10. MAIMONIDES LECTURES – 2. Series in Lower Austria

© Wikimedia/CC/David Baron

The Maimonides Lectures deal with the interactions between religions and sciences. In the spirit of the physician, philosopher and scholar Mosche ben Maimon, the Maimonides Lectures encounter Jewish, Islamic and Christian traditions in a joint undertaking of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Abrahamic Religious Communities of Austria and the Karl Landsteiner Private University for Health Sciences under the patronage of the Office of the Provincial Government of Lower Austria as well as the Kirchlich-Pädagogische Hochschule Wien-Krems and the Christian-Jewish Coordination Committee. The Maimonides Lectures thus establish cooperative, sustainable research at a level of excellence.

The topics of health, illness and healing, especially of the mental life, have always been in the focus of the Abrahamic religions' considerations. The lecturers will dedicate themselves to a reconstruction of the Abrahamitic religions' approaches to mental disorders from the history of ideas and science.

The keynote lecture Medicine and mental health in Islam: a historical perspective was given by the influential Orientalist and Professor of Islamic Studies, Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Lohlker (Institute for Oriental Studies, University of Vienna), who gave an insight into the history of the perception and treatment of mental disorders in medicine in Islam.

The Jewish Studies professor Dr. Gerhard Langer (Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Vienna) devoted himself to the focus on mental and physical health in the Jewish tradition.

The philosopher w.M. em. o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hans-Dieter Klein (co-director of the Maimonides Lectures, Austrian Academy of Sciences and University of Vienna) led into The Origin of the Concept of the Psyche. Philosophy and Medicine in early and classical Greece.

The classical philologist w.M. Univ.-Prof.in Dr.in Danuta Shanzer, Professor of Latin Philology of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (ÖAW and University of Vienna), gave a presentation on Medicine of Mental States and Christianity.

Understanding the complex past history of the relations between the secular perspectives of medicine and psychotherapy and the Abrahamic religions enables us to responsibly meet the challenges of the present and to develop balanced designs for future relations. The panel discussion Tradition and Future Perspectives of Health Sciences in the Frame of Reference of the Abrahamic Religions will focus on the current situation.

After the introduction of the Professor for Psychotherapy Research w.M. Univ.-Prof.in Dr.in Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch at the Karl Landsteiner Private University for Health Sciences, who also moderated the discussion, the keynote speaker Univ.-Prof.in Dr.in Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch, who also moderated the discussion, discussed the following topicsProf. Dr. Rüdiger Lohlker as well as the speakers Prof. Dr. Gerhard Langer, Prof. Dr. Hans-Dieter Klein and Prof. Dr. Danuta Shanzer commented on the contributions of the colleagues and answered the questions of the audience.

Photographs: Chris Deutsch