Christian Kanzian

The aim of this volume is to investigate the topic of Substance and Attribute. The way leading to this aim is a dialogue between Islamic and Western Philosophy. Most of the collected papers in our book are results of contributions to a workshop, organized by the editors of the volume, as an integrated part of the 29th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, Lower Austria, taking place in August 2006. The general theme of this conference was Cultures: Conflict, Analysis, Dialogue. The organizational frame of the workshop and also of this edition is the partnership between the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, and the University of Innsbruck in Austria, the first formal high level academic partnership between an Iranian Institution and a European University. Dialogue is our aim, but not speaking about dialogue. Our dialogue shall be a work in practice; and our practice is a philosophical one. Our project is motivated by the observation that the roots of Islamic and of Western Philosophy are very similar. There is a strong consensus among historians of philosophy that these roots are the same in substance, and the differences are only of accidental importance. Some of the articles in this volume are dedicated to the history of philosophy, in Islamic thinking as well as in Western traditions. Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas are authors to whom reference is made in most of the historical contributions. Through their elaborations, these contributions will make clear what is mentioned here roughly.

This volume aims to investigate the topic of Substance and Attribute. The way leading to this aim is a dialogue between Islamic and Western Philosophy. Our project is motivated by the observation that the historical roots of Islamic and of Western philosophy are very similar. Thus some of the articles in this volume are dedicated to the history of philosophy in Islamic thinking as well as in Western traditions. But the dialogue between both philosophies is not only an historical issue, it also has systematic relevance for actual philosophical questions. The topic Substance and Attribute particularly has systematic relevance for the actual ontological debate.

Ziel der Arbeit ist es, Ansätze zur Interpretation der Schriften der ersten beiden wesentlichen Schaffensperioden Kants zu entwickeln. Die leitenden Ideen sind mit den Schlagwörtern des Titels bezeichnet. 1755/56 hat Kant bereits originelle Auffassungen dargelegt. In den Texten von 1762/63 findet sich eine spezifische Spannung. Sie resultiert aus Kants unreflektiertem Versuch, empiristische Thesen anglo-sächsischer Provenienz aufzugreifen und in seine rationalistisch geprägten Grundüberzeugungen zu integrieren. Die Untersuchungen gehen von ausführlichen Darstellungen der Texte Kants aus. Die Methode kann als systematisch orientierte Exegese gekennzeichnet werden.