Herman Philipse (born 13 May 1951) is a Dutch professor of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. Philipse taught at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

from 1986 until 2003 where he obtained his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in 1983.

Work

Philipse has written many philosophical works in Dutch, including books on

Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in ...

's early philosophy of

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

, the role of certainty in Descartes' moral theory, and a widely read '' Atheist Manifesto'' (1995, 2004). In English, he has written over a dozen articles in philosophical journals, as well as a detailed assessment of

Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art, and language. In April ...

, ''Heidegger's Philosophy of Being: A Critical Interpretation''. He has also written many commentaries for Dutch newspapers (most frequently as a regular contributor to the

NRC Handelsblad ''NRC'', previously called ' (), is a daily morning newspaper published in the Netherlands by Mediahuis NRC. It is widely regarded as a newspaper of record in the country. History was first published on 1 October 1970 after a merger of the Amst ...

) and current events television programs, defending

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...

and advocating

cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's Dominant culture, majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this ...

for non-European immigrants in the Netherlands. In his philosophical work, Philipse defends a non-

reductionist Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical posit ...

naturalism, akin to that of

Gilbert Ryle Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase " ghost in the machine". Some of Ryle's ideas in philosophy of mind have been ca ...

Peter Strawson Sir Peter Frederick Strawson (; 23 November 1919 – 13 February 2006) was an English philosopher who spent most of his career at the University of Oxford. He was the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College, O ...

, and P.M.S. Hacker. While highly critical of the transcendental idealist tradition of

Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, et ...

and

for its incoherent notion of conceptual schemes, Philipse argues that scientistic philosophies that attempt to reduce consciousness to purely physical descriptions (such as those of

Quine Quine may refer to: * Quine (computing), a program that produces its source code as output * Quine's paradox, in logic * Quine (surname), people with the surname ** Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000), American philosopher and logician See al ...

and Churchland) fall victim to a similar inconsistency: their theories logically depend on the concepts of ordinary human life they would abolish. More generally, Philipse firmly defends the values of the

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

: support for the

natural science Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

s and

political liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mut ...

. In 2012, he published '' God in the Age of Science. A Critique of Religious Reason.'' During 2014-2019, Philipse presided a research programme on “Evolutionary Ethics: The (Meta-)Ethical Implications of Evolutionary Theory”, financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO, Dutch: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek).

Selected bibliography

Works by Herman Philipse include: * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

*
List of recent publications at Utrecht University

Philipse's faculty page at Utrecht University

YouTube video ''Is There a God? Herman Philipse & Richard Swinburne''. An academic debate of Veritas Forum Amsterdam: Religious Belief in an Age of Science
14 November 2016 Duration: 1:52:22. Consulted on 10 August 2021. {{DEFAULTSORT:Philipse, Herman 1951 births Living people 20th-century Dutch philosophers 21st-century Dutch philosophers Dutch atheism activists Dutch republicans Dutch skeptics Atheist philosophers Writers from The Hague Phenomenologists Academic staff of Utrecht University Dutch atheists Academic staff of Leiden University

Work

Selected bibliography

See also

References

External links