Curriculum Vitae

I studied philosophy and biology at the University of Muenster. In 2007 I received my Master’s degree (Magistra Artium) and my state examination (Erstes Staatsexamen für das Lehramt an Schulen ; Sek. II/I). In 2012 I finished my PhD at the University of Cologne with a thesis on “The Ontic Account of Explanatory Reduction in Biology”. During that time I was involved in building up the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Muenster (2007-2010), I was a member of the DFG research group “Causation and Explanation” with a project on “The Concept of Mechanism in the Life Sciences” (2009-2012), and I was a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Minnesota, USA (1-5/2010). Since 9/2012 I work as a postdoc at the University of Geneva, Switzerland with a project on “Causation and Explanation in Complex Biological Systems”. I am a member of the DFG network “Philosophy of the Life Sciences in Germany” and of the Editorial Committee of dialectica (EC).
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Research

I am currently working on a project about Causation and Explanation of Complex Biological Systems.

Areas of interest

• philosophy of biology
• general philosophy of science
• epistemology
• metaphysics
• philosophy of mind

Selected publications

Books:

• (forthcoming) (eds.): Explanation in the Special Sciences – The Case of Biology and History (Synthese Library). Dordrecht: Springer. (with D. Plenge, O. Scholz and A. Hüttemann)
• (forthcoming) (eds.): Philip Kitcher – Pragmatic Naturalism. Frankfurt/Main: ontos. (with A. Seide)

Papers:

• (forthcoming): “Mechanisms and Laws: Clarifying the Debate”, in: Chao, H.-K./ Chen, S.-T./ Millstein, R. L. (eds.): Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics. Dordrecht: Springer. (with C. F. Craver)
• (forthcoming): “Causal Graphs and Biological Mechanisms”, in: Kaiser, M.I. et al. (eds.): Explanation in the Special Sciences – The Case of Biology and History (Synthese Library). Dordrecht: Springer. (with A. Gebharter)
• (forthcoming): “Complexity”, "Reduction", and "Disposition", in: Dubitzky, W./ Wolkenhauer, O./ Cho, K.-H./ Yokota, H. (eds.): Encyclopedia of Systems Biology, Vol. X. New York: Springer.
• (2012): “Why It Is Time To Move Beyond Nagelian Reduction”, in: Dieks, D./ Gonzalez, W.J./ Hartmann, S./ Stöltzner, M./ Weber, M. (eds.): Probabilities, Laws, and Structures.
• The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective, Vol. 3. Heidelberg: Springer, 255-272. (2011): Limits of Reductionism in the Life Sciences. In: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 33, 453-476.

For further information see my academia.edu.