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Dr. des. Mag. Anne Sophie Spann, née Meincke
Department of Christian Philosophy
Research Fellow in the Austrian Science
Fund-Project "Powers and the
Identity of Agents"
Karl-Rahner-Platz 1
A-6020 Innsbruck
Tel.: +43/512/507-8536
Fax: +43/512/507-2736
E-Mail: annesophie.spann@uibk.ac.at
Website: http://uibk.academia.edu/AnneSophieSpann
I am primarily working on metaphysics, especially on the metaphysics of persons, thereby taking a look also at philosophy of mind and action theory:
- What is a person? What role do mental properties and abilities play for personhood and transtemporal personal identity?
- Do human persons cease to exist when lapsing into a coma? Have I ever been a fetus?
- How are we to understand that persons remain the same though changing? In what sense at all can persons be identical through time?
Having dealt with the theoretical depths of the ongoing debate on personal identity in my PhD thesis entitled, On the Battlefield of Metaphysics: Critical Studies on the Transtemporal Identity of Persons, the research project expands the focus on the practical dimension of personhood and transtemporal personal identity:
- Does personal agency require some special power?
- How does this possible power to act differ from a water glass’s disposition to shatter? What actually are actions?
- Are the personal power to act and the transtemporal identity of persons connected to each other and if so, how?
Human persons differ not only from water glasses but also from houseplants and my neighbour’s dog. Nevertheless they share with the latter the property of being alive. Therefore, I am interested in theories of the organism in the framework of a philosophy of biology:
- What is an organism?
- Are we to suppose specific ‘organismic’ powers for explaining the wholeness and persistence of organisms?
- How do these ‘organismic’ powers relate to the powers of persons who, so it seems, in some sense are (also?) organisms?
Authors: Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Heidegger, Derek Parfit, Eric T. Olson and other modern philosophers.