Dr. Michael Oliva Córdoba

Photo: UHH/privat

Research Associate

History of philosophy

Address

University of Hamburg

Faculty of Humanities

Department of Philosophy

Institute of Philosophy

Von-Melle-Park 6, Postbox #4

20146 Hamburg

Office

Philosophenturm

Room: 12th floor, Room B12013

Office hours

By appointment per email

Contact

Tel: +49 40 428 38 - 3526

Fax: +49 40 428 38 - 3983

Email: michael.oliva-cordoba"AT"uni-hamburg.de

Key aspects of activity

Analytic action theory
Philosophy of the 19th & 20th century
Political philosophy

Curriculum Vitae

since 2017	Research Associate, Department of Philosophy, University of Hamburg (postdoc, permanent)
Summer term 2017	Visiting lecturer in praxeology in the master's programme in Entrepreneurial Economics (M.Sc.) at the BiTS Business and Information Technology School, Berlin
2007 - 2017	Scientific Co-ordinator, Department of Philosophy, University of Hamburg
2003 - 2007	Officer / head of planning, Department of Philosophy, University of Hamburg
2000	Doctorate in philosophy, dissertation: Sense and Incompleteness. Aspects of the Semantics of Descriptions [in German]
2000 - 2002	Temporary lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Hamburg
1996 - 2000	Research stipendiary, Doctoral programme in cognitive science, University of Hamburg
1995	Magister Artium, master's thesis: Erkenntniswert and cognitive value [in German]
1994 - 1996	Editor / head of music, Klassik-Radio GmbH & Co. KG
1987 - 1994	Study of philosophy, English language and literature, social anthropology and education, University of Hamburg

Areas of Specialization

Analytic action theory
Philosophy of the 19th & 20th century
Political philosophy
Philosophy of language

Publications

2024	„On the philosophy and logic of human action: A Neo-Austrian contribution to the methodology of the social sciences”, Philosophical Problems in Science 76, 2024, S. 107–150.
2023	„Liberty of conscience and the limits of state action [in German]”, Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie Volume 48, Issue 1, 2023, pp. 5–39.
2021	„On the possibility of moral subjectivism. An enquiry into the attitudinality of morals and religion [in German]”, Methodus. International Journal for Modern Philosophy, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2021, pp. 3–31.
2020	"Discrimination and wrongfulness: Huxley’s nightmare and the role of the state [in German]", Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie, Volume 7, Issue 1, 2020, pp. 191–230.
2019	„The Theory of a Just Price in Light of Codex Iustinianus 4.44.2 and 4.44.8 [in German]”, Archives for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Vol. 105, Issue 4, 2019, pp. 553–575.
2017	'Uneasiness and scarcity. An analytic approach towards Ludwig von Mises' Praxeology', in Axiomathes Vol. 27, pp. 521–529.
2014	'Meta-linguistic Descriptivism and the Opacity of Quotation', Acta Analytica, 2014, Voume 29, Issue 4, pp. 413–426.
2014	'Why we act [in German, with Rolf W. Puster], in Windmüller, Sonja & Klein, Inga (eds.), Kultur der Ökonomie, ‪Bielfeld 2014: transcript Verlag, pp. 149-154. (https://doi.org/10.14361/transcript.9783839424605.149)
2013	'What is freedom?' [in German, with Rolf. W. Puster], online publication, Wirtschaftswoche, 13. November 2013.
2002	'Rigidity and Modal Asymmetry: The Intuitive Kripkean Argument Revisited', in: Beckermann, Ansgar & Nimtz, Christian (eds.), Argument & Analyse, Paderborn 2002: Mentis, pp. 306-320.
2002	Sense and Incompleteness. Aspects of the Semantics of Descriptions [in German]. Mentis Verlag, Paderborn

Courses taught

Unless otherwise noted all courses taught in German

Semester	Level	Subject
SS 2026	Intermediate	Logico-sematic propaedeutics
SS 2026	Intermediate	Plato: Theaetetus
SS 2026	Advanced	Sowell: Knowledge and Decisions
SS 2026	Advanced	Ross: The Right and the Good
WS 2025/26	Intermediate	Action and imputation
WS 2025/26	Intermediate	Putnam: The meaning of "meaning"
WS 2025/26	Intermediate	Mackie: The subjectivity of values
WS 2025/26	Advanced	Huemer/Wendt: The problem of political authority
WS 2025/26	Advanced	Scanlon: Why does inequality matter?
SS 2025	Intermediate	The Classics explained: Quine on what there is
SS 2025	Intermediate	Davidson: Actions, Reasons, and Causes
SS 2025	Intermediate	Isaiah Berlin: Two concepts of liberty
SS 2025	Advanced	Bloomfield & Copp: Moral Realism
WS 2024/25	Intermediate	Ernst: Moral relativism
WS 2024/25	Intermediate	The Classics explained: Frege on Sense and Reference
WS 2024/25	Advanced	Essays on Anscombe's Intention
WS 2024/25	Advanced	Affirmative action and equality of opportunity
WS 2024/25	Advanced	De-nationalisation and social self-regulation
SS 2024	Intermediate	The Classics explained: Kripke on Names and Possible Worlds
SS 2024	Intermediate	Davies & Harrigan: Cooperation and Coercion
SS 2024	Advanced	Sowell: Social Justice Fallacies
SS 2024	Advanced	Nagel: The view from nowhere
WS 2023/24	Intermediate	The Classics explained: Russell's Theory of Descriptions
WS 2023/24	Intermediate	Beckerman/Pasek: Justice, Posterity, and the Environment
WS 2023/24	Advanced	Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion
WS 2023/24	Advanced	Prinz: Wanting, Believing, and Acting
SS 2023	Intermediate	John Locke: Two Treatises of Government
SS 2023	Intermediate	Elizabeth Anderson: What is the point of equality?
SS 2023	Advanced	Philosophical aspects of reading law
SS 2023	Advanced	Alfred Mele: Motivation - Essentially Motivation-Constituting Attitudes
WS 2022/23	Research colloquium	Agent, Promise, and Obligation [with Rolf W. Puster]
WS 2022/23	Intermediate	W.V.O. Quine: Reference and modality
WS 2022/23	Intermediate	Carl Menger: Value and valuing
WS 2022/23	Advanced	The agent and the state: Individual agency and the limits of state action
WS 2022/23	Advanced	Mind and world: The horrors of Parmenides
WS 2022/23	Advanced	Of the possibility of moral subjectivism
SS 2022	Intermediate	Outlines of a theory of action
SS 2022	Intermediate	Hobbes: Leviathan
SS 2022	Advanced	Consent, trust, and opinion with regard to the body politic
SS 2022	Advanced	Subjectivity and objectivity
SS 2022	Advanced	Action, scarcity, and future generations [in English]
WS 2021/22	Intermediate	Varieties of correspondence
WS 2021/22	Intermediate	Acting under duress
WS 2021/22	Advanced	Rethinking inequality: Individuality and the common good (in English)
WS 2021/22	Advanced	Hobbes: On the citizen (De cive)
WS 2021/22	Advanced	Cause and influence: Hume and others on causal explanation
SS 2021	Intermediate	Thomas Nagel: What is it like to be a bat?
SS 2021	Intermediate	From Individual to Plural Agency
SS 2021	Advanced	Freedom and the Welfare State (Hayek: The Constitution of Liberty, Part III) (in English)
SS 2021	Advanced	Thomas Hobbes: Elemements of Law (1640)
SS 2021	Advanced	Kazimierz Twardowski: On the Content and Object of Presentations (1894)
WS 2020/21	Intermediate	Semantics and Ontology
WS 2020/21	Intermediate	Frankfurt: The problem of action
WS 2020/21	Intermediate	Discrimination and Disparities
WS 2020/21	Advanced	Hayek: Freedom and the Law (The Constitution of Liberty, Part II) (in English)
WS 2020/21	Advanced	Micro-philosophical foundations of competition (or: economics) (in English)
WS 2020/21	Advanced	Twardowski: On the Content and Object of Presentations
SS 2020	Advanced	Hayek: The Value of Freedom (The Constitution of Liberty, Part I) (in English)
WS 2019/20	Intermediate	The problem of moral obligation
WS 2019/20	Advanced	Semantics and pragmatics
WS 2019/20	Advanced	The paradox of analysis
SS 2019	Intermediate	Foundations of action theory
SS 2019	Advanced	Capitalism - nature and problems
WS 2018/19	Intermediate	Moral disagreement
WS 2018/19	Advanced	The concert of the just price: Theory and application
WS 2018/19	Advanced	Searle: Intentionality
SS 2018	Advanced	Mally: The Basic Laws of Ought: Elements of the Logic of Willing
SS 2018	Advanced	Theory of proper names
SS 2018	Advanced	Kukathas: The Liberal Archipelago
WS 2017/18	Advanced	Analytic praxeology [in English]
WS 2017/18	Advanced	Frankfurt on equality
SS 2017	Intermediate	Frege: "On sense and reference"
SS 2017	Advanced	Coercion and subjectivity
WS 2016/17	Intermediate	Williams: "Internal and external reasons"
WS 2016/17	Advanced	Action and freedom
WS 2016/17	Advanced	Contractualism
SS 2016	Intermediate	The problem of universals
SS 2016	Advanced	Wanting, believing, and doing
WS 2015/16	Intermediate	Outlines of Pyrrhonian Scepticism
WS 2015/16	Advanced	Austin: "A Plea for Excuses"
WS 2015/16	Advanced	von Wright: Explanation and Understanding
SS 2015	Intermediate	Ethics and law
SS 2015	Advanced	Frankfurt: "Freedom of the Will and the concept of a person"
WS 2014/15	Intermediate	John Locke: Two Treatises on Government
WS 2014/15	Advanced	Donald Davidson: "Freedom to Act"
WS 2014/15	Advanced	W.V.O. Quine: "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"

Miscellaneous

2025	"Barter with oneself. An action theoretic approach", Abstract of a presentation to be given at the 2nd workshop of the FWF ESPRIT research project ‘Adverse Allies: Logical Empiricism and Austrian Economics’", from 23 September to 25 September 2025 at the Johan Kepler University Linz, version dated 11 June 2025
2022	"To be truly everyone's state. Religious subjectivism and the limits of modern-day democracy", Unpulished draft of a manuscript for a talk to be held on the 17. June 2022 at the University of Cambridge, version 7. June 2022
2022	"The agent and the state", book project, version 7. February 2022
2021	"Micro-philosophical foundations of competition (or, economics)", conference talk, version 5. September 2021
2021	"A “want of clearness” in § 13 of Moore’s Principia Ethica", conference talk, version 15. July 2021
2020	" Inequality", abstract, version 10. March 2020
2020	"The paradox of citizenship", discussion note, version 15. January 2020
2019	"The problem of moral obligation and the paradox of analysis. Aspects of the semantics and pragmatics of valuing and explanation [in German]", unpublished research paper, version 4. March 2019
2019	"Of Those Things that Weaken, or Tend to the Dissolution of a Commonwealth: Hobbes and the Role of Government in Education [in German]", unpublished research paper, version 3. April 2019, revised version of a lecture held on the "Unitag 2019" in the University of Hamburg on 19. February 2019
2018	"Subjectivism, the revolutionary insight of Austrian theory", abstract, version 15. August 2018
2018	"Subjectivity and objectivity", unpublished research paper, version 04. July 2018