Dr. Gerhard Thonhauser

Contact

Please contact me via Email to make an appointment.

Research Profile

• Social and Political Philosophy
• Phenomenology
• Philosophy of Emotions
• Social Ontology
• Philosophy of Action
• Political Theory
• 19th and 20th century philosophy
• Philosophy of Sports

Current Research

In my Habilitation project I work on a historical and systematic study of Political Phenomenology.

Many of my ongoing publications concern a dynamical understanding of social collectives. I mostly focus on affective-political forces, emotional experiences and collective agency.

Another systematic area of research are political ontology and the theory of democracy.

I have broad interest in most classical fuigures as well as current trends within the phenomenological tradition.

Publications

Monographs

Heideggers “Sein und Zeit”. Einführung und Kommentar, Heidelberg: Metzler, 2022.

The Politics of Affective Societies: An Interdisciplinary Essay, gemeinsam mit 13 Co-Autor_innen vom SFB Affective Societies, Bielefeld: transcript, 2019. Link (opens in new tab)

Ein rätselhaftes Zeichen. Zum Verhältnis von Martin Heidegger und Søren Kierkegaard, (Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series, vol. 33) Berlin: DeGuyter, 2016.

Über das Konzept der Zeitlichkeit bei Søren Kierkegaard mit ständigem Hinblick auf Martin Heidegger, Freiburg/München: Alber, 2011.

Edited Volumes and Special Issues (selection)

Journal of Social Ontology (alle Hefte seit 2015)

The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology, together with Steffen Herrmann, Sophie Loidolt, Tobias Matzner and Nils Baratella, New York: Routledge, 2024.

Special Issue “Dimensions of Vulnerability”, together with Martin Huth, Philosophy Today, 64 (3), 2020, and 65 (2), 2021.

From Conventionalism to Social Authenticity. Heidegger’s Anyone and Contemporary Social Theory, (Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol. 10), together with Hans Bernhard Schmid, Berlin: Springer, 2017.

Perspektiven mit Heidegger. Zugänge – Pfade – Anknüpfungen, Freiburg: Alber, 2017.

Journal Articles (selection)

“Phenomenological Reduction and Radical Situatedness: Merleau-Ponty and the Method of Critical Phenomenology”, Genealogy+Critique, 9 (1), 2023, 1-18. Link

“Competitive Team Sport Without External Referees: The Case of the Flying Disc Sport Ultimate”, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 2023. Link Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“Being a Team Player: Approaching team coordination in sports in dialogue with ecological and praxeological approaches”, Frontiers in Psychology, 13 (1026859), 2022, 1-10. Link

“Emotionale Fähigkeiten in (neo-)existenzialistischer Perspektive: Moran und Sartre”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 70 (6), 2022, 910-922, Link

“Towards a Taxonomy of Collective Emotions”, Emotion Review, 2022. Link

"A Critique of the Crowd Psychological Heritage in Early Sociology, Classic Phenomenology and Recent Social Psychology”, Continental Philosophy Review, 2022. Link

“Approaching Collectivity Collectively: A Multi-Disciplinary Account of Collective Action”, together with Martin Weichold, Frontiers in Psychology, 12 (740664), 2021. Link

“Beyond Mood and Atmosphere: A Conceptual History of the Term Stimmung”, Philosophia, 49 (3), 2021, 1247-1265.Link

“Shared emotions and the body”, Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 54, 2021. Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“A Multifaceted Approach to Emotional Sharing”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 27 (9-10), 2020, 202-227. Link

“Zum Verhältnis von Phänomenologie und Massenpsychologie anhand von Max Schelers Unterscheidung von Gefühlsansteckung und Miteinanderfühlen”, Phänomenologische Forschungen, 2020 (2), 195-216.Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“Collective Affordances”, together with Martin Weichold, Ecological Psychology, 32 (1), 2020, 1-24.

“Emotional Sharing in Football Audiences”, together with Michael Wetzels, The Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 46 (2), 2019, 224-243.Link

“Shared Emotions: A Steinian Proposal”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 17 (5), 2018, 997-1015. Link

“Shared Emotions and Collective Affective Intentionality”, I Quaderni della Ginestra, 22, 2018, 100-113. Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“Martin Heidegger Reads Søren Kierkegaard – or What Did He Actually Read?”, Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2016, 281-304.

Handbook Entries (selection)

“Martin Heidegger and Otto Friedrich Bollnow”, in: Thomas Szanto and Hilge Landweer (eds.): The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotions, London/New York: Routledge, 2020, 104-113. Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“Feeling”, in: Jan Slaby and Christian von Scheve (eds.): Affective Societies – Key Concepts, London/New York: Routledge, 52-60. Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“Existenzialistischer Marxismus”, gemeinsam mit Hans Bernhard Schmid, in: Michael Quante and David Schweikard (eds.): Marx-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung, Stuttgart: Metzler, 2015, 313-320.

Other Articles (selection)

"Tuning the World: A Conceptual History of the Term Stimmung Part Two“, in: Dylan Trigg (ed.): Atmospheres and Shared Emotions, New York: Routledge, 2021, 40-56.

„Ist eine existenzphilosophische Sozialtheorie möglich? Antwortversuche mit Sartre und Merleau-Ponty“ in: Dennis Sölch and Oliver Victor (eds.): Geschichte und Gegenwart der Existenzphilosophie, Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2021, 201-226.

“Von der Unmöglichkeit der Institutionalisierung des Politischen zur ambivalenten Kraft politischer Imagination: Ein Streifzug mit Marchart, Hochschild und Castoriadis”, in: Mattias Flatscher and Steffen Herrmann: Institutionen des Politischen, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2020, 379-402.Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“Authenticity and Critique. Remarks on Heidegger and Social Theory”, in: James Thompson and Matthias Kaufmann (eds.): Regelfolgen, Regelschaffen, Regeländern – die Herausforderung für Auto-Nomie und Universalismus durch Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger und Carl Schmitt, Wien: Lang, 2020, 115-131.Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“The Power of Public Assemblies: Democratic Politics following Butler and Arendt”, in: Thomas Bedorf and Steffen Herrmann (eds.): Political Phenomenology: Experience, Ontology, Episteme, New York: Routledge, 2019, 202-219.Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

„Heidegger and the affective (ungrounding) of politics“, together with Jan Slaby, in: Christos Hadjioannou (ed.): Philosophers in Depth: Heidegger on Affect, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2019, 265-289. Pre-Print (opens in new tab)

“Plurale Performativität. Butler und Arendt über die Macht spontaner Versammlungen”, in: Gerald Posselt, Tatjana Schönwälder-Kuntze, and Sergej Seitz (eds.): Dimensionen des Politischen. Zur politischen Philosophie Judith Butlers, Bielefeld: transcript, 2018, 251-267.

“Thinker Without Category. Kierkegaard in Heidegger’s Thinking of the 1930s”, in: Arne Grøn, K. Brian Soderquist, René Rosfort (eds.): Kierkegaard’s Existential Approach, (Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series, vol. 35), Berlin: DeGruyter, 2017, 27-48.

“Karl Löwith’s Understanding of Sociality”, in: Hans Bernhard Schmid and Alessandro Salice, (eds.): The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. History, Concepts, Problems, (Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol. 6), Berlin: Springer, 2016, 121-141.

“Butler’s Social Ontology of the Subject and its Agency”, in: Diego D’Angelo, Sylvaine Gourdaine, Tobias Keiling, and Nikola Mirkovic, (eds.): Frei sein, frei handeln. Freiheit zwischen theoretischer und praktischer Philosophie, Freiburg: Alber, 2013, 144-157.

“Judith Butler: Kierkegaard as her early teacher in rhetoric and parody”, in: Jon Stewart (ed.): Kierkegaard's Influence on Social-Political Thought, (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 14), Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 2011, 53-72.