Konrad Paul Liessmann

Liessmann has published numerous academic and essayistic works on questions of aesthetics, philosophy of art and culture, social and media theory, and 19th and 20th century philosophy. He had regular personal contact with Günther Anders in the last decade of his life.

Since 2016, Liessmann has been a regular guest on the broadcast series Sternstunde Philosophie [de] on Swiss television. On 28 July 2016, he gave the opening speech of the Salzburg Festival.

Liessmann repeatedly participates in public debates. He is a sought-after interview partner on Austrian Broadcasting and in the upmarket Austrian press. Controversial essays and commentaries in the feature pages of the daily newspapers Der Standard, Die Presse and the weekly magazine profil deal with current issues and discourses on socio-political topics. After writing a year-long column for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung from 2016 to 2020. He has been active as a columnist for the Wiener Zeitung since October 2020.

For his 60th birthday in 2013, a Festschrift was written which refers to Liessmann's professional activities. It contains contributions by Robert Pfaller [de], Martin Seel [de], Klaus Albrecht Schröder [de], Lambert Wiesing [de], Volker Gerhardt, Andreas Gruschka [de], Franz Schuh and Barbara Schneider-Taylor [de] among others.

From October 2004 to October 2008, Liessmann was Director of Studies for philosophy and educational science at the University of Vienna. From 2008 to 2012, Liessmann was vice dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Science. From 2011 to 2015, he was vice president of the "German Society for Aesthetics". From 2014 to 2018, he directed the university course "Philosophical Practice" at the University of Vienna. He retired in 2018. Liessmann has been vice-president of the "Society for Education and Knowledge" since 2010 and founding member and chairman of the "International Günther Anders Society" since 2012.

Since 1996 he has been the academic director of the Philosophicum Lech and editor of the book series of the same name published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag. From 2002 to 2006, he was head of the 'Friedrich Heer Working Group' of the Austrian Research Foundation and editor of Friedrich Heer's work at Böhlau Verlag.

Liessmann wrote an article on the occasion of Günther Anders's 80th birthday, in which he describes his first encounter with Anders. Liessmann also organised the first international symposium on Günther Anders in Vienna in 1991 and has been leading a research project to index his estate since 2012.

Liessmann is a sharp critic of environmental pollution, especially through car traffic. In The Good Man of Austria, a collection of essays from 1980 to 1995, Liessmann suggested in the essay 'The Auschwitz Principle' "that there is more than a lexical or phonetic connection between the gassing of the Nazis and the gassing of our civilisation. " Like the SS destroyed the Jews, "through our penchant for Volkswagens and motorways," Liessmann argues, "we destroyed the livelihoods of millions of people and thus destroyed them ourselves." Driving a car, locomotion with "a machine that has made man its slavish appendage" is "everyday fascism".

As late as the 1980s, Liessmann wrote in 2001 in the Tagesspiegel, in view of various failures (such as the Challenger Explosion) and accidents (e.g. Bhopal or Chernobyl) based on supposed technical achievements, a general technosceptic mood prevailed. Now the "phobia" had given way to "euphoria" and it was true: "The problems of technology [...] are usually solvable by technology." This, Liessmann said, was surprising, "[t]o be sure, technology has not suddenly become harmless or without danger, but it has changed its shape. It has, as banal as it may sound, above all become smaller and thus more inconspicuous." Even the car illustrates this effect: while many people are afraid of air travels, the same people entrust themselves without hesitation to the demonstrably more dangerous road traffic. When driving a car, there is a kind of fusion of technical device and human being (who often controls the former himself), and the same can be seen with mobile phoness, which are "almost perceived as a part of the body". Liessmann concluded that technologies increasingly determine our behaviour, creating an "illusion of freedom" but de facto signifying subjugation.

Born in Villach, Liessmann completed his Matura in 1971 at the Peraugymnasium [de] in his hometown. and then studied German language and literature, history and philosophy at the University of Vienna and completed his Magisterium in 1976, receiving his doctorate in 1979 and his habilitation in 1989. In 2011, he was appointed to the professorship for methods of teaching philosophy and ethics at the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Science at the University of Vienna. His love of literature came about through Karl May.

Konrad Paul Liessmann (born 13 April 1953) is an Austrian philosopher, essayist and cultural publicist. He is a university professor for "Methods of Teaching Philosophy and Ethics" at the University of Vienna. He officially retired in 2018, but continued his professorial activities at the University of Vienna on a special contract basis until the end of 2020.