Andreas Dorschel (born 1962) is a German philosopher. Since 2002, he has been professor of aesthetics and head of the Institute for Music Aesthetics at the University of the Arts Graz (Austria).
Background Andreas Dorschel was born in 1962 in Wiesbaden, West Germany. He is a cousin of the modernist visual artist Gesine Probst-Bösch (Weimar 1944–1994 Munich).Cf. Kathrin Dünser, Nina Schedlmayer, Claudia Voit (eds.), Gesine Probst-Bösch. Zehn Pfeile, ein Herz und eine Seele. Verlag für moderne Kunst, Vienna 2022, p. 12. From 1983 on, Dorschel studied philosophy, musicology and linguistics at the universities of Frankfurt am Main (Germany) and Vienna (Austria) (MA 1987, PhD 1991). In 2002, the University of Bern (Switzerland) awarded him the Habilitation degree (post-doctoral lecturing qualification). Dorschel has taught at universities in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the UK.Axel Schniederjürgen (ed.), art. "Dorschel, Andreas". In: Kürschners Deutscher Gelehrten-Kalender 2014. Bio-bibliographisches Verzeichnis deutschsprachiger Wissenschaftler der Gegenwart. 26th edition, vol. 1 (A–G). De Gruyter, Berlin – Boston, Mass. 2014, p. 663. At University of East Anglia Norwich (UK), he was a colleague of writer W.G. Sebald.Letters by W.G. Sebald to Andreas Dorschel from 1997 in the German Literature Archive Cf. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 59 (2015), pp. 465–466. Dorschel was visiting professor at Emory University (1995) and at Stanford University (2006).Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair Professors On Dorschel’s initiative, the Graz Institute for Music Aesthetics received its name in 2007.Before it had been called, somewhat awkwardly, 'Institut for Valuation Research' ('Institut für Wertungsforschung'). Dorschel’s predecessor, though, complained about the re-naming; see Otto Kolleritsch, Hier wird’s Ereignis. Kritische Ästhetik zwischen künstlerischer Praxis und Forschung mit der Kunst. Leykam, Graz 2014, pp. 339–340. Between 2008 and 2017, Dorschel was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF);Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Board of Trustees Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF), Wir fördern Zukunft. FWF, Vienna 2017, p. 64. from 2012 to 2017 he joined the Review Panel of the HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) Joint Research Programme of the European Science Foundation (ESF) (Strasbourg / Brussels).European Science Foundation HERA Review Panel From 2010 on, he has been on the advisory board of the Royal Musical Association (RMA) Music and Philosophy Study Group.Royal Musical Association Music and Philosophy Study Group In his philosophical explorations of music, he closely exchanged ideas with British aesthetician Roger Scruton (1944–2020).Cf., i.a., Roger Scruton, The Ring of Truth: The Wisdom of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs. Allen Lane, London 2016, pp. vii, 172, 239, 364, 366; Wagner's Parsifal: The Music of Redemption. Allen Lane, London 2020, p. ix. In 2019, Andreas Dorschel was elected member of the Academia Europaea.Andreas Dorschel on Academia Europaea website He held fellowships of the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study during the academic year 2020/21Andreas Dorschel on Institute for Advanced Studies Berlin website and of the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study during the academic year 2024/25.Andreas Dorschel on Hamburg Institute for Advanced Studies website
Research Theories of subjectivity Aesthetics Poetics Philosophy of music History of ideas Styles of reasoningCf. Andreas Dorschel, Binsenweisheiten. In: Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger (ed.), Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Jahrbuch 2020/21. Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Berlin 2022, pp. 72–75, p. 72.
Work In his philosophical studies, Dorschel explores, both in a systematic and historical vein, the interconnectedness of thought and action. His work has been influenced by philosophers Denis Diderot, Arthur Schopenhauer and R. G. Collingwood.Following Collingwood, Dorschel rejects technical terminology in philosophy, aiming instead at "that expressiveness, that flexibility, that dependence upon context, which are the hall-marks of a literary use of words" (R.G. Collingwood, An Essay on Philosophical Method. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1933, p. 207).
Will In Die idealistische Kritik des Willens [German Idealism's Critique of the Will] (1992) Dorschel defends an understanding of freedom as choice against Kant's and Hegel's ethical animadversions. Following a method of "critical analysis",Dieter Hüning, Die "Härte des abstracten Rechts". Person und Eigentum in Hegels Rechtsphilosophie. In: Dieter Hüning, Gideon Stiening and Ulrich Vogel (eds.), Societas rationis. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002, pp. 235–262, p. 238: "kritische Analyse". Dorschel objects both to Kant’s claim that "a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same thing" ("ein freier Wille und ein Wille unter sittlichen Gesetzen einerlei")Immanuel Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten AB 98. and to Hegel’s doctrine that "freedom of the will is rendered real as law" ("die Freiheit des Willens als Gesetz verwirklicht").Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, ed. Georg Lasson. Felix Meiner, Leipzig 1923ff., p. 368. What renders freedom of the will real, Dorschel argues, is rather to exercise choice sensibly.Short version of the argument in English: Andreas Dorschel, The Authority of the Will. In: The Philosophical Forum 33 (2002), no. 4, pp. 425–441. Micha H. Werner, 'Diskursethik'. In: Marcus Düwell, Christoph Hübenthal and Micha H. Werner (eds.), Handbuch Ethik. Metzler, Stuttgart – Weimar 2002, pp. 140–151, p. 150, calls Dorschel a "representative of discourse ethics" ("Vertreter der Diskursethik"); however, nothing of the sort is implied, let alone put forward in Dorschel’s argument. Unlike other critics of idealism, Dorschel does not endorse determinism. Determinism, if we are to make sense of the idea, would have to be correlated with the notion of prediction. Predictions, Dorschel argues, need a basis that is not affected by their being made. But just as I cannot overtake my own shadow, I cannot predict my own future behaviour from my present state. For I would alter my state by making the prediction.Cf. Andreas Dorschel, Zur Kritik des totalisierenden Erklärungsprogramms. In: Vierteljahresschrift Theologie und Philosophie 63 (1988), no. 3, pp. 384–395. This line of reasoning can do without Kant’s opposition of determinism about appearances and freedom of the thing-in-itself.Cf. Andreas Dorschel, Die idealistische Kritik des Willens. Versuch über die Theorie der praktischen Subjektivität bei Kant und Hegel. Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1992 (Schriften zur Transzendentalphilosophie 10), pp. 118–121.
Prejudice
Rethinking Prejudice (2000, reissued 2019) examines the Enlightenment’s struggle against prejudicesSetting prejudice against experience, in particular, misses the point. "As Andreas Dorschel has pointed out in this context, language itself, necessary to articulate experience even to ourselves, is saturated with prejudice" (Martin Kagel, A Blank Slate. In: Publications of the English Goethe Society 79 (2010), no. 2, pp. 79–94, p. 92). and the Counter-Enlightenment's partisanship in favour of them. "Dorschel wants to subvert that controversy by way of refuting an assumption shared by both parties" ("Dorschel will diesen Streit unterlaufen, indem er eine von beiden geteilte Annahme widerlegt"),Richard Raatzsch, Über Wesen und Wert der Vorurteile. In: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 50 (2002), no. 4, pp. 646–653, p. 652. to wit, that prejudices are bad or good, false or true because they are prejudices.Manfred Geier, Vorurteilchenphysik. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung 57, no. 178 (4/5 August 2001), p. V. Geier praises the acumen ("Scharfsinn") of Dorschel's enquiry. As Richard Raatzsch puts it, Dorschel "seeks out the common source of both parties’ errors through rendering each position as strong as possible" ("den gemeinsamen Quellen der Irrtümer beider Seiten nachgeht, indem er sie so plausibel wie möglich zu machen sucht").Richard Raatzsch, Über Wesen und Wert der Vorurteile. In: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 50 (2002), no. 4, pp. 646–653, p. 653. Cf. Richard Raatzsch, Autorität und Autonomie. Mentis, Paderborn 2007, pp. 95, 140–141. Prejudices, Dorschel concludes, can be true or false, intelligent or stupid, wise or foolish, positive or negative, good or bad, racist or humanist – and they possess none of these features simply qua prejudices.Andreas Dorschel, Rethinking Prejudice. Ashgate, Aldershot (UK) – Burlington (USA) – Singapore – Sydney 2000, p. xii. Cf., following Dorschel, John Arthur, Race, Equality, and the Burdens of History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge – New York, NY, pp. 28–29. The conclusion's significance derives from the fact that it is part and parcel of "an account which preserves something of the common-sense notion of prejudice, rather than an abstract list of necessary and sufficient conditions that risks neglecting what people have historically meant and continue to mean by the term."Matthew Ratcliffe, Rethinking Prejudice by Andreas Dorschel. In: Philosophical Books 43 (2002), no. 2, pp. 156–157, p. 156.
Design