Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

After studies in philosophy, history, and political science at the University of Göttingen and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), I obtained my PhD in 2007 from Marburg University. Before joining ICREA in 2014, I held positions at Marburg (Scientific Assistant, 1995-2000); UCSD (Visiting Lecturer, 2000), the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences & Humanities (Scientific Coordinator, research group "Psychological Thought and Practice", 2001-2005), the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Lorenz Krüger Fellow, 2005-2007, Research Fellow 2007-2009), and the Dept. of Philosophy, UAB (Ramón y Cajal Scholar, 2009-2014). I am also a member of the Academia Europaea, the Center for History of Science (CEHIC) at UAB, and an Associate Research Fellow at the Wilhelm Wundt Center for Philosophy & History of Psychology, Universidade Federal Juiz de Fora (Brazil).

My research interests: How is reason or rationality understood in philosophy and the human sciences? How should it be understood? What is its function in various domains? These are the guiding questions for my research, which comprises topics reaching from early modern philosophy - esp. Immanuel Kant's philosophy - up to current discussions at the interface of philosophy, psychology, and economics. I study aspects of reason in Kant's philosophy of science; I analyze the history as well as the potentials and limits of current theories of rationality; and I also study their role in politics, social science, and ethics. I'm moreover interested in the philosophy of knowledge, mind, and science. Methodologically, I combine tools of analytic philosophy and history of science: I am unconvinced that they cannot, or should not, be integrated.