About
I am an associate professor of social and political philosophy at the University of Groningen. Education
From 2000 to 2005, I studied philosophy, political science, sociology and computer science in Tübingen and Frankfurt. I received my PhD in 2010 from the Goethe University in Frankfurt and Macquarie University in Sydney as a joint PhD. My PhD thesis was about the method of immanent critique in critical theory and I developed an argument based on recent theories in analytic social ontology to the effect that critical theories can rely on immanent normative potentials in social practices. A revised version of the thesis has since been published as “Immanente Kritik” in German. An English translation is currently being prepared. Mastodon Feed
80 Ways to follow (Dutch 🇳🇱) Research, Science and Education on Mastodon https://communities.surf.nl/publieke-waarden/artikel/80-ways-to-follow-research-science-and-education-on-mastodon (2026-01-13 ↗)
📄 New #openaccess article in "Philosophy & Social Criticism": "False consciousness, hermeneutical injustice, and ideological power" I argue that Fricker's theory of hermeneutical injustice offers an alternative to classic theories of #ideology, but it lacks a sufficient analysis of power. There is an alternative materialist account of ideology that can take up its insights. Free access for all: https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537241308133 #philosophy #CriticalTheory #HermeneuticalInjustice #EpistemicInjustice (2024-12-19 ↗)
New #OpenAccess #article: "Social Norms and Obligation: Rescuing the Joint Commitment Account" (https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2024-2006) on Laura Valentini's account of norms – I agree with Valentini that social norms generate (some) obligations, but argue that her account is too individualistic to account for them. #SocialNorm #Philosophy (2024-05-28 ↗)
New #OpenAccess article in @CRISPP_PolPhil : "Ideological hope". I argue that not just beliefs, but also hopes can be ideological, and that shared political hopes even for outcomes that are desirable and possible can undermine our political agency. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2024.2344384 #hope #ideology #philosophy #PoliticalTheory (2024-04-21 ↗)
New publication: "Oppressive Forms of Life" (#OpenAccess, https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2024.2329519). I develop an objection to Rahel Jaeggi's concept of "forms of life" as a basis of #ImmanentCritique: What a crisis of a form of life is, is partly a matter of interpretation. Oppressive forms of life exclude certain interpretations from the start. What would otherwise be a crisis, therefore never becomes visible. I also suggest some solutions! #CriticalTheory #RahelJaeggi #philosophy (2024-04-01 ↗)
Projects
At the moment, I pursue several research projects: I am very much interested in giving a
political account of the value of communications privacy. In contrast to individualist negative-right justifications of privacy, I think that the most sustainable defense of privacy as a value must refer to the contribution of unsurveilled communications to democratic self-determination. I have
recently published an article about this topic (open access) and am currently planning a larger project on this topic.
More generally, I am interested in analyzing different conceptions of social power. I would like to find out how the impoverished picture of social power that is implicitly presupposed by the mainstream political discourse in our societies does not allow us to effectively combat oppression and unjust domination.
I am also involved in a
research project about hope. As part of that project, I investigate the concept of collective hopes and the political significance of hope.
Memberships
- OZSW (Dutch Research School for Philosophy)
- DGPhil (German Philosophy Society)
- GAP (German Society for Analytical Philosophy)
- Internationale Hegelvereinigung
- Internationale Georg-Lukács-Vereinigung
