Political Epistemology
Political epistemology refers to the field of research that intertwines epistemology with social and political theory in order to do justice to the fact that knowledge and truth are internally related to politics and society. There are three research foci:
- Reformulate basic concepts. Political epistemology must rethink and reformulate its basic concepts in order to do justice to the entanglement of epistemology and social and political theory. Epistemological concepts with which we understand what is meant by knowledge and the associated epistemic concepts and epistemic practices must be analysed for their implicit social-theoretical and political assumptions, just as concepts from social and political theory must be questioned for their implicit epistemic presuppositions.
- Analyse political-epistemological phenomena. Political epistemology must, of course, analyse all those phenomena and processes that attract attention to the field of research in the first place: the relationship between truth and politics, the various forms of untruth in politics, epistemic violence and injustice, or the role of scientific practices in democracy.
- Metaphilosophical questions. Political epistemology must also deal with metaphilosophical questions: If the socio-material situation from which a particular knowledge emerges is epistemically signficant (and this is a basic premise of political epistemology: otherwise, the field of research would not be needed), how do the socio-material conditions of philosophical practices shape the knowledge of political epistemology?
Active Projects
Within my research focus on political epistemology, I am currently working on the following projects:
In this research project, I aim to write a genealogy of “normativity,” this “chief term” of philosophy.
In this research project, I analyze theoretical advances towards a general political epistemology in different fields: philosophy of science, critical theory, feminist epistemology, French poststructuralism, analytic epistemology and postcolonial theory.
Finished Projects
Already finished projects within the research focuse are:
How does knowledge affect us? What political significance do epistemological questions and insights have? My habilitation project investigates the force of knowledge
