About
I am an Assistant Professor (a tenure track "Juniorprofessor") at the Philosophy Department of University of Göttingen. Before coming to Göttingen, I held positions at Humboldt University in Berlin (where I also did my PhD) and at Rice University in Houston. While I was working on my dissertation, I also spent one year at Yale University in New Haven. I am an Associate Researcher at the Human Abilities Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and a member of the New Voices Center on Women in the History of Philosophy.
My research focuses on early modern philosophy. It is primarily concerned with the metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind of this era. More recently, though, I have started to be interested in early modern social and political philosophy as well. My work deals with figures such as Francisco Suárez, René Descartes, Nicolas Malebranche, Baruch de Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Anne Conway, John Locke, Margaret Cavendish, George Berkeley, David Hume, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, and Immanuel Kant. I have written a book on Leibniz's metaphysics of modality (the book, entitled Leibniz' Metaphysik der Modalität, is based on my dissertation and came out in 2016 with De Gruyter). Right now, I am working, among other things, on papers dealing with Conway's metaphysics, Hume's political philosophy, and Kant's 'possibility proof' for the existence of God. I am also working on a book manuscript about early modern theories of causation (the working title is Causation and Containment. An Essay in Early Modern Metaphysics).
When I am not doing philosophy, I enjoy playing the piano, cooking, and playing chess (recently, I also got interested in chess composition). Most of the time, though, I am chasing around my three-year old on his scooter.
Find me on PhilPeople and at Göttingen.
NEWS
On October 5th, I'll give a talk entitled "Malebranche on Agent Causation and Change" at the Online-Workshop What brings about change? Historical perspectives from the middle ages to the 20th century, organized by the DFG network Change and Change-Maker.
My (German) paper "Hume und der Liberalismus" is out now.
My paper "Spinoza on the Essences of Singular Things" is out now.
I'll give a talk entitled "How many PSRs? Leibniz on Intelligibility and Reasons" at the Workshop "The Bohemain Leibniz" - Logic and Metaphysics in Leibniz and Bolzano at University of Vienna in March 2023.
The conference Powers and Abilities in Early Modern Philosophy, which I organize together with my colleague Dominik Perler, will be held at Humboldt University in Berlin soon (March 22-24, 2023).
My paper "Descartes's Argument for Modal Voluntarism" got accepted for publication by Inquiry.
My paper "Localizing Violations of the Principle of Sufficient Reason - Leibniz on the Modal Status of the PSR" is out now.
My paper "Anne Conway's Metaphysics of Change" is out now.
My (German) paper "Hume und der Liberalismus" ("Hume and Liberalism") got accepted for publication by Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie.
My paper "Localizing Violations of the Principle of Sufficient Reason - Leibniz on the Modal Status of the PSR" got accepted for publication by the Journal of Modern Philosophy.
I'll give a talk entitled "Kant's Possibility Proof and the Principle of Complete Determination" at GAP.11 in Berlin in September 2022.
My paper "Hume's Deep Anti-Contractarianism" is out now.
My paper "Anne Conway's Metaphysics of Change" got accepted for publication by History of Philosophy Quarterly.
I'll give a talk entitled "Was Anne Conway a Monist?" at the Annual Conference of the British Society for the History of Philosophy in Edinburgh in April 2022.
My paper "Hume's Deep Anti-Contractarianism" got accepted for publication by Hume Studies.
I have been awarded a "Career Development Award" by the Berlin University Alliance and will be on leave during the winter term 2021/22.
My paper "Spinoza on the Essences of Singular Things" got accepted for publication by Ergo.