Rüdiger Safranski (born 1 January 1945) is a German philosopher and author.

Life

From 1965 to 1972, Safranski studied philosophy (among others, with Theodor W. Adorno), German literature, history and history of art at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and as well at the Free University in Berlin (then West Berlin). There, he worked as an assistant lecturer for German literature from 1972 to 1977. He earned a PhD from FU Berlin in 1976 for a dissertation by the title of "Studies on the Development of Working-Class Literature in the Federal Republic of Germany" (original ). In the late 1970s, he worked as the co-publisher and editor of the Berliner Hefte, a journal on literary life. From 1977 to 1982, Safranski worked as a lecturer in adult education. Since 1987 he has worked as a freelance writer. In 2005 he married his longtime girlfriend Gisela Nicklaus. He lives in Berlin and Badenweiler.

Works and TV appearances

Safranski's most popular works are monographs on Friedrich Schiller, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Since 1994, he is a member of the P.E.N. Center, since 2001 member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (German Academy for Language and Poetry) in Darmstadt. He co-directed Der Zauberer von Meßkirch, a 1989 television documentary about Heidegger. From 2002 to 2012, he and Peter Sloterdijk co-hosted a bi-monthly debate on philosophical and ethical questions, Das Philosophische Quartett (lit. 'The Philosophical Quartet'), for German public-service TV station ZDF.

Selected works

Awards