Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Practical Philosophy/Ethics

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Razvan Sofroni

E-Mail: sofronir@hu-berlin.de

 

Research Interests

Metaethics, moral psychology, moral epistemology, ancient philosophy (Aristotle)

Vita

PhD student at the Humboldt University of Berlin since spring 2018. Since summer 2018 also enrolled in the doctoral program of the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. Previously M.A. and B.A. in Philosophy, Film Studies, German Philology and English Studies in Berlin, Freiburg and Iasi.

Publications Review of Thomas Pölzler, “Moral Reality and the Empirical Sciences”, in Grazer Philosophische Studien 96(4):646-654 (print version)
Talks and Comments

“Moral Knowledge Through Experience”, 2019 Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, University of Wollongong (08.07.2019)

“Moral Knowledge Through Imagination”, Conference “Learning Through Imagination”, Leeds University (23-24.05.2019)

“Virtue by accident”, 10. Kongress der Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie, Universität zu Köln (19.09.2018)

“Use Your Imagination! Imagination as a source of knowledge of normative facts”, Posterpräsentation beim 10. Kongress der Gesellschaft für Analytische Philosophie, Universität zu Köln (19.09.2018); Vortrag beim Summer Institute for Practical Normativity, Universität Princeton (11.08.2018)

“Metanormative Humeanism and Reasons of Desire: A Match Made in Hell?”, 7th Humboldt-Princeton Graduate Conference, HU Berlin (26.07.2017)

Kommentar zu Thomas Lambert, “Discovering Values: Nietzsches Constructivist Metaethics”, 7th Humboldt-Princeton Graduate Conference in Philosophy, HU Berlin (27.07.2017)

“Virtue by accident: Aristotle on Two Ways of Acting Virtuously”, HU Berlin & King’s College London Joint Graduate Workshop, London (23.06.2017)

“Absichten, moralischer Wert und Erlaubtheit”, IV. Konferenz für Praktische Philosophie, Universität Salzburg, Österreich (29.09.2016)

Kommentar zu Joseph Moore, “Rightness as Moral Worth”, 6th Humboldt-Princeton Graduate Conference in Philosophy, HU Berlin (24.06.2016)

“Memory, personal identity and the past: Heideggerian emendations of a position held by Leibniz”, II Congreso Iberoamericano Leibniz, Universidad de Granada, Spanien (03.04.2014)

Projects

Imagination as a source of ethical knowledge

Imagination has often been praised as a source of artistic and entrepreneurial creativity. Its role in basic knowledge acquisition has received less attention, despite its relative ubiquity. We are constantly exercising our imagination to project ourselves into the future and simulate different ways in which the world might turn out to be, especially different ways in which it may turn out to be relative to which course of action we decide upon. Moreover, so goes my hypothesis, we exercise our imagination in order to attain moral knowledge. One example of this is when we imagine performing particular action with a view to finding out whether they are morally permissible. The overarching goal of my thesis is to tease out the different ways in which imagination contributes to the attainment of moral knowledge (or some similar measure of moral epistemic success) and clarify their relation to other key concepts in moral epistemology such as practical reasoning, intuitions and reflective equilibrium.

Courses Taught

Ethics and Neuroscience
Tutorial for MA students of the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Summer 2019

Moral Sentimentalism
Introductory seminar, Winter 2018/2019 

Ethics and Neuroscience
Tutorial for MA students of the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Summer 2018

Introduction to Kant's theoretical philosophy
Tutorial, Summer 2017

Introduction to Philosophy
Tutorial, Winter 2016/2017

Introduction to political philosophy
Tutorial, Summer 2016

Introduction to normative ethics
Tutorial, Winter 2015/2016