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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Two million euros in funding for the project “Affective Aesthetic Cognitivism and Wonder” at the Department of Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Philosopher Joerg Fingerhut of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). His research group will investigate the role of wonder in aesthetic experiences and in processes of understanding as part of the project “Affective Aesthetic Cognitivism and Wonder” (AAC_Wonder). The ERC will fund the project for five years.
Wonder is one of the oldest philosophical topics: for Plato and Aristotle it marks the beginning of inquiry, and for Descartes it is one of the fundamental emotions that alerts us to novelty. Today, wonder is experiencing a scientific renaissance in psychology, cognitive science, and neuroaesthetics. AAC_Wonder brings these perspectives together with the aim of developing the first coherent theory of wonder as both an epistemic and aesthetic emotion.
"Cultural artifacts and art are tools for our thinking. Wonder opens a window through which we can see the world differently," says Fingerhut. "We all know situations in which a scene from a film, a work of art in a museum, or remarkable architecture leaves us baffled. I want to refine our philosophical understanding of these moments and investigate them empirically: What is happening cognitively, emotionally, and in our body?"
The project also represents a methodological innovation for philosophy. AAC_Wonder combines philosophical theory-building with its own psychological experiments and a novel data-analytic approach: the Philosophically Guided Supplementary Analysis (PGsA). This procedure involves re-evaluating existing psychological and neuroscientific datasets from the cognitive sciences and systematically analysing them with respect to philosophical questions.
About ERC Consolidator Grants
The ERC Consolidator Grant is one of the most prestigious funding schemes in European research. The award highlights the visibility and significance of philosophical and cognitive research at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
About the Researcher
Joerg Fingerhut is a visiting professor of philosophy and heads the Arts and Minds Lab at Humboldt University in Berlin. His research combines philosophy, empirical aesthetics, cognitive science, and media studies. He publishes regularly in internationally renowned philosophical and empirical journals and recently published—together with Eva Schürmann— the book Theorien des Sehens: Zur Einführung.
From 2021 to 2022, he served as Acting Professor of Philosophy of Mind at LMU Munich and taught in the Graduate School for Systemic Neuroscience. He was an Art and Neuroscience Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University’s Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America and a Visiting Researcher at Yale University and at the City University of New York (CUNY). He was also a member of the research group “Functions of Consciousness” at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW).
He currently leads a Grand Challenges project of the Berlin University Alliance at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, focusing on Neurourbanism as a Novel Approach to Global Health, examining how urban environments and architecture shape cognition, perception, and well-being. Previously, he was Principal Investigator in several third-party funded projects, including the EU-H2020 program within a consortium project ART*IS on art and societal transformation.
Prof. Dr. Joerg Fingerhut
Institut für Philosophie der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Email: joerg.fingerhut.hu-berlin.de
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joerg.fingerhut/
Bluesky: https://joergfingerhut.bsky.social/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joergfingerhut/
https://joergfingerhut.com
https://artsandmindslab.com
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