In March 2018 the Academic Board of Directors of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften appointed Menachem Fisch as Senior Fellow of the Kolleg. His connection to the Forschungskolleg originally arose out of the recommendation of Christian Wiese (Martin Buber Professor for Jewish Religious Philosophy at Goethe University Frankfurt), who works as a Goethe Fellow at the Kolleg on the project »Mutual Perceptions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam«. Wiese is pleased to have gained Fisch’s expertise for this project through his appointment as Senior Fellow. In 2017 Fisch and Wiese worked together to establish the Forum for the Study of Interreligious Dynamics at the Kolleg.
Menachem Fisch (Foto Uwe Dettmar); Christian Wiese (Foto Stefanie Wetzel)
Menachem Fisch is Joseph and Ceil Mazer Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science and Director of the Center for Religious and Interreligious Studies at Tel Aviv University. Menachem Fisch has published widely on the history of 19th century British science and mathematics, on confirmation theory and rationality, on the theology of Talmudic literature, and the philosophy of Talmudic legal reasoning. His current work explores the limits of normative self-criticism, the Talmud's dispute of religiosity, the possibilities of articulating a pluralist political philosophy from within the assumptions of halakhic Judaism, and the historiography of scientific framework transitions. He has held visiting research positions at Queen’s College, Oxford; Trinity College, Cambridge; The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin; the Dibner Institute for Advanced Study in the History of Science and Technology, MIT; the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; Collegium Budapest, and the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Bad Homburg. In 2016 he was awarded the Humboldt Research Prize, and, in 2017, an Honorary Doctorate at Goethe University.