Chair Philosophy of Science and Technology

 

The Chair for Theory of Science and Technology is lead by Professor Gabriele Gramelsberger. Doing philosophy means orienting oneself by thinking. It’s one of the tasks of philosophy to analyze and evaluate the fundaments of common sense. In contrast to practical philosophy, theoretical philosophy does not address the question “What should we do?”. Theoretical philosophy is not held together by one common question, but consists of half a dozen different disciplines, all represented in our chairs research and teaching: Epistemology, theory of science, linguistic philosophy, philosophy of mind and theory of action, ontology and metaphysics.

For natural and engineering science, as well as for the empirical humanities theoretical philosophy is of significance, as it analyses basic ideas, which are used in the individual sciences, but can’t be investigated with their methods: truth, knowledge, science, language, meaning, reason, spirit, nature, consciousness, freedom, perception, action, emotion, space, time, explanation, law of nature, cause, coincidence, imperative.

The chair is committed to the principle of analytical philosophy. According to this concept philosophy focuses on desambiguation and the analysis of arguments. This allows to progress beyond shallow and tentative answers to philosophical questions.