The Art of Thinking and Contemplation. Socrates, Buddha and Christ

On the occasion of the centenary of Romano Guardini's work "Der Gegensatz", the conference aims to address the crisis of thinking and to investigate the possible relevance of "thinking in contrapositions" (Denken in Gegensätzen) from a theological, spiritual and interreligious perspective, as well as from a philosophical one, together with experts and students. In this work, Guardini outlines the theoretical and hermeneutic foundation of his epistemology, whereby two contrapositions (Gegensätze) constitute dynamically a tension in a space of relation. In contemplative knowledge (Anschauung), one form of knowing beyond thinking, the contrapositions, unmixed and unseparated, form a unit in tension. In his works on the great figures of thinking (Denkergestalten), he calls the exercise of thinking the ascesis of thinking (Askese des Denkens). In the context of his philosophy of the living-concrete, Guardini understands metánoia as a change of sense (Um-Sinnung). Based on his reflections, the figures of Socrates, Buddha and Christ, each of whom, in a different yet related way, represents a change of sense in life and thinking, will be evaluated as examples. The conference ends with a day of “Applied Thinking” in which the students valuate the forms of thinking in “contrapositions” in the context of their own scientific research.