Dogmatisierungsprozesse in Recht und Religion

Dogmatization processes are historical processes in which binding epistemic assumptions concerning basic concepts, patterns of interpretation and world-perception, and normative beliefs are stabilized as a framework in which normative arguments can be made. In a historical-comparative approach, the authors of the essays collected here discuss such processes for juridical and theological discourses. In doing so, they reveal structural similarities as well as obvious differences. They focus on each of the methodological standards of the normative arguments, whose purpose, particularly in law, is often to limit the pertinent arguments or to put them into a hierarchy. In addition, they study institutional processes and structures in which dogmatization takes place, for example the differentiation between law and its description or application, the procedural transfer of the decision regarding normative questions to councils or courts, or the rationalization of dissent in academic institutions.