Rödl, Sebastian 1967- (Sebastian Roedl)

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Rödl, Sebastian 1967- (Sebastian Roedl)

PERSONAL:

Born August 26, 1967, in Mainz, Germany. Education: Holds a Ph.D. Attended the JWG University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and the Free University of Berlin.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Philosophical Seminar, University of Basel, 6-8 Mountain Needle, Rm. 12, Basel, Germany; fax: 06126727 69. E-mail—Sebastian.Roedl@unibas.ch; sroedl@pitt.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, philosopher, and educator. University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, assistant professor, 1999-2004; University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, associate professor, 2004-05, visiting professor, 2006—; University of Basel, Basel, Germany, professor of philosophy, 2005—. New School University, visiting professor, 2002; University of Chicago, visiting professor, 2004; University of Amiens, visiting professor, 2006.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Heisenberg Fellow, DFG.

WRITINGS:

Selbstbezug Und Normativitat, F. Schoningh (Paderborn, Germany), 1998.

Kategorien Des Zeitlichen: Eine Untersuchung Der Formen Des Endlichen Verstandes, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt am Main, Germany), 2005.

Self-Consciousness, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

German writer, philosopher, and educator Sebastian Rödl is a professor of philosophy at the University of Basel in Germany. His academic work focuses on topics related to the philosophy of mind, language, and action, as well as human thought and action, epistemology, and action theory, reported a biographer on the University of Basel Web site. He also studies the diverse philosophical works of Kant, Hegel, and Aristotle. An author of articles on philosophical subjects, Rödl has also written books in both German and English.

In Self-Consciousness, Rödl "offers a theory of self-consciousness which he justifies on original systematic grounds, while also explicitly placing it in the philosophical tradition opened by Kant and German Idealism" and by Marx, commented Bétrice Longuenesse in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. In this book, Rödl "holds the view that self-knowledge is not empirical; it is not knowledge from sensory affection, rather it is knowledge from spontaneity; its object and source are the subject's own activity," noted Kamuran Godelek in Metaphysical Online Reviews. Rödl defines self-consciousness as the "power to think of oneself as oneself," Longuenesse stated. This type of first-person reference and understanding of what is meant by "I" is achieved, according to Rödl, by "spontaneous knowledge" as opposed to "perceptual knowledge." Longuenesse noted: "Spontaneous knowledge is knowledge one has of an object just by being it, whereas perceptual knowledge is knowledge of an object one has by observing it." Thus, spontaneous knowledge of being a person, of being an "I," allows one to gain self-consciousness, the awareness of one's self. This same condition of spontaneous knowledge of self leads to a state in which "doing, knowing what to do, having in view the practical reasoning that leads to knowing what to do and thereby doing it, are one and the same process," Longuenesse observed.

Among Rödl's more daring suggestions is that "second person knowledge" held by a knowing, self-aware subject of another knowing, self-aware subject also amounts to spontaneous knowledge. This knowledge of the other is not gained by simple observation of this second person, but by knowing that the other self-aware life-form achieves self-awareness through a similar system of reason as ones own self. "Both are knowledge of one and the same order of reason, which is itself the ultimate cause of actions and beliefs. This is perhaps the most extraordinary thesis of the book," Longuenesse commented.

Rödl's "book is a valuable contribution to the current interdisciplinary discussions of self and self-knowledge as it covers broad concepts such as action and belief, freedom and reason, receptive knowledge, and second person," Godelek stated, concluding that Rödl "very skillfully shows that self-consciousness is the principle of their subject matter." Rödl "has mounted an impressive account of first-person knowledge and the conceptual context in which it belongs. He may also have mounted a pretty unimpeachable case for the indispensable role of this whole set of concepts in our objective life form," Longuenesse stated. She concluded that Self-Consciousness is "an impressive achievement."