Aleksandar Kellenberg

Independent Scholar in Philosophy

Aleksandar Kellenberg is an independent scholar based in Bern, Switzerland. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Bern and has pursued postdoctoral research in Oxford and New York (NYU and Columbia). Specializing in metaphysics and philosophy of language, he has held teaching positions at the University of Bern and at the Autonomous University of Madrid. A list of his relevant publications can be found here.

Kellenberg's research proceeds from the premise that a coherent ontological description of our world must be given in terms of what we actually do or what is possible for us to do. To implement this idea, he developed a method of conceptual analysis and applied it to core issues in metaphysics and the philosophy of action. He outlines the resulting theory in two books and two dozen articles. These are written in English and address, among other things, the nature of desires, actions, and reasons for action; issues regarding weakness of will; the nature of properties, relations, and dispositions; the theory of representation and truth; the theory of identity and individuation; and the semantics of definite descriptions and proper names.

Kellenberg is fluent in German, French, Italian, English, and Croatian. During a two-year sojourn in Portugal and Mozambique, he acquired some Portuguese. He divides his time between Bern and an island in Croatia; gives occasional exhibitions of his paintings and other artwork; is an admirer of classical music and opera; and enjoys travelling, exclusively by land or by sea, to remote destinations such as Mauritania and Namibia.

He welcomes correspondence at
aleksandar.kellenberg [at] gmail.com.