Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmaus

Professor of Philosophical Anthropology

Subject Area of Philosophical and Aesthetic Education, Department of Educational Sciences.
General Studies // Philosophy, Arts and Social Entrepreneurship // Economics and Philosophy
Chair of the Doctoral Committee
Office hours: by appointment

Research focuses:
Anthropology (Human Ecology)PhenomenologyCultural, Art, and Technology PhilosophyPhilosophy of Religion

Phone: 02222 9321 1585

Current Publications (Selection)

»A song sleeps in all things …« Structural-philosophical echoes in Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance. In: Weidtmann, Niels (ed.): Phenomenology of Radical Historicity. An Examination of Rombach’s Structural Philosophy. Freiburg/Munich: Alber (forthcoming).

Between Futurum and Adventum. The resonance potential of unavailable future. In: Hüsch, Sebastian/Picard, Sophie/Victor, Oliver/Zenker, Kathrin-Julie (eds.): Between Silence and Resonance / Entre mutisme et résonance. Crises and Perspectives of Late Modernity / Crises et perspectives de la modernité tardive. Basel: Schwabe, pp. 331-351.

Human Ecological General Studies. In: Human Ecological Review 29 (1), 2025, pp. 1-16. (open-access advance online publication)

Water as a source of philosophical inspiration, in: Simon, Karl Heinz/Harrer Puchner, Gabriele/Tretter Felix (eds.): Human Ecology of Water. Element, Resource, Concepts, Inspirations. Munich: oekom 2024, pp. 123-147.

Of Self. A phenomenological discussion of self-expansion in athletic flow. In: Kerkmann, Jan/Sailer, David Manolo (eds.): Uncompromising. Toward the Foundation of a Philosophy of Sport. Baden-Baden: Ergon 2024, pp. 213-237. (available online)

Musical Narratives of Death. Mortality from a music-aesthetic perspective. In: Ortmanns, Bruno (ed.): Thanatology in German-Speaking Contexts. Remscheid: Rediroma-Verlag 2024.

Heinrich Rombach’s concept of the ‘human human being’ as an interpretive framework for current narratives of the Anthropocene. In: Cress, Torsten/Murawska, Oliwia/Schlitte, Annika (eds.): Posthuman? New Perspectives on Nature/Culture. Munich: Fink 2023, pp. 89-108. (available online)

Self-realization through self-optimization? Reasons and limits of a late modern concept, in: Psychologieunterricht 55, 2022, pp. 9-13. (PDF)

Self-formation. Philosophical perspectives on adulthood. In: Pannitschka, Sophie/Rainer, Marlies (eds.): Learning Traces. On a Culture of Learning and Teaching Adults. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag 2022, pp. 23-34.

‘It goes’. The dimension of the impersonal in Heinrich Rombach’s structural philosophy. In: Lehmann, Thorsten (ed.): Philosophical Dimensions of the Impersonal. Würzburg: Ergon 2021, pp. 113-132. (available online)

Not real and yet truthful? The post-factual as a test case for truthfulness. In: Meegen, Sven van (ed.): Truthfulness – a Social Challenge. Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2020, pp. 141-156. (available online)

The future of digitalization. A philosophical diagnosis of the times. In: Hierdeis, Helmut (ed): Digitalization and the Common Good. Perspectives on a Revolution, Kröning: Asanger-Verlag 2021, pp. 213-215. (PDF)

“Tell us your earth story!” Narrative identity in the Anthropocene. In: Voigt, Uwe (2020): Comenius, Klafki and Us. In Search of Education for the Anthropocene. Baden-Baden: Nomos/Academia, pp. 33-54. (freely available online)

Concepts of the human in sustainability discourse. Making the implicit explicit. In: Gaia, issue 3, 2019, p. 327f. (Together with Felix Tretter, Karl-Heinz Simon, Uta Eser)

Big Data in medicine: From the self-determined subject to the externally determined object? In: Krüger, Ludwig/Spieker, Michael (eds.): Big Data in Health Care. Teaching Materials for Secondary School Instruction in Grades 10 to 13. Tutzing: Academy for Civic Education 2019, pp. 28-33. (freely available online)

Cracks, holes and fractures in thinking. Explorations through intellectual history. In: Werkbund Academy Series, issue 19, 2018, pp. 148-167. (PDF)

Homo faber fabricatus. Alternatives to measuring the human being. In: Oberprantacher, Andreas/Siegetsleitner, Anne (eds.): Being Human – Foundation, Imperative or Empty Phrase? Contributions to the 10th International Congress of the Austrian Society for Philosophy in Innsbruck. Innsbruck: University Press 2017, pp. 321-331.

Transience and duration. Chronological and kairological reflections on the conditio humana. In: Gruber, Harald/Reichelt, Stefan (eds.): Art Therapy in Palliative Medicine. Berlin: EB-Verlag 2016, pp. 13-45.

Through doubt and despair. Educational-philosophical impulses for a pedagogy of serenity. In: Lischewski, Andreas (ed.): Negativity as an Educational Impulse? On the Pedagogical Significance of Crises, Conflicts and Catastrophes. Paderborn et al.: Schöningh 2016, pp. 61-98.

Phenomenology as concern with the matter itself. In: Ates, Murat/Bruns, Oliver/Han, Choong-Su/Schulz, Ole Sören (eds.): Overcome Metaphysics? Contributions to the Constellation of Phenomenology and Critique of Metaphysics. Freiburg/Munich: Alber 2016, pp. 71-89.

Nietzsche’s last man as a transhumanist dystopia. In: Heit, Helmut/Thorgeirsdottir, Sigridur (eds.): Nietzsche as Critic and Thinker of Transformation. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter 2016, pp. 206-221. (available online)

The nothing in Eastern thought (Zen Buddhism and Daoism). In: Werkbund Academy Series 2013, issue 15, 126-141. (PDF)

Advocacy for language. Philosophy as poetodicy. In: Coincidentia. Journal of European Intellectual History 2013, vol. 4, issue 2: judging – speaking – orienting, 331-336.

Philosophy of the experience of flow. An approach to the thought of Heinrich Rombach. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2013. (table of contents and sample reading)

Current Lectures (Selection)

20.06.2025
“Open to adventure. Eco-Philosophical Notes on a Promising Understanding of the Future” (Lecture at the international conference “Ecology, Politics, and Justice: Working Towards the Pluriverse” at the University of Mons, Belgium)

10.10.2024
“’The highest good is like water.’ The fluid in Heinrich Rombach’s philosophy” (Lecture at the international conference “Rombach’s Thought and East Asian Philosophy” at the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies at the University of Tübingen)

22.03.2024
“The resonance potential of unavailable future” (Plenary lecture at the international conference “Sortir de l’impasse. Réponses contemporaines au mutisme du monde dans la sociologie, la philosophie et les arts” at Aix-Marseille University)

13.10.2023
“Is structural anthropology a posthumanism?” (Lecture at the conference “Structural Philosophy in Conflict. Phenomenological, Historical and Intercultural Perspectives” at the University of Tübingen)

12.05.2023
“Water as a source of philosophical inspiration” (Lecture at the annual conference “Water: too much, too little, too polluted?! On quantities and qualities” of the German Society for Human Ecology in Sommerhausen/Würzburg)

19.12.2022
“There’s still more possible! On the encouragement and demand of self-optimization in times of digitalization” (Lecture as part of the lecture series “Living Together in Digital Worlds” at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)

29.11.2022
“Concreativity of human and world. Impulses for an aesthetic ontology in the Anthropocene” (Plenary lecture in the lecture series “After the Human? Meaning-Making between Art, Science and Religion in the 21st Century” at KU Linz/Austria)

26.11.2021
“Self-realization through self-optimization? – Reasons and limits of a late modern concept” (Plenary lecture at the online conference of the Association of Psychology Teachers)

25.03.2021
“Fit for future, open to adventure – viability for the future as a dual competence” (Keynote at the digital Future Forum of Deutsche Telekom and Alanus University)

15.01.2021
Contribution to Hartmut Rosa’s workshop “Between active and passive: modes of the mediopassive” at the Max Weber Center, Erfurt

21.10.2020
Panel contribution at the Societaetstheater Dresden (discussion “Time to Think Resonances – Out of the Pressure!”)

26.09.2020
“The future of digitalization. A philosophical diagnosis of the times” in Unkel (Annual conference of the Interdisciplinary Study Society “Digitalization & Common Good. Perspectives on a Revolution”)

18.09.2020
“‘Epicrisis’. Philosophical reflections on crisis as a leitmotif of (late) modernity”, digital (conference “Human Ecology of Crises”)

08.05.2020
“From means to medium: The digitalization of the human world” in Würzburg-Sommerhausen [due to Corona in digital format] (Annual conference of the German Society for Human Ecology “Digitalization and Sustainability: Human Ecological Aspects”)

19.03.2020
“The (un)predictable human being. Philosophical remarks on digital viability for the future” at the University of Vienna [due to Corona in digital format] (conference “Homo digitalis and the conditio humana. Human beings and concepts of the human in the age of digitalization”)

09.03.2020
“New action with old thinking? Normative concepts of the human in sustainability discourse” at Alanus University, Mannheim (lecture series “Philosophical Ethics under the Sign of Sustainability”)

25.01.2020
“Future, what future? Concepts of time in times of digitalization” at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (symposium “Human_Education in the Dispositif of the Digital”)

16.11.2019
“»A song sleeps in all things …« Structural-philosophical echoes in Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance”, at the University of Tübingen (International conference “Ontology in Upheaval. On the Phenomenology of Radical Historicity”)

11.10.2019
“Ethical questions regarding the effects of digitalization” at the University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics, Berlin (VDW annual conference “The Ambivalences of the Digital. Human and Technology between New Spaces of Possibility and Unnoticeable Losses” (contribution and discussion at the closing panel)

08.10.2019
“Competent Interaction with Big Data Applications in Health Care Recommendations of the Tutzing Discours ‘Big Data’” at the Bertallanfy Center Vienna (International workshop “Human Digitalization in Health Affairs – Issues of Assessment”)

21.09.2019
“‘Tell us your earth story!’ Narrative identity in the Anthropocene” at the University of Augsburg (International conference “Comenius, Klafki and us: In Search of Education for the Anthropocene”)

19.09.2019
“Heinrich Rombach’s concept of the ‘human human being’ as an interpretive framework for current narratives of the Anthropocene” at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (International conference “Beyond the Human? Posthuman Perspectives on Nature/Culture”)

10.07.2019
“In practical testing. Different educational formats on the topic of ‘Big Data in Health Care’” at the Academy for Civic Education in Tutzing (Public final presentation of the research project “Big Data in Discourse) (together with Johanna Onischke)

24.06.2019
“Back to the garden? Anthropological reflections on the phenomenon of urban gardening” at the Environmental Science Center of the University of Augsburg, lecture

23.05.2019
“Sustainability-relevant concepts of the human from the perspective of philosophical anthropology” in Würzburg-Sommerhausen (Annual conference of the German Society for Human Ecology)

11.10.2018
“Digitisation in the health care sector. Anthropological and ethical aspects” at the University of Zagreb (Co-presentation of the interdisciplinary policy paper)

05.10.2018
“Human being, truly beautiful here!? How sustainable tourism touches people” in St. Vigil, Enneberg (International conference “na.tour. New impulses for sustainable tourism”)

07.09.2018

“Poetic literacy as a key for successful leadership” at the University of Cumbria (conference “The Poetics of Leadership: Creativity, art and story in enabling meaningful change”)

03.06.2018
“‘You must change your life’. On the connection between aesthetics and ethics” at Alanus University, Alfter (symposium “‘For there is no place that does not see you’. The potential of the arts in life”)

25.05.2018
“The potential of resonance theory for a renewed understanding of sustainability” in Würzburg-Sommerhausen (Annual conference of the German Society for Human Ecology)

09.05.2018
“Self-optimization. On the way to diversity or uniformity?” at Calvarienberg Grammar School Ahrweiler (Europe Day on the topic “Colorful, diverse Europe – between change, progress and preservation”)

08.01.2018
“On the anthropological dimension of digitalization” at the Tutzing Academy for Civic Education (workshop “Big Data in Discourse”)

27.09.2017
“Self-realization through self-optimization? Why you cannot make happen what has to emerge” in Mannheim (Social Organismic Working Group)

14.09.2017
“Mystagogy of the uncanny. Gregor Schneider’s experiential spaces as political provocations” at the FernUniversität Hagen (conference of the German Society for Phenomenological Research “Phenomenology and the Political”)

Audio and Video (Selection)