Jens Halfwassen

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Jens Halfwassen (born November 16, 1958 in Bergisch Gladbach ; † February 14, 2020 in Heidelberg ) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg . With numerous publications on Plato and Neoplatonism as well as on metaphysics , he became known beyond the specialist circles.

Live and act

Halfwassen was born in Bergisch Gladbach . There he attended the Nicolaus-Cusanus-Gymnasium from 1969 to 1978 . From 1978 to 1985 he studied philosophy, history, antiquity and pedagogy at the University of Cologne , a time that shaped his entire academic education. Halfwassen received a doctoral scholarship from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes . In 1989 he was awarded the dissertation “The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus “ summa cum laude doctorate. From 1990 Halfwassen was a research assistant to Klaus Düsing . In 1995 he completed his habilitation with “Hegel and Late Antique Neo-Platonism. Investigations into the metaphysics of the one and the nous in Hegel's speculative and historical interpretation ”. Until 1997 he was senior assistant and private lecturer at the University of Cologne.

Halfwassen was from 1997 to 1999 Heisenberg Professor of the German Research Foundation and Professor of Philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . During this time he spent a year researching at the University of Tübingen . In 1999 he was appointed to a chair for philosophy at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. Since then he has been director of the Philosophical Seminar there. Together with Matthias Baltes and others, he founded the Academia Platonica Septima Monasteriensis in 1999 . Two years later, he set up the Hans Georg Gadamer endowed professorship for the humanities at Heidelberg University, which he supervised and organized on an ongoing basis.

From 2001 to 2007 Halfwassen was a member of the Senate Committee for Research Matters at Heidelberg University. Since 2007 he has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Karl Jaspers Foundation in Basel. In the same year he was elected Senior Fellow at the Collegium Budapest . From October 2009 to 2010 he was a fellow there. In 2012 he became head of the Karl Jaspers office at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences . Since March 2014 he was a Fellow of the Marsilius Kolleg at Heidelberg University and dealt with the philosophical redefinition of the relationship between matter, certainty and freedom.

Jens Halfwassen was co-editor of the series sources and studies on philosophy , de Gruyter Verlag, as well as the journal Philosophische Rundschau , Verlag Mohr Siebeck. At the same time he worked as a reviewer for the German Research Foundation , the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation , the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Union of the German Academies of Sciences, the Volkswagen Foundation , the DAAD and for the German National Academic Foundation , whose liaison lecturer he has been since 2002 was. Most recently, he worked on the commentary on a bilingual edition of the testimonies to Plato's “ Unwritten Teaching ”.

Memberships and honors

Publications (selection)

  • The ascent to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus (= Contributions to Antiquity, Volume 9). BG Teubner Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, 422 pages. 2nd edition, expanded to include a research report, KG Saur Verlag, Munich and Leipzig 2006, 440 pages (translation into English planned).
  • Speusipp and the infinity of the one. A new Speusipp testimony from Proklos and its meaning. In: Archive for the history of philosophy 74, 1992, pp. 43–73.
  • Mind and self-awareness. Studies on Plotinus and Numenios (= treatise of the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz, humanities and social sciences class, year 1994, No. 10). F. Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, 71 pages.
  • Monism and dualism in Plato's doctrine of principles . In: Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 2, 1997, pp. 1–21 (also published in English and Polish).
  • Hegel and Late Antique Neo-Platonism. Investigations on the metaphysics of the one and the nous in Hegel's speculative and historical interpretation (= Hegel studies. Supplement volume 40). Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1999, 512 pages. 2nd edition Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 2005.
  • The Demiurge: His position in the philosophy of Plato and its interpretation in ancient Platonism. In: Plato's 'Timaeus'. Contributions to its reception history. Edited by Ada B. Neschke-Hentschke (Bibliothèque philosophique de Louvain). Peters, Löwen and Leiden 2000, pp. 39-61.
  • Being as unlimited abundance. On the prehistory of the ontological proof of God in ancient Platonism. In: Journal for Philosophical Research 56, 2002, pp. 497-516.
  • Plotinus and Neoplatonism. Beck's series DENKER, CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2004, 199 pages (translation into English completed, planned into French).
  • The resilience of metaphysics. In: Philosophische Rundschau 57, 2010, pp. 97–124 (special issue: The future of philosophy).
  • Beyond being and non-being: how can one argue for transcendence? In: Evidence of God as a Challenge to Modern Reason. Edited by Thomas Buchheim , Friedrich Hermanni, Axel Hutter and Christoph Schwöbel (Collegium Metaphysicum Volume 4), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2012, pp. 85–98.
  • On the trail of the one. Studies on metaphysics and its history. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-16-154162-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Jens Halfwassen. Heidelberg University - Philosophical Seminar, accessed on February 19, 2020 .
  2. ↑ https://trauer.nzz.ch/trauerbeispiel/jens-halfwassen
personal data
SURNAME Halfwassen, Jens
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German university professor; Full Professor of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg
DATE OF BIRTH November 16, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Bergisch Gladbach
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 2020
Place of death Heidelberg