Sven Thomas

Philosophy and Ethics of techno-scientific Cultures

Research Associate

E-Mail:
sven.thomas@uni-paderborn.de
Office Address:
Pohlweg 55
33098 Paderborn
Room:
N2.319
Office hours:

Nach Absprache per Email.

About Sven Thomas

Since April 2022, I have been working as a research assistant for Junior Professor Suzana Alpsancar in the Heinz Nixdorf Institute's associated specialist group for applied ethics with a focus on technology ethics in the digital world. My research focuses on questions that examine the influence of new technical artefacts on our interaction with others and with the world. I am particularly interested in the everyday, such as how we deal with and use language machines, social media or dating platforms, as well as technologies that run in the background, such as the algorithmic translation of languages. My doctoral project has the working title: ‘Speaking with machines. A praxis and its constitution of the social’. In this project, I am investigating the implications of linguistic interaction with machines for the constitution of the users' world view and self-image as well as their sociality. I mainly refer to the works of Günther Anders, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin and Emauel Levinas. With my studies, I would like to contribute to a more conscious use of the many new inventions, so that we can emphasise the advantages they bring to our lives and not passively succumb to their inherent logics.

Curriculum Vitae

Since 01.04.2022: Research assistent at Paderborn University

01.10.2021: Master thesis: On the constant need to think differently - Three theories of critique as practice in Ranciere, Foucault and Benjamin.

01.10.2013 - 30.09.2021: Studies of mathematics and philosophy at the Technical University Darmstadt

01.08.2017 - 22.12.2017: Study Exchange at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras

01.08.2015 - 30.06.2016: Study Exchange at the University of Oslo

01.06.2025 - 07.06.2025: Eramsus+ Gastdozent an der Universität Wien

Research

Research Interests

  • Philosophy of technology
  • Social philosophy
  • Philosophy of language
  • Peripheral areas of critical theory

Publications

Selected Publications

Rezension: Thomas Meyers neue Arendt Biographie. Sinnbild der Verstrickung von Theorie und Praxis

S. Thomas, HannahArendt.Net 14 (2025) 240–242.

DOI

Rezension: Hanna Meretoja: Die Nacht der alten Feuer

S. Thomas, HannahArendt.Net 14 (2025) 237–239.

DOI

Language in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

S. Thomas, Technology and Language 3 (2022).

DOI

Being-Through-Law - Erfahrungen und Strukturen der Rechtslosigkeit. Ein Werkstatteinblick

S. Thomas, J. Zaenker, Journal Phänomenologie 50 (2018) 55–59.


Show all publications

Teaching


Current Courses

  • Jenseits des Codes: Alterität im Angesicht von KI

Additional Activities

WiSe24/25: Martin Heidegger: Being and Time

SoSe24: (Anti-)Social Media

WiSe23/24: Revisiting the Liguistic Turn: Language in the Mirror of Language AIs

SoSe23: The Language of Things: Introduction to Walter Benjamin's Philosophy of Language and Media

WiSe22/23: Hannah Arendt: The Human Condition

SoSe22: Günther Anders: The Outdatedness of Human Beings

Scientific Engagement

Since 11/2024  |  Deputy member of the Ethics Committee of Paderborn University


Further Information

Presentations

Dekonstruktion des Narratives der Einsamkeits-Epidemie. Eine phänomenologische Perspektive mit Anders, Arendt und Levinas, Tagung der deutschen Gesellschaft für phänomenologische Forschung, TU Darmstadt, 24.09.2025.

Macht Beziehungen! Über Einsamkeit als Ware am Beispiel von Dating-Apps, Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft, Universität Paderborn, 18.09.2025.

On the Normativity of the Concept of Believability in Generative Agents, together with Leonie Möck. International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP), TU Delft, 03.07.25.

Believable generative agents: A self-fulfilling prophecy?, together with Leonie Möck. Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT), Eindhoven, 26.06.25.

Believable Generative Agents and Epistemic Vulnerabilities, together with Leonie Möck. 10TH STS Italia Conference: Technoscience for Good, Mailand, 12.06.25.

Anders auf Tinder. Wie das Geschäft mit der Liebe diese selbst verändert, Deutscher Kongress für Geographie (DKG), Frankfurt a.M., 22.09.2023.

Romantik heute. Gefühle als Ware, Pegasus UPB, Paderborn, 08.2023.

Smooth Answers and Fabulations. Engaging with Processed Language, togehter with Leonie Möck, International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP), Prag, 07.2023.

Sprachen im Zeitalter ihrer algorithmischen Übersetzbarkeit, Paderbornder Kolloquium zur Philosophie, Paderborn, 01.2023.

Sprachmagie – Magic of Language and Reproduction, Third Padova Summer School on Philosophy and Cultural Studies of Technology, Padua, 09.2022.