SFB 804:  Transcendence and Common Sense

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2009 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 56072087

With a renewed interest in religion, the arts and humanities as well as the social and cultural sciences have entered a lively discussion on the role of religion as a force for stabilising social orders. At the same time, the socio-moral foundations of modern societies have been the subject of academic debate. The Collaborative Research Centre adopts both strands of the discussion, but turns them into a systematic enquiry through the conceptual linkage of "transcendence" and "public spirit" as the discursive and practical resources of social and political orders.
"Transcendence" refers to such discourses and practices that uphold social and political orders by recourse to the construction of the “intangible”. The concept of transcendence can therefore not be reduced to Christian religion, monotheism or matters of religion generally. The Collaborative Research Centre particularly addresses such forms of "transcendence" not categorised as part of the field of religion (e.g. "civil religion", provenance and origin stories, a scientistic faith in progress, "art-as-religion"). "Public spirit" means a process of generating and maintaining meaning including two dimensions: an individual's sense for social meaning and a sense shared by individual members of a community. Both dimensions provide for a common framework for action and behaviour.
The analytical categories of transcendence and public spirit allow for new perspectives on the fundamental question of which premises, conditions and resources enable the constitution and stability of social and political orders: how important are transcendences for mobilising a community's resources for action? Do claims of public spirit themselves have transcendent status? Subject of analysis will be if and how discourses and practices of transcendence create public spirit and if and how common frameworks of action and behaviour rely on the structural support of transcendences.
The resulting cross-relations, ambivalences and conflicts will be subjects of empirical and systematic examinations. Those will show how construction of transcendence and interpretation of transcendence interact with community ties and social integration. In case studies as well as in historic-comparative perspective, the individual projects examine forms of social and political order from antiquity to the present day - such as religious communities, urban neighborhoods, court societies, formation of national statehood, democratic, republican or totalitarian orders, as well as social and professional groups (artists, engineers, architects, nobles, scholars, clergy, politicians).

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• International Connection: Italy

Completed projects

• A01 - Separation and Integration. Constituting Israel in Post-Exilic Discourses (Project Head Häusl, Maria )
• A02 - Meal and Canon. Constituting Community in Early Christianity (Project Head Klinghardt, Matthias )
• B01 - Investing Private Resources in the Community. From the Middle Republic to the High Empire (Project Head Jehne, Martin )
• B02 - Tradition, Reason, God. Varying Foundations for Community-Oriented Action from the End of the Republic to the Crisis of the 3rd Century AD (Project Head Mutschler, Fritz-Heiner )
• C - Dynasty, Suitability, Transcendence. Comparative Studies on theLater Middle Ages (Project Heads Andenna, Cristina ;  Melville, Gert )
• D - Constructing the Church. Urban Sacred Buildings in the Middle Ages (Project Head Klein, Bruno )
• E - The Subversive Image. Religious and Profane Patterns of Interpretation in Early Modern Art (Project Head Müller, Jürgen )
• F - "Gottlosigkeit" and "Eigensinn". Religious Deviance in the Early Modern Period (Project Head Schwerhoff, Gerd )
• G - Discourses on Common Sense and Religious Imprints Between Enlightenment and "Vormärz" (c. 1770-1848) (Project Head Müller, Winfried )
• H - Democracy Between Transcendence and Common Sense (Project Head Vorländer, Hans )
• I - Transcendence and Common Sense as Resources for the Construction of Political Order (Project Head Patzelt, Werner )
• K - The Sacralization of Fine Arts and Common Sense (Project Head Rehberg, Karl-Siegbert )
• L - The Feasible and the Intangible. Models of Transcendence and Common Sense in Architecture and Urban Design in the 20th Century (Project Head Lippert, Hans-Georg )
• M - Technology's Promise of Progress and the Engineers' Assertion of Altruism in "High Modernity" (c. 1880-1970) (Project Head Hänseroth, Thomas )
• MGK - Integrated Research Training Group "Transzendenz and Gemeinsinn" (Project Head Schwerhoff, Gerd )
• N - The Construction of Transcendence and Common Sense in Technology and Theology in the 20th Century (Project Head Schwarke, Christian )
• O - Transcendence and Common Sense in Personal Relationships (Project Head Lenz, Karl )
• P - Transcendence and Common Sense in Traditional and Contemporary Philosophy (Project Head Rentsch, Thomas )
• S - The Ethos of Friendship. The Spirit of Community in Medieval Discourses and Narrations (Project Head Münkler, Marina )
• Z - Central Task of the Collaborative Research Center (Project Head Vorländer, Hans )

• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Dresden
• Participating University: Universidade de São Paulo; Università degli Studi di Torino; Universität Zürich
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Hans Vorländer