Hans Sluga

Hans D. Sluga is a German philosopher born on April 24, 1937. He spent most of his career as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, holding the William and Trudy Ausfahl Professorship from 2009 until his retirement in 2020. He previously lectured at University College London. Sluga's academic interests span the history of analytic philosophy, the history of continental philosophy, political theory, and ancient philosophy from Greece and China. He has been significantly influenced by philosophers such as Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Michel Foucault. His philosophical outlook is described as "radically historicist," emphasizing the importance of evolution and history in understanding human beings. Sluga has made significant contributions to the study of the history of analytic philosophy, particularly through his work on Gottlob Frege, where he explored the influences of Kant and neo-Kantians, often in dialogue with Michael Dummett's interpretations. His engagement with Wittgenstein's early and late writings has also been a key focus. In the 1990s, Sluga increasingly turned his attention to political philosophy. His book "Heidegger's Crisis" examined the entanglement of philosophers in dangerous political affairs, analyzing Heidegger's political engagement within the context of German philosophy during the Nazi period. He argued against the notion that Heidegger's critique of reason was solely responsible for his political errors, suggesting that other "rationalist" philosophers were prone to similar issues. Sluga posited that a belief in living through a world-historical crisis motivated these philosophers to intervene politically. In "Politics and the Search for the Common Good," Sluga proposed a new framework for understanding politics. He distinguished between "normative political theorizing" (from Plato to Rawls) and "diagnostic practice" (emerging with Marx and Nietzsche). He identified himself with the diagnostic approach, analyzing thinkers like Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault. Sluga views politics as a "family resemblance" phenomenon, not a natural kind, and thus rejects the idea of a single, universally applicable common good or a definitive best form of government. He sees politics as a continuous search for a common good amidst uncertainty, with evolving institutional forms. He identifies the emergence of "the corporāte" as a new political order, characterized by challenges from population growth, technological change, and environmental crises.