About me

I am a philosopher of science and conceptual theoretical biologist working on conceptual questions in and about the life sciences. Officially I am Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology at Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany. For more on my current positions and academic background, see my academic bio.

 

I am from The Hague on the Dutch North Sea coast. I was educated at Aloysius College and Leiden University, and I am an alumnus of L.V.V.S. Augustinus in Leiden. I divide my time between East Lansing, Michigan, and Hannover, Germany. But: Zoo ik ièts ben, ben ik een Hagenaar.

 

(Banner picture: sunrise over Maumee Bay, Lake Erie, seen from Lost Peninsula, Toledo, Ohio; smaller picture: Capital City River Run 5k, 2022, Lansing, Michigan.)

 


about The hannover philosophy of the life sciences group

At my university I run a small group ("lab") in the philosophy of the life sciences. It currently consists of the following people:

  • Hugh Desmond (postdoc in the Templeton project Agency and Agential Explanation in the Evolutionary Sciences).
  • Karim Baraghith (former postdoc in my DFG-ANR project The Explanatory Scope of Generalized Darwinism; now as a postdoc running his own DFG project Graphs and Networks as Explanatory Tools in Cultural Evolutionary Theory).
  • Martina Valković (PhD student in the DFG-ANR project The Explanatory Scope of Generalized Darwinism).
  • Ina Gawel (PhD student funded by DFG GRK 2073).
  • Martin Wasmer (PhD student in the BMBF project The Ontological Status of Genome Edited Organisms).
  • Frank M. Fischer (PhD student, not on project funding). 

Alumni:

  • Koko Kwisda (PhD student, not on project funding). Dissertation: Ethical and Regulatory Aspects Regarding Xenotransplantation (second supervisor). PhD in Natural Sciences completed 2023.
  • Celso Neto (former PhD student, not on project funding). Dissertation: Biological Lineages in Philosophical Focus. Celso started his PhD in Hannover, moved to finish his PhD at the University of Calgary under the supervision of Marc Ereshefsky (and with me as a committee member). PhD in Philosophy completed 2020.
  • Stefano Canali (former PhD student funded by DFG GRK 2073). Dissertation: The Role of Data and Technology in Contemporary Biomedicine: Integrating Evidence to Study the Relation Between Disease and the Environment (co-supervised with Sabina Leonelli). PhD in Philosophy completed 2019.

 


CONTACT

Institute of Philosophy

Leibniz Universität Hannover

Lange Laube 6 (Room 217)

30159 Hannover, Germany

Email: reydon [at] ww [dot] uni-hannover.de

Web:  LUH Institute of Philosophy

Map: here

 

Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences (CELLS)

Leibniz Universität Hannover

Otto-Brenner-Straße 1 (Room 811)

30159 Hannover, Germany

Email: thomas [dot] reydon [at] cells [dot] uni-hannover.de

Web: CELLS

Map: here