Catrin Misselhorn

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Catrin Misselhorn (born November 1, 1970 in Stuttgart ) is a German philosopher and has been a professor at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen since April 2019 . She is considered a thought leader in the field of machine and robot ethics in Germany.

Life

Since April 2019 Catrin Misselhorn has been teaching philosophy at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen . From 2012 to 2019 she held the chair for philosophy of science and philosophy of technology at the University of Stuttgart . She previously researched and taught at the University of Zurich, the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Tübingen, where she received her doctorate in 2003 and qualified as an assistant professor at Manfred Frank's chair in 2010 .

From 2007 to 2008 she was a Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Center of Affective Sciences in Geneva and at the Collège de France and the Jean Nicod Institute for Cognitive Sciences in Paris.

It was there that Misselhorn discovered the philosophy of artificial intelligence and robot ethics as fields of research and presented the first publications in this area that built a bridge between the philosophy of technology and her work on aesthetics. So she made an analogy between our affective reactions to humanoid robots (especially empathy) and those towards fictional people in the film and made this approach the basis of her analysis and explanation of the " Uncanny Valley ."

research

Misselhorn's research areas are epistemology and science theory, philosophy of technology, as well as philosophy of spirit, language and culture.

Philosophy of AI, robots and machine ethics

She works on philosophical problems of AI, robot and machine ethics and leads a number of third-party funded projects for the ethical evaluation of assistance systems in different areas, e.g. B. in nursing, in the world of work and in education.

Misselhorn's book Basic Questions of Machine Ethics was voted third on the non-fiction book best list by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, ZDF and ZEIT.

In her book she develops the fundamentals of machine ethics, a new discipline at the interface of philosophy, robotics and computer science, which deals with the question of whether and how one can equip machines with the ability to make moral decisions and act and whether one can do it should. Important areas of application are care systems, war robots and autonomous driving.

An important thesis of the book is that the decision about the life and death of humans should not be left to machines.

Integrative philosophy of science, art and technology

Misselhorn represents an integrative philosophical approach that seeks to convey art, science and technology together. In doing so, she also includes authors like Robert Musil in her considerations, who is primarily perceived as a writer, but from her point of view receives too little philosophical attention. She does not lose sight of the classical philosophical topics, such as the question of the objectivity of our sensory perception and the possibility of a priori knowledge.

Moderate naturalism

She describes her basic philosophical approach as moderate naturalism, because it rejects the claims of exclusivity in the natural sciences and ascribes philosophy to independent areas and processes of knowledge. At the same time, she maintains that scientific knowledge as well as technological developments are relevant for the formation of philosophical theories. She unfolds this, for example, on the basis of her theory of a priori justification as a counterfactual variation following Kant .

Perception and objectivity

Inspired by Gareth Evans, Misselhorn defends a neo-Kantian position in perceptual theory that assumes that certain conceptual skills are required in order to perceive the world as objective. These inferential skills also have an impact on how the world is experienced. The perceptions of a being with these abilities are therefore phenomenally different from those of a creature that does not have these abilities. This is compatible with the fact that there are more primitive forms of perception that are non-conceptual.

Aesthetic experience

Misselhorn also regards the aesthetic experience of art, especially literature, as a philosophically important source of knowledge that can even be conceptually structured. Nevertheless, compared to the classic philosophical concept analysis, it represents an independent form of conceptual reflection, which is about exploring conceptual possibilities that lie beyond our standard use of terms.

Emotions and empathy

For her, emotions represent an important aspect of our relationship to the world in ethical, aesthetic but also technological contexts. With Clive Bell , she argues for the assumption of a specifically aesthetic emotion that is produced by works of art.

She considers empathy to be an important source of morality, which can also be triggered by robots. Structurally analogous to Kant's considerations on animal ethics, she develops an indirect argument that empathy leads to moral restrictions on our behavior towards human-like robots. For this reason, she views the development of humanoid or even android robots with skepticism, because the moral-psychological consequences of our dealings with them are not reflected enough.

Works (selection)

  • Empathy with Inanimate Objects and the Uncanny Valley. In: Minds and Machines 19 (2009), 345-59. DOI 10.1007 / S11023-009-9158-2.
  • Is there an aesthetic emotion? In: Art and Experience , ed. by S. Deines, J. Liptow and M. Seel, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt 2013, 120–141.
  • Conceptual reflection in literature. A proxy type theory of the cognitive content of literature. In: German Journal for Philosophy 35 (2014), special volume: Truth, Knowledge and Knowledge in Literature , ed. by Ch. Demmerling and I. Vendrell Ferran, 219–242.
  • Musil's Metaphilosophical View: Between Philosophical Naturalism and Philosophy as Literature. In: The Monist 97 (2014), 104-121. DOI 10.5840 / monist20149718
  • Perceptual representation and objectivity. In defense of Evans' neo-Kantianism. In: Language, Perception and Self. New Perspectives on Gareth Evans' Philosophy , ed. by C. Misselhorn, U. Ramming and U. Pompe, Mentis: Paderborn 2016, 156–178.
  • Work, technology and the good life. In: Work, Justice and Inclusion. Ways to Equal Participation in Society , ed. by C. Misselhorn and H. Behrendt, Metzler: Stuttgart 2017, pp. 19–38
  • Artificial morality. Concepts, issues and challenges. In: Society 55 (2018), 161-169. DOI 10.1007 / s12115-018-0229-y
  • Machine ethics and artificial morality: Can and should machines act morally? In: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 68 (2018), pp. 29–33.
  • Robot ethics. Published in the series Analyzes and Arguments ed. from the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, No. 340 / February 2019.
  • Is Empathy with Robots Morally Relevant? In: Emotional Machines: Perspectives in Affective Computing and Emotional Human-Machine Interaction , Springer: Wiesbaden 2019, ed. by C. Misselhorn and M. Klein (forthcoming).
  • Basic questions of machine ethics. Reclam: Stuttgart 2019 (3rd edition).

Press articles and interviews

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Catrin Misselhorn: Empathy with Inanimate Objects and the Uncanny Valley. In: Minds and Machines . No. 19 , 2009, p. 345-359 .
  2. ↑ ZEIT's best non-fiction book, September 2018. Accessed on May 23, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Catrin Misselhorn: Musil's Metaphilosophical View: Between Philosophical Naturalism and Philosophy as Literature . In: The Monist . No. 97 , 2014, p. 104-121 .
  4. ↑ Catrin Misselhorn: Real Possibilities - Possible Realities. Outline of a modal justification theory . 2005.
  5. ↑ Catrin Misselhorn: Perceptual Representation and Objectivity. In defense of Evans' neo-Kantianism . In: C. Misselhorn, U. Ramming and U. Pompe (eds.): Language, perception and self. New Perspectives on Gareth Evans' Philosophy . 2016, p. 156-178 .
  6. ^ Catrin Misselhorn: Conceptual reflection in literature. A proxy type theory of the cognitive content of literature . In: Ch. Demmerling and I. Vendrell Ferran (Hrsg.): German magazine for philosophy (special volume: Truth, knowledge and knowledge in literature) . tape 35 , 2014, p. 219-242 .
  7. ↑ Catrin Misselhorn: Is there an aesthetic emotion? In: S. Deines, J. Liptow and M. Seel (eds.): Art and experience . 2013, p. 120-141 .
  8. ↑ Coming out : Catrin Misselhorn: Is Empathy with Robots Morally Relevant? In: C. Misselhorn and M. Klein (Eds.): Emotional Machines: Perspectives in Affective Computing and Emotional Human-Machine Interaction . 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Misselhorn, Catrin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart