- University of Groningen
Department of the History of Philosophy
Oude Boteringestraat 52
9712 GL Groningen
The Netherlands
Martin Lenz
Fernuniversität in Hagen, Institut für Philosophie, Faculty Member
- Medieval Theories of Signification, 17th- and 18th-century Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, Semantic Internalism, and 25 morePhilosophy Of Language, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Semantic Externalism, Metaethics, Mental Representation and Content, Normativity, Burthogge, Social Epistemology, Intentionality, Animal Cognition, Internalism/Externalism, Language and Social Interaction, Action Theory, Pragmatism, Animals in Philosophy, Concepts, Spinoza, Late Scholasticism, History of Philosophy, Teleosemantics, History of the Philosophy of Mind, Samuel von Pufendorf, Intersubjectivity, and Triangulationedit
- I am professor of theoretical philosophy at the FernUniversität in Hagen. My historical research is mainly on medieva... moreI am professor of theoretical philosophy at the FernUniversität in Hagen. My historical research is mainly on medieval and early modern philosophy. - Currently, I try to devote most of my time to finalizing a new book: Handling Ideas: Understanding, Expressing, and Applying Philosophical Thoughts.
Before joining the institute of philosophy Hagen in 2024, I studied in Bochum, Budapest and Hull (PhD in 2001 in Bochum) and spent my postdoctoral period in Cambridge, Tübingen and Berlin (Habilitation in 2009). From 2012 till 2024, I was professor and department chair in the history of philosophy.edit
Normativity has long been conceived as more properly pertaining to the domain of thought than to the domain of nature. This conception goes back to Kant and still figures prominently in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind and... more
Normativity has long been conceived as more properly pertaining to the domain of thought than to the domain of nature. This conception goes back to Kant and still figures prominently in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind and ethics. By offering a collection of new essays by leading scholars in early modern philosophy and specialists in contemporary philosophy, this volume goes beyond the point where nature and normativity came apart, and challenges the well-established opposition between these all too neatly separated realms. It examines how the mind’s embeddedness in nature can be conceived as a starting point for uncovering the links between naturally and conventionally determined standards governing an agent’s epistemic and moral engagement with the world. The original essays are grouped in two parts. The first part focuses on specific aspects of theories of perception, thought formation and judgment. It gestures towards an account of normativity that regards linguistic conventions and natural constraints as jointly setting the scene for the mind’s ability to conceptualise its experiences. The second part of the book asks what the norms of desirable epistemic and moral practices are. Key to this approach is an examination of human beings as parts of nature, who act as natural causes and are determined by their sensibilities and sentiments. Each part concludes with a chapter that integrates features of the historical debate into the contemporary context.
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"Was legt die Bedeutung sprachlicher Ausdrücke fest? Sind es die mentalen Zustände der Sprachbenutzer oder Faktoren außerhalb der Sprecher? Locke scheint von der simplen internalistischen These auszugehen, daß Wörter primär die Ideen im... more
"Was legt die Bedeutung sprachlicher Ausdrücke fest? Sind es die mentalen Zustände der Sprachbenutzer oder Faktoren außerhalb der Sprecher? Locke scheint von der simplen internalistischen These auszugehen, daß Wörter primär die Ideen im Geiste des Sprechers bezeichnen, und sich damit auf einen unhaltbaren Mentalismus zu verpflichten. Die vorliegende Studie möchte diesem verbreiteten Bild mit einer historisch und systematisch umfassenden Auseinandersetzung entgegentreten, die Lockes Konzeption letztlich als einen sozialen Externalismus ausweist, gemäß dem die Sprachgemeinschaft entscheidender Faktor für die Fixierung
sprachlicher Bedeutung ist. Dieser Ansatz wird in fünf Schritten
präsentiert: (1) Nach einer Exposition der Problemstellung in Lockes Essay wird (2) eine historische Analyse der inner- und außerscholastischen frühneuzeitlichen Diskussionskontexte unternommen, um zunächst Lockes Wende zur Sprache textnah zu rekonstruieren und (3) die ausführliche Erörterung der umstrittenen Ideen- und Urteilstheorie vorzubereiten.
Vor diesem Hintergrund wird (4) Lockes gescholtene "Hauptthese“ systematisch im Rahmen seiner Semantik und Abstraktionstheorie verortet sowie (5) in Konfrontation mit gegenwärtigen Positionen als Ingredienz eines sozialen Externalismus verteidigt."
sprachlicher Bedeutung ist. Dieser Ansatz wird in fünf Schritten
präsentiert: (1) Nach einer Exposition der Problemstellung in Lockes Essay wird (2) eine historische Analyse der inner- und außerscholastischen frühneuzeitlichen Diskussionskontexte unternommen, um zunächst Lockes Wende zur Sprache textnah zu rekonstruieren und (3) die ausführliche Erörterung der umstrittenen Ideen- und Urteilstheorie vorzubereiten.
Vor diesem Hintergrund wird (4) Lockes gescholtene "Hauptthese“ systematisch im Rahmen seiner Semantik und Abstraktionstheorie verortet sowie (5) in Konfrontation mit gegenwärtigen Positionen als Ingredienz eines sozialen Externalismus verteidigt."
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Introductions & Reply to Comments
The Condemnation of 1277 is one of the most salient events in arguing about the nature and boundaries of philosophy. My aim is not to add another estimation of the Condemnation as a clash of faith and reason, but rather to consider the... more
The Condemnation of 1277 is one of the most salient events in arguing about the nature and boundaries of philosophy. My aim is not to add another estimation of the Condemnation as a clash of faith and reason, but rather to consider the concept of philosophy at work. To sidestep deciding on a particular notion of philosophy in advance, I will focus on the kind of disagreement displayed in the document of the Condemnation. With a side-glance to contemporary argumentation theory, I shall argue that the disagreement we encounter fulfils crucial criteria of what is known today as deep disagreement. We will see that we are in fact dealing not with one concept of philosophy but two different kinds of philosophy. At the same time, it will turn out that the reception has mainly focused on one kind of philosophy only, namely the rationalist approach attacked in the Condemnation.
[To appear in the Cambridge Lexicon to Spinoza, ed. by Karolina Hübner and Justin Steinberg]
To appear in the Cambridge Lexicon to Spinoza, ed. by Karolina Hübner and Justin Steinberg
To appear in the Cambridge Lexicon to Spinoza, ed. by Karolina Hübner and Justin Steinberg
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The practice and the history of philosophy crucially involve understanding others and ourselves. Understanding can be seen as a threefold relation between a (1) subject and an (2) object that is (3) interpreted as something. When... more
The practice and the history of philosophy crucially involve understanding others and ourselves. Understanding can be seen as a threefold relation between a (1) subject and an (2) object that is (3) interpreted as something. When historians of philosophy chide others for being anachronistic, they mostly do so because they think that the objects of historical inquiry get distorted by projecting current concepts onto these objects. If I assume, for instance, that Descartes was responding to Wittgenstein's concerns, this will be called out accordingly. However, in focusing on the purity of the object, historians tend to overlook the anachronisms in the subject, that is: in themselves. They commonly try to bracket their own position or to treat it as an idealised consensual " current understanding " of the object. This bracketing or idealisation of one's own position is what is usually taken as a means to prevent anachronism. If I don't bring in my preconceptions or our current understanding, I can be true to the text at hand, or so it is argued. But this idealised present tense is an illusion, and trying to bracket it creates even more illusions. In this paper, I will zoom in on the role of subject and discuss how interaction with other subjects dominates our interpretations. In focusing on interacting subjects, I shall argue that we are bound to be both synchronically and diachronically anachronistic. Being shaped by different backgrounds and working for diverse imagined futures, we are often not only out of touch with the present, but also with one another. Compared to your colleagues, you might have a different take on what the mind is. Likewise, your Descartes might be different from mine, and perhaps your Des-cartes already had an argument with Wittgenstein. Maybe you don't even have an opinion about the current view on your topic of study. But although you simply wish to defer to the canon, you only find disagreement. In the light of such anachronisms, the attempt to bracket one's own views obscures the process of understanding, and it takes the philosophy out of history. Rather than shunning our views, we should make them explicit and embrace anachronism as an unavoidable aspect of understanding.
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Spinoza's notion of freedom confronts us with a paradoxical idea: on the one hand, freedom requires us to act with rational insight into the causally determined order of the natural world. On the other hand, grasping this order seems to... more
Spinoza's notion of freedom confronts us with a paradoxical idea: on the one hand, freedom requires us to act with rational insight into the causally determined order of the natural world. On the other hand, grasping this order seems to leave us with the insight that there is nothing that could be justly termed a human person. As I see it, the key to resolving this tension is to be sought within a special reading of Spinoza's theory of the striving for self-preservation (conatus): I shall argue that Spinoza's conatus doctrine entails an appropriation thesis: according to Spinoza's account, we ought to re-describe our personal histories in terms of a gradual appropriation of the natural order and take supposedly external causes as our own reasons for action. The present paper tries to set out this solution and its difficulties against the background of the contemporary debate on freedom.
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Although we commonly take our thoughts to be about external things that exist independently of ourselves, Spinoza’s notion of intentionality suggests that our ideas are primarily about our own bodies. What are we to make of this somewhat... more
Although we commonly take our thoughts to be about external things that exist independently of ourselves, Spinoza’s notion of intentionality suggests that our ideas are primarily about our own bodies. What are we to make of this somewhat revisionary tenet? Do our thoughts never reach out to the things themselves? This paper attempts to reconstruct Spinoza’s notion of intentionality in two steps. Firstly, I will place his position in the larger context of his metaphysical tenets and discuss how his theory of ideas provides an explanation of inten-tional content. Secondly, I will address the question of how Spinoza accounts for what we customarily take to be thoughts about external things as such. I shall argue that, for Spinoza, intentional content always involves propositional attitudes which are ultimately governed by our striving for self-preservation (conatus). In accentuating the links between his theory of propositional attitudes and his conatus principle, I hope to show how he challenges the traditional view of intentionality as grasping objects in a mind-independent world in favour of the thesis that we represent things as they are beneficial to us.
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What determines the meaning of linguistic expressions: the mental states of language users or external factors? John Locke is still taken to hold the simple thesis that words primarily signify the ideas in the mind of the speaker and thus... more
What determines the meaning of linguistic expressions: the mental states of language users or external factors? John Locke is still taken to hold the simple thesis that words primarily signify the ideas in the mind of the speaker and thus to commit himself to an untenable mentalism. The present paper challenges this widespread view and sketches an argument to the effect that Locke should be seen as defending a kind of social externalism, since, for Locke, it is primarily the speech community that plays the essential role in determining meaning.
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"This interview deals with the major themes in the work of Ruth Millikan. Her most fundamental idea is that the intentionality of inner and outer representations can be understood in analogy to biological functions. Another innovative... more
"This interview deals with the major themes in the work of Ruth Millikan. Her most fundamental idea is that the intentionality of inner and outer representations can be understood in analogy to biological functions. Another innovative feature is the view that thought and language stand parallel to each other. Thirdly, the basic ideas concerning the ontology and the epistemology of concepts are explained. Millikan aims at clarifying her position by contrasting it with Dretske, Fodor, Sellars, and Brandom. Finally, the interview addresses topics that pose problems for her account (e. g. swampman, externalism) as well as questions she does not treat in her work (e. g. fictional discourse and consciousness).
Read More: http://www.oldenbourg-link.com/doi/abs/10.1524/dzph.2010.0074"
Read More: http://www.oldenbourg-link.com/doi/abs/10.1524/dzph.2010.0074"
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This podcast is the sixth installment of my series Philosophical Chats. In this episode, I have a conversation with Emma Young who is a research master student in philosophy at Groningen University. We focus on the issue of (political)... more
This podcast is the sixth installment of my series Philosophical Chats. In this episode, I have a conversation with Emma Young who is a research master student in philosophy at Groningen University. We focus on the issue of (political) polarisation. While it seems common to portray public discourse as being polarised, we rarely find the assumption itself questioned or investigated as such. Here is the LINK: https://handlingideas.blog/2021/06/07/are-we-really-polarised-a-conversation-with-emma-young-podcast/
Here is a rough outline of topics:
Introduction 0:00
Is polarisation empirically discovered or an assumption structuring our perception? 5:58
Does the assumption of polarisation create a self-fulfilling prophecy? 9:30
First summary. And does polarisation obscure problems? 12:10
Division over corona policies as an example 15:50
How polarisation promotes the illusion of a (neutral) centre 23:00
How this illusion figures in history (of philosophy) 33:03
Interests in or beneficiaries of polarisation 45:02
Is polarisation irrational? 48:26
Does philosophy fail in overcoming polarisation? 52:28
How do we build solidarity? 1:07:04
Here is a rough outline of topics:
Introduction 0:00
Is polarisation empirically discovered or an assumption structuring our perception? 5:58
Does the assumption of polarisation create a self-fulfilling prophecy? 9:30
First summary. And does polarisation obscure problems? 12:10
Division over corona policies as an example 15:50
How polarisation promotes the illusion of a (neutral) centre 23:00
How this illusion figures in history (of philosophy) 33:03
Interests in or beneficiaries of polarisation 45:02
Is polarisation irrational? 48:26
Does philosophy fail in overcoming polarisation? 52:28
How do we build solidarity? 1:07:04
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Blog post in my new blog "Handling Ideas" on (writing) philosophy
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Introduction and laudatio start at 9:30.
Lecture starts at 20:50.
Lecture starts at 20:50.
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Video recording of my talk, given at the CELFIS, University of Bucharest, 13 April 2016
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blog post for "Medieval Logic & Semantics "
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First draft of part I of the introduction to my book "Socialising Minds". Please do not quote without permission.