spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Heiner F. Klemme, Prof. Dr. Andreas Pečar
(funding 2018-2021)

The research of the international graduate school focuses on a central inter- and transdisciplinary question: How are political, ethical, legal, religious, cultural, or aesthetic norms and values made binding or acknowledged as binding for individuals within a society? Connected with this central question, we also ask: What sources of authority are concerned with justifying the recognition of these norms and values, or with motivating members of society to adhere to them? Are the rules, principles, and laws explicitly formulated or are they simply implicitly assumed? What are the relationships and tensions between transcendental sources of legitimacy and authority on the one hand and worldly contexts of justification on the other? What societal ideals do these norms and values express? Are they responding to specific cultural, social, philosophical, and religious conflicts, crises, or upheavals? Can societal processes and revolutions be triggered, in their turn, by discourses about norms and obligations? [read more]

The graduate school is part of the Center of Excellence, “Enlightenment – Religion – Knowledge” established through an initiative of the state of Saxony-Anhalt in October, 2006. Its objective is the interdisciplinary investigation of the transformation of the religious and the rational in the modern period. (Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Andreas Pečar) website

Faculties and partners:

• Faculty of Philosophy I
• Friedrich Schiller University of Jena
• Ministry of Education of Saxony-Anhalt
• German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
• University of Vienna