Global Humanities Junior Fellow at The Chinese University of Hong Kong
February - July 2014

Incommensurability as a Problem of Social Philosophy

The central thesis of Philipp Meyer's research project will state that Niklas Luhmann’s Systems Theory can still
persist in the encompassing „super theoretical“ character of Hegelian appearance in the 20th century because it organizes those heterogeneous spheres whose theoretical integration it undertakes through the concept of the system by essentially negative notions. The focus of the analysis will thus be on the epistemological implications of the systems-theoretical use of those concepts, namely interpenetration, structural coupling, irritation, pertubation and the system-environment-difference itself and on their historical relatedness mainly to 19th century postidealistic philosophy.

Philipp Meyer, born in 1986, is a PhD student at the FUB’s Institute of Philosophy. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Greifswald and completed his M.A. at Freie Universitaet in 2013. For the time from October 2013 until January 2014 he was awarded a fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by the FUB’s Center for International Cooperation and subsequently spent four months at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as a Junior Research Fellow of the PCD network. His publications have thus far been on 19th century philosophy with a focus on Nietzsche and Kierkegaard.