I have broad philosophical interests of both a systematic and a historical kind. These cross the boundaries of so-called “analytic” and “Continental” philosophy. From the latter tradition I have acquired a strongly historical bent. From the analytical tradition I have gained an appreciation of clarity and logical order..
My knowledge of philosophy began with the study of classical languages and culture in my German Gymnasium. At the Universities of Bonn and Munich I subsequently developed an interest in symbolic logic and, in particular, in the work of Gottlob Frege at the same time as I was reading Martin Heidegger and Max Scheler. It was at Oxford where I discovered Wittgenstein.
In recent years I have become increasingly preoccupied with political philosophy and specifically with what I call “the diagnostic tradition in political philosophy” which I see extending from Marx and Nietzsche to Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault in the twentieth century.
My goal is always to learn something new. It is in this spirit that I have come to concern myself lately with China and its philosophical culture.
