Philosophy addresses fundamental questions such as "Can we truly know anything about the world?", "Are there objective moral properties?", or "What is the essence of a work of art?" These questions cannot be answered solely through empirical methods. Philosophers rely primarily on problem-oriented reflection and reasoning to explore them. However, philosophical questions do not arise out of nowhere. They have both a history, which helps explain why people have posed such questions in the first place, and a place within a broader framework of argumentation, which clarifies why it is reasonable to ask them. Both dimensions of a philosophical question—its history and its dialectical context—can only be understood through the texts that philosophers have written over the centuries. For this reason, the study of philosophy places a strong emphasis on the close reading and discussion of classical philosophical texts. This meticulous work with texts is not an end in itself. Rather, it equips students with the skills necessary to engage in philosophical inquiry themselves. The aim of studying philosophy is to enable students to contribute to current philosophical debates with their own innovative ideas, meeting all the standards of high-quality academic writing in the humanities.
The Institute for Philosophy at Goethe University is one of the largest philosophy institutes in Germany, with eight professorships. Its strong appeal to students, both nationally and internationally, is also due to its close association with renowned philosophers such as Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. At present, the institute covers nearly the entire spectrum of philosophical research.