Markus Gabriel (; born April 6, 1980) is a German philosopher and author at the
University of Bonn
The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...
. In addition to his more specialized work, he has also written popular books about
philosophical
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
issues.
Career
Gabriel was educated in philosophy and Ancient Greek in Germany. After completing his doctorate and
habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...
at
Heidelberg University
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Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...
, he held a faculty position at
New School for Social Research
The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...
. He then came to the
University of Bonn
The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...
, where he holds the chair for Epistemology, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy and is Director of the International Centre for Philosophy.
Gabriel has also been a visiting professor at
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
.
Work
![MarkusGabriel2013](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/MarkusGabriel2013.jpg)
Gabriel argues against
Physicalism
In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substanc ...
, moral
Nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
, and
Neurocentrism.
Physicalism
In 2013, Gabriel wrote ''Transcendental Ontology: Essays in German Idealism''. In the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Sebastian Gardner wrote that the work is "Gabriel's most comprehensive presentation to date, in English, of his reading of German Idealism"
[ and notes that "due to its compression of a wealth of ideas into such a short space, the book demands quite a lot from its readers."]
In a 2018 interview, Gabriel complained that "most contemporary metaphysicians are loppywhen it comes to characterizing their subject matter," using words like "the world" and "reality" "often...interchangeably and without further clarifications. In my view, those totality of words do not refer to anything which is capable of having the property of existence." He goes on to explain:
::I try to revive the tradition of metaontology and metametaphysics that departs from Kant. As has been noticed, Heidegger introduced the term metaontology and he also clearly states that Kant’s philosophy is a “metaphysics about metaphysics.” I call metametaphysical nihilism the view that there is no such thing as the world such that questions regarding its ultimate nature, essence, structure, composition, categorical outlines etc. are devoid of the intended conceptual content. The idea that there is a big thing comprising absolutely everything is an illusion, albeit neither a natural one nor an inevitable feature of reason as such. Of course, there is an influential Neo-Carnapian strand in the contemporary debate which comes to similar conclusions. I agree with a lot of what is going on in this area of research and I try to combine it with the metaontological/metametaphysical tradition of Kantian and Post-Kantian philosophy.[
In an April 2020 interview he called European measures against COVID-19 unjustified and a step towards cyber dictatorship, saying the use of health apps was a Chinese or North Korean strategy. He said the coronavirus crisis called into question the idea that only scientific and technical progress could lead to human and moral progress. He said there was a paradox of virocracy, to save lives one replaced democracy by virocracy.]
Publications
Monographs
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* (en) The Meaning of Thought, Polity, 2020, ISBN 978-1509538362
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* (en) With Graham Priest
Graham Priest (born 1948) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center, as well as a regular visitor at the University of Melbourne, where he was Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy and also at the University of St Andr ...
: Everything and Nothing, Polity, 2022, ISBN 978-1-5095-3747-1
Popular Science
* ''Warum es die Welt nicht gibt'', Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-548-37568-7
* ''Ich ist nicht Gehirn: Philosophie des Geistes für das 21. Jahrhundert'', Ullstein, 2015, ISBN 978-3-548-37680-6
Editions (publisher, co-editor or co-worker)
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References
External links
Homepage Markus Gabriel
Official profile at EDGE
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gabriel, Markus
1980 births
21st-century German philosophers
Continental philosophers
Living people
University of Bonn faculty
University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty
Philosophical realism
Philosophers of technology
Philosophers of science
Philosophers of art
Philosophers of culture
German male writers