Michael SchwarzAssistant Professor

 

My research focuses on the intersection of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy and the Philosophy of Language. In my first project, I develop a theory of ideology and its critique that identifies ideology as a problem of flawed world-disclosure: ideologies function as world-disclosing, embodied interpretive schemas that guide our cognitive, affective, and conative access to reality by providing epistemically flawed background knowledge, meanings, and pre-understandings through which we interpret our (social) world in ways that perpetuate injustices. Based on this understanding of what ideologies are, I offer a hermeneutic framework for their critique that transcends the given interpretive context through counter-hegemonic disclosures.

 

In addition, I’m starting a second project that examines the critical role of translation in the intercultural dialogue on human rights. I’m also interested in bordering phenomena “inside” and “outside” the law and the topology of legal borders in refugee and migration law. I have published two books and several articles in journals such as Constellations, European Law Journal, Common Market Law Review, and Der Staat.