Since my youth, I have intensely wondered how we can understand ourselves as autonomous subjects and purposeful beings. Our subjectivity means being irreplaceable and having our very own perspective on the world. This makes us human beings great, and at the same time can make us lonely,because no one can fully share their own perspective.

That is why I have always been interested in how we can find common ground, come to an understanding, and agree on a reasonable way to live together without losing our autonomy. In science we often do not appear as subjects and as purposeful beings. But our ability to feel, to think and to act depends essentially on these qualities. Therefore, I am working on how philosophy can illuminate these themes.

At the same time, I am working on the question of what we can hold on to in our autonomy, what is certain for us and what we can agree on. Our subjectivity thus stands in a certain relationship to objectivity and intersubjectivity. This relationship is what constitutes us and makes our freedom possible.

Methodologically, I draw on transcendental reflections, conceptual analysis, and empirical insights from psychology and cognitive science. Furthermore, I am interested in how the religious and mystical traditions understand human existence in the tension between subjectivity and objectivity, finite and infinite. I am working on how these insights can enter into a fruitful dialogue with contemporary sciences.

Areas of Specialization

Systematic: History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Philosophy of Religion

Authors: Hegel, Kant, Husserl, Aristotle

Areas of Competence

Systematic: Philosophy of Hermeneutics, Aristotelian Philosophy, Metaethics

Authors: Plato, Leibniz, Husserl, Brandom

Research Principles

My research is guided by the conviction that philosophy has a synthesizing task — bringing together insights from different disciplines rather than retreating into specialization. I work interdisciplinarily, combining systematic and historical approaches, and I am particularly interested in the collaboration of theoretical and practical philosophy.

Historically informed work seems indispensable in philosophy because the discipline does not show linear progress. Historical texts continue to offer conceptual resources that contemporary discussions frequently overlook. Methodologically, I draw on formal and modal logic, conceptual analysis, and hermeneutics.

Projects

The Nature of Rational Capacities

Funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (€182,173)

This project develops a conception of embodied rational capacities on the basis of Aristotelian philosophy of psychology and enactivism. With the help of Aristotelian ideas and contemporary cognitive science research, an answer to the question of the nature of reason is to be given. A positive image of the animal rationale will be developed, which takes into account both the continuity of humans with nature and the specificity of their rational abilities. The project develops four intertwined sections:

1. The first section investigates a problem arising from Kant’s transcendental philosophical analysis of reason: how its transcendental-normative dimension relates to empirical psychology. The arguments against the naturalizability of reason by Kripke (1982), Meixner (2011), Nagel (2012), Plantinga (2011), Putnam (1982), and Ross (1992) will be examined.
2. The second section develops an alternative naturalistic framework for the psychological integration of cognitive processes drawing on Aristotelian naturalism.
3. The third section links the Aristotelian notion of rational capacity to embodiment-theoretic approaches and the 4E approaches of cognitive sciences.
4. The fourth section links the notion of embodied rational capacity to the Aristotelian conception of flourishing.

Autonomy and the Concept of Mental Illness

Funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (€26,500)

This project formulates an answer to the question of what we mean when we diagnose a mental illness or design a therapeutic concept, by bringing together theoretical elements of Aristotelian naturalism and autopoietic enactivism. Three challenges are addressed:

1. The concepts of illness and disease touch on questions of philosophy of science, medical ethics, social science, and politics. The project proposes how these disciplines can intertwine in the concept of mental illness.
2. The project addresses how to determine normality and deviation, which are implicit in the concept of illness, and embeds these normative implications in a theoretical framework.
3. The project develops an integrative, ecological conception of the mind and bases the concept of mental illness on this, taking into account the mind-body problem and the special characteristics of human beings as thinking and acting beings.

Philosophical Theology in Classical German Philosophy

Funded by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (€41,400)

At the beginning of Classical German Philosophy is Kant’s attack on the tradition of philosophical theology. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant develops a complex argument for the theoretical indefensibility of the question of the existence of God. The research project examines both the argumentation-logical and the subject-theoretical issues arising from this. It shows how transcendental philosophy changes the form of argumentation in philosophical theology and how the involvement with philosophical theology in Classical German Philosophy coincides with the development of the humanities. A first result is published as Die Objektivität des Absoluten (Mohr Siebeck, 2020).

Current Research Group Projects

Von Pathologie zum Potential

Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften (€314,340), in cooperation with PD Dr. Prisca Bauer, Dr. Daniel Mandel, and Dr. Mathis Trautwein

This interdisciplinary project investigates extreme embodiment experiences from philosophical, psychopathological, and therapeutic perspectives.