Matthias Haase is Assistant Professor of Philosophy. He is a scholar in the research project Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life led by Candace Vogler and Jennifer Frey. His research is focused on foundational topics at the intersection of ethics and philosophy of mind. A central historical interest is the tradition of German Idealism, especially the aspects that are tied to Aristotle. He has also written on Wittgenstein and Frege. His current research project is devoted to the question whether there are specifically practical species of knowledge, reason and truth--and what this means for the philosophical account of our fundamental concepts of ethics like good, ought, justice as well as action, character and will.
Haase's previous appointments were at the Philosophisches Seminar at Universitat Basel and Institut fur Philosophie at Universitat Leipzig, with a two-year visiting fellowship at Harvard between them. His graduate studies were conducted at Freie Universitat Berlin, Humboldt Universitat Berlin, and finally Universitat Potsdam, and he spent several years at the University of Pittsburgh as a visiting scholar before completing his doctoral degree.
Selected Publications
“Leben und Anerkennen: Micheal Thompsons Praktischer Naturalismus”, in: Martin Hähnel, Ethischer Naturalismus, Metzler, In Press
“Geist und Gewohnheit: Hegels Begriff der anthropologischen Differenz”, in: Andrea Kern, Christian Kietzmann (ed.), Selbstbewusstes Leben, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., 2017
“For Oneself and Toward Another: The Puzzle About Recognition”, in: Philosophical Topics, Vol. 42, Issue 1, Spring 2014, (appeared 2015), 113-152.
“Warum man das Allgemeine nicht essen kann”, in: Jens Kertscher, Jan Müller (ed.), Lebensformen und Praxisformen, Mentis, Münster 2015, 289-297.
“Am I You?”, in: Philosophical Explorations, Special Issue, Naomi Eilan (ed.) The You Turn, 17 (3), 2014, 358-371.
“Life and Mind”, in: Thomas Khurana, The Freedom of Life: Hegelian Perspectives, (ed.), August Verlag, Berlin 2013, 69-109.
“Die Wirklichkeit meiner Tat”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 61/3, 2013, 419-433.
“Three Forms of the First Person Plural”, in: Rethinking Epistemology, (eds.) Günter Abel, James Conant, Walter de Grutyer, Berlin 2012, 229-256.
“The Laws of Thought and the Power of Thinking”, in: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, supplementary volume 35, Belief and Agency, (ed.) David Hunter, 2011, 249-297.
“Drei Formen des Wissens vom Menschen”, in: Natürlich Gut. Aufsätze zur Philosophie Philippa Foots, (eds) Thomas Hoffmann, Michael Reuter, Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 2010.
Recent Courses
PHIL 27000 History of Philosophy III: Kant and the 19th Century
The philosophical ideas and methods of Immanuel Kant's "critical" philosophy set off a revolution that reverberated through 19th-century philosophy. We will trace the effects of this revolution and the responses to it, focusing in particular on the changing conception of what philosophical ethics might hope to achieve. We will begin with a consideration of Kant's famous Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which the project of grounding all ethical obligations in the very idea of rational freedom is announced. We will then consider Hegel's radicalization of this project in his Philosophy of Right, which seeks to derive from the idea of rational freedom, not just formal constraints on right action, but a determinate, positive conception of what Hegel calls "ethical life". We will conclude with an examination of three great critics of the Kantian/Hegelian project in ethical theory: Karl Marx, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Completion of the general education requirement in humanities.