Maria Kronfeldner

Maria Kronfeldner works in the philosophy of anthropology, the philosophy of the sciences (life sciences, social sciences, humanities) and in metaphysics related to these sciences, integrating these three fields with approaches in epistemology, science studies, and social philosophy. She is Professor at CEU since 2014. From 2010-2014 she was Junior Professor at Bielefeld University. Earlier she held several fellowships, among them at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin, at the Fishbein Center for History of Science and Medicine of the University of Chicago, at the Center for Philosophy of Science at University of Pittsburgh, and at the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science at the University of Sydney. She earned her PhD at the University of Regensburg in 2006. For her early work on creativity, she has been awarded the Karl Popper Essay Prize of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science and The Philosophical Quarterly International Essay Prize. She is currently working mainly on being human (human nature, human kinds) and the negations of it (dehumanization, inhumanity) and on academic freedom.

Profile: During her graduate time, she focused on philosophy of mind, pragmatism, and environmental ethics. Combining her interest in philosophy of mind with her artistic activities (theatre, video, photography, wood works, fabric works), she started research on philosophy of creativity. Since novelty is not only occurring in human minds, but also in nature, her research on the concept of creativity led her to the history and philosophy of the life sciences. She has analysed Darwinian approaches to creativity and cultural evolution as well as the history of the concept of culture and cultural inheritance, and studied how to rebut genetic determinism as well as how nature and nurture interact. She worked on the concept of human nature between science, philosophy and politics. Her book What's Left of Human Nature: A Post-essentialist, Pluralist and Interactive Account of a Contested Concept (2018, MIT Press) brings together several branches of her research, such as essentialism, causation, explanation, normalcy, reductionism, complexity, integration and unity of sciences, as well as science and values. The research on the book led to a new long-term project under the label The Epistemology of the In/Human, initially funded by CEU's Research Excellence Scheme. The project is a continuation of the project "Topics in the Human and Social Sciences" (ToPHSS), funded by the CEU Humanities initiative. The 2021 Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization is part of that project. As a key researcher of the Excellence Cluster Project Knowledge in Crisis, Kronfeldner contributes work on the crisis of knowledge about the human.

WORK ON BEING HUMAN

Edited book "The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization" (2021), featuring articles from leading experts on dehumanization, from a diversity of social science and humanities disciplines. See

The volume's PhilPapers-Page. The ToC and some preprints are there.
The publisher's site.

Monograph "What's Left of Human Nature: A post-essentialist, pluralist and interactive account of a contested concept" (2018, MIT Press). See:

The synopsis, the cover, a preview, and a ebook-version (for CEU members).
A podcast-interview on the "New Books in Philosophy" series and a video-interview as part of Human Nature Forum Channel.
A special issue on the book in the Journal "Philosophy and Society" (edited by A. Knežević).
Reviews: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (reviewed by S. Downes); International Studies in Philosophy of Science (reviewed by Andrew Buskell), Notre Dame Review of Books (reviewed by P. Honenberger); Philosophy of Science (reviewed by J. Odenbaugh); Social Epistemology Review (reviewed by R. Sassower); Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophy (reviewed by M. Hampe).
Book symposium on monograph "What's left of human nature" (Jun 22, 2022, IFDT Belgrade).

Recent Papers

Draft on scientific freedom and vulnerable truths (Draft of paper on request; just drop me a message).
Forthc. No academic freedom from epistemic responsibility. To appear in an interdisciplinary volume on academic freedom, ed. by Vasiliki Kosta, as part of the Research Project “The EU Fundamental Right to ‘Freedom of the Arts and Sciences’: Exploring the Limits on the Commercialization of Academia.”
2023. On how to distinguish critique from an infringement of academic freedom. Special Issue on Reimagining Academic Freedom, Journal Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education.
2021. The freedom we mean: The causal independence account of creativity and academic freedom European Journal for Philosophy of Science. See: fulltext (open access).
2019. Blog post on "A University Goes Into Exile", American Philosophical Association (APA) Blog, 03 Jan 2019.
2019. Response on Ausgrenzung oder Diskurs? Fragen des Umgangs mit extremen Positionen (Exclusion or discussion? How to react to extremist positions), published at Information Philosophie.

Talks etc.

International workshop (co-organizer): Revising Belief and Believing in Revision, Sep 24-26, 2025, Universität Regensburg, Germany.
UPSalon, dedicated to underrepresented philosophers, on "What are we even doing? Metaphilosophical Conversations, Jun 13, Uni Wien.
PSA Symposium on scientific freedom and market failures, with C. Callender, H. Douglas and N. Oreskes, New Orleans, November 2024.
Panel discussion on Migration and Research, part of the Anti-Racism Week, 23 Nov 2023, Universität Wien.
Short input for panel discussion at Conference on "Academic freedom in times of illiberal assaults on democracy", Sep 19-20, 2022, CEU Vienna.
Member of panel on women in arts and sciences (in German). As part of the event "Geschlecht.Genie.Gewalt", organized by the Elfride Jelinek Forschungsverbund (Jun 2, Vienna).
Book review: The humanities within and outside the academic world. (Review of W.B. Drees' "What are the humanities for?"). (read only)
Talk, as part of the reading group "Is the philosophy of science a socially engaged discipline?", Insitute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade (May 19, 2022, online).
Input for Magna Charta Observatory webinar: Academic Freedom: Roots and Realities (May 11, 2022, online) (Video)
Talk: Academic freedom and the argument from truth, as part of the APSE-CEU-IVC Lecture Series (Nov 11, 2021, online).
Short input, as part of the university-wide seminar on Epistemologies of Academic Freedom (Oct 04, 2021, online). See video of the seminar.
Talk: Going Public: Expertise and Professional Responsibility in Philosophy (with Alexander Reutlinger), presented at Workshop "Die gesellschaftliche Rolle der Philosophie", Erlangen, 01-02 Nov, 2018.
Talk: Two Reasons Why the Purist Approach to Science Fails, presented at the Conference of the German Society for Analytic Philosophy (GAP), Cologne, 17-20 Sep, 2018.
Best practice guidelines on Controversial Academic Invitations: Some Best Practises (draft).

VIDEOS AND PODCASTS (all topics)

Expert for ARTE 42 Podcast on human success. On TV and Youtube in fall 2025.
Video interview on my approach to "human nature" in "What’s Left of Human Nature", for the Human Nature Forum Channel, by M. Parson (2024).
Talk on genes and us, at the Mendel 200 Symposium "Mendel's legacy in science and society", Oct 13-14, 2022, Konrad Lorenz Institute Klosterneuburg. (Link to Video)
Input on academic freedom for Magna Charta Observatory webinar: Academic Freedom, roots and realities (May 11, 2022, online) (Link to Video)
Conversation on Dehumanization with Alexander Reutlinger, as part of the Conversations on Socially Engaged Philosophy. (Link to video).
Talk and panel discussion: Das Eigene und das Fremde: Ein Einblick in die Multi-Disziplinarität der CEU. Wiener Vorlesungen - Positionen einer Stadt, May 14, 2020.
Presentation: Wie der Mitmensch zum Gegenmensch wird. Club of Vienna Conference "Empathie als evolutionary Leistung und ihre Bedeutung für die Bewältigung globaler Krisen" (Link to audio-file).
Podcast: How we are Human, a discussion of 2017 ToPHSS course lecturer and participants, directed and compiled by Magdalena Smieszek. (Link to audio-file).
Presentation: Limits of Explaining Creativity, as part of the 2017 Creative Cognition Summer University Course, CEU. (Link to audio-file)
Presentation: Leaps into the dark: Freedom as spontaneity, as part of the university-wide faculty seminar on "Open Societies and Free Minds: Hannah Arendt and the Idea of Open Society", Mar 18, 2016. (Link to video).
Keynote lecture "The right to ignore: An epistemic defense of the nature/culture divide" at the Meeting of the Nordic Network for Philosophy of Science, Helsinki, Apr 23-24, 2015. (Link to video). (The final paper related to the talk is forthc, as part of the "Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy", ed. by R. Joyce).
Discussion with Marshall Sahlins on "The Western Illusion of Human Nature", Chicago, Jan 2014. (Link to video)
Radio Interview (BR) on memes: Is this real life?, Munich, Apr 2013.
TV Discussion Scobel (3SAT): Evolution und Fortschritt, (on cultural evolution), Mainz, Oct 2009.

RESEARCH KEYWORDS (more contemporary ones mentioned first): human in nature, ecology, inhumanity, dehumanization, humanity, human nature, human kinds, crisis of knowledge about the human, classification, naturalizing inequality, complicity in sciences, science and society, science and values, scientific responsibility, academic freedom/scientific freedom, essentialism, causation, explanation, nature-nurture discussions, genetic causation, genetic determinism, cultural inheritance, cultural evolution, culture, creativity, evolutionary thinking more generally.

SERVICE FOR THE COMMUNITY: Kronfeldner is currently Steering Committee Member (Präsidium) of the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Philosophie (OEGP), member of the advisory board of the Karl Popper Foundation, and member of the Leiden-based Research AFITE Network on Academic Freedom. At CEU she is member of the Social Mind Center, directs CEU's Philosophy Research and Publish Lab, and co-directs the Vienna Science Studies Lab. In the past, Kronfeldner was a member of the research network of the OSUN-funded Global Observatory on Academic Freedom (2022-2023), co-organized the APSE-CEU-IVC lecture series (till Jan 2023), served as an advisory board member of the OSUN-funded Global Observatory on Academic Freedom (2021-2022), co-hosted a video-channel with Conversations in Socially Engaged Philosophy (2020-2023), served as steering committee member of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA, 2017-2021), a council member of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB, 2013-17), and initiated and directed the German Network for Philosophy of the Life Sciences from 2011-2014. She has also served in recent years on a variety of program committees for international conferences. From 2020-2024, she was MA Program Director in the Philosophy Department, and from 2022-2024, she was chair of CEU's Equal Opportunity Committee, from 2024 onwards continuing as a member of it, focusing on economic inequality and education, part of which will be realized as part of the Affordable Philosophy Initiative.

MENTORING AND ENGAGEMENT FOR AN INCLUSIVE PHILOSOPHY: Kronfeldner is a first-generation academic, mentoring junior members of her community via the CIVICA university alliance, the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA), the East European Network for Philosophy of Science (EENPS), the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP), and Arbeiterkind e.V. Junior members of the community are welcome to contact her for mentoring requests also independent of these initiatives.

Maria initiated CEU's Philosophy Department's Good Practice Scheme. She is faculty member of the CEU Chapter of the student-led project Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) and committed to the Barcelona principles for a globally inclusive philosophy. In 2025, she started, with students, the Affordable Philosophy Initiative.

OFFICE HOURS (fall term): Tue and Wed, 1.30-3.30. (NOT on Sep 23-24, Oct 21-22, due to conference travel).