Wolfgang Konrad Spohn (born 20 March 1950, in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...

) 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 ...

. He is

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

philosophy 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 ...

and

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

at the

University of Konstanz The University of Konstanz (german: Universität Konstanz) is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its main campus was opened on the Gießberg in 1972 after being founded in 1966. The university is Germany's ...

Biography

Wolfgang Spohn studied philosophy,

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

and philosophy of science and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

at the

University of Munich 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 List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

and acquired there the MA (1973) and the

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

(1976) with a thesis on the ''Grundlagen der Entscheidungstheorie''. In his time as an assistant professor he earned the

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 ...

(1984) with a thesis about ''Eine Theorie der Kausalität''. He held professorships at the

University of Regensburg The University of Regensburg (german: link=no, Universität Regensburg) is a public research university located in the medieval city of Regensburg, Bavaria, a city that is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university was founded on 18 ...

(1986–91), the

University of Bielefeld Bielefeld University (german: Universität Bielefeld) is a university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization a ...

(1991–96), and the University of Konstanz (1996–2018). Since 2019 he is senior professor at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...

. Spohn is editor of the philosophical journal ''

Erkenntnis ''Erkenntnis'' is a journal of philosophy that publishes papers in analytic philosophy. Its name is derived from the German word "Erkenntnis", meaning "knowledge, recognition". The journal was also linked to organisation of conferences, such as the ...

'' and was its editor-in-chief from 1988 to 2001. He is a founding member of the ''Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie'' and was its vice-president from 2006 to 2012. He was a Fellow at the ''

Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (german: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) is an interdisciplinary institute founded in 1981 in Grunewald, Berlin, Germany, dedicated to research projects in the natural and social sciences. It is modeled ...

'' (1985/86) and a

Distinguished Visiting Professor Professors in the United States commonly occupy any of several positions of teaching and research within a college or university. In the U.S., the word "professor" informally refers collectively to the academic ranks of assistant professor, asso ...

at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

(1988). Since 2002 he is a member of the ''

Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded ...

'' and since 2015 a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

. In 2012 he was the first outside Anglosaxon academia to win the ''

Lakatos Award The Lakatos Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, widely interpreted. The contribution must be in the form of a monograph, co-authored or single-authored, and published in English during the previo ...

'' of the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

for his book ''The Laws of Belief. Ranking Theory and its Philosophical Applications''. In 2015 he received the Frege Prize of the ''Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie'' for outstanding achievements of a German speaking philosopher in the field of analytic philosophy. Spohn is the youngest brother of the historical sociologist Willfried Spohn and of the mathematical physicist

Herbert Spohn Herbert Spohn (born 1 November 1946) is a German mathematician and mathematical physicist working in kinetic equations; dynamics of stochastic particle systems, hydrodynamic limit; kinetic of growths processes; disordered systems; open quantum sy ...

Research

Spohn is best known for his contributions to formal

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

, in particular for comprehensively developing ranking theory since 1982, which is his theory of the dynamics of belief. It is an alternative to

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set o ...

and of similar philosophical impact as a formal account of the dynamics of belief. Spohn's research extends to

, the theory of causation,

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

and

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...

philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...

and

mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

, two-dimensional semantics,

philosophical logic Understood in a narrow sense, philosophical logic is the area of logic that studies the application of logical methods to philosophical problems, often in the form of extended logical systems like modal logic. Some theorists conceive philosophical ...

, and decision and

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...

(see the collection of papers). His dissertation and his paper “Stochastic Independence, Causal Independence, and Shieldability” are precursors of the theory of

Bayesian network A Bayesian network (also known as a Bayes network, Bayes net, belief network, or decision network) is a probabilistic graphical model that represents a set of variables and their conditional dependencies via a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Bay ...

s and their causal interpretation. His paper “How to Make Sense of Game Theory”“How to Make Sense of Game Theory”, in: W. Stegmüller, W. Balzer, W. Spohn (Hg.), ''Philosophy of Economics'', Springer, Berlin u.a. 1982, pp. 239–270; reprinted in: Y. Varoufakis, A. Housego (eds.), ''Game Theory: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences'', Vol. IV, Discontents, Routledge, London 2001, pp. 213–241. is a forerunner of epistemic game theory.

References

External links

Spohn's homepage at the University of Konstanz
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spohn, Wolfgang Konrad 20th-century German philosophers 21st-century German philosophers Epistemologists Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Metaphysicians Ontologists Philosophers of language Philosophers of mind Philosophers of science Academic staff of Bielefeld University Academic staff of the University of Konstanz Academic staff of the University of Regensburg 1950 births Living people German male writers