•  326
    Two opposed movements of thought threaten philosophy as an autonomous practice from the inside: scientific naturalism and quietism. Naturalism (qua methodological thesis) threatens to turn philosophy into a mere ancilla of the sciences, quietism understood as the prescription to remain silent in philosophy would not countenance any more "positive" philosophy. This book reconstructs naturalism and quietism such that it becomes clear naturalism does have the potential to end philosophy as an auton…Read more
  •  30
    McDowell and the hermeneutic tradition (edited book)
    Routledge. 2024.
    This volume explores the connections between John McDowell's philosophy and the hermeneutic tradition. The contributions not only explore the hermeneutical aspects of McDowell's thought, but also asks how this reading of McDowell can inform the hermeneutical tradition itself. John McDowell has made important contributions to debates in epistemology, metaethics and philosophy of language, and his readings of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein have proved widely influential. While there are …Read more
  •  466
    The Epistemic Injustice of Epistemic Injustice
    Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 11 (9): 75-90. 2022.
    This paper argues that the current discourse on epistemic injustice in social epistemology itself perpetuates epistemic injustice, namely hermeneutic injustice with regards to class and classism. The main reason is that debates on epistemic injustice have foremost focussed on issues related to gender, race, and disability while mostly ignoring class issues. I suggest that this is due to (largely unwarranted) fears about looming class reductionism. More importantly, this is omission is not innocu…Read more
  •  12
    Loneliness and Mood
    Topoi 42 (5): 1155-1163. 2023.
    Loneliness is commonly conceived of as a topic under the purview of psychology. Empirical research on loneliness utilizes a definition of psychology as essentially subjective, i.e. as a first-personal mental property an individual can have. As a first-personal mental property, subjects have, as it were, privileged access to their state of being lonely. Rehearsing some well-known arguments from later Wittgenstein, I argue that loneliness – contrary to an unargued assumption present in several aca…Read more
  •  3
    Das Wesen des Menschen in der Philosophischen Anthropologie
    Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 46 (1): 121-126. 2021.
  •  12
    Normativity between Naturalism and Phenomenology
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 30 (5): 493-518. 2022.
    There is an unresolved stand-off between ontological naturalism and phenomenological thought regarding the question whether normativity can be reduced to physical entities. While the ontological naturalist line of thought is well established in analytic philosophy, the phenomenological reasoning for the irreducibility of normativity has been largely left ignored by proponents of naturalism. Drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Schütz, Stein and others, I reconstruct a phenomenological argu…Read more
  •  15
    Normativity between Naturalism and Phenomenology
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 30 (5): 493-518. 2022.
    There is an unresolved stand-off between ontological naturalism and phenomenological thought regarding the question whether normativity can be reduced to physical entities. While the ontological naturalist line of thought is well established in analytic philosophy, the phenomenological reasoning for the irreducibility of normativity has been largely left ignored by proponents of naturalism. Drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Schütz, Stein and others, I reconstruct a phenomenological argu…Read more
  •  17
    Why Naturalism cannot (Merely) be an Attitude
    Topoi 42 (3): 745-752. 2022.
    Varying forms of ontological and methodological naturalism are among the most popular theses in contemporary philosophy. However, each of these theses faces a different dilemma: ontological naturalism is famously challenged by Hempel’s dilemma, while methodological naturalism faces issues regarding its coherence. Some prominent naturalists (Elpidorou and Dove 2018, Ney 2009, Rea 2002) have suggested to circumvent these respective dilemmas by reconceiving naturalism as an attitude (rather than a …Read more
  •  40
    Rule‐Following and Objective Spirit
    Philosophical Investigations 46 (1): 76-98. 2022.
    This paper deals with Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, focussing on the infinite rule-regress as featured in Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. I argue that one of the most salient and popular proposed solutions (championed by John McDowell), which argues that rule-following is grounded in “custom,” “practice” or “form of life, remains unsatisfactory because part of this proposal is the rejection of further “theory” (commonly attributed to Wittgenstein) which seemingly ma…Read more
  •  14
    The Scientific Weltanschauung: (Anti-)Naturalism in Dilthey, Jaspers and Analytic Philosophy
    Journal of Transcendental Philosophy 2 (2): 259-276. 2021.
    Different forms of methodological and ontological naturalism constitute the current near-orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Many prominent figures have called naturalism a image, a Weltanschauung, or even a “philosophical ideology”. This suggests that naturalism is indeed something over-and-above an ordinary philosophical thesis. However, these thinkers fail to tease out the host of implications this idea – naturalism being a worldview – presents. This paper draws on remarks of Dilthey and Jasper…Read more
  •  67
    Lookism as Epistemic Injustice
    Social Epistemology 37 (1): 47-61. 2023.
    Lookism refers to discrimination based on physical attractiveness or the lack thereof. A whole host of empirical research suggests that lookism is a pervasive and systematic form of social discrimination. Yet, apart from some attention in ethics and political philosophy, lookism has been almost wholly overlooked in philosophy in general and epistemology in particular. This is particularly salient when compared to other forms of discrimination based on race or gender which have been at the forefr…Read more
  •  29
    Verschwörungstheorien und das Erbe der Aufklärung: Auf den Schultern von Scheinriesen
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 70 (2): 253-273. 2022.
    Conspiracy theories are currently all the rage in philosophy and broader intellectual culture. One of the most common background assumptions in the discourse on conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists exhibit certain epistemic vices in the sense of cognitive misconduct. This epistemic vice is mostly seen as a form of irrationality; the corresponding “remedy”, as suggested by some commentators, is a return to the ideals of the Enlightenment. This article argues that this idea is wronghea…Read more
  •  341
    Liberal Naturalism without Reenchantment
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (1): 207-229. 2022.
    There is a close conceptual relation between the notions of religious disenchantment and scientific naturalism. One way of resisting philosophical and cultural implications of the scientific image and the subsequent process of disenchantment can be found in attempts at sketching a reenchanted worldview. The main issue of accounts of reenchantment can be a rejection of scientific results in a way that flies in the face of good reason. Opposed to such reenchantment is scientific naturalism which i…Read more
  •  22
    Wittgenstein and Dilthey on Scientism and Method
    Wittgenstein-Studien 12 (1): 165-194. 2021.
    While Wittgenstein’s work has been extensively investigated in relation to many other important and influential philosophers, there is very little scholarly work that positively investigates the relationship between the work of Wittgenstein and Wilhelm Dilthey. To the contrary, some commentators like Hacker (2001a) suggest that Dilthey’s work (and that of other hermeneuticists) simply pales or is obsolete in comparison to Wittgenstein’s own insights. Against such assessments, this article posits…Read more
  •  17
    Is religion natural? Religion, naturalism and near-naturalism
    International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 81 (4): 351-368. 2020.
    In this article I argue that the kind of scientific naturalism that tends to underwrite projects of naturalizing religion operates with a tacit conception of nature which, upon closer inspection, t...
  •  11
    Errata zu: Ist der Naturalismus eine Ideologie?
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 68 (3): 492-493. 2020.
  •  31
    Ist der Naturalismus eine Ideologie?
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 68 (1): 51-71. 2020.
    Naturalism is the current orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Naturalism is the conjunction of the (ontological) claim that all that truly exists are the entities countenanced by the natural sciences and the (epistemological) claim that the only true knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge. Drawing on some recent work in Critical Theory, this article argues that naturalism qualifies as an ideology. This is the case because naturalism meets three key aspects shared by paradigmatic cases of ideolo…Read more
  •  22
    Is Naturalism Coherent? Naturalism is the philosophical orthodoxy of the late 20th and early 21st century. However, the content of naturalism is unclear. I aim to demonstrate that naturalism cannot be formulated coherently. I offer two main arguments. First, naturalism presupposes the unity of science thesis; but the unity of science thesis has come under serious attack. But even if the naturalist successfully entitles herself to the unity of science thesis, naturalism is still subject to an arg…Read more