Announcements
Sustainable Invitations with PhilRadar
Wouldn't it be nice to know which philosophers are nearby when planning a lecture series, a workshop, or other philosophical events? PhilRadar can indeed provide us with this valuable information—especially when hosts of philosophers share their details on the platform. You can learn how to do this from the flyers created by the AG Nachhaltigkeit of GAP and DGPhil, which are available through these links in both German and English. GAP encourages you to utilize this tool and help make philosophy as sustainable as possible. Thank you!
Georg Meggle Turns 80
Today, on 21 May 2024, Georg Meggle, Honorary President of the GAP, will be 80 years old. The GAP Board would like to offer its warmest congratulations! Ulla Wessels and Christoph Lumer have written a laudation for the GAP to mark Georg Meggle's 80th birthday. You can find the laudation here (in German).
May 20, 2024
Statement by the GAP Executive Committee on the BILD campaign of 8 May 2024
The BILD tabloid defamed lecturers who spoke out against police operations on campus and in favour of a dialogue with demonstrating students in an open letter as "UniversiTÄTER" and pilloried them with photos and names. Science Minister Stark-Watzinger questioned in an interview with BILD that the signatories of the letter »stand on the ground of the Basic Law«.
Both the protests themselves and the open letter have been criticised and intensively discussed in the media and in politics, in some cases rightly so.
The GAP Executive Committee considers the role and statements of the Science Minister in this context to be problematic. We strongly oppose the repulsive and demagogic media campaign of the BILD tabloid.
The Executive Committee of the GAP
May 21, 2024
Nominierung für den Frege-Preis
Beim GAP.12-Kongress – Pathways to Truth / Wege zur Wahrheit –, der vom 8.–11. September 2025 in Düsseldorf stattfindet, wird die GAP zum sechsten Mal den Frege-Preis verleihen. Mit diesem Preis werden alle drei Jahre deutschsprachige Philosoph:innen, die sich in der Analytischen Philosophie besonders ausgezeichnet haben, für ihr philosophisches Werk geehrt. Der Preis ist undotiert, doch zu Ehren der Preisträger:in wird auf dem GAP-Kongress ein Kolloquium veranstaltet. Die bisherigen Preisträger:innen waren Wolfgang Künne, Rüdiger Bittner, Wolfgang Spohn, Dieter Birnbacher und Martine Nida-Rümelin.
Wir bitten Sie, Vorschläge für die nächste Preisträgerin oder den nächsten Preisträger mit einer kurzen Begründung (max. 250 Wörter) bis zum 30. April 2024 per E-Mail an This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. einzureichen. Es können Personen aus allen Bereichen der Analytischen Philosophie ausgezeichnet werden. Ein inhaltlicher Bezug zu Freges Werk ist für die Nominierung nicht erforderlich. Die Jury besteht aus dem Vorstand der GAP.
Position Paper on Electronic Publishing and Assessing Scientific Expertise
Nicola Mößner (Leibniz Universität Hannover) and Klaus Erlach (Fraunhofer IPA Stuttgart) have presented a position paper that offers a diagnosis of the problem and proposed solutions on the subject of electronic publishing and the evaluation of philosophical expertise. The GAP links here to the noteworthy position paper, which can contribute to strengthening the autonomy of the sciences and humanities because it contains, among other things, important and valuable information on electronic publishing, the 'market' of information, scientist tracking, information service providers and the metrisation of science. The proposed solutions offer a starting point for further discussion.
February 28, 2024
Hybrid GAP lecture series 2024 – »Contested concepts: Philosophical perspectives on racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, …«
What is racism, what is anti-Semitism, sexism, Islamophobia, transphobia, homophobia, etc.? Our lecture series pursues the project of discussing the difficult conceptual demarcation problems that arise when defining the different types of group-related discrimination in context.
The program and a detailed description of the lecture can be found here. The link to participate via Zoom will follow shortly here and in one of our special emails.
january 29, 2024
On the 175th Birthday of Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)
8 November 2023 marks the 175th anniversary of Gottlob Frege's birth. To mark the occasion, Dolf Rami (Ruhr University Bochum) has written a text for the GAP that honours Frege's work, but also takes a critical look at insights into Frege as a person. The text is available here (in German).
november 8, 2023
Death of Hans Albert
On 24 October 2023, our honorary member Hans Albert died at the age of 102. Hans Albert held the chair of sociology and science at the University of Mannheim from 1963 to 1989.
He is one of the outstanding representatives of critical rationalism, which rejects in particular any form of infallibility, dogmatism and the claim to ultimate justification. He formulated the Münchhausen trilemma, which impressively illustrates this attitude: it shows that a conclusive justification of our knowledge is impossible, since we would either lose ourselves in endless justifications, resort to circular argumentation or cling dogmatically to unfounded assumptions.
On the occasion of Hans Albert's 100th birthday, Rainer Hegselmann had written a detailed appreciation of the life and work of this great philosopher and sociologist, to which we link again here (in German).
july 14, 2023
Death of Peter Bieri
Peter Bieri (1944–2023) passed away on 27 June 2023 at the age of 79. Bieri was influential in the development of analytical philosophy in the German-speaking world, among other things through his Analytical Philosophy of Mind (Hain 1981) and Analytical Philosophy of Cognition (Athenäum 1987). He has also been critical of certain developments in analytic philosophy. Due to the too strong orientation towards formal argumentation, philosophy sometimes reminds one of »hobby mathematics« and philosophical questions sound like mere »Logeleien« (see his essay »Was bleibt von der analytischen Philosophie?« in the DZPhil of 2007). In 1993 Bieri was appointed as a professorship in philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin, which he gave up in 2007. Under the pseudonym »Pascal Mercier« he has published numerous novels, including Perlmanns Schweigen (Albrecht Knaus 1995) and Nachtzug nach Lissabon (Hanser 2004). On philpublica.de there are links to obituaries honouring Peter Bieri's achievements. For the FU Berlin and the GAP, Holm Tetens has written an obituary.
july 14, 2023
GAP statement on the draft law amending the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz (German Act on Temporary Academic Contracts)
On March 17, 2023, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) presented the key points of a draft bill to amend the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz (WissZeitVG). In response to the vehement criticism of this, not least from #ichbinhanna and #profsfuerhanna, the BMBF has already announced that it wants to discuss the question of the maximum duration of post-doc qualification time limits once again with representatives of trade unions, employee initiatives, universities and research institutions.
The Executive Board of the GAP very much welcomes this invitation to dialogue, because the amendment does not offer any decisive improvement: a maximum fixed-term for the post-doc phase of three years (as in the BMBF’s proposal) is, for example, too short for qualification for a university professorship. Regulations on the duration of fixed-term contracts also cannot guarantee what is needed above all: that the federal states and the universities create more permanent mid-level positions and/or tenure-track professorships.
Instead of new compromise solutions in the WissZeitVG, a joint federal, state, and university initiative would be desirable to provide the financial and legal means for this. Paradigm shifts could also be considered here, such as those already presented by the GAP (in a joint paper with the German Society for Philosophy DGPhil). The paper can be found here (in German).
The GAP statement from July 3, 2023 on the BMBF's draft bill in connection with the WissZeitVG can be viewed here.
march 25, 2023 (updated on 8 july, 2023)
On the 100. Geburtstag von Wolfgang Stegmüller (1923–1991)
June 3, 2023, was the centenary of the birth of Wolfgang Stegmüller, full professor of philosophy, logic and philosophy of science at the LMU Munich and important 20th century philosopher of science. Stegmüller was one of the main figures responsible for analytical philosophy regaining a foothold in Germany after the war, after the generation of the Vienna Circle had been driven out by the Nazis. In his honour, the Society for Analytic Philosophy awards the Wolfgang Stegmüller Prize every three years for outstanding work in analytic philosophy. Information on the prize winners can be found here.
More information on Wolfgang Stegmüller and his significance for Analytic Philosophy can also be found in the Opening Speech by GAP President Elke Brendel at the symposium on the 100th birthday of Wolfgang Stegmüller »Quo Vadis? Analytische Philosophie in Deutschland dreißig Jahre nach Wolfgang Stegmüller« (LMU Munich, June 29, 2023).
june 10, 2023
Death of Ernst Tugendhat
Ernst Tugendhat (1930–2023) passed away on March 13, 2023, at the age of 93. Tugendhat made an important contribution to the new beginning of analytical philosophy in Germany after National Socialism. Stefan Gosepath has written a short obituary in appreciation of Ernst Tugendhat’s achievements.
Working Group on Ecological Sustainability
The working group on ecological sustainability has developed a Best Practices Guide to help make academic work in philosophy more climate-friendly. The document can be found here (in German).
Photo gallery from GAP.11 is online
September 30, 2022. Here can find photos from our congress “Philosophy and the Public” here (Photographer: Philipp Plum).