PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

This chapter explicates the concept of xenosophia, detailing its philo-sophical roots and its psychological profile as opposite to xenophobia and preju-dice. The Bielefeld Study on Xenosophia and Religion in Germany is based con-ceptually and empirically on a model which opens the perspective beyond the focus on the "pathogenic" outcomes such as xenophobia, Islamophobia and other inter-religious and inter-cultural prejudice. Instead, our research design has in-cluded attention also to the "salutogenic" predictors and outcomes. With reference to philosophical-phenomenological reflection about alienness/strangeness, this chapter explicates the concept of xenosophia as the wisdom that might emerge from the encounter with the alien/the strange. The chapter concludes with an out-look on our operationalization of xenosophia for psychology of religion research.