From April 2013 until October 2015 I was on research leave,
funded by a »Opus
Magnum« grant of the Fritz Thyssen
Stiftung. During that time, I was finishing a book project on
empirical challenges to free will entitled »Illusion freier Wille? Grenzen einer
empirischen Annäherung an ein philosophisches Problem«
(for more details, see here).
This project has left me with two unfinished businesses, one
philosophical the other empirical.
What remains to be done philosophically
is develop in more detail a position on the free will problem that I
call »moderately skeptical
compatibilist indeterminism«. It is the position of
someone who believes that our world is, in all likelihood,
indeterministic, but that free will is compatible with determinism.
Moreover, the position is moderately skeptical insofar as it holds that
the (compatibilist) conditions of free will are not always (completely)
fulfilled. Defending this position, which is outlined in the Epilogue
of my 2016 book on empirical challenges to free will, is one of the
tasks for the upcoming years.
What remains to be done empirically
is some experimental work on various (cross-cultural) intuitions regarding free will, determinism
and compatibilism. To this end, Achim Stephan and I have started
a study project at the Institute of Cognitive Science at Osnabrück
that will start in April 2016 and will run for at least four
semesters.
And finally, Achim Stephan and I are still working on our project(s) on situated affectivity.
Things to keep in mind
»We
all have a tendency to
think that the world must
conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves
some effort of thought, and most people would die
sooner than think – in fact, they do so. «
My areas of specialization are the philosophy
of mind (in
particular free will and mental causation) and the philosophy of
cognition (in particular
so-called "4E-approaches" to cognition),
and I have recently started to become interested in the philosophy of emotions
as well. A more detailed description of my current activities and
projects can be found here.
From April 2013 until October 2015 I was on research leave,
funded by a »Opus
Magnum« grant of the Frith Thyssen
Stiftung (for more details, see here).
From
April 2013 until October 2015, I was on research leave, funded
by an Opus
Magnum grant for a project entitled: »Illusion freier Wille? Grenzen einer
empirischen Annäherung an ein philosophisches Problem«.
