Lehre
Research
Publikationen
Vorträge
Hauptseite
"Denn die Fähigkeit zu denken beginnt wahrscheinlich an derselben Stelle, an der die Fähigkeit, sich selber Schmerz zu bereiten, beginnt." (Alfred Meusel, Die Konkurrenz in soziologische Betrachtung, in: Die Gesellschaft 2, 1929, 326-347, 347)
Social Ontology
What kind of entities are groups or states? What are their
criteria for identity and individuation? What is the relation of social
entities to their members? If social entities are social constructs,
what rules govern their construction? And, turning into political
ethics: Are there any norms how we ought to construct such social
entities?
I am working on a monograph on this topic. Hitherto I gave several
talks on the subject matter and wrote several papers, some of which are
already forthcoming. I agreed to write a review article on recent work
in social ontology for the "Zeitschrift für philosophische
Forschung".
Read more about this project
History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, especially Aristotle and Aquinas
My three theses (MLitt, MA, PhD) are all concerned with the
Aristotlian Philosophy or its medieval tradition in Aquinas. My
PhD-thesis on Aristotle's theory of capacities was published as a
monograph ("Tun und Können", 2002) In addition, I published
several articles and reviews concerning Ancient and Medieval
Philosophy. I also contributed to two reference books concerning
ancient philosophy in general and Aristotle in particular. I hope to be
able to continue my research in ancient and medieval philosophy and
plan to write articles on Aristotle's treatment of relational terms and
on Plato's Cratylus.
Dispositions
What is the ontological status of dispositions? How do we
ascribe them? What is their relevance in (the philosophy of) science?
Do we need them in ethics, too?
In my Ph.D. thesis I reconstructed Aristotle' theory of capacities in
Metaphysics IX (published as "Tun und Können", 2002). In addition,
I did some systematic work on the ontological, scientific and ethical
aspects of dispositions and capacities. Some of the work has been
published, but several papers are still forthcoming.
Read a preprint version of "Dispositionen und ihre Realität" (
-file)
Ethics
Problems of the justification of norms in different cultural and in multicultural contexts; ethical problems of social structures. These research interests are closely related to my interest in social ontology. Some short pieces on these topics have been published.Philosophy of Religion
Especially hermeneutical aspects of sacred texts and the relation between faith and understanding.Having written my theological thesis as well as an article on Aquinas' hermeneutics, I have already drafted an article on the semiotic analysis of Bultmann's demythologisation. I also contributed to a dictionary of philosophical concepts in theology.
Logic
I am preparing a research project on the logic of concepts in co-operation with Niko Strobach, University of Rostock. Several presentations of the project on several conferences earned lively interest. A first paper has now been published in a refereed collection.Read more about concept logic (Word-document)
Read a preprint version of "The so-called materially valid inferences and the logic of concepts" (
-file)