Thesisonderwerpen 2014-2015 ENG - List Per Research Centrum

WEE
Possible Research Topics for Masters Theses

for 2014-2015
Alphabetical List per Research Centrum
Centre for Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy

Prof. dr. L. Anckaert
Concrete research projects:
- A topic in relation to Jewish Philosophy
- A topic in relation to biomedical ethics
Prof. dr. A. Braeckman

Areas of specialization: Contemporary political philosophy (Toqueville, Lefort, Gauchet, Foucault), German
Idealism (Schelling, Romanticism); Social Theory (Weber, Luhmann)
Areas of current research: political and democratic representation; state and governmentality;

- political and democratic representationa (Pitkin, Urbinati, Saward)
- the concept of the political & the symbolic institution of society (Schmitt, Lefort, Mouffe, a.o.)
- democracy (Tocqueville, Gauchet, a.o.)
- human rights and democracy (Arendt, Lefort, Gauchet)
- representation, constituent power and democratic agency (Castoriadis, Lefort, Kalyvas, etc.)
- state and governmentality (Foucault)
Prof. dr. H. De Schutter

Areas of specialisation: political philosophy and philosophy of language
Areas of current research: linguistic justice, federalism, migration, nationalism

Political Philosophy:
- Contributions to normative political philosophy in which the student develops a normative position of
his/her own. Examples: a normative justification of language rights; a moral assessment of EU expansion;
the legitimacy of integration requirements for immigrants; what is a just immigration policy?; does justice
imply granting more language rights to established national minorities than to immigrants?; (why) is
federalism more desirable than unitarism or independence of the member states?
- themes from the political philosophy of l’abbé Grégoire, Herder, Humboldt, Mazzini, Mill, Taylor, Kymlicka,
Rawls, Dworkin, Miller, Carens. Also possible: Tocqueville on federalism; Gramsci on language politics; the
radical proposal of non-territorial political authority by Austrian-Marxists Karl Renner and Otto Bauer; the
relevance of The Federalist Papers for federalism in multinational states; the reception of Herder by
contemporary nationalists
Philosophy of Language:
- themes from the philosophy of language of Hobbes, Locke, Condillac, Grégoire, Herder, Gadamer, Taylor
- Possible topics: Dante’s theory of the ‘illustrious vernacular’ in De Vulgari Eloquentia; Machiavelli’s
philosophy of language; philosophy of language and language ideology in/of the French Revolution; Fritz
Mauthner’s Muttersprache und Vaterland; the linguistic postcolonialism of Édouard Glissant (e.g. analysis
of the right to opacity); Derrida: Le monolinguïsme de l’autre
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Possible Research Topics for Masters Theses for 2014-2015 - List per Research Centrum
Dr. T. Decreus
Areas of specialisation: political philosophy
Current research: (post-)marxism, democracy theory, political representation

- Several themes found in the work of Chantal Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Zizek, Claude Lefort, Giorgio Agamben
and Antonio Gramsci.
- Discussions relating political representation and the relation between democracy and representation. Related to
the work of Hannah Pitkin, Frank Ankersmit, Nadia Urbinati and Michael Saward
- Relation between market and democracy (Hayek Friedman, Marx, Polanyi, ...)
Prof. dr. R. Geenens

Areas of specialisation: continental political philosophy (contemporary, history of), philosophy of law
Areas of current research: Lefort, sovereignty and representation in the postnational constellation, sovereignty and
representation in French liberalism

- sovereignty and representation in supranational structures
- sovereignty and representation in the “revolutionary” period (1789-1848), e.g. in Sieyès, Constant, Guizot
- Lefort and students (Manent, Gauchet, Rosanvallon) on totalitarianism, human rights, individualization,
conflict, representation
- themes in French liberalism (Montesquieu, Constant, Tocqueville, Aron)
- themes from Habermas’s work, e.g. Habermas’s anthropology (Erkenntnis und Interesse), constitutional
patriotism, recognition (vs. Taylor, Honneth, Fraser)
- problems in contemporary political theory, e.g. the meaning of political equality, depoliticization, agonism,
direct vs. representative democracy
- modern natural law (Grotius, Pufendorf, Locke, …)
- aesthetics of dance (Nelson Goodman, Graham McFee, Francis Sparshott, …)
Prof. dr. T. Heysse

Area of specialisation: theory of argumentation, epistemology, meta-ethics, social and political philosophy
Areas of current research: deliberative democracy, the relation between power and knowledge in contemporary
political theory, history and value

- consensus, conflict and power
- idealism versus realism in political theory
- power, coercion, violence
- truth and politics, truth and ethics
- paradoxes of democracy
- the democratic role of the public sphere
- political representation
- Conservatism
- ‘analytical’ philosophy of history
- collective intentionality (what is a group, shared intentions, shared beliefs – Searle, Bratman, Tuomela, Gilbert)
- conceptions of history in ethics and politics, conceptions of history and democracy
- topics from the work of Habermas, Rawls, Bernard Williams, Crispin Wright, John Skorupski, John McDowell,
David Wiggins, Claude Lefort, Donald Davidson, Simon Blackburn, Thomas Nagel, Nelson Goodman, Robert
Brandom, Michael Dummett, Charles Taylor
Dr. M. Lievens
Areas of specialisation: (continental) political philosophy
Areas of current research: democratic representation, depoliticisation and post-politics, post-foundational political
philosophy, democracy and the market, commons, the state.
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- Themes from the political philosophy of (amongst others) Carl Schmitt, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Ernesto
Laclau & Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière, Antonio Negri, Claude Lefort, Etienne Balibar; and more in
particular: the concept of the political, the role of conflict in democracy, radical democracy, sovereignty and
constituent power, depoliticisation, the relation between democracy and the market, money and sovereignty,
the politics of climate change, commons, the state
Prof. dr. B. Pattyn

Specialization: Ethics
Areas of current research: collective conscious, morality as sociological and psychological phenomenon;
Durkheim, Goffman, Cassirer

- Emile Durkheim’s critique on moral philosophy
- The relevance of Francis Herbert Bradley’s ‘My Station and its Duties’
- The discussion about migration among ethicists
- The nature and function of public opinion
- The relevance of Erving Goffman for moral philosophers
- Jonathan Haidt’s ‘social intuitionist model’ and the relevance of Emile Durkheim for moral philosophy.
- Thrust and overregulation.
- Why philosophy in an academic curriculum?
Prof. dr. B. Raymaekers

Areas of specialisation: Kant, Ethics, Philosophy of Law, Political Philosophy

1. Kant:
- ‘sensus communis’ (compared to H. Arendt or J.F. Lyotard)
- teleology in Kant
- concept of philosophy in the introductions to the ‘Critique of Judgment’
- ‘social contract’ in political philosophy and philosophy of law
- relation between ethics, politics and law
- autonomy (and its relevance in contemporary discussions: O’Neill, Korsgaard, …)
- liberal and/or republican idea of state
- neokantianism
2. Philosophy of Law, Political philosophy
- the role of natural law in contemporary philosophy of law (eg. J. Finnis)
- discussion between natural law and legal positivism (R. Dworkin, N. MacCormick, ....)
- social contract theory and its critics
- political thinking during the ‘interbellum’
- the notion of sovereignty (N. Walker, ….)
- authors: H. Arendt, C. Schmitt, L. Strauss, M. Gauchet, R. Dworkin, G. Radbruch, N. MacCormick, M. Nussbaum
Prof. dr. S. Rummens

Areas of specialisation: fundamental ethics, metaethics, political and social philosophy
Areas of current research: Wittgenstein and ethics, moral relativism, theory of democracy, Habermas

- Wittgenstein and ethics,
- philosophy as (Wittgensteinian) therapy
- discourse ethics
- transcendental foundations in contemporary moral theory
- moral disagreement
- moral relativism
- fact/value dichotomy
- representation and deliberation
- populism and democracy
- the democratic deficit in the EU
- the federal structure of the EU
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- political extremism
- religion in the public sphere
- global democracy
Dr. A. Topolski
Areas of specialisation: Contemporary continental ethical, social and political philosophy, Arendt, Levinas,
Derrida, Nancy, Asad, Balibar, Jewish thought, peacekeeping/military ethics, political rhetoric, political
communication, media and democracy, tolerance, free speech, racism, antisemititism, islamophobia,
multiculturalism, feminism/intersectionality, post-Shoah philosophy/theology, religion, secularism,
Israel/Palestine politics, global justice
Areas of current research: The rhetoric of ‘Judeo-Christianity’ in Europe’s identity crisis, Islamophobia, anti-
Semitism, Levinas, Arendt, racism, the idea of Europe and the foundation of the European Union, political-
theology

- Levinas, Buber, Derrida, Arendt, Nancy (and other contemporary continental thinkers)
- Feminism/gender
- Hart and Negri
- Jewish thought or thinkers
- Anarchism
- Radical democracy
- Racism, inclusion/exclusion
- ideology
- Media (Chomsky) and politics
- political-theology
- Political extremism
- Global justice
Prof. dr. A. Vandevelde

Areas of specialisation: Applied ethics, economic ethics, philosophy of the social (and economic) sciences, political
philosophy
Areas of current research: theories of justice, the liberalism-communitarianism debate, economic and human
rationality, philosophy of social security, philosophy of money, philosophy of the social sciences

- Themes in the work of Rousseau, Smith, Hume, Hobbes, Locke, Ch. Taylor, M. Walzer, M. Sandel, J. Rawls, A. Sen
- Brian Barry’s theory of justice
- Justice between Age Groups
- Parfit’s critique of utilitarianism
- Theories of trust: rational choice and other paradigms
- What Money Can Buy: Sandel, Walzer, Ann Phillips, …
- The name of the father
- What rights can the handicapped demand?
- Ethics of migration policy – insiders and outsiders
- Theories of exploitation and exclusion
Prof. dr. L. Van Liederkerke

Areas of specialisation: business ethics, financial ethics, economic ethics, history of economic thought
Areas of current research: ethics of banking, relation between institutional context and economic growth, political
implications of CSR, themes from business ethics

- Ethical investment
- Institutional responsibility of companies
- Economic philosophy of D. Hume
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Prof. dr. P. Van Tongeren

Areas of specialisation: Nietzsche, hermeneutical ethics, virtue ethics, history of ethics

Need to be discussed with the professor. Some examples:
- Hybris (and anagkè) in Nietzsche
- Nietzsche en Kierkegaard on the ‘moment’
- Analysis of Nietzsche’s NL KSA 8, 9[1] and E. Dühring’s 'Der Werth des Lebens'
- Nietzsche's 'wir'
- Menno ter Braak’s interpretation of Nietzsche
- Nietzsche and St. Augustine
- Gadamer (ethical themes)
- P. Ricoeur (ethics)
- (a part of) the history of a certain virtue
- Theological virtue of charity and contemporary ethics of care
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Centre for Logic and Analytic Philosophy

Dr. P. Adriaens
Areas of specialisation: History and philosophy of psychiatry, history and philosophy of sexology, philosophical
anthropology, philosophy of biology.
Areas of current research: philosophy and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (e.g., DSM’s
definition of mental disorder, DSM’s dealing with sexual deviance,…); philosophical issues in sexology (e.g.,
natural kinds and homosexuality, assumptions of evolutionary explanations of same-sex sexuality,…);
philosophical issues in schizophrenia research; philosophical issues in evolutionary psychiatry; history of
homophobia; culture-bound syndromes; the use of images in the history of psychiatry

- Are mental disorders natural kinds?
- Definitions of mental disorder
- Foucault on homosexuality
- History of homophobia
- DSM and the culture bound syndromes
- Jerome Wakefield on depression and sadness (harmful dysfunction analysis)
Dr. F. Broncano-Berrocal
Areas of specialization: Epistemology and the Philosophy of Luck

- the analysis of knowledge
- the analysis of the notions of luck, risk and control
- epistemic luck
- modal theories of knowledge (safety/sensitivity)
- virtue epistemology
- externalist theories of knowledge and justification
- the Gettier Problem
- the role of thought experiments in epistemology
- lying and deception
Prof. dr. F. Buekens

Areas of specialisation: philosophy of language (in a broad sense), philosophy of mind
Areas of current research: implicatures (Grice), Searle’s theory of institutions, with applications, argumentative
strategies in evolutionary psychology
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 Philosophy of Language: implicatures, faultless disagreement, Expressivism, the social psychology of
Gricean implicatures
 Philosophy of Action (Davidson, intentionality and reductionism)
 Issues in social ontology: what are institutions? Game theory and institutions, the role of status markers in
theories of institutions
 Accuracy vs. truth, theories of truth. The explanatory role of truth
 Evolutionary psychology and normative epistemology
 Authors: Thomas Nagel, Daniel Dennett, Donald Davidson, John Searle, and almost all analytic philosophers
Prof. dr. S. Cuypers

Areas of Specialisation
- Philosophy of Mind
- Epistemology
- Philosophy of Education and Teaching
Areas of Current Research

- problem of moral responsibility
- problem of personal identity
- Richard Peters and Paul Hirst on education and teaching
Concrete research projects you would be willing to promote:

The Masterthesis will be promoted within the framework of analytical philosophy
- themes from the mind-body theories of Donald Davidson, Jaegwon Kim
- themes from the theories on personal identity of Sydney Shoemaker, Derek Parfit, Eric Olson, Paul Snowdon
- themes from theories of moral responsibility of John Martin Fischer, Ishtiyaque Haji, Michael J. Zimmerman
- themes from the epistemology of Bertrand Russell, logical positivism, Laurence BonJour
- themes from the philosophy of education and teaching of Richard Peters, Paul Hirst, Wolfgang Brezinka
Prof. dr. A. De Block

Areas of specialisation: Philosophy of the Cognitive Sciences, Philosophy of Biology, Philosophical Psychology,
Philosophy of Medicine, Philosophy of Sports
Areas of current research: cultural evolution, taxonomy of mental disorders, costly signalling-theory,
evolutionary social constructivism, sexuality, homosexuality/homophobia.
Concrete research projects (examples):

- Philosophical reflections on evolutionary theory
Examples:
- Evolutionary psychology and the naturalistic fallacy.
- What has been the impact of the Westermarck hypothesis on philosophical reasoning on the incest taboo?
- Dawkins and the philosophy of biology (progress, memetics, ...)
- Scruton, Soble or Nagel on ‘perversion’
- Psychiatric labelling and stigmatization.
- Aesthetics of sports
- What is sportsmanship?
- Sports and patriotism
Dr. L. Demey
Areas of specialization: philosophical logic, formal epistemology and philosophy of language, philosophy of
mathematics, history of logic.
Areas of current research: logical geometry, epistemic logic, logic as an interface between several disciplines (e.g.
philosophy, psychology, linguistics, computer science, economics).

- the use of Aristotelian diagrams in contemporary logics (modal logic, epistemic logic, etc.)
- the relation between Aristotelian and other kinds of logic diagrams
- graded Aristotelian relations and diagrams (probabilistic, fuzzy, absolute-Boolean)
- conceptual decorations of Aristotelian diagrams
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- abstract en visual beauty in mathematics

- historical studies of Aristotelian diagrams with/in a specific author/period/subdiscipline
(e.g. John Buridan, Catholic logicians in the 50s of the 20th century, deontic logic)
- the problem of logical omniscience
- epistemic logic and probability theory
- dynamic epistemic logic
Most of these topics can be developed in a more technical (logical, mathematical) fashion or in a more
philosophical (conceptual, historical) fashion, depending on the student’s interests, ambitions and earlier
education.
Students can also propose their own topics; we will then together discuss the proposal’s feasibility. This
opportunity is particularly interesting for students who have extensive experience in a discipline other than
philosophy (e.g. psychology, linguistics), and would like to work on a topic that bridges philosophical logic and
that other discipline.
Dr. M. Eronen
Areas of specialization: philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of
neuroscience
Areas of current research: nature of psychological properties, methodology of psychology, levels of organization,
mental causation, interventionist theory of causation, robustness, phenomenal consciousness, mechanistic and
reductive explanation.

- Explaining the brain: Ruthless reductionism or pluralism?
- What counts as scientific evidence for mind-brain identities?
- New (empirical) approaches to mental causation
- The possibility of mechanistic explanation of psychological phenomena
- Problems of psychological measurement
Dr. H. Ghijsen
Areas of specialisation: epistemology, philosophy of perception
Current research: the role of conscious experience in perceptual justification

- Theories of perceptual justification, such as dogmatism, evidentialism, epistemological disjunctivism, or
different versions of reliabilism.
- Unconscious perception and justified belief.
- Epistemic consequences of cognitive penetration of perceptual experience.
- Sellarsian dilemma for experientialists.
- Perceptual justification vs. inferential justification.
Dr. J. Heylen
Areas of specialisation: philosophical logic, formal epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of
mathematics, philosophy of language, Carnap, Quine, Kripke

- Descriptions
- Conditionals
- Numerals
- Modal logic
- Epistemic logic
- Intensional logic
- Arithmetic, Modal-Epistemic Arithmetic
- Epistemic logic
- Epistemic closure
- Epistemic limits
- A priori knowledge
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- Counterfactual theories of knowledge
The prospective supervisee may suggest any topic from one of my areas of specialisation. The feasibility of the
suggested topic will then be evaluated.
Prof. dr. Ch. Kelp

Areas of specialisation: Epistemology
Areas of current research: the nature and value of knowledge, aims of cognition and inquiry, the point and
purpose of epistemic concepts

- the analysis of knowledge
- epistemic value
- closure/transmission principles for knowledge/justification
- modal theories of knowledge (safety/sensitivity)
- virtue epistemology
- the semantics of knowledge attributions
- the point and purpose of epistemic concepts
- the epistemology of disagreement
- entitlement
- scepticism
- norms of assertion and informative speech acts
- Fitch’s paradox.
Dr. J. Sholl
Areas of specialization: history and philosophy of medicine, historical epistemology (Bachelard, Canguilhem,
Foucault), general issues in philosophy of science (realism/anti-realism debate, historicity, naturalism),
philosophy of biology (plasticity, allostasis, and robustness, function debate, ecological-developmental biology,
evolutionary medicine), phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty), process philosophy (Bergson, Whitehead)
Areas of current research: philosophical issues in medicine, the concepts/practices of medicalization and
pathologization, concepts of health and disease, the naturalization of scientific concepts, the social determinants
of and social construction of health and disease, medical anthropology, sociology of health and disease, the
philosophy of Georges Canguilhem

- Are health and disease scientific concepts or social constructs (naturalism-normativism debate)?
- Can health and disease be naturalized?
- How can biology/physiology be used to understand or develop theories of health and disease?
- Are health and disease environmentally (or socially) relative?
- What role does/should the experience of health and disease play in how these concepts are defined?
- Distinguishing between medicalizing and pathologizing
- How can (phenotypic) plasticity clarify/challenge debates about human nature?
- The philosophy of Georges Canguilhem and its historical roots, e.g. Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson,
Bachelard, Goldstein, Merleau-Ponty, theories in biology, etc.
- What role can historical epistemology play in the philosophy of medicine?
- Can historical epistemology help clarify the realism/anti-realism debate?
- The relation/tension between historical epistemology and naturalism
Prof. dr. R. Vergauwen

Areas of specialisation: Philosophical logic, issues concerning the statute of logic, formal semantics, Russian
philosophy
Areas of current research:

- The rise of non-classical logic in Russia
- Realism and reality

- Logic and reality
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- Formal ontology
- Russian philosophy
Prof. dr. S. Wenmackers

Areas of specialisation: philosophy of science; formal epistemology (including computer simulations); physics.
Areas of current research: foundations of physics (classical physics and quantum mechanics) and philosophy of
probability (paradoxes, Bayesianism, infinitesimal probabilities).

- What are probabilities?
- What is the relation between small probabilities and (im-)possibility?
- What is the role played by infinitely small quantities in scientific theories and in the relation between theories
and experiments?
- Is (in-)determinism a property of the world or of our description of it?
- Why is classical mechanics based on acceleration?
Students are welcome to suggest a different topic in philosophy of science. In this case, we will decide the research
question in consultation.
Centre for Metaphysics and Philosophy of Culture

Prof. dr. P. Cortois
Areas of specialisation: Philosophy of culture, philosophy of art and aesthetics, philosophy of religion, philosophy
of science
Areas of current research: Symbol theory, ritual (and art), modernity debates

- I. Aesthetics and symbolism:
- I.1. symbol theory (Cassirer, Langer, nature and culture debates; myth and ritual; ritual beliefs);
- I.2. aesthetics and philosophy of the city (Simmel, Tönnies, Seel, Augé, Toulmin & Janik, Roth, Sombart, …);
- I.3. philosophy of music (Jankélévitch, Scruton, Langer, Robinson,...)
- I.4. philosophy of literature (dialectics in H. Keilson; realism, positivism and the novel; the novel of ideas)
- II. Modernity debates:
- the Cassirer-Blumenberg lineage; Gellner, Horton, neo-intellectualism , Wittgensteinians in modernity
and premodernity debates about science and religion...
- III. Epistemology and philosophy of science:
- III.1. epistemology and philosophy of science in France (Granger, Canguilhem, Brusnchvicg, G. Bachelard,
S. Bachelard, Cavaillès, Meyerson, Lautman,...);
- III.2. problems of classification and kind terms (interactive kinds in Hacking, applications to psychology,
psychiatry, social science)
- III.3. two-cultures debates, tensions bewteen manifest vs. scientific images: science and culture, science
and the humanities, epistemology of history, darwinism and ultra-darwinism...
Prof. dr. K. de Boer

Areas of specialisation:
- Metaphysics
- History of Modern Philosophy
- German Idealism (primarily Kant and Hegel)
- Continental Philosophy

- Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in light of his reform of metaphysics
- Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

- Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
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- Kant’s early critics (Jacobi to Hegel)

- Hegel
- Heidegger
Prof. dr. W. Desmond

- German idealism, Kant, primarily Hegel; Left-Hegelianism, post-Hegelianism: Feuerbach, Marx, Bauer, Stirner,
Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche.
- Themes in aesthetics: the relation of philosophy and art after Kant; the relation of mimesis and originality;
Romanticism, originality and its cultural democratization; the re-appearance of Platonic themes like eros
and mania; genius; the sublime; the dark origin; the migration of transcendence from religion to art; art and
the sacred and the issue of myth
- Themes in philosophy of religion: post-Hegelian atheism; post-atheistic religiousness; addressing God from the
between; post-secular porosity of philosophy and religion
- Themes in metaphysics: dialectical and post-dialectical thought and the problems of identity and difference, the
self and the other; the problem of transcendence as more than human self-transcendence
- Themes in ethics: valueless being; the issue of intrinsic good (in an ontological sense as well as an ethical); the
limits of autonomy; the problem of the nihilism of modernity; will to power and the instrumentalizing of
being; the relation between being and the good; ethical service beyond sovereignty and servility
Areas of current research: Thinking the intimate universal (with a bow to some of the issues of political
theology): the intimate universal beyond the abstract universal, the concrete universal of Hegel, as well as
other than the post-Hegelian, post-modern singular that poses itself over against the universal. The intimate
universal as relevantly manifested in art, religion, philosophy and politics.

In addition to projects drawing from the areas and figures above, some of the following might be of interest to
students:
- Existential thinkers such as Jaspers, Marcel, Shestov, Dostoevski in connection with some of the themes
mentioned above in relation to ethics, metaphysics and philosophy of religion
- American philosophers such as Peirce, Dewey, James, Paul Weiss and other non-analytic American philosophers
(for example, Robert Neville, Brian Martine, David Weissman...). American philosophers beyond the analytic
versus Continental divide (Stanley Cavell, for instance, or Joseph Margolis)
Dr. E. Meganck
Areas of specialisation: critique of metaphysics, contemporary continental philosophy, philosophy of religion
Areas of current research: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Levinas, Nancy, Vattimo, Caputo, Kearney, Hart ...

- the philosophical question of (religious) identity
- charity in philosophy
- God as Name in philosophy (and the problem of ontotheology)
- differential thought and theology
- deconstruction as/and (ethical, political, religious ...) praxis
- other topics that are compatible with above specialisation/research area
Prof. dr. S. Symons

Areas of specialisation: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics, primarily German
and French.
Topics for research projects:

Suggested Authors (on art): Benjamin, Adorno, Canetti, Kracauer, Simmel, Worringer, Warburg, Riegl, Wölfflin,
Heidegger, and Merleau Ponty, Deleuze, Lyotard, Derrida, Rancière
Suggested themes/debates:
- philosophy of literature, painting, photography, cinema
- interpretations of Walter Benjamin (Friedlander, Weber, Butler, Weigel, Hamacher, Bratu Hansen)
- Miriam Bratu Hansen on Kracauer, Adorno and Benjamin on cinema
- laughter in the work of Benjamin and Adorno
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- Secret societies in Simmel

- the masses in Simmel, Canetti, Deleuze, Freud, Baudrillard
- post-medium condition (Krauss, Jameson, Steinberg, Deleuze)
- "visual" culture and Nineteenth Century precursors (Debord, Berger, Crary, Vattimo, Nancy)
- the end of art (Hegel, Danto, Belting)
- historical trauma's and the limits of representation (James E. Young, Ernst van Alphen, Georges Didi-
Huberman, Eric Santner, Giorgio Agamben)
Students are free to suggest topics in the line of the themes presented above.
Prof. dr. H. Tegtmeyer

Areas of specialisation: Ontology, Natural Theology, Phenomenology and its roots, Aesthetics
Suggestions for research projects:

- The relation between logic and epistemology in Aristotle.
- The role of the categories in logic and ontology.
- Heidegger's notion of ontology.
- Anselm and Plantinga on the ontological argument.
- Aquinas and Swinburne on the cosmological argument.
- Heidegger’s idea of phenomenology
Dr. D. Vanden Auweele
Areas of specialisation: History of philosophy of Modernity (in particular: Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche);
philosophy of religion (historically and thematically), the problem of evil, metaphysics.
Current research: the problem of evil and pessimism in Kant; Schopenhauer’s metaphysics in relationship to
Kant; Interpreting Nietzsche’s Thus spoke Zarathustra; Contemporary philosophy of religion (John Caputo,
Richard Kearney, William Desmond); Dostoevsky’s philosophy of salvation
Concrete research topics:

- The relationship between Kant’s dismissal of Theodicy and his understanding of evil
- The function of the comic and the tragic in Nietzsche’s Thus spoke Zarathustra
- Themes in Schopenhauer’s philosophy (knowledge, art, ascetics, religion)
- Schopenhauer’s philosophy of religion in relationship to Romanticism
- Dostoevsky on salvation in The Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment
- Metaphysics in contemporary philosophy of religion
Note: students can make their own suggestions with regard to themes related to the abovementioned areas of
specialization.
Prof. dr. G. Vanheeswijck

Areas of specialisation: Metaphysics, philosophical science of God, philosophy of culture
Areas of current research: The evolution of the concept of metaphysics in post-Hegelian philosophy; the place of
René Girard in contemporary thought; the meaning of subjectivity

- The concept of metaphysics in Schopenhauer
- The concept of metaphysics in Strawson
- The image of God in René Girard
- The understanding of subjectivity in Girard and Derrida (through the meaning of the 'pharmakon')
- The philosophy of religion of Gianni Vattimo
- The understanding of God in Girard and Vattimo
- The philosophy of religion of Girard and Heidegger
- The philosophical cultural identity of 'Europa'
- The concept of metaphysics in Jan Patocka
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- Christendom en resentment: Nietzsche and Scheler

- The concept of philosophy in Charles Taylor
- The understanding of the subject in Charles Taylor
De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
Dr. G. Claessens
Areas of specialisation: (Ancient and Early Modern) Philosophy of Science, History of Philosophy, the Platonic
Tradition, Reception Studies, Hermeneutics
Areas of current research: Early Modern Reception of the Platonic Receptacle, Early Modern Theories of Matter and
Space, Early Modern Reception of Platonism, Contemporary Views on the History of Philosophy, Methodology
of Reception

- Early Modern reception of Plato’s Timaeus
- Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s Timaeus
- Reception studies and philosophy
- The concept of ‘imagination’ in Antiquity/Early Modern Period, ...
- The idea of ‘Greekness’ in contemporary philosophy
- The figure of Socrates in the history of philosophy
- The history of hermeneutics (Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Gadamer, ....)
- The body/corporeality in Plato/Neoplatonism/Augustine ,...
Students can propose other topics in my area of specialisation.
Prof. dr. P. d’Hoine

Areas of specialisation: ancient philosophy, Plato, Neoplatonism
Areas of current research: Neoplatonic metaphysics and natural philosophy, the reception of Plato’s theory of
Forms in later Antiquity, the Neoplatonic commentary tradition, Proclus, Syrianus, Plotinus

- Topics related to Plato’s so-called ‘theory of Forms’ (the development of the theory, Ideas and definitions, the
discussion on the Forms in Plato’s Parmenides, …) or its reception in later Antiquity (Aristotle’s criticism of
the Forms, Forms in Plotinus, Proclus, …)
- Plato and/or Aristotle on poetry or rhetoric
- Plato and/or Plotinus on beauty and eros
- Philosophy as a ‘way of life’ in Antiquity
- The ‘harmonization’ of Plato and Aristotle in late Antiquity
- Philosophy and mythology in late Antiquity
- Topics related to Plato’s legacy in later philosophy (later Antiquity, modern times, contemporary philosophy
and aesthetics)
Students can propose other topics in my area of specialisation.
Dr. E. De Bom
- history of political philosophy, especially 16th and 17th centuries
- political philosophy: European Union, borders, migration

The concept of sovereignty in the work of the Spanish Scholastics and their immediate successors.
The concept of sovereignty in contemporary political tought.
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- political themes in the work of the Spanish Scholastics and their successors (Vitoria, De Soto, Molina, Lessius,
Suarez, Grotius…)
! for most of the themes knowledge of Latin is mandatory
- political theory of the EU
- borders and justice
- migration and the right to exclude
Prof. dr. P. De Leemans

Areas of specialisation: Medieval reception of Aristotle’s philosophy of nature
Areas of current research: Medieval translations of and commentaries on Aristlotle’s Parva Naturalia, De motu
animalium and Problemata

(for some themes knowledge of Latin and/or Greek is mandatory):
- Study of a theme that arises in Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia, the Books of Animals, or the Problemata, as treated in
the medieval and/or renaissance commentaries (e.g. [self-]movement, sensation and knowledge acquisition,
perfection and imperfection in the biological world, psychology and morality).
- Philosophical background of ancient and medieval encyclopaedias
- Authority, experience, and philosophical reflexion
- Edition and analysis of a medieval philosophical text
Prof. dr. R. Friedman

Areas of specialisation: Medieval Philosophy and Theology
Areas of current research: 13th and 14th century theories of cognition (esp. concept formation); modal theory in
the later Middle Ages; later medieval ideas on the eternity of the world and the nature of the infinite; trinitarian
theology, predestination, divine simplicity in the same period. Literary genres of later medieval philosophy and
theology.

- 13th and 14th century philosophy and theology
- Selected thinkers in earlier medieval philosophy (Augustine, Boethius, Eriugena, Anselm,
Abelard)
- History of medieval universities
- Editions of texts from the medieval period
Dr. E. Gielen
Area/figures of specialisation: Byzantine literature and philosophy (reception of ancient philosophy); ancient and
Byzantine medicine
Areas/figures of current research: (early-Byzantine) treatises on human nature with a central and detailed focus
on the physiology of the human body, based on medical insights from Antiquity, ancient philosophical views on
man and matter, and early-Christian theology.

- topics related to (late-)antique medicine
- study of a topic related to Byzantine medicine (and its links with ancient medicine and philosophy)
- Aristotle on biology
- Galen of Pargamon as philosopher
- Galen’s attitude towards Plato, Aristotle…
Prof. dr. J. Opsomer

Area of competence: Ancient philosophy
Areas of specialisation: philosophy of nature, ontology, Middle Platonism, Neoplatonism, Hellenistic philosophy
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Areas of current research: philosophy of nature in late Antiquity (commentators on Aristotle, Neoplatonists),
Proclus, Iamblichus, Plutarch of Chaeronea, Aristotle’s criticism of Plato

- mathematical explanation in the Platonic philosophy of nature
- natural philosophy in Plato’s Timaeus
- Aristotle’s criticism of the theory of Forms
- Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s psychology (De anima)
- motion, matter, time, place … in the history of Platonism (e.g. Simplicius, Philoponus)
- atomism (Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius)
- natural philosophy or psychology in Plotinus
- the divided soul in Plato and Aristotle
Dr. J. Pelletier
Areas of specialisation: Medieval Philosophy
Areas of current research: Areas/figures of current research: medieval metaphysics and various themes (esp.
categories, universals, transcendentals), William of Ockham, nominalism/realism, late medieval semantics,
theory of knowledge, cognition and concept formation, philosophical theology (esp. faith and reason, scientific
status of theology, cognition and concepts of God), late medieval political philosophy

- theories of categories in 14th century Oxfordians
- Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham on metaphysics
Prof. dr. A. A. Robiglio

Area of competence: History of Western Philosophy, with the focus on:
- Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern thought;
- History of Philosophical Historiography (from G.B. Vico to the 20th century).
- Existentialism (20th century)
- Italian Philosophy (e.g., A. Rosmini, B. Croce, G. Gentile, A. Gramsci, L. Pareyson)
Areas of specialization (including current research):

- Thomas Aquinas and his sources;
- Dante Studies
- Renaissance Thomism (1348-1545);
- Moral Dilemmas in Medieval and Renaissance thought;
- Philosophical Anthropology (viz., the question of Dignity before Kant);
- History of Epistemology (viz., the problem of Testimony before David Hume; Probability before Pascal);
- Neo-scholasticism (including the ‘Louvain school’, J. Maritain, É. Gilson, etc.).
Suggestions for thesis topics: on request
Prof. dr. G. Van Riel

Areas of specialisation: Ancient philosophy, particularly Plato and Neoplatonism
Areas of current research: Plato’s philosophical theology; the philosophy of Augustine and his predecessors; the
theories of pleasure of Plato, Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists
Areas of special interest: Damascius
Other Information on areas, figures on which the professor is interested in supervising research: the Sophists,
Aristotle, Stoics and Epicureans, Pre-Socratics
Concrete research projects::

- Piety in Plato's Euthyphro
- Plato's theology in Laws book 10
- The creation narrative in Ambrose and Augustine
- Origen and Augustine
- Aristotle on magnanimity and royalty
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- Plato's Protagoras: can virtue be taught?

- Thomas Aquinas on pleasure
- Man and woman in Augustine and Johannes Scottus Eriugena
Husserl-Archives: Centre for Phenomenology and Continental Philosophy
Prof. dr. R. Breeur

Areas of specialisation: Modern and contemporary (French) philosophy
Areas of current research: (Self-)consciousness and singularity, Freedom and Passions in Descartes, Malebranche
and Spinoza

- Thinkers: French – 20th century (from Bergson to Deleuze); Modern thinkers (Descartes, Arnauld,
Malebranche,..)
- ‘Anthropological’ themes: memory and narrative, consciousness and freedom (free will) (in the continental and
Anglo-Saxon tradition), memory and imagination, cogito and passions, emotions and responsibility, evil
(e.g. in Malebranche)
Prof. dr. N. De Warren

Areas of specialisation: Phenomenology; hermeneutics; French post-structuralism; critical theory; German
Idealism; philosophy of art; philosophy of literature; philosophy of religion; 19th-century philosophy
Current research projects: theory of the imagination; the problem of stupidity; forgiveness; modern philosophy
and the First World War
Prof. dr. J. Jansen

Areas of specialisation: Husserl; Kant; Imagination Research; Phenomenology and Cognitive Science;
Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind; Aesthetics and Aisthesis
Areas of current research: Husserl on the Imagination; early phenomenology on the Imagination; Transcendental
Idealism; Transcendental Philosophy: metaphilosophical issues; notions of the 'a priori'; '4 e cognition'; social
and political dimensions of 'philosophy of mind'; comparative and pluralist aesthetics
Concrete research projects: Students may suggest topics, of which they will have to demonstrate that they fall
within the above-mentioned areas.
Dr. L. Lauwaert
Areas of specialisation: Continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, philosophical anthropology
Areas of current research: Philosophy of Violence

- Violence (Sloterdijk, Sartre, Balibar, Virilio, Bataille, Girard, Arendt, Zizek, Freud, Benjamin, etc.)
- Freud’s anthropological texts
- Freud’s death drive in continental philosophy (Zizek, Lacan, Deleuze, Brassier, etc.)
- Speculative realism: Meillasoux, Laurelle, Brassier, Harman, etc.
- Agamben, Lacan, Nancy, Deleuze, Bataille, Badiou, Zizek, etc.
Prof. dr. U. Melle

Areas of specialisation: The Phenomenology of Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty; philosophy of
technology; value and virtue ethics, eco-ethics and eco-philosophy; animal ethics, philosophical anthropology

- Phenomenological method
- Structures of consciousness
- Ecological anthropology
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- Animal ethics
- Ecologisch aesthetics
- Ecophenomenology
Prof. dr. P. Moyaert

Areas of specialisation: Psychoanalysis, continental philosophy

- Freud and psychoanalysis.
- Pulsion in Schopenhauer, Bergson, Bernet etc.
- Deleuze.
- Themes from existential phenomenology and phenomenological psychiatry (Binswanger, Minkowski, Jaspers,
Maldiney etc.)
Dr. M. Ubiali
Areas of specialisation: Husserl's Phenomenology; Husserl's Ethics; Early Phenomenology: Alexander Pfaender,
Moritz Geiger, Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul Sartre.

- Phenomenological Psychiatry
- Early Phenomenology
- Current Debate in Free Will
- Hannah Arendt’s thought
Prof. dr. R. Visker

Areas of specialisation: Contemporary continental philosophy, phenomenology
Areas of current research: Levinas, Heidegger, Sartre, Arendt, Gehlen, Plessner; relativism, multiculturalism,
postmodernism; public space; the metaphysical status of art (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and others)
Please see also the table of contents of my books Truth and Singularity, Inhuman Condition, both in the series
‘Phenomenologica’. See also the list of my publications (CV) on the website of the Institute of Philosophy.

Students can suggest themes within the above-mentioned framework of research and specialisation areas.
Students can also discuss their proposals with the professor.
Dr. T. Vongehr
- phenomenology

- Husserl, Heidegger, Scheler, Merleau-Ponty
- phenomenological method, action-theory, emotions and will
- philosophy of sport
Concrete research projects: on request:

Students can suggest themes within the above-mentioned framework of research and specialisation areas.
Dr. M. Wehrle
Phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Gurwitsch), Cognitive Psychology and Neuropsychology, Philosophical
and Historical anthropology, History of the Body, History of Medicine, Gender and Cultural Philosophy
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Normality and Normativity in Experience: a) the constitution of norms in and through experience
(Phenomenology) and b) the impact of social and cultural norms on our everyday experience (Cultural
Philosophy/Gender)

- Attention in Phenomenology and Cogntive Psychology
- The lived Body/Embodiment in Phenomenology, Cognitive Sciences and Cultural Philosophy
- Habituality and Habitus in Philosophy and (Neuro)Psychology
- Normality as a condition for expererience (perception) and sociality/social cooperation (Husserl, Merleau-
Ponty, Plessner, Schütz)
- Normality as normalization and exclusion of minorities (Bourdieu, Foucault, Butler, Waldenfels)
- The relation between normality and normativity in experience
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