2026
- Summer School on Spinoza: An Underdog of Philosophy (2026-07-10)
- Lesekompetenz als schwindende Situiertheit? (Video) (2026-07-06)
- „Das ist aus dem Zusammenhang gerissen!“ – Eine verfehlte Verteidigung? (2026-06-28)
- Reading Competence as a Disappearing Form of Situatedness? (2026-06-22)
- Cross purposes in public discourse (audio blog) (2026-06-17)
- Confronted … (2026-06-16)
- Texts as tools. But what for? (2026-06-12)
- Stupid readers? The significance of cooperation in online communication (2026-06-01)
- Collegium Spinozanum V: An international summer school on Spinoza and Spinozisms (2026-05-27)
- Vulnerability and lacking literacy in (academic) online communication (2026-05-25)
- Doing philosophy … (2026-05-03)
- How to start working systematically. From exploring to writing (2026-04-12)
- Misguided expectations in reading: texts as arguments (2026-03-29)
- Our project on Reading as a Social Practice has its own website: (2026-03-10)
- Educational aspirations in the digital age (2026-03-07)
- What can we really learn from LLMs? Politeness, I guess (2026-02-19)
- Workshop: Reading as a Social Practice (2026-02-13)
- How to search effectively for literature when doing philosophical research (2026-01-19)
- Happy New Year! Deadline approaching. So please send your applications our way: (2026-01-11)
2025
- Antrittsvorlesung: Lesen als soziale Praxis (Video) (2025-12-11)
- CfP: Why and How Do We Study Early Modern Philosophy Today? (Special Issue) (2025-12-09)
- Reading as a Social Practice: On Objectivism in Reading Texts (2025-12-02)
- Mentors instead of machines: Why implicit (musical) knowledge cannot be algorithmized (guest post by Andreas Wildenhain) (2025-11-11)
- Why does hardly anyone in academic philosophy care about reading? (2025-11-01)
- Large Language Models and classism. The ethics of reading (3) (2025-10-26)
- CfA: Collegium Spinozanum V. An international summer school on Spinoza and Spinozisms (2025-10-14)
- “The aims are discussed far too rarely” – An interview about the latest conference of the European Society for Early Modern Philosophy (2025-10-13)
- Неисправимость ChatGPT и конец преподавания* (2025-10-12)
- CfP: Reading as a Social Practice. An Interdisciplinary Workshop (2025-10-05)
- ESEMP Conference: Why and How Do We Study Early Modern Philosophy Today? (2025-09-11)
- The incorrigibility of ChatGPT and the end of teaching (2025-08-16)
- What does it say? The supposed objectivity of written texts (2025-08-01)
- Pointing to Oneself. Simone Weil and the problem of what it could mean to write a philosophical diary (Guest post by Michael Hampe) (2025-07-18)
- Stop grading student essays and start reading them instead. The ethics of reading (2) (2025-07-03)
- Wie schreibt man ein Exposé für eine philosophische Arbeit? (2025-06-15)
- Reading as a Social Practice. Sketching a long-term project (from March 2025 onwards) (2025-06-03)
- Witnessing reactions to ideas. A response to Michael Hampe’s autobiographical philosophy (2025-05-28)
- Thou shalt not read sloppily on your phone! The ethics of reading (1) (2025-05-14)
- Books, powerpoints, tabloids, and tote bags. What do we care about in reading? (2025-04-28)
- Are we talking literacy or buffalo wings? Notes on “The average college student today”. Guest post by Irmtraud Hnilica (2025-04-06)
- Leseszenen (3): Wortsalat – oder mein erster Roman nach Jahren (2025-04-05)
- The average professorial laments – and remarks on reading. A reply to Steven Hales (2025-03-30)
- Leseszenen (2): The Cat in the Hat und die Vorlesevorbilder (2025-03-27)
- Leseszenen (1. Versuch): Wie ich zum ersten Mal „Philosophie“ las (2025-03-19)
- On autosociobiography and Tracey Thorn as a philosopher (2025-03-12)
- Does reading involve texts? Reading as a reciprocal process between readers (2025-02-17)
- Deadline approaching: Please send your abstract by 15 January 2025! (2025-01-08)
2024
- Dauerstellen? Department? Tenure-Track? Podiumsdiskussion zur Fakultätsstruktur (Video) (2024-12-20)
- A rough but workable guide to plan an essay (2024-12-15)
- Paraphrases as validations. Or how using your own words (tacitly) carries interpretations (2024-12-11)
- ESEMP CfA: Why and How Do We Study Early Modern Philosophy Today? (2024-11-17)
- Leitfaden für das Schreiben philosophischer Arbeiten (2024-11-05)
- Lenz über Lenz. Ein Willkommensvideo für Hagener Studierende (2024-10-02)
- How to read (part thirteen): Imagining the author’s desk (2024-09-09)
- “My point is probably stupid …” Or why doing philosophy requires vulnerability (2024-08-21)
- (Academic) migration. Rambling about transformative experience (2024-07-30)
- Even afscheid nemen. An interview with Martin Lenz (2024-06-09)
- “Die Philosophie hat immer alles gerahmt” (Interview mit Martin Lenz) (2024-05-27)
- A letter to students (2024-05-15)
- Teaching philosophy through images and other non-linguistic media (2024-05-05)
- How do you read what I wrote? A meditation on private language and aspirations in communication (2024-03-29)
- What’s wrong with comparisons in philosophy papers? (2024-03-08)
- How to read (part twelve). Can I read philosophy like I read a novel? (2024-02-17)
- Schweigen. Marcel Reifs Rede zum Holocaust-Gedenken am 31. Januar 2024 (2024-02-11)
- Are rationalists right-wingers? A note on whether this question makes sense and on cool deep disagreements (2024-01-29)
2023
- A Special Issue on Intersubjective Readings of Spinoza (2023-12-19)
- A Symposium on “Socializing Minds” (2023-11-28)
- How to read (part eleven): With texts against interpretations (2023-11-27)
- Reviving the commentary as a philosophical genre (2023-11-08)
- Reason and evidence as disguised authorities in philosophy (2023-10-29)
- Invisible disability and ableism on the rise through (Long) COVID (2023-09-08)
- Can the penny drop too late? Unrecognised slowness in (teaching) philosophy (2023-09-01)
- Читал ли Декарт Витгенштейна?Диалогический подход к чтению (2023-08-28)
- Did Descartes read Wittgenstein? Video of my inaugural lecture (from 2017) (2023-08-20)
- Writing is decision-making. Introducing reflective tasks in examination (in the light of ChatGPT) (2023-08-18)
- Enthusiasm and the Myth of the Given. A response to Tom Poljanšek (2023-08-14)
- Love as imitation. A note on the role of love in academic teaching and learning (2023-08-04)
- Why should we encourage the study of canonical authors? Some reflections on the recent Collegium Spinozanum (2023-07-10)
- How to read (part ten): What if authors are not consistent? (2023-05-21)
- Can we think what someone else thinks? Four letters on Gadamer by Ismar Jugo (guest post) (2023-04-25)
- Worlds, norms, and empathy. A conversation with Tom Poljanšek (podcast) (2023-03-22)
- How can you ask and structure questions? (2023-03-09)
- How to read (part nine). Being understood. A brief flashback of having my new book discussed (2023-02-10)
- (Сo)cтояние одиночества. Как я остаюсь солипсистом (и вы, вероятно, тоже) (2023-01-17)
2022
- How to read (part eight). Reading some Davidson (podcast) (2022-12-21)
- Как читать (часть третья). Чтение для академического письма (2022-12-16)
- How to read (part seven). A conversation with Daniel-Pascal Zorn about reading philosophy and twitter (podcast) (2022-12-10)
- Précis of “Socializing Minds. Intersubjectivity in Early Modern Philosophy” (2022-12-05)
- How to read (part six). What is the greatest problem in reading philosophy? (2022-12-03)
- Как читать (часть четвертая). Принятие путаницы как правила и понимания как исключение из правил (2022-12-02)
- How to read (part five). Learning to read with Jay Rosenberg (2022-11-30)
- How to read (part four). Accepting confusion as the rule and understanding as the exception (2022-11-22)
- How to read (part three). Reading for academic writing (2022-11-20)
- Как читать. (Некоторые) основы. Первая часть (2022-11-17)
- How to read (part two). On making and searching for mistakes (2022-11-12)
- How to read. Some basics (part one) (2022-11-07)
- Состязательная культура в философии не служит истине (2022-11-04)
- CfA: Symposium on “Socializing Minds: Intersubjectivity in Early Modern Philosophy” (2022-10-26)
- Reflections on the Philosophy Bachelor. A guest post by Stijn Geugien (2022-09-05)
- Diversity in Philosophy. Martin Lenz in conversation with Catherine Newmark (podcast) (2022-08-07)
- Education versus employability. A reply to Daniel James Țurcaș and others (2022-07-19)
- Between coming out and self-praise? The meritocratic ring of first-generation stories (2022-07-15)
- The relationship between music and language. A guest vlog post by Bente Oost (2022-07-07)
- Just a joke? A pseudonymous guest post on “we too” by Anickodnes (2022-07-01)
- #FirstGenPhilosophers (2022-06-07)
- A review of ‘Handling Ideas’. Guest post by Timon Beeftink (2022-05-18)
- On hope and feelings at war (2022-03-28)
- Petition: Stop the import of gas and oil from Russia! (2022-03-08)
- A photo from my history book (2022-02-28)
- On anxiety, society, and tacit magical thinking. A conversation with Marise Timmenga (podcast) (2022-01-31)
- Why don’t we mine contemporary philosophy for tools to do history? (2022-01-10)
2021
- Don’t read! Or how to start writing (2021-12-16)
- Oh no, not that! (2021-12-15)
- Waiting for Autism. A guest post by Paul Lodge (2021-11-07)
- Philosophy, language, and my long road to tenure (podcast) (2021-11-02)
- Curing my anxiety disorder and the pitfalls of rationalism (2021-10-27)
- A brief note on the ethics of the principle of charity (2021-09-29)
- De boekenkast van … Martin Lenz. An interview with Ismar Jugo from our student magazine (2021-08-27)
- Making sense and going insane. A conversation with Anik Waldow (podcast) (2021-07-29)
- You don’t ever write about things; you write about what people say (2021-07-14)
- Mind the GAP. On the Essay Award Question 2021 of the German Society for Analytic Philosophy (2021-07-08)
- Are we really polarised? A conversation with Emma Young (podcast) (2021-06-07)
- Repressed ideas? For an embedded history of philosophy (2021-05-17)
- Writing philosophy and avoiding the delete button. A brief conversation about blogging with Anna Tropia (video) (2021-05-08)
- On shame and love in (academic) reading and writing (2021-04-29)
- “Songs make you feel thoughts.” Music as a path to feeling philosophy (2021-04-18)
- On trying to cure my anxiety disorder (2021-03-31)
- Is ADHD a disorder? Second thoughts about our conversation on ADHD and decision paralysis (2021-03-25)
- Meditation in philosophy. A conversation with Andrea Sangiacomo (podcast) (2021-03-11)
- ADHD, struggling with decisions, and the myth of autonomy in academia. A conversation about mental health with Jef Delvaux (podcast) (2021-03-07)
- What kind of thing is the canon? (2021-03-05)
- On being a first-gen student, hierarchies and harassment. A conversation about meritocratic ideology with Nora Migdad (podcast) (2021-02-11)
- The Stoic Foundations of Analytic Philosophy. On Susanne Bobzien’s groundbreaking discovery in Frege and Prantl (2021-02-05)
- History is about you. On teaching outdated philosophy (2021-01-31)
- The canon as a status symbol? White men, cancel culture, and the functions of history of philosophy (2021-01-15)
2020
- Empiricism and rationalism as political ideas? (2020-12-26)
- Music for chameleons or humans during pandemics (2020-12-05)
- “Our colleagues … will seize upon public cases of misconduct as an opportunity …” A note on a retraction notice (2020-12-01)
- Intellectual regrets. How do I figure out what to think? (Part II) (2020-11-10)
- Solitude standing. How I remain a solipsist (and you probably, too) (2020-10-24)
- Is criticism of mismanagement and misconduct taken as snitching? How academia maintains the status quo (2020-10-10)
- Being an actor in times of corona. Kai Ivo Baulitz in conversation with Martin Lenz (video) (2020-09-20)
- Teaching online versus online teaching (2020-08-31)
- Are philosophical classics too difficult for students? (2020-08-19)
- Why we shouldn’t study what we love (2020-08-14)
- Must we claim what we say? A quick way of revising essays (2020-08-06)
- On self-censorship (2020-07-27)
- Why using quotation marks doesn’t cancel racism or sexism. With a brief response to Agnes Callard (2020-07-21)
- “We don’t need no …” On linguistic inequality (2020-07-15)
- You don’t get what you deserve. Part II: diversity versus meritocracy? (2020-06-28)
- Fit. A Note on Aristotle’s Presence in Academia (2020-06-18)
- On being a first-generation student (2020-06-13)
- You don’t get what you deserve. Part I: Meritocracy in education vs employment relations (2020-06-11)
- Notes on the ethics of contagion. A reply to Martin Lenz (2020-06-08)
- The impotence of hierarchy (2020-05-22)
- What’s it like to be (with) a superspreader? A note on the ethics of contagion (2020-05-12)
- Cavendish’s Triumvirate and the Writing Process (2020-04-28)
- Precarity and Privilege. And why you should join a union, today (2020-04-25)
- Will the future be like the past? Making sense of experiences in and of the corona crisis (2020-04-07)
- On (dis)orientation and the epistemology of personal experience. A response to Martin Lenz (2020-03-29)
- Nothing to lose? Other voices in the corona crisis (2020-03-27)
- Where are we now? In search of a conversation, beyond graphs and statistics (2020-03-25)
- Governmental gaslighting? Communication in the corona crisis (2020-03-19)
- Saying what is unsayable. Or in what sense there is a private language (2020-03-03)
- What do I really want? Why it is so hard to think about yourself (2020-03-01)
- Is ignorance an integral part of communication? On the difficulty of taking someone on their own terms (2020-02-28)
- On expressing dislike and becoming yourself (2020-02-18)
- Two kinds of philosophy? A response to the “ex philosopher” (2020-02-06)
- Questions – an underrated genre (2020-01-31)
- Silent academics and the decline of (higher) education (2020-01-22)
- Why playing air guitar is underrated. A delayed response to Jenny Judge (2020-01-14)
- “I have no idea what I’m going back to.” Travelling in times of the climate crisis (2020-01-12)
- Monitoring failing rationality. A reminder of Ruth Millikan’s critique of meaning rationalism (2020-01-06)
2019
- How philosophy does not make progress. A note on Scott Soames’ new book (2019-12-28)
- Philosophical experience. A response to Andrea Sangiacomo (2019-12-17)
- Dismissing (religious) belief. On a problematic kind of anachronism (2019-12-10)
- Showing other(s) ways to read situations. A response to Martin Lenz (2019-11-30)
- Alienation: On learning to talk philosophy (2019-11-29)
- Have I been harassed? – Interpreting events through (fictional) texts (2019-11-21)
- Should you be ashamed of flying? Moral shortcuts in the call-out culture (2019-11-14)
- Might hope counter political polarisation, boomers? A delayed response to Titus Stahl (2019-11-12)
- Performing theory: Imagination in Jacob Collier’s music (2019-11-05)
- Take me by the hand! Structuring texts (2019-10-31)
- Finding your voice in academic writing. Some practical considerations (2019-10-25)
- How do I figure out what to think? (Part I) (2019-10-15)
- What is a debate? On the kinds of things we study in history of philosophy (2019-10-03)
- Love, crime, sincerity and normality. Or: sameness claims in history (2019-09-26)
- Transgression and playfulness in academic exchange (2019-09-23)
- Ugly ducklings and progress in philosophy (2019-09-19)
- Spotting mistakes and getting it right (2019-09-12)
- How to respond to a global warming skeptic? (2019-09-05)
- Addiction. A note on the debate about the climate crisis (2019-08-31)
- Response to Martin Lenz’s “Naturalism as a Bedfellow of Capitalism?” (2019-08-29)
- Naturalism as a bedfellow of capitalism? A note on the reception of early modern natural philosophy (2019-08-23)
- Clarity as a political concept (2019-08-15)
- Why is early modern philosophy such a great success? A response to Christia Mercer (2019-08-02)
- Let’s get rid of “medieval” philosophy! (2019-07-29)
- On mentoring. A response to Katarina Mihaljević (2019-07-11)
- Sexism and the importance of mentors in academic philosophy (2019-07-09)
- How is the Western philosophical canon sexist?* (2019-07-04)
- Custom or climate? Trying to contextualise Hume’s account of group mentality (2019-06-24)
- Framing employment in higher education, and father’s day (2019-06-16)
- The ‘Identity’ Rejection Letter: Should search committees reveal the identity of the people they hire to unsuccessful applicants? (2019-06-13)
- Experiencing humility: hope for public debate? (2019-06-12)
- Diversifying scholarship. Or how the paper model kills history (2019-06-06)
- An ethics of climate change? (2019-06-02)
- Social syllogizing. William of Ockham, John Lutterell, Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham on the division of epistemic labour* (2019-05-26)
- Ockham on the division of linguistic labour (2019-05-20)
- The conventional signification of Lockean complex ideas* (2019-04-30)
- “How would you arrange the deportation of my father?” On responsible (free) speech. A response to Silvia Mazzini (2019-04-27)
- Words as weapons? Free speech requires responsible speech (2019-04-23)
- I don’t know what I think or feel. On psychological indeterminacy (2019-04-17)
- Call for ideas: Why the humanities and sciences protect our values (2019-04-07)
- Fake news about free speech (2019-03-31)
- On giving propagandists a platform (2019-03-24)
- Against history of philosophy: shunning vs ignoring history in the analytic traditions (2019-03-18)
- Networks and friendships in academia (2019-03-12)
- Fake news, faith, and the know-it-all (2019-03-05)
- The competition fallacy (2019-03-02)
- Diversity and Vulnerability (Part II) (2019-02-23)
- Some observations concerning diversity (Part I) (2019-02-15)
- Why is the Wall still dividing us? The persistence of the intellectual cold war (2019-02-11)
- History of contemporary thought and the silence in Europe. A response to Eric Schliesser (2019-02-08)
- Should contemporary philosophers read Ockham? Or: what did history ever do for us? (2019-02-04)
- Surprises. (The fancy title would have been: “On the phenomenology of writing”) (2019-01-31)
- Too much overview, too much leadership (2019-01-29)
- Do rejections of our claims presuppose that we are abnormal? (2019-01-23)
- What’s behind the veil of perception? A response to Han Thomas Adriaenssen (2019-01-17)
- On taking risks. With an afterthought on peer review (2019-01-07)
- The idea of “leaving” social media might be a category mistake. A response to Justin E. H. Smith (2019-01-05)
2018
- Who’s afraid of relativism? (2018-12-30)
- How we unlearn to read (2018-12-22)
- Embracing mistakes in music and speech (2018-12-18)
- “Is it ok if I still work on Descartes?” The canon does not have to be canonical (2018-12-12)
- Philosophical genres. A response to Peter Adamson (2018-12-08)
- Against allusions (2018-12-04)
- Why would we want to call people “great thinkers” and cite harassers? A response to Julian Baggini (2018-11-25)
- Heidegger: Uses and Abuse(s) (2018-11-23)
- Kill your darlings! But how? (2018-11-20)
- “Nevermore”. A response to Martin Lenz (2018-11-17)
- “Heidegger was a Nazi.” What now? (2018-11-11)
- I don’t know what I think. A plea for unclarity and prophecy (2018-11-09)
- Why do we share the vulgar view? Hume on the medical norms of belief* (2018-11-05)
- In facts we trust? More on the war against education (2018-10-29)
- The war against education (2018-10-25)
- Do ideas matter to philosophy? How obsession with recognition blocks diversity (2018-10-21)
- Against leaving academia (2018-10-18)
- What Is an Error? Wittgenstein’s Voluntarism* (2018-10-12)
- Abstract cruelty. On dismissive attitudes (2018-10-10)
- History without narratives? A response to Alex Rosenberg (2018-10-07)
- Should we stop talking about “minor figures”? (2018-10-03)
- Brave questions. A response to Sara Uckelman (2018-09-27)
- On relevance and othering (2018-09-23)
- What does it mean to be ‘actively’ researching a paper? (2018-09-20)
- What is philosophy? A response to Laura Georgescu (2018-09-18)
- All interpretations of ideas in Locke are mistaken – really? A response to Kenny Pearce (2018-09-15)
- Talking texts. Conditions of a good interpretation (2018-09-13)
- What are we on about? Making claims about claims (2018-09-11)
- Philosophy is History (Part I) (2018-09-09)
- Is there a difference between offline and online discussions? A response to Amy Olberding (2018-09-06)
- What is synthetic philosophy? A response to Eric Schliesser (2018-09-04)
- How do you turn a half-baked idea into a paper? (2018-09-02)
- One idea per paper! (2018-09-01)
- On saying “we” again. A response to Peter Adamson (2018-08-28)
- Learning from medievalists. A response to Robert Pasnau (2018-08-25)
- Mistakes and objectivity. Myths in the history of philosophy (Part II) (2018-08-21)
- Ockham’s razor as a principle of (epistemic) agency (2018-08-20)
- Voices inside my head. On constructive criticism (2018-08-16)
- The purpose of the canon (2018-08-14)
- Getting started: exploiting embarrassment (2018-08-12)
- Who are we? Myths in the history of philosophy (Part I) (2018-08-09)
- On translating as a philosophical skill (2018-08-05)
- What are you good at? (2018-08-01)
- Originality: What is a reformulation? (Part II) (2018-07-30)
- Originality? – Don’t make a fool of yourself! (Part I) (2018-07-29)
- Procrastination as conversation, really? (2018-07-28)
- Procrastinating? Hesitating as engaging in conversation (2018-07-26)
Handling Ideas 