Sebastian Köhler

Associate Professor of Philosophy • Professor

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Sebastian Köhler is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. There he teaches within the BScin Management, Philosophy & Economics, the BSc in Computational Business Analytics and in the Master of Applied Data Science. He is also responsible for the FS Philosophy Forum. Before joining the Frankfurt School, Köhler was a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Universität Duisburg-Essen and a Lecturer at Princeton University. A major part of Köhler’s research so far has focused on meta-ethical questions surrounding normativity, at the intersection to the philosophies of Mind and Language. He also has research interests in the ethics of emerging information technologies. Köhler’s research has been published in internationally leading journals, such as The Journal of Philosophy, Ethics, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, The Philosophical Quarterly, Erkenntnis or Ratio.

Sebastian Köhler did his PhD at the University of Edinburgh and studied at the University of Bielefeld, the London School of Economics, and the University of Cambridge.

Computational Science & Philosophy Department
Professor
Faculty

PUBLICATIONS

Köhler, S., 2025. Expressivism, but at a Whole Other Level, Erkenntnis. An International Journal of Scientific Philosophy Vol. 90, pp. 367-388.

Köhler, S., 2025. Good Classification Matters: Conceptual Engineering in Data Science, Synthese Vol. 205(43).

Köhler, S., Mecacci, G., Veluwenkamp, H., 2025. Responsibly Engineering "Control", American Philosophical Quarterly. (forthcoming)

Köhler, S., Mecacci, G., Veluwenkamp, H., 2025. Responsibly Engineering 'Control', American Philosophical Quarterly. (forthcoming)

Köhler, S., 2025. Saving Conceptual Role Expressivism from Defect, Journal of Philosophy. (forthcoming)

Köhler, S., Veluwenkamp, H., 2024. Conceptual Engineering: For What Matters, Mind Vol. 133(530), pp. 400-427.

Köhler, S., 2024. The Responses That Matter, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 105(1), pp. 33-49.

Köhler, S., 2023. Can We Have Moral Status for Robots on the Cheap?, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy Vol. 24(1), pp. 119-140.

Köhler, S., 2023. Expressivism, but at a Whole Other Level, Erkenntnis. An International Journal of Scientific Philosophy.

Köhler, S., 2023. What is (Neo-)Pragmatists' Function?, Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 101(3), pp. 653-669.

Himmelreich, J., Köhler, S., 2022. Responsible AI Through Conceptual Engineering, Philosophy & Technology Vol. 35(60).

Köhler, S., 2021. How to Have Your Quasi-Cake and Quasi-Eat it Too, Canadian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 51(3), pp. 204-220.

Köhler, S., 2021. Normative disagreement: a functional account for inferentialists, Philosophical Studies Vol. 178, pp. 617-637.

Ferguson, B., Köhler, S., 2020. Betterness of permissibility, Philosophical Studies Vol. 177, pp. 2451-2469.

Boult, C., Köhler, S., 2020. Epistemic Judgement and Motivation, Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 70(281), pp. 738-758.

Köhler, S., 2020. Instrumental Robots, Science and Engineering Ethics Vol. 26, pp. 3121-3141.

Köhler, S., 2019. Disagreeing about who we are, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.

Köhler, S., 2018. Expressivism, Meaning, and All That, Canadian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 48(3-4), pp. 337-356.

Köhler, S., 2018. Moral Responsibility Without Personal Identity?, Erkenntnis. An International Journal of Scientific Philosophy.

Köhler, S., 2017. Expressivism, Belief, and All That, Journal of Philosophy Vol. 114(4), pp. 189-207.

Köhler, S., 2015. What is the Problem with Fundamental Moral Error?, Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 93(1), pp. 161-165.

Köhler, S., 2014. Expressivism and Mind-Dependence: Distinct Existences, Journal of Moral Philosophy Vol. 11(6), pp. 750-764.

Köhler, S., 2013. Do Expressivists have an Attitude Problem?, Ethics Vol. 123(3), pp. 479-507.

Köhler, S., Ridge, M., 2013. Revolutionary Expressivism, Ratio Vol. 26(4), pp. 428-449.

Köhler, S., 2012. Expressivism, Subjectivism and Moral Disagreement, Thought Vol. 1(1), pp. 71-78.

Köhler, S., 2012. The Frege-Geach Objection to Expressivism: Structurally Answered, Discussion Note, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (July 2012).

Köhler, S., 2010. Thought Experiments, Disagreement and Moral Realism, Grazer Philosophische Studien Vol. 80(1), pp. 245-252.

Köhler, S., 2014. Beyond Frege-Geach: Neglected Problems For Expressivism, Diss., Edingburgh, Univ.

Guido Löhr, Jeroen Hopster, Sebastian Köhler, Herman Veluwenkamp (eds), 2024. Socially Disruptive Technologies and Conceptual Engineering: Special Issue of Ethics and Information Technology.

Köhler, S., Roughley, N., Sauer, H., 2018, Technologically blurred accountability?: technology, responsibility gaps and the robustness of our everyday conceptual scheme, in: Cornelia Ulbert, Peter Finkenbusch, Elena Sondermann, Tobias Debiel (eds): Moral Agency and the Politics of Responsibility, New York [u.a.]: Routledge, pp. 51-67.

Ridge, M., Köhler, S., 2015, Metaethical theories, hybrid, in: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online, London: Routledge.