Dr W.W.H. Cornelissen (Wout)

Wout Cornelissen is appointed as Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Law.

His research is devoted to critical-philosophical reflection on:
(i) the meaning, origin, and adequacy of the concepts we use in order to understand legal, political, and social phenomena and answer legal, political, and social questions;
(ii) the nature, foundations, and history of this form of reflection.
He is co-editor of the new, critical edition of Hannah Arendt's Life of the Mind, on thinking, willing, and judging (see ‘Projects’).

In his current teaching he focuses on philosophical reflection on the foundations of liberal democracy and of international migration law. Previously, he designed and taught courses in philosophy of law, political philosophy, and their histories, phenomenology, existential philosophy, and Critical Theory, and philosophies of labor and work.

In the summer semester of 2022 he served as visiting professor in the history of philosophy (prof. dr. Anne Eusterschulte) in the Institute for Philosophy of the FU Berlin, where he was previously appointed as a wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter (DFG). Earlier he was Research Assistant Professor of German and Lecturer in Philosophy and Political Science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, postdoctoral researcher (NWO) in the Department of Philosophy of Utrecht University, Hannah Arendt Center Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Law in the Faculty of Law of VU University Amsterdam.

He holds a doctorate from the Institute for Philosophy of the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University. His dissertation was devoted to a critical examination of the relation between philosophy and politics. For the purpose of this research, he spent one term as a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago. He studied philosophy at Radboud University, with philosophy of law as major.

• Research Center for State and Law