Research
My research has two fields: Wittgenstein and Hegel, which belongs to philosophy proper, and the literary form of philosophy, which I have pursued at the University of Zurich since 2020. My habilitation brings them together.
Wittgenstein and Hegel
In 1948, on a walk in Dublin, Wittgenstein told Maurice O’C. Drury: “Hegel seems to me to be always wanting to say that things which look different are really the same. Whereas my interest is in showing that things which look the same are really different.” This difference is the starting point of my research: How did Wittgenstein come to know Hegel’s philosophy, and what does his remark reveal? Where do Hegelian motifs appear in Wittgenstein, and Wittgensteinian motifs in Hegel? What role did Neo-Hegelianism and British Idealism play in the emergence of analytic philosophy? My chapter “Identity in Difference – Wittgenstein’s Hegel” (2019) traces the first two questions back to Bertrand Russell and C. D. Broad, from whom Wittgenstein learnt about Hegel.
From 2017 to 2024 I initiated and organized, together with colleagues, six international conferences on these questions; three volumes have come out of them. This research continues – next with an Element on Wittgenstein and Hegel for Cambridge University Press.
Selected publications
- Wittgenstein and Hegel, Elements in the Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, David G. Stern (ed.) [Cambridge University Press 2027, planned] – Publisher
- Wittgensteins Hegel [Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Paderborn 2021, with the support of the VG Wort Science Promotion Fund] – Publisher
- Special Issue: Wittgenstein and Hegel on Normativity and Rationality, Alexander Berg & Kenan Šljivo (eds.), Synthesis Philosophica, vol. 41, no. 1 [Filozofski Fakultet, Zagreb 2026, forthcoming] – Publisher
- Wittgenstein and Classical German Philosophy – Logic, Language, Life, Alexander Berg & Denys Kaidalov (eds.) [De Gruyter, Berlin/New York Oct. 2025] – Publisher
- Wittgenstein and Hegel – Reevaluation of Difference, Jakub Mácha & Alexander Berg (eds.), On Wittgenstein (5), James Conant, Wolfgang Kienzler, Stefan Majetschak, Volker Munz, Josef Rothhaupt, David Stern, Wilhelm Vossenkuhl (eds.) [De Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2019] – doi:10.1515/9783110572780 – Table of contents (PDF)
- Wittgenstein’s ‘Übersichtliche Darstellung’ and Hegel’s ‘Speculative Philosophy’, in: Wittgenstein and Classical German Philosophy, Alexander Berg & Denys Kaidalov (eds.) [De Gruyter Oct. 2025]
- The Method of Absolute Negativity and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – Wittgenstein, William James and Hegel, in: 100 Years of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – 70 Years after Wittgenstein’s Death. A Critical Assessment. Contributions of the 44th International Wittgenstein Symposium, vol. XXIX, Esther Heinrich-Ramharter, Alois Pichler, Friedrich Stadler (eds.) [Kirchberg a. W. 2023] – PDF
- Identity in Difference – Wittgenstein’s Hegel, in: Wittgenstein and Hegel – Reevaluation of Difference, Jakub Mácha & Alexander Berg (eds.) [De Gruyter 2019: 349–364] – doi:10.1515/9783110572780-024 – Accepted manuscript (PDF)
- Wittgenstein und die Begriffe des Psychischen bei Hegel, in: Special section Wittgenstein über das Psychische, Wittgenstein-Studien, vol. 11, Richard Raatzsch (ed.) [Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2019: 137–168] – doi:10.1515/witt-2020-0008
The Literary Form of Philosophy
Since 2020, at the University of Zurich, I have been working on the literary form of philosophy. Here I turn to literary studies and develop its methods for the reading of philosophical texts: questions of a literary history of philosophy – constellation, intertextuality, literarity – and the literary form of individual works such as Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.
A conference on the literary form of philosophy is in preparation.
Selected publications
- Zur literarischen Form der Phänomenologie des Geistes – Methode und Bedeutung, in: Hegel-Jahrbuch 2024, Brady Bowman, Myriam Gerhard & Jure Zovko (eds.) [Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2026, forthcoming]
- Goethe’s Influence on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, in: Goethe and Philosophy, Jan Kerkmann & Moritz Pretzsch (eds.) [Springer, Berlin 2026, forthcoming]
Selected talks
- Goethe’s Artistic Influence on the Phenomenology of Spirit [XXXVI International Hegel Congress, Rome III – Sept. 2026]
- On the Literary Form of the Phenomenology of Spirit – Method and Meaning [University of Turin – May 2025]
- Die Bedeutung der literarischen Form des Herr-Knecht-Kapitels als Schlüssel für Anerkennung und Freiheit [XXXV International Hegel Congress, University of Tbilisi – Oct. 2024]
- Methods for a Literary History of Philosophy [XXV World Congress of Philosophy, Rome – Aug. 2024 / XXVI German Congress of Philosophy, Münster – Sept. 2024]
- Grundzüge einer Literaturgeschichte der Philosophie [University of Konstanz – Dec. 2023]
- The Art of Philosophy – On the Significance of Literary Form in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit [34th International Hegel Congress, Zadar – Sept. 2022]
Workshop “Reading Philosophy – On the Literary Forms of Philosophy”, Zurich 2024
Where both fields meet
Zur literarischen Form von Philosophie – Grundlinien eines Systems der Literatur
Habilitation thesis, University of Zurich
My habilitation thesis brings both fields together. It systematizes and integrates the different methods of literary-philosophical research to make them more productive for philosophical inquiry and problem-solving. It is grounded in the idea of a “system of literature” as a methodological foundation for understanding philosophical writings, and tests the method on the main works of Hegel and Wittgenstein: the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophical Investigations.
Further work concerns Wittgenstein and photography and the question of transcendence in Hegel, Heidegger and Charles Taylor. All publications