It is widely recognized that philosophy can be used to elucidate and explain religious beliefs. However, in recent years, scholars in the Jewish and Christian traditions have shown that it also works the other way around: philosophy can benefit from resources provided by religious traditions. The volumes Talmud /and/ Philosophy: Conjunctions, Disjunctions, Continuities (Indiana University Press, 2024), edited by James Adam Redfield and Sergey Dolgopolski, and Biblical Narratives and Human Flourishing: Knowledge Through Narrative (Routledge, 2024), edited by Eleonore Stump and Judith Wolfe, provide a good overview of this exciting new field of study. For instance, contributions to the latter volume show that Biblical narratives transmit and convey second-personal knowledge of persons that cannot be reduced to propositional knowledge. Upon close examination of biblical narratives, it become clear that they contain knowledge which is not accessible by the methods of analytic philosophy which predominate in the Anglo-American philosophy of religion/philosophical theology. In a similar manner, the volume Talmud /and/ Philosophy has challenged the hegemony of philosophy over the intellectual tradition of Talmud and called for a new paradigm in which both Talmud and philosophy’s methods of approaching shared problems can inform one another.
Building upon this new conversation, our conference will bring into dialogue leading experts from Jewish and Christian traditions to explore what contemporary philosophy can learn from concepts and methods whereby religious traditions define themselves, transmit and develop knowledge, and invite critical self-reflection on their boundaries.
Schedule
All events except the conference dinner on 16 October will be held at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung (Südliches Schloßrondell 23, 80638 Munich).
Wednesday, 15 October 2025
14h00: Coffee break; formal introductions of panelists and conference themes/approach
15h00–18h30: 2 panels of 90 minutes each (30-minute coffee break in between)
18h30: Dinner at the conference location (hosted by Siemens Foundation)
Thursday, 16 October 2025
8h30: Coffee break
09h00-12h30: 2 panels of 90 minutes each (30-minute coffee break in between)
13h00: Lunch at the conference location (hosted by Siemens Foundation)
14h30-18h00: 2 panels of 90 minutes each (30-minute coffee break in between)
19h00: Conference dinner at an external location (hosted by Hochschule für Philosophie)
Friday, 17 October 2025
8h30: Coffee break
09h00-12h30: 2 panels of 90 minutes each (30-minute coffee break in between)
13h00: Lunch at the conference location (hosted by Siemens Foundation)
Discussion format information
Each panelist is requested to “assign” the other panelists and invited guests a short primary text (from the Bible, Talmud, or Philosophy). A packet of these sources will be available on the conference website in advance. Panelists are encouraged to focus on texts which meet two criteria: (a) the text is central to his/her argument in the presentation but (2) they are not an expert on this text, nor even necessarily its intellectual tradition. Rather, by studying and discussing the text – along with their paper’s argument – during the time allotted for open discussion at the end of each panel, panelists can draw on the collective wisdom of those present to rethink and incorporate a reading of the text back into their own argument, such that each discussion should hopefully contribute to a revision and expansion of all the papers.
Confirmed panelists
- Prof. Dr. Patrick Zoll SJ
- Prof. Dr. Emanuel Fiano
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Paganini
- Prof. Dr. Agata Bielik-Robson
- Prof. Dr. Elad Lapidot
- Prof. Dr. Amir Engel
- Prof. Dr. Christian Rutishauser SJ
- Prof. Dr. Thomas Schärtl-Trendel
Organized by:
Prof. Dr. Patrick Zoll SJ
Prof. Dr. James Adam Redfield – co-host; opening remarks and discussion respondent/mediator