Research

Chair members’ research covered a wide range of philosophical topics: from epistemology to political philosophy, from moral philosophy and ethics to the philosophy of perception. Central concepts that figured in our work were the different forms that action takes (individual, collective, institutional), the intentionality of action, and normativity.

Two commitments underpinned our philosophical work. First, we understand action from the first- and second-person perspective, and not from a detached, third-person perspective located outside of praxis. Therefore, this approach openly privileges working on philosophical issues from the agent’s perspective. Second, we take normativity to be an irreducible, fundamental feature of human existence. This view goes together with a skeptical attitude towards naturalist philosophical and scientific projects, which hold that all dimensions of reality can adequately be captured and interpreted by scientific means.