Dr. Philipp Höfele

Project

livMatS as part of and reaction to the Anthropocene:
Ethical and philosophical implications of living materials systems
My philosophical-ethical project has two main objectives: Firstly, I aim to provide a conceptual framework for systematically evaluating livMatS. For this purpose, I analyze and critically discuss the semantics of basic concepts in the natural sciences and in philosophy, esp. in the philosophy of biology, such as: “life/life-like”, “animate/inanimate”, “(imitation of) nature”, “holism”, “system” and “autonomy”. I do this with historical reference to the philosophy of nature around 1800, since historical semantics can be a particularly rich source of ideas. Secondly, I establish a link between livMatS and the current multi- and transdisciplinary discourse on the “Anthropocene”. I seek to show that livMatS can contribute to solutions for (environmental) ethical problems that arise from societal developments in the Anthropocene.

First supervisor

Prof. Dr. Lore Hühn

Publications in livMatS

• Reactions of sciences to the Anthropocene: Highlighting inter- and transdisciplinary practices in biomimetics and sustainability research*
  Möller, M., Höfele, P., Kiesel, A., Speck, O. (2021): Reactions of sciences to the Anthropocene: Highlighting inter- and transdisciplinary practices in biomimetics and sustainability research. Elementa Science of the Anthropocene 9(1). doi: 10.1525/elementa.2021.035
• New Technologies and the ‘Heuristics of Fear’: The Meaning and Prehistory of an Emotion in Jonas, Heidegger and Hegel*
  Höfele, P. (2020). New Technologies and the ‘Heuristics of Fear’: The Meaning and Prehistory of an Emotion in Jonas, Heidegger and Hegel. Hungarian Philosophical Review 64(1), 64‒82.
• The Changed Role of Anthropology in the Anthropocene
  Höfele, P. (2020). In Le tecnologie 'morali' emergenti e le sfide etico-giuridiche delle nuove soggettività. Emerging 'moral' technologies and the ethical-legal challenges of new subjectivities (pp. 125–144). G. Giappichelli, Turin.
  
  
  * Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC-2193/1 – 390951807