Project Members
Prof. Dr. Jens Harbecke
Team leader is Professor Jens Harbecke, philosopher of science with a special focus on neurosciences and economics, who has contributed substantial research on the so-called ‘mechanistic’ or ‘constitutive explanations’ approach in the philosophy of science that we deploy in our project.
Contact Information
- Department of Management and Economics
- Department of Psychology
- Professorship for Theoretical Philosophy and Philosophy of the Social Sciences Witten/Herdecke University
- Alfred-Herrhausen-Straße 5058448 Witten
- Office: 1.221
- Phone:
- +49 2302 / 926-511
- Fax:
- +49 2302 / 926-516
- E-Mail:
- jens.harbecke@uni-wh.de
- Web:
- www.jensharbecke.com
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
- Since October 2015:
- Full Professur for Theoretical Philosophy, Department of Economics and Department of Psychology. Witten/Herdecke University.
- October 2011 - September 2015:
- Juniorprofessor for Philosophy of Science and Methodology of Economics, Witten/Herdecke University.
- October 2013 - March 2014:
- Visiting Scholar at the Department of Philosophy and the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program of Washington University St. Louis, USA.
- April - September 2011:
- Visiting Scholar at the Cognitive Science Department and the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation (today Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences) of the Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel.
- July 2008 - September 2010:
- Assistant Professor (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at the chair for Economics and Philosophy (Prof. Chrysostomos Mantzavinos), Department of Economics of Witten/Herdecke University.
- August 2009 - March 2010:
- Minerva Fellow at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv, Israel.
- October 2007 - June 2008:
- Assistant Professor (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
- October 2004 - September 2007:
- PhD in Philosophy, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Supervisor: Prof. Michael Esfeld (Lausanne, CH); Co-Supervisors: Prof. David Papineau (London, UK), Prof. Albert Newen (Bochum, Germany). Thesis title: ‘Mental Causation – Investigating the mind’s powers in a natural world’.
- September - December 2006:
- Visiting Student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (MA), USA. Faculty Supervisor: Stephen Yablo (Department of Linguistics and Philosophy).
- October 2005:
- Master of Arts (Staatsexamen) in Music, State Academy of Music Cologne, Germany.
- October 2004:
- Master of Arts (Staatsexamen) in Philosophy, University of Cologne, Germany.
- September 2003:
- Master of Arts (MA) in Philosophy, King’s College London, UK.
FUNDING
- February – April 2018:
- Senior Research Fellow at the Sidney M. Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science Technology and Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
- January 2016 - December 2018:
- Project Coordinator of the Research Project 'The Integration of Cross-Disciplinary Research in Neuroscience and Social Science - a Methodological Study on Economic Policies and the Neurosciences of Agency', in cooperation with Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, Martina Piefke, Matthias Kettner (Witten/Herdecke, Germany), Mareike Kühne (Erfurt, Germany), Jaakko Kuorikoski, Samuli Pöyhönen, Teemu Toppinnen (Helsinki, Finland), Bernard Feltz, Markus Eronen, Olivier Sartenaer, Marcus Missal (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium); funded by the European Commission within the NEURON Initiative; Call: 'European Research Projects on Ethical, Legal, and Social Aspects of Neuroscience'.
- October 2014 - September 2017:
- Grant by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (in cooperation with Vera Hoffmann-Kolss, Köln, and Oron Shagrir, Jerusalem); project: ''Causation and Computation in Cognitive Neuroscience'
- October 2013 - March 2014:
- DFG-Postdoc-Fellowship (German Science Foundation) for Research Project 'The properties of mechanistic constitution' at Washington University St. Louis. Host: Prof. Carl Craver
- 2011:
- DAAD-Postdoc-Fellowship for a research project at the Hebrew University Jerusalem.
- 2010 - 2011:
- Fellowship of the Buber Society of Fellows, Jerusalem (elected but not taken up).
- 2009 - 2010:
- Minerva Fellowship (Minerva Foundation, Munich Germany) for a research visit in Tel Aviv; Project: ‘Natural kinds in the special and the physical sciences’.
- 2004 - 2007:
- Swiss National Fund (FNS); Research Project ‘Mental Causation and Reductionism’; grant no: 10011-105218/1.
Relevant Publications
- Book: Harbecke, J. (2008). Mental Causation – Investigating the Mind’s Powers in a Natural World. Frankfurt (Main): Ontos.
- Harbecke J. (2018) Constitutive Inference and the Problem of a Complete Variation of Factors. In: Christian A., Hommen D., Retzlaff N., Schurz G. (eds) Philosophy of Science. European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 9. Springer, Cham: 205-221
- Harbecke, J (2016) “Is Mechanistic Constitution a Version of Material Constitution?”, in Kenneth Aizawa and Carl Gillett (eds.), Scientific Composition and Metaphysical Ground (pp. 91-121). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- Harbecke, J. (2015). The Regularity Theory of Mechanistic Constitution and a Methodology for Constitutive Inference. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 54: 10-19.
- Harbecke, J. (2015). Regularity Constitution and the Location of Mechanistic Levels. Foundations of Science 20(3): 323-338. DOI: 10.1007/s10699-014-9371-1
- Harbecke, J. (2014). Counterfactual Causation and Mental Causation. Philosophia 42(2): 363-385. DOI: 10.1007/s11406-013-9496-4
- Harbecke, J. (2014). The Role of Supervenience and Constitution in Neuroscientific Research. Synthese 191(5):725-743. DOI: 10.1007/s11229-013-0308-y
- Harbecke, J. (2013). On the Distinction Between Law Schemata and Causal Laws. Acta Analytica 28(4): 423-434.
- Harbecke, J. and H. Atmanspacher (2012). Horizontal and Vertical Determination of Mental and Neural States. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 32(3): 161-179.
- Harbecke, J. (2010). Mechanistic Constitution in Neurobiological Explanations. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 24(3): 267-285.
- Harbecke, J. (2010). The Problem of Mental Causation Formalized, Mind and Matter 8(1): 63-91.
