Prof. Dr. Walter Zimmerli – Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Prof. Dr. Walter Zimmerli

Humboldt University Berlin
Philosophy

External Senior Fellow (FELSA)
May 2022 – July 2022

Last Update: 31.08.2022

Curriculum Vitae

Walther Ch. Zimmerli, philosopher, born 06.05.1945 in Zuerich, Honorary Professor Mind and Technology at Humboldt University Berlin; studied after a term at Yale College (New Haven, Conn,) philosophy, Germanistik and Anglistik as well as diverse other subjects at the University of Goettingen and the University of Zuerich where he completed both his PhD (1971) and his habilitation (1978) in philosophy. He was full professor of philosophy at Technical University of Braunschweig (1978-88), Universities of Bamberg and Erlangen-Nürnberg (1988-1996) as well as University of Marburg (1996-1999). From 1999 to 2002 he served as president of the private University of Witten/Herdecke gGmbH. In 1999 he was appointed member of the topmanagement of Volkswagen AG and Founding President of Volkswagen AutoUni as well as member of the Executive Board of Volkswagen Coaching GmbH. From 2007 to 2013 he served as president of Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus before becoming Endowed Friedrich Senior Professor at the Graduate School and 2016 Honorary Professor of Humboldt University in Berlin. Zimmerli who was awarded the Humboldt South Africa Research Award in 1996, an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Stellenbosch in 2002 and an Honorary Professorship by the University of Braunschweig in 2003, was 2017/18 EURIAS Senior Research Fellow at the Collegium Helveticum of University, ETH and ZHdK Zuerich, 2019 Visiting Fellow at the IWM Vienna and 2020-21 DSI-Fellow at the Digital Society Initiative of the University of Zuerich.

Selected Publications

2018 a, Kant ‘Behind our Backs?’. Time and (Time-)Consciousness – Today, in: A. Falduto/H.F. Klemme (eds.), Kant and his Critics, Georg Olms: Hildesheim etc., 260-273.
2018 b, Technologisierung und Pluralisierung – ein Januskopf?, in: V. Friedrich (ed.), Technik denken. Philosophische Annäherungen, Steiner-Verlag: Stuttgart, 21-30.
2020, Deus Malignus. The Digital Rehabilitation of Deception, in: B.P. Goecke/A. Rosenthal-von der Puetten (eds.), Artificial Intelligence. Reflections in Philosophy, Theology, and Social Sciences, Brill-Mentis: Paderborn., 15-35.
2021a, Künstliche Intelligenz und postanaloges Menschsein. Entstehung, Entwicklung und Wirkung eines realen Mythos, in: A. Strasser/W. Sohst/R Stapelfeldt/K. Stepec (eds.), Künstliche Intelligenz- Die grosse Verheissung, Xenomoi: Berlin, 193-219.
2021b, Analog oder digital? Philosophieren nach dem Ende der Philosophie, in: U. Hauck-Thum/J. Noller (eds.), Was ist Digitalität? Digitalitätsforschung vol. 1, Metzler: Stuttgart, 9-33.

FRIAS Project

Digitalization – also an Anti-kantian Experiment?

To philosophically deal with the complex phenomena of the megatrend called digitalization presupposes a thorough analysis of the effects digitalization has on the core components constituting occidental thinking. It is not so much the explicit philosophy as expressed in canonical writings but rather that what is influencing the thinking and the actions of the subjects behind their backs without them even knowing it: that what is taken for granted in their implicit philosophy. The main question is whether and in how far digitalization is influencing, changing or even experimentally completely abrogating these core components of implicit philosophy. Having previously dealt with the implicit platonism and implicit cartesianism as well as with the respective anti-platonic and anti-cartesian experiments, in my FRIAS project I will be pondering the question whether digitalization could also be considered an anti-Kantian experiment. Following Kant’s famous four questions I will be suggesting a new type of reflecting the relation between transcendental and empirical ways of thinking with respect to epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. It remains to be seen whether this then will also result in aspects of a new anthropology.