time period advances the educational and scientific traditions of antiquity and late antiquity insofar as it brings together changing circumstances with Christian worldviews to form new entities of knowledge
Fundamentally, the reception of Aristotelian philosophy, particularly Aristotle’s scientific teaching, led to the establishment of the Scholastics, that is, academic scientific understandings which would find their institutional place in the newly-established universities.
Theories and theorems of medieval thought continue to exert a significant influence on our current scientific understanding, our thoughts regarding Nature, human beings and human actions. Indeed, these ancient theories have established results that modern thought can incorporate.
With regard to the teaching and research within the scope of this professorship, the philosophical thought of this time period is seen as the pivotal, cultural continuity and identity, such foundational bridges to which we owe, not least, the “Birth of Europe” (J.LeGoff). A particular emphasis lies in the reconstruction of the mediation and transformation processes, which overlap and are tightly bound to the apparently tightly-woven epochs.