Beginning in March 2013, Michael Forster became the Alexander von Humboldt Professor, holder of the Chair in Theoretical Philosophy, and Co-director of the International Center for Philosophy at Bonn University. He will also continue to teach at the University of Chicago each year as a visiting professor. Previous to his appointment at Bonn, he was the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy and the College.
My work in philosophy has both historical and systematic aspects. Historically, I work primarily on German philosophy, and secondarily on ancient philosophy. Systematically, my main interests are in epistemology (especially skepticism) and philosophy of language (in a broad sense which includes not only such central questions as the relation between thought and language, and the nature of meaning, but also, for example, questions concerning the role of meaning and thought in apparently non-linguistic art, animals' capacities for language, meaning, and thought, the scope of possible linguistic-conceptual variations, the nature of interpretation, and the nature of translation). I also have interests in other areas of philosophy, such as moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of history. Some of my work tends more towards the purely historical-exegetical (e.g., parts of the book Hegel's Idea of a "Phenomenology of Spirit"), some more towards the purely systematic (e.g., the article "On the Very Idea of Denying the Existence of Radically Different Conceptual Schemes"). But my commonest way of working combines historical-exegetical and systematic goals in roughly equal measures (some examples of this are the book Hegel and Skepticism, the pair of articles on Herder's philosophy of language "Herder's Philosophy of Language, Interpretation, and Translation: Three Fundamental Principles" and "God, Animals, and Artists: Some Problem Cases in Herder's Philosophy of Language," and the book Wittgenstein on the Arbitrariness of Grammar).
Selected Publications
Books:
After Herder (paperback, Oxford University Press, December 15, 2012) - Link to cover and comments
German Philosophy of Language from Schlegel to Hegel and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2011) Link
After Herder (Oxford University Press, 2010) Link
Kant and Skepticism (Princeton University Press, 2008) Link
Wittgenstein on the Arbitrariness of Grammar (Princeton University Press, 2004) Link
Herder: Philosophical Writings (Ed., Cambridge University Press, 2002) Link
Hegel's Idea of a "Phenomenology of Spirit" (University of Chicago Press, 1998) Link
Hegel and Skepticism (Harvard University Press, 1989) Link
Selected Articles:
Kant's Philosophy of Language? (PDF)
Humboldts Bildungsideal und sein Modell der Universität (DOC)
A Wittgensteinian Anti-Platonism" from the Harvard Review of Philosophy (PDF)
Media
See one of Michael Forster's lectures here.
Recent Courses
PHIL 51830 Topics in Moral, Political and Legal Philosophy: Nietzsche on Morality, Suffering, and the Value of Life
Nietzsche objects to Judeo-Christian morality (and its ‘ascetic’ analogues in non-Western traditions) because he argues it is a fatal obstacle to certain kinds of human flourishing and cultural excellence. This is closely connected to his opposition to Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view that the inescapable fact of suffering renders life without value (a life without human excellence would, on Nietzsche’s view, lack value). These issues (and others, e.g., the nature of philosophy and tragedy, the conception of Dionysus) have antecedents in his early work as a scholar of antiquity and the influence of his Basel colleague, the important historian Jacob Burckhardt. Roughly the first five sessions will be devoted to reconstructing the “mature” Nietzsche’s view, as represented by the Genealogy, but also excerpts from Daybreak, Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, and Ecce Homo. The remaining four sessions of the seminar will explore the historical background, in Greek literature and philosophy, the reception of Greek culture in German philosophy, and in the seminal work of his colleague Burckhardt. The ultimate goal is to reconstruct Nietzsche’s view from a philosophical point of view and, as importantly, in light of the historical context. (I)
Open to philosophy PhD students without permission and to others with permission; those seeking permission should e-mail Leiter with a resume and a detailed description of their background in philosophy (not necessarily in the study of Nietzsche). In the event of demand, preference will be given to J.D. students with the requisite philosophy background.
For full list of Michael Forster's courses back to the 2012-13 academic year, see our searchable course database.