Wolfgang Spohn

Wolfgang Konrad Spohn (born March 20, 1950 in Tübingen ) is a German philosopher . Until 2018 he was Professor of Philosophy and Philosophy of Science at the University of Konstanz .

biography

Wolfgang Spohn studied philosophy, logic & philosophy of science and mathematics at the University of Munich . He obtained his master's degree there in 1973 and his doctorate in 1976 with a dissertation on the subject of the fundamentals of decision theory . During his time as a research assistant in Munich , he acquired the license to teach philosophy and logic & philosophy of science with the text A Theory of Causality. He held professorships at the University of Regensburg (1986–1991) and the University of Bielefeld (1991–1996) and was professor at the University of Konstanz from 1996 to 2018. He has been a Senior Professor at the University of Tübingen since 2019 .

Spohn is the editor of the journal Wissens and was its managing editor from 1988 to 2001. He is a founding member of the Society for Analytical Philosophy and served it as Vice President from 2006 to 2012. Spohn was a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (1985/86) and visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine (1988). He has been a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 2002 and of the Academia Europaea since 2015 . In 2012 he received the Lakatos Prize from the London School of Economics for his book The Laws of Belief. Ranking Theory and its Philosophical Applications as the first outside of Anglo-Saxon philosophy. In 2015 he was awarded the Frege Prize of the Society for Analytical Philosophy for outstanding achievements by a German-speaking philosopher in the field of analytical philosophy.

Spohn is the youngest brother of the historical sociologist Willfried Spohn and the mathematical physicist Herbert Spohn .

research

Spohn is best known for his contributions to formal epistemology , in particular for the extensive development of his theory of persuasion dynamics, the so-called rank theory, since 1982. It is an alternative to probability theory with a similar philosophical meaning as formal theory of persuasion dynamics. Spohn's research also concerns the theory of science, the theory of causality , metaphysics and ontology , the philosophy of language and spirit , in particular two-dimensional semantics , philosophical logics , and the theory of practical rationality , especially decision and game theory (cf. Collection of essays Causation, Coherence, and Concepts ). His dissertation Fundamentals of Decision Theory and his essay Stochastic Independence, Causal Independence, and Shieldability pioneered the theory of Bayesian networks and their causal interpretation. His essay How to Make Sense of Game Theory is the forerunner of epistemic game theory.

Publications

Basics of decision theory. Scriptor-Verlag, Kronberg 1978, ISBN 3-589-20609-8 ( PDF )
Stochastic Independence, Causal Independence, and Shieldability. In: Journal of Philosophical Logic. Volume 9, 1980, pp. 73-99
with Wolfgang Stegmüller & Wolfgang Balzer (eds.): Philosophy of Economics. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 1982, ISBN 3-540-11927-2
A theory of causality. Habilitation thesis. Munich 1983 ( PDF )
(Ed.): Knowledge Orientated: A Centennial Volume for Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach . Kluwer, Dordrecht 1991, ISBN 0-7923-1408-5
with Bas C. van Fraassen & Brian Skyrms (eds.): Existence and Explanation: Essays presented in Honor of Karel Lambert. Springer Netherlands, 1991, ISBN 0-7923-1252-X
The philosophy and the sciences. UVK, Konstanz 1999, ISBN 3-87940-646-4
with Julian Nida-Rümelin (Ed.): Practical Rationality, Rules, and Structure. Kluwer, Dordrecht 2000, ISBN 0-7923-6326-4
with Marion Ledwig & Michael Esfeld (eds.): Current Issues in Causation. Mentis, Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-89785-139-3
with Peter Schroeder-Heister & Erik J. Olsson (eds.): Logic in philosophy. Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-66-1
Causation, Coherence, and Concepts. A Collection of Essays. Springer, Dordrecht 2008, ISBN 978-1-4020-5474-7
The Laws of Belief. Ranking Theory and its Philosophical Applications. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-969750-2

Web links

Spohn's homepage at the University of Konstanz

Footnotes

↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Spohn (with picture and CV) at the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina , accessed on July 22, 2016.
^ Frege Prize 2015 for Wolfgang Spohn ( Memento from September 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), press release from the University of Konstanz from April 25, 2014
↑ How to Make Sense of Game Theory. In: W. Stegmüller, W. Balzer & W. Spohn (Eds.): Philosophy of Economics. Springer, 1982, pp. 239-270; reprinted in: Yanis Varoufakis & Anthony Housego (eds.): Game Theory: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences. Vol. IV. Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0-415-22240-0 , pp. 213-241.

personal data
SURNAME	Spohn, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Spohn, Wolfgang Konrad (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German philosopher and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH	March 20, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH	Tubingen , Germany

[1] Member entry by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Spohn (with picture and CV) at the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina , accessed on July 22, 2016.

[2] Frege Prize 2015 for Wolfgang Spohn ( Memento from September 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), press release from the University of Konstanz from April 25, 2014

[3] How to Make Sense of Game Theory. In: W. Stegmüller, W. Balzer & W. Spohn (Eds.): Philosophy of Economics. Springer, 1982, pp. 239-270; reprinted in: Yanis Varoufakis & Anthony Housego (eds.): Game Theory: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences. Vol. IV. Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0-415-22240-0 , pp. 213-241.