Voices from around the world
Life is posing questions, wisdom seeks to answer.
Once upon a time
Lonely aphorisms waiting to be commented on
Send your comment via whormhole to the past!
Put your letter in the quantum post!
Pen pal waiting for an answer
Paul Kurt Feyerabend
1990
How would you understand that?
Pinboard
Goodbye Jan Assmann!
7. July 1938 - 19. February 2024
Thank you very much for your time, Jan Assmann!
Poem of the moment
To those Born After
Truly, I live in dark times!
The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead
Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs
Has simply not yet had
The terrible news.
What kind of times are they, when
A talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
That man there calmly crossing the street
Is already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends
Who are in need?
It is true I still earn my keep
But, believe me, that is only an accident. Nothing
I do gives me the right to eat my fill.
By chance I've been spared. (If my luck breaks, I am lost.)
They say to me: Eat and drink! Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink if I snatch what I eat
From the starving, and
My glass of water belongs to one dying of thirst?
And yet I eat and drink.
I would also like to be wise.
In the old books it says what wisdom is:
To shun the strife of the world and to live out
Your brief time without fear
Also to get along without violence
To return good for evil
Not to fulfill your desires but to forget them
Is accounted wise.
All this I cannot do:
Truly, I live in dark times.
Dialogues of the Dead
"Reading is education."
Voltaire says:
"Read, educate yourself! Reading alone develops our mind, talking confuses it and playing narrows it."
Laozi points out:
"A beautiful book is like a butterfly. It lies lightly in the hand, transports us from one flower to the next and gives us a glimpse of heaven."
Lichtenberg shouts in between:
"A book is a mirror, if a monkey looks into it, no apostle can look out."
Upcoming extensions to the homepage
Wisdom on the screen
Why should wisdom only be found in old texts? Films and series accompany the everyday lives of many people and often have more to offer than mere entertainment. Isn't Christopher Nolan's Batman a wise character? Doesn't Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" reflect on the meaning of life?
If you want to read about this or share your own thoughts on films and series, you've come to the right place in this upcoming section of the homepage!
Writing intercultural philosophy
Universities are slowly opening up to philosophies from other parts of the world than their own. Students are very interested in broadly defined philosophy, but there is a lack of places where they can try their hand at writing intercultural philosophy.
We would like to offer a place where advanced students, doctoral candidates and mid-career representatives can publish essays in which they can philosophize across borders, so to speak.
The New Metaphysical Club
We deal with the relationship between spirituality and science; we interview people who deal with these two topics, follow publications on the subject and write about this relationship ourselves. All of this will be documented here.
Find out about related projects here:
History of Philosophy
- Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the LMU in Munich and at King's College London, takes listeners through the history of philosophy, "without any gaps."
- The series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of the major philosophers as well as the lesser-known figures of the tradition.
polylog. Zeitschrift für interkulturelles Philosophieren
- polylog. Journal for intercultural philosophizing is published twice a year; the contributions which are mostly in German are blind peer-reviewed. Each issue is published in print and is made available online on this website after one and a half years under an open-access policy
The Wisdom Podcast
- The Wisdom Podcast is a Buddhist podcast that features interviews with leading thinkers from the Buddhist world. Each episode takes you on a fascinating exploration of Buddhism and meditation as our guests share stories and discuss life-changing practices, timeless philosophies, and new ways to think and live.
Seeds Of Wisdom
- Seeds of Wisdom honors the wisdom of Indigenous worldview and believe all life can flourish when humanity embraces our responsibility to care for the living world for the benefit of unborn generations.