Today marks what would have been Günther Patzig’s 100th birthday. We commemorate a defining figure in analytical philosophy and a long-standing honorary member of the GAP. Following his death on February 2, 2018, we would like to revisit today an obituary written by Ulrich Nortmann and Achim Stephan.
Christine Bratu & Hans Rott (Presidents)
David Löwenstein (Managing Director)
SW*IP Germany has asked us to share the following call among GAP members as well:
Following the revision of its association website, SW*IP Germany is relaunching its list of philosophers. All FLINTA* who work in academic philosophy in the German-speaking world are invited to register for the list.
https://swip-philosophinnen.org/philosophinnen-liste
The list is intended to make FLINTA* philosophers in the German-speaking world visible and easy to find (e.g., for scouting). The list can be filtered by research areas and professional experience, among other criteria.
*FLINTA* refers to women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans, and agender people, as well as other people who are not cis men.
On the new website, it is now also possible to become a (supporting) member online.
The Society for Analytical Philosophy supports the organisation and funding of lecture series that are accessible in hybrid format to all GAP members. Anyone wishing to plan such an event is cordially invited to submit a proposal for WiSe 2027/28 or SoSe 2028 by 30 November 2026. In addition to classic topics in analytical philosophy, proposals are also welcome that make the strengths of analytical philosophy fruitful for current social debates.
Travel and hotel costs and, where applicable, speakers’ dinners will be funded up to a maximum total of €2,500. Invoices must be submitted later. The organisers or teams plan their lecture series independently in terms of content and organisation (conceptual work, selection of speakers, streaming, etc.); the GAP Executive Board is available for advice. The (hybrid) lecture series should comprise at least seven sessions. At least one of the hosts must be a GAP member.
The informal applications should include a description of the topic of the lecture series and the names of the speakers who have been contacted or are to be contacted, as well as a concept for recording and streaming, a schedule, information on curricular integration for students, and a cost breakdown. Proposals in the form of short PDF files (1–2 pages are sufficient) should be sent by 30 November 2026 to: info@gap-im-netz.de. The Executive Board will select one proposal from among all submissions received.
The event will be announced as a “GAP lecture series” in a special email and in the GAP newsletter. The recordings are to be made available later on the GAP YouTube channel. This requires appealing image and sound quality in the recordings.
Previous GAP lecture series were “Contested Concepts: Philosophical Perspectives on Racism, Antisemitism, Sexism, …” (SoSe 2024) in Berlin and Düsseldorf (Geert Keil, Anna Schriefl and Markus Schrenk) and “Between Wilderness and Polis: Current Debates on the Ethics of Human–Animal Relations” (WiSe 2025/26) in Münster and Düsseldorf (Frauke Albersmeier and Alexander Christian). In SoSe 2027, this will be followed by “Sustainability – Enlightenment – Rationality in the Backlash” in Greifswald and Berlin (Jenny Kneis, Corina Strößner and the GAP Sustainability Working Group and the DGPhil).
We look forward to receiving your submissions!
The Executive Board and Management would like to draw the attention of GAP members to the DFG Statement ‘On Strengthening the Freedom and Resilience of the Sciences’, which we consider noteworthy in light of GAP’s statutory objective of advocating for academic freedom.
In view of the upcoming state elections in Saxony-Anhalt (September 6) and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (September 20), the three philosophical societies SW*IP Germany, DGPhil, and GAP have established a joint special budget to support events and initiatives promoting democracy and diversity as well as the freedom of research and teaching on site, quickly and with low barriers.
Details for application:
The Presidents and Managing Director would like to draw the attention of GAP members to the following matters, which seem noteworthy to us in the spirit of GAP’s statutory goal of commitment to academic freedom:
The GAP lecture series “Between Wilderness and Polis – Current Debates on the Ethics of Human-Animal Relations” took place in the winter semester 2025/26 at the Universities of Münster and Düsseldorf. It was dedicated to new research approaches in animal ethics and the societal challenges in dealing with animals. The videos of all lectures are now available in this playlist on the GAP YouTube channel. The GAP board would like to thank Dr. Frauke Albersmeier (Münster) and Dr. Alexander Christian (Münster) once again for organizing the series.
Ulrich Gähde passed away on February 4, 2026, at the age of 74. He held a professorship at the University of Bayreuth from 1993 to 1999, followed by a chair at the University of Hamburg until 2017. He served as Vice President of the German Society for Analytic Philosophy (GAP) from 2000 to 2006.
Ulrich Gähde made significant contributions to the philosophy of science, such as on confirmation holism and the role of anomalies, as well as on the scientific and epistemological problems of modeling and simulations. Furthermore, he worked on the theoretical foundations of philosophical ethics through structural comparisons between normative-ethical and descriptive-empirical theories and by examining the logical structure of slippery slope arguments.
Martin Hoffmann, Thomas Krödel, and Christine Straehle honor the life’s work of Ulrich Gähde in their obituary. The GAP will always hold him in honored memory.
We are very pleased that the video recordings of the keynote lectures, the opening, and the award ceremonies at GAP.12 in Düsseldorf are now available on our YouTube channel:
Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this, above all the speakers, as well as Markus Schrenk for coordinating the video production in collaboration with the Media Lab at HHU Düsseldorf.
The Society for Analytical Philosophy and the Grazer Philosophische Studien are pleased with the interest in the prize question How important is hope for our actions?
34 essays were submitted (including 16 by women). A panel of nine experts thoroughly reviewed the anonymized contributions and awarded the following essays:
The voting members of the jury were Claudia Blöser, Nadja El Kassar, Martina Fürst, Jakob Huber, Regina Schidel, Lisa Schmalzried, Sebastian Schmidt, Dennis Sölch, Razvan Sofroni, and Titus Stahl. The award-winning essays will be published in the second half of 2026 in Grazer Philosophische Studien. We congratulate the winners and thank all participants for their contributions!