Publications
Books
Co-edited with David Hunter and Thomas Land: Transparency and Apperception. London: Routledge. 2020. link
Aristotle's Four Causes. New York: Peter Lang 2019. link
Conscientia bei Descartes. Freiburg: Alber Verlag 2006. 
link
Gibt es eine Rehabilitation der
Cartesischen Psychologie?
Master Thesis, Leipzig 2000. pdf
more
Journal Articles
"Avicenna’s Agent Intellect as a Completing Cause", History of Philosophy Quarterly 41(1), 2024, 45-72.
"Qualification in Philosophy", Acta Analytica 39(1), 2023, 183-205, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-023-00568-x. link
"The Significance of Aristotle’s Four Causes in Design Research" (with Matthias Rauterberg), Design Issues 38(4), 2022, 35–43. link
"Aitiai as Middle Terms", Journal of Ancient Philosophy 16(2), 2022, 126-148. link pdf
"Avicenna on Human Self-Intellection", Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 32, 2022, 179-199. link
"Quiddities and Repeatables", Synthese 200(3), 2022, 216. pdf
"Meta Logou in Plato's Theaetetus", Apeiron 54(1), 2021, 109-128. link
"Form and Function in Aristotle", History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 23(2), 2020, 317-337.
"Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of the Good", dialectica 73(1-2), 2019, 211-230.
link
"Self-Knowledge, Estrangement, and Social Metabolism". Monthly Review 70(10), March 2019, 40-57. link
"Lichtenberg's Point".
Grazer Philosophische Studien 95(2), 2018, 265-286.
link
"The Man Without Properties".
Synthese 194(6), 2017, 1989–2006.
link
"Plato's Ingredient Principle".
Ancient Philosophy 35(2), 2015, 303-316. pdf
"Instance is the Converse of Aspect".
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93(1), 2015, 3-20. pdf
"Documents: Fillers of Informational Gaps".
Monist 97(2), 2014, 246-255. pdf
"'Insofar as' in Descartes' Definition of Thought".
Studia Leibnitiana 43(2), 2011, 145-159. pdf
"Kants Modell kausaler Verhältnisse".
Kant Studien 102(3), 2011, 367-384. pdf
"Teleonomy".
Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy 14, 2011, 184-201. pdf
"Science, Conscience, Consciousness".
History of the
Human Sciences 23(3), 2010, 15-28. pdf
"Eine Verteidigung des typologischen Artbegriffs".
Philosophia Naturalis 46(2), 2009, 251-278. pdf
"The Four Causes".
The Journal of Philosophy 106(3),
2009, 137-60. pdf
"Matter in Z3".
Foundations
of Science 13, 2008, 199-215. pdf
"Tugenden und Absichten".
Philosophisches Jahrbuch 115(1),
2008, 165-182. pdf
"Substance, Reality, and Distinctness".
Prolegomena 7(1), 2008, 5-20. pdf
"Cartesian Conscientia".
British
Journal for the History of Philosophy 15(3), 2007, 455-484. pdf
"Der Fortbestand von Lebewesen".
Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie
32(1), 2007, 81-91. pdf
"Naturteleologie, reduktiv".
Philosophisches Jahrbuch 113(2),
2006, 296-315. pdf
"Conscientia bei Descartes".
Zeitschrift für
Philosophische Forschung 60(1),
2006, 21-36.
"Schuld und Gewissen bei
Abelard". Dialektik
1/2003, 129-143. pdf
more
Book Contributions
"Denken als Probehandeln". In: Wolfram Gobsch & Jonas Held, eds., Orientierung durch Kritik. Festschrift für Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag 2021, 127-143.
"Self-Knowledge by Participation". In: Gyula Klima & Alexander Hall, eds., Consciousness and Self-Knowledge in Medieval Philosophy (Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, vol. 14). Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018.
"Über die 'Ursachen' von Texten". In: Verena Klappstein & Thomas A. Heiß, eds., als bis wir sein Warum erfasst haben (Grundlagen der Rechtsphilosophie vol. IV). Franz Steiner Verlag 2017, 161-181.
"Kategorien" / "Konkrete Einzeldinge".
In: Markus Schrenk, ed., Handbuch Metaphysik,
Metzler Verlag 2017, 86-89 / 128-134.
"Aristoteles' Beschreibung der ethischen Tugenden".
In: Jan Müller & Jens Kertscher, Lebensform und Praxisform. Paderborn: Mentis Verlag 2015, 173-189. draft pdf
"Constituent Functions".
In: Christer Svennerlind et al., eds.,
Johanssonian Investigations. Ontos Verlag 2013, 259-274. pdf
"Das Segeltuchmodell".
In: Sebastian Rödl & Henning Tegtmeyer, eds.,
Sinnkritisches Philosophieren.
Berlin: De Gruyter 2012, 213-229. pdf
"Descartes".
In: Tina-Louise Eissa & Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, eds.,
Geschichte der Bioethik.
Paderborn: Mentis Verlag 2011, 137-148. pdf
"Is Causation a Relation?"
In: Keith Allen & Tom Stoneham, eds.,
Causation and Modern Philosophy.
Routledge 2011, 188-200. pdf
"Consciousness as Spontaneous Knowledge".
In: Petr Glombicek & James Hill, eds.,
Essays on the Concept of Mind in Early-Modern Philosophy.
Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010, 7-27. pdf
"What is Formal Ontology?" / "Occurrents".
In: Katherine Munn & Barry Smith, eds.,
Applied Ontology: An Introduction.
Ontos Verlag 2008, 39-56 / 255-284. pdf
"Zeitliche Entitäten: Geschehnisse".
In: Ludger Jansen, ed.,
Biomedizinische Ontologie. Zürich:
VDF Hochschulverlag 2008, 127-154. pdf
"Ghazali on Immaterial Substances".
In: Christian Kanzian & Muhammad Legenhausen, eds., Substance and Attribute in Islamic
Philosophy. Western and Islamic Tradition in
Dialogue. Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag 2007, 55-66.
"Social
Facts Explained and Presupposed".
In: Nikos Psarros & Katinka Schulte-Ostermann,
eds., Facets of Sociality. Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag 2006,
243-263. pdf
"Holistic Arguments for
Individualism".
In: Georg Meggle, ed., Social Facts &
Collective Intentionality. Frankfurt: Hänsel Hohenhausen
2002, 103-123. pdf
"Luhmann und die Formale
Mathematik".
In: P.-U. Merz Benz & G. Wagner, eds.,
Die Logik der Systeme. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag
2000, 157-198. pdf
more
Reviews
Christian Barth, "Intentionalität und Bewusstsein in der frühen Neuzeit". Philosophische Rundschau 68(1), 2021, p. 60-63.
Thomas Nail, "Marx in Motion". Monthly Review 72(11), April 2021, p. 26-31.
Damien Janos, "Avicenna on the Ontology of Pure Quiddity". Philosophical Quarterly, online 2020.
Catherine Rowett, "Knowledge and Truth in Plato". Philosophical Quarterly 69 (276), 2019, p. 638-641.
Christopher Moore, "Socrates and Self-Knowledge". Philosophical Quarterly 68 (271), 2018, p. 421-424.
Frank Lewis, "How Aristotle Gets By in Metaphysics Zeta". Philosophical Quarterly 67 (266), 2017, p. 179-182. pdf
Stephen Mumford and Rani Lil Anjum, "Getting Causes from Powers". Philosophical Quarterly 66 (263), p. 414-417, 2015. pdf
Jonathan Beere, "Doing and Being". Philosophical Quarterly 66 (263), 2016, p. 411-414. pdf
Stephan Schmid, "Finalursachen in der frühen Neuzeit". HOPOS 3(1), 2013, p. 179-182. pdf
Johannes
Haag, "Erfahrung und Gegenstand".
Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger, Heft 3, 2007,
p. 209-14. pdf
Claudia Pawlenka, "Sportethik".
Leipziger
Sportwissenschaftliche Beiträge 45, 2004,
p. 152-157. pdf
more
Dictionary entries
"Disposition".
Hans Jörg Sandkühler et al., ed., Enzyklopädie Philosophie.
Hamburg: Meiner Verlag 2010. pdf
Research Projects
Conscientia in Descartes
In Gibt es eine Rehabilitation der Cartesischen Psychologie? I argue that Descartes' distinction between mind and body amounts to a distinction between subjects of moral and epistemic responsibility, and subjects of physical determinations. This way of putting it makes it conceivable that the same entity is subject to both. I show that Descartes indeed describes humans as a mixture of these two kinds of subject, which can, as such, only be understood in an obscure and confused way.
In Conscientia in Descartes, I trace the history of the notion of consciousness (conscientia), which Descartes uses in oder to demarcate the mental. I show that this word, conscientia, has predominantly ethical connotations in the tradition (St. Paul, Augustine, medieval authors), and I argue that Descartes still uses it with these connotations in mind.
Causality, Teleology, and Classification in Aristotle
In Four Causes, I argue that Aristotle's four causes (the material, formal, efficient, and final cause) form a system, so that the final cause of a natural phenomenon stands to its efficient cause as its formal cause stands to its material cause. The formal cause of a natural thing is the actuality of what its material cause is potentially, and the final cause of a natural thing or process is the actuality of what its efficient cause is potentially. This also means that the formal cause is not necessarily the form that a thing actually realizes, but rather the form that it would realize if it were a fully typical specimen of its type.
Plato's Forms
I argue that Plato's forms are not properties but paradigmatic instances of kinds (cf. "Plato's Ingredient Principle"). The form of beauty, for instance, is the generic beautiful thing, and particular things participate in it insofar as they approximate what this form is: a beautiful thing. I further argue that Aristotle still operates with the notion of a generic thing (cf. "The Man Without Properties").
Aspects
In my work on Descartes, I argue that the distinction between thinking and extended things can be understood to be a distinction of respects, such that the same entity is two different substances, because it can be seen in two different respects (as a subject of ethical and epistemic norms, or as a subject of physical determinations). In my work on Plato and Aristotle, I argue that forms and essences are things in respects: the form of beauty is a beautiful thing exclusively insofar as it is beauty, and other things participate in it insofar as they are what this form is. The locution "insofar as", and with it the notion of an aspect, is therefore central to several of my philosophical interests. I examine it in "'Insofar as' in Descartes' Definition of Thought" and "Instance is the Converse of Aspect".
Self-Knowledge
I am exploring the possibility of practical self-knowledge, that is, a kind of self-knowledge that does not reduce to one's awareness of one's inner states or character traits. If there is practical self-knowledge, it will be constitutive of the self that it knows, in some way to be explained.
Hugh of St. Victor
In a couple of papers on self-knowledge in Hugh of St. Victor, I argue that self-knowledge, according to Hugh, is the knowledge that rational beings have of the proper objects of their distinctive capacities, and that this is knowledge by participation, rather than knowledge by representation.
Marx
For Hegel, self-knowledge is the ultimate aim of philosophy: it is distinctively human, and it will be perfect knowledge where it succeeds, in that subject and object are strictly identical. Hegel also argues that human self-knowledge is possible only within a politically organized community, so that when humans know themselves, they know themselves as members of such a community. Marx brings this down to earth by considering the material basis of self-knowledge, which is self-maintenance and reproduction, or, in general: metabolism. This explains Marx's focus on political economy (= social metabolism), labour (= the metabolism between humans and nature), and alienation (= a distortion of social metabolism, which is reflected in a lack of self-knowledge).
Avicenna
Avicenna argues that although the human intellect can never become identical to its object, it can be its own object when it actually understands nothing but itself. Aristotle had argued that the human intellect is in itself merely potential, and therefore needs to be actualized by something external to it before it can be a possible object of knowledge. Avicenna denies this.
In the Pointers and Reminders, Avicenna suggests that the highest form of self-knowledge is achieved when our intellect pays attention to nothing but itself. The question is, basically: Why would this be the highest form of knowledge? First, it does not seem difficult to pay attention to nothing but oneself. Second, it does not seem useful or beneficial to do so. When Avicenna describes pure self-knowledge as the highest form of knowledge, however, he clearly implies that it is both useful and beneficial.
Ownership
The aim of this project is to give an account of ownership that does not already presuppose that all ownership is or had better be individual, private ownership. Part of the task will be to recover a notion of shared ownership on the basis of the idea that Aristotle appears to entertain when he introduces the notion of ownership (ktesis) in his Politics: The things we own are the things we use as tools in order to lead our life. They are, in Marxian terminology, the essential parts of our extended body. Seen from this angle, one might understand private ownership, the form of ownership that is characteristic of capitalism, as a restriction, i.e. privation of ownership. Roughly, to make ownership private is to grant it only under certain conditions. This happens as part of a general move by which market interactions insert themselves into the human extended metabolism. If what we own is what we need in order to lead our life, capitalism works by withholding from us what we need, and granting it to us only under certain conditions.
Abstracts, Drafts, Manuscripts
Some of the papers in this section are also published in print, some are not.
Books
Aristotle's Four Causes. New York: Peter Lang, 2019.
Aristotle's distinction of four causes can be derived by combining the
distinction between natural things and processes with the distinction
between that out of which something comes to be and what it comes to
be. It follows that the matter of a thing is something that
potentially is this thing and the formal cause of this thing is what it
potentially is. Likewise, the efficient cause of a process may be
taken to be something that potentially is this process, and the final
cause may be taken to be the typical course of the process it comes to
be.
Preview of introduction and
table of contents (pdf)
Conscientia bei
Descartes. Freiburg: Alber Verlag, 2006.
Descartes used
"conscientia", which is commonly translated as "consciousness,"
according to the traditional meaning of the Latin term that we also find
in the writings of St. Paul, Augustine, Aquinas and later scholastics. Thus
for Descartes, conscientia is not a kind of speculative
self-knowledge, inner observation or reflective awareness. Rather, it
is a kind of practical knowledge.
Gibt es eine Rehabilitation
der Cartesischen Psychologie? Master thesis, Leipzig 2000.
According to Descartes, substances are correlates of
distinct ideas, that is, of ideas that may be defined without
reference to other ideas. The key concepts of psychology cannot be
distinct and therefore cannot correspond to substances. Therefore,
psychology cannot be an independent discipline.
Papers and Abstracts
Metaphysics & Epistemoplogy
Aitiai as Middle Terms (teaser, pdf)
If aitiai are middle terms of explanatory syllogisms, they must be the same as their effects.
Quiddities and Repeatables (teaser, pdf)
A defence of Avicenna's account of universals.
The Man Without Properties (abstract, pdf)
Aristotle's essences are not properties, and certain passages in Aristotle make sense only if we do not take accidents to be properties either.
Instance is the Converse of Aspect (abstract, pdf)
According to Donald Baxter's Aspect Theory of Instantiation, a particular instantiates a universal when an aspect of the particular is also an aspect of the universal. According to an improved version of this account, this happens when the universal itself is an aspect of the particular.
The Four Causes (paper abstract,
pdf)
The Aristotelian doctrine of four causes naturally arises from the
combination of the two distinctions (a) between things and changes,
and (b) between that which potentially is a certain thing or change
and what it potentially is.
Eine Verteidigung des typologischen
Artbegriffs
(pdf)
The biological species concept rests on the notion of reproduction,
which we can only apply if we know what counts as a result of
successful reproduction. Therefore, it presupposes the typological
species concept and cannot, as Ernst Mayr thinks, replace it.
Der Fortbestand von
Lebewesen (abstract,
pdf)
For something to be a living being is
to engage in activities whose success is determined by criteria that
emerge exclusively from a proper account of the nature of the living
being in question.
Naturteleologie, reduktiv
(pdf)
Life is not a describable
property of things. In order to understand what life is, we must
start with our conception of the life that we know,
human life, and reduce the notion of this life to a notion of mere
life.
Meta Logou in Plato's Theaetetus (abstract, pdf)
The regress at the end of Plato’s Theaetetus may be avoided by defining theoretical knowledge as true belief that results from a successful and proper exercise of a rational capacity (a dunamis meta logou).
Plato's Ingredient Principle (abstract, pdf)
We can accept Plato's "ingredient principle" when we replace the distinction between things and properties with a slightly different one.
The Four Causes
The Aristotelian doctrine of four causes naturally arises from the
combination of the two distinctions (a) between things and changes,
and (b) between that which potentially is a certain thing or change
and what it potentially is.
Matter in Z3 (pdf)
In Metaphysics
Z3, Aristotle suggests that matter
may be that about a composite substance or "this such" to which a
bare "this" would refer in isolation. However, since a bare "this" would
refer to nothing, Aristotle rejects this conception of matter.
Action Theory and Ethics
Aristoteles' Beschreibung der ethischen Tugenden (abstract, pdf)
On the linguistic form of Aristotle's account of the virtues (generic singular, future tense, modal qualifiers).
On What a Virtue Is (pdf)
Virtues are not character traits of individual agents, but generic ways of acting; this is why Anscombe found them important, and this is how Aristotle talks about them.
Anscombe über
Flächenbombardement und Abtreibung
Outline for a teaching sample.
Intention and Virtue
(pdf)
This is not a translation of "Tugenden und Absichten," but a
presentation with similar content. Among other things, I argue that intentions are
terms in which intentional actions are properly classified and
described; and virtues are for generic
actions what intentions are particular actions.
Tugenden und Absichten
(pdf)
Intentions are not events that cause an action, but that in terms of
which we describe and action when we describe it as
intentionally. Likewise, virtues are not character traits that
reliably cause certain behaviour, but that in terms of which we
describe certain generic behaviour.
Schuld und
Gewissen bei Abelard
(pdf)
Moral
conscience in early medieval ethics.
Sportethik?
(pdf)
Review of Pawlenka, ed., Sportethik.
Social Philosophy
Self-Knowledge, Estrangement, and Social Metabolism (abstract, pdf)
An account of alienation as disruption of extended metabolism.
Social Facts Explained
and Presupposed
(pdf)
Individualistic
theories of Social Facts are not altogether circular, but they still
start on the wrong foot.
Holistic arguments for Individualism
(pdf)
Holism,
in one of its varieties, is not the opposite of individualism. Rather,
individualism is its consequence.
Review of Diego Fusaro, Marx, Epicurus, and the Origins of Historical Materialism.
Descartes
Lichtenberg's Point (abstract, pdf)
Not all versions of Lichtenberg's Point affect all versions of Descartes' cogito argument.
'Insofar as' in Descartes' Definition of Thought (abstract, pdf)
Descartes defines thoughts as a "qua-occurrence", and this has important implications for his dualism.
Was in uns geschieht, insofern es uns bewusst ist
(pdf)
According to Descartes, a thought is what happens in us if and insofar as we are conscious of it. This means that what happens in us is a thought only in a certain respect. It is something other than a thought, namely consciousness of a thought, in another respect.
Substance, Reality, and Distinctness
(abstract, pdf; link to article)
Descartes claims that God is a substance and that mind and body are
two different and separable substances. This paper provides some
background that renders these claims intelligible.
The Inner Man as
Substantal Form (pdf)
When Descartes
calls the soul of a human being an immaterial substance, he does not contradict the
Aristotelian doctrine according to which the soul of a person is the
substantial form of her body.
Corrigibility as the
Mark of the Mental (draft; pdf)
Conscious
activities are conscious by virtue of being subject to an objective
and ideal evaluation
with a view to their correction.
Korrigierbarkeit
als Merkmal des Mentalen (pdf)
Descartes defines the mind as something whose activities are subject
to an evaluation according to which they are, in principle, corrigible.
Cartesian Conscientia (pdf)
Descartes uses 'conscientia' in
the traditional sense, roughly meaning 'moral conscience'.
Miscellaneous
The Significance of Aristotle’s Four Causes in Design Research (teaser, pdf)
Aristotle's distinction of four causes as it applies to artifacts.
Eternal Return, Non-Temporal (pdf)
Against Loeb's account of Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal return.
Denken als Probehandeln ( pdf)
We can infer actions from other actions in practical reasoning because actions are structured like propositions.
Über die "Ursachen" von Texten
( abstract, pdf)
On applying Aristotle's four causes in hermeneutics. I ask why Aristotle's causes are four and what they are meant to apply to. Then I discuss Walter of Bruge's treatise on the Four Causes of Theology.
Documents
(draft; HTML
/ pdf)
Something is a document insofar as its official function is to
compensate for the impossibility of immediately acquiring information
that has a function (= plays a role in a practice).
Al-Ghazali on the Incoherence
of "Substance" (pdf)
Forms and potentials
inhere in a receptacle that exemplifies them, whereas universals and
possibilities may inhere in a substratum that does not exemplify
them, such as the intellect.
Luhmann und die Formale Mathematik
(pdf)
The
use of George Spencer Brown's Logic of Distinctions by the Sociologist
Niklas Luhmann.
Erst Denken, dann Heiraten (pdf)
An essay on getting married.
Man Selbst Sein (pdf)
On Heidegger's "authentic self".
Generic
Ways of Functioning (pdf)
A close paraphrase of
Heidegger's Being and Time §18 on how we make sense of
items in the world in terms of their generic ways of
functioning.
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