Sturm, Thomas

Biography

After studies in philosophy, history, and political science at the University of Göttingen and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), I obtained my PhD in 2007 from Marburg University. Before joining ICREA in 2014, I held positions at Marburg (Scientific Assistant, 1995-2000); UCSD (Visiting Lecturer, 2000), at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences & Humanities (BBAW - Scientific Coordinator, research group "Psychological Thought and Practice", 2001-2005), the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Lorenz Krüger Fellow, 2005-2007, Research Fellow 2007-2009; here I co-directed 2 projects on "Historical Epistemology" & "Crisis Debates in Psychology"), and the Dept. of Philosophy, UAB (Ramón y Cajal Scholar, 2009-2014). I am member of the UAB's Center for History of Science (CEHIC) and an Associate Research Fellow at the Wilhelm Wundt Center for Philosophy & History of Psychology, Universidade Federal Juiz de Fora (Brazil).

Research Interest

How is rationality understood in philosophy and the human sciences? How should it be understood? These are the guiding questions for much of my research, which comprises topics reaching from early modern philosophy - esp. from Immanuel Kant - up to ongoing discussions at the interface of philosophy, psychology, and economics. I focus on potentials and limits of empirical theories of rationality for naturalism, but I also study the role of such theories in politics, political science, and ethics. I'm moreover interested in the philosophy of knowledge, mind, and science. In all of this, I combine methods of analytic philosophy with the history of science: I am unconvinced by widespread opinions according to which they cannot, or should not, be integrated.