In the 21st century, changes in the education and research landscape are driving the self-abolition of the humanities. The modularisation of all courses stands in irreconcilable contrast to the interdisciplinary and hermeneutic reflection of humanities studies, which is dependent on the sometimes time-consuming experimentation, risking or even failing to find completely different ways of thinking and detours. The prescribed time cycle for students due to the so-called "workload", the constant confrontation with examination requirements and the associated pressure to organise the entire study period efficiently robs students of the desire for the superfluous, which they often do not know exactly where it should lead, but which is an indispensable element of studying in the humanities. The number of pages to be studied for prescribed texts in credit point-fixed modules puts the icing on the cake, because this stifles any independent student curiosity and the taylorisation of personal education that this entails puts a definitive end to that very education.

The situation is not much different in research either. A model adapted to the collective "piecemeal" nature of research in the natural sciences generally calls into question individual "single excellence" in research, as is still prevalent in the humanities, and elevates researchers working in collective networks to the ideal.

Natural science hermeneutics. A philosophy of finitude in historical, systematic and applied terms. Würzburg 2004.

Why still metaphysics? Philosophising in the field of tension between construction and destruction. In: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie (AZP), Volume 30, Issue 3, 2005, pp. 253-269.

Schelling's Philosophy of Nature and the Organic Conception of the Natural Sciences - Break or Continuity? In: Klaus Brinkmann (Ed.): Critical Concepts: German Idealism. Volume Four: New Horizons and the Legacy of German Idealism, Routledge GB 2007, pp. 3-23.

Enabling the future. Food for thought from fifteen years of Karl Jasper's lectures on contemporary issues. In honour of the initiator Rudolf zur Lippe, ed., Würzburg 2008.

Truth is what unites us. Karl Jasper's art of philosophising. International Jaspers Year on the occasion of the 125th birthday of Karl Jaspers, Göttingen (together with Giandomenico Bonanni and Matthias Bormuth), Göttingen 2009.

Natural philosophical questions to the life sciences. In: Myriam Gerhard/Christine Zunke (eds.): "Wir müssen die Wissenschaft wieder menschlicher machen." Aspects and Perspectives of Natural Philosophy, Kassel 2010, pp. 183-201.

Karl Jaspers. Grundbegriffe seines Denkens, Reinbek 2011 (together with Hamid Reza Yousefi, Werner Schüßler and Ulrich Diehl).

Faith, Science, and Philosophy. In: Helmut Wautischer, Alan M. Olson and Gregory J. Walters (Ed.): Philosophical Faith and the Future of Humanity, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York, 2012 p. 165-178.

Perceptual Faith and Problems of the Visualisation of Practices following Merleau-Ponty. In: Self-formations. Practices of Subjectivisation in Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspective, Bielefeld 2013, pp. 351-373.

Against the Methodological Compulsion: Experience, Practices and Observation. In: General Journal of Philosophy (AZP), Volume 39, Issue 1, 2014, pp. 71-86.

Subjectivation through or as experience? In: Thomas Alkemeyer, Volker Schürmann, Jörg Volbers (eds.): Praxis denken. Concepts and Critique, Wiesbaden 2015, pp. 215-234.

Philosophising with children as a basic pedagogical attitude and teaching principle. In: Bettina Uhlig/Ludwig Duncker (eds.): Questions - Criticism - Perspectives. Theoretical foundations of philosophising with children, Munich 2016, pp. 79-91.

A critique of playful judgement. On the dialectic of improving (certainty) and understanding (uncertainty). (Farewell lecture), Oldenburger Universitätsreden 209, Oldenburg 2017.

Knowledge and belief. Reflections on the scientific-technical zeitgeist and Jaspers' philosophical faith. In: Jaspers Yearbook, vol. 29, 2017, pp. 91-101.

Situated Freedom in Honneth, Foucault and Jaspers. In: Karl-Heinz Breier/Alexander Gantschow (eds.): Vom Ethos der Freiheit zur Ordnung der Freiheit. Statehood with Karl Jaspers, Baden-Baden 2017, pp. 31-40.

Practices of Understanding and Worldview Analysis. In: Stefania Achella/Jann E. Schlimme (eds.): Karl Jaspers e la molteplicità delle visioni del mondo, discipline Filosofiche XXVII, numeor 1, Macerata: Quodlibet, 2017, pp. 159-174.

Can happiness be taught? In: Ulrike Graf/Susanne Klinger/Reinhold Mokrosch/Arnim Regenbogen/Sonja Strube (eds.): Learning to live values. Justice - Peace - Happiness. Werte-Bildung interdisziplinär, vol. 5, Göttingen 2017, pp. 211-220.

Educational theory and competence development. In: Norbert Jung/Heike Molitor/Astrid Schilling (eds.): Was Menschen bildet. Bildungskritische Orientierungen für ein gutes Leben, Opladen, Berlin, Toronto 2018, pp. 39-52.

Coming to the language. In: Bernhard Möller (ed.): Geschichte der Pädagogik an der Universität Oldenburg in Autobiographien, vol. 3, Oldenburg 2018, pp. 190-213.

Practices of Normativity and Normativity of Practices. In: Alexander Max Bauer/Malte Ingo Meyerhofer (eds.): Philosophy between being and ought. Normative theory and empirical research in the field of tension, Berlin/Boston 2019, pp. 139-158.

On the phenomenology of seeing. In: Susanne Gottuck/Irina Grünheid/Paul Mecheril/Jan Wolter (eds.): Learning to see and unlearning: Perspectives on pedagogical professionalisation, Wiesbaden 2019, pp. 25-43.

Natural Philosophy. Ein Lehr- und Studienbuch, Tübingen 2020 (together with Thomas Kirchhoff, Nicole C. Karafyllis, Dirk Evers, Brigitte Falkenburg, Myriam Gerhard, Gerald Hartung, Jürgen Hübner, Kristian Köchy, Ulrich Krohs, Thomas Pothast, Otto Schäfer, Gegor Schiemann, Magnus Schlette, Frank Vogelsang), 2nd edition.

Making thinking dance. Speech on Rudolf zur Lippe. In: Matthias Bormuth (ed.): Offener Horizont. Yearbook of the Karl Jaspers Society 6, Göttingen 2020, pp. 355-360.

"Questions about how things should continue in the future under these conditions, whether an end to the pandemic is in sight soon or whether sustainable mitigations or ways out of the climate crisis can be found are omnipresent. They not only affect our questions and thoughts, but also directly affect our lives and behaviour, e.g. in the form of a politically imposed mask requirement that allows a gradual lifting of the quarantine that has become essential for survival and is intended to prevent our future worries about infection when we return to the social community. "For Heidegger, the problem of existence is linked to the problem of time." (Marquard 2013, p. 201). Indeed, Heidegger pays particular attention to time with regard to care. "The original unity of the structure of care lies in temporality" (Heidegger 1972, p. 327). This existentially conceived structure of care is directed towards a "Umwillen" (Heidegger) that has not yet occurred, but which can already decisively determine our present life in anticipation of the future. This structure of worry can also be applied to the future dynamics of the climate crisis and pandemic, as well as to our existential decisions that we have to make today in view of the hopes and worries associated with them. Heidegger takes up the immanent transcendence of life postulated by Simmel, which can "go beyond itself", and derives a priority of the future from it: "The "before" and "in advance" indicate the future, as which it makes possible in the first place that existence can be such that it is concerned with its ability to be. The future-based projection of oneself towards the "will of oneself" is an essential character of existentiality. Its primary meaning is the future." (Heidegger, ibid.).

In contrast, however, traditional philosophy, together with modern science, is dominated by the primacy of the present. The scientific discourse on sustainability is also determined by this, as long as it pays no or too little attention to the existential dimension. However, Heidegger's existential analysis (he speaks of "Daseinsanalytik"), which cannot be presented in detail here, criticises this modern philosophical and scientific tradition and its concept of the present as that "mode of time that essentially reduces what is to that which is absolutely within reach. [...] and thereby (calculating, planning, seeing through) subjects it to its power of disposal as that which is available." (Marquard 2013, p. 219) Here it is easy to recognise the claim to dominance of modern natural science, in which "man is conceived as one who primarily recognises, or more precisely: one who looks, who is subject to the pure contemplation of the pure (simultaneously ..."

(from: How much present can the future tolerate? 2020)