Thomas Leinkauf (born November 4, 1954, in Lüneburg)CV at the website of Münster university
(retrieved 27 September 2017). is a German

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and a professor at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

. His fields of interest are

late antique Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English has ...

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

and early modern philosophy, as well as

Idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ide ...

.Personal page at Münster university's website
(retrieved 27 September 2017).

Background and career

In 1974, he graduated at the "humanistic" branch of ''Markgrafen-Gymnasium'' in

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

. From 1975 to 1984 he studied philosophy (with

Werner Beierwaltes Werner Beierwaltes (* 8 May 1931, Klingenberg am Main; † 22 February 2019, Würzburg) was a German academic best known as a historian of philosophy. His most important areas of specialization were Neoplatonism and German Idealism. He was an Em ...

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

, and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

, at

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemb ...

and

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

. He obtained a ''Dr. phil.'' degree with a dissertation entitled ''Kunst und Reflexion. Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis Philipp Otto Runges zur philosophischen Tradition'' in 1982. Afterwards, from 1982 to 1985, he was a research associate at Freiburg university and then, from 1985 to 1991, at FU Berlin, where he also obtained his habilitation in 1991, with the thesis ''Mundus combinatus. Studien zur Struktur der barocken Naturphilosophie unId Universalwissenschaft am Beispiel Athanasius Kirchers SJ (1602–1680)''. From 1991 to 1996, he held a " Heisenberg-Professur" there. In addition to this, he was a visiting professor at

Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

in winter semester 1992/93 and the summer semester 1993. Since 1996, he is a professor for philosophy at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität and director of the Leibniz-Forschungsstelle in Münster, a branch of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities dedicated to editing the philosophical manuscripts of

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathema ...

. From 2010 to 2012, he received an ''Opus magnum'' scholarship for the work on his two-volume work ''Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance''.Leibniz institute's homepage
(retrieved 27 September 2017). Furthermore, he is the editor of a bilingual Italian-German edition of the works of

Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno (; ; la, Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno, January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist. He is known for his cosmologic ...

.The works of Giordano Bruno: Page at Meiner Verlag's homepage
(retrieved 27 September 2017).

Select bibliography

* ''Kunst und Reflexion. Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis Philipp Otto Runges zur philosophischen Tradition'', München (Fink) 1987. * ''Schelling als Interpret der philosophischen Tradition. Zur Rezeption und Transformation von Platon, Plotin, Aristoteles und Kant'', Münster (LIT-Verlag) 1998. * ''Nicolaus Cusanus. Eine Einführung in sein Denken'', Münster (Aschendorff) 2006. * coeditor: ''Lichtgefüge - Das Licht im Zeitalter Rembrandts und Vermeers - Ein Handbuch der Forschungsgruppe Historische Lichtgefüge'', 2011. * ''Einheit, Natur, Geist: Beiträge zu metaphysischen Grundproblemen im Denken von

'', Berlin 2012 . * ''Grundriss Philosophie des Humanismus und der Renaissance (1350-1600)'', 2 vols., Hamburg 2017 .

References

External links

*
Personal page at Münster university's website

Leibniz Edition
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leinkauf, Thomas 1954 births Living people 20th-century German philosophers 21st-century German philosophers Academic staff of Charles University