Volker Gerhardt is Professor emeritus of Practical Philosophy at the Humboldt-University in Berlin. After studying Philosophy, Psychology and Law in Frankfurt and Münster, he obtained his doctorate at Münster, and received his Habilitation there in 1984. In 1985, Gerhardt was appointed Professor of Philosophy at Münster. From 1988 to 1992 he led the Institute of Philosophy at the Deutsche Sporthochschule in Cologne. In 1992, he took over his current position at the Humboldt University in Berlin. His research focuses on ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, metaphysics and theology, while his historical studies are centered on Plato, Kant and Nietzsche but have also dealt with Hegel, Marx, Jaspers, Voegelin, Hannah Arendt, Carl Schmitt and others. Volker Gerhardt has been Vice President of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Chairman of the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, senate member of the German National Foundation, member of the SPD Basic Values Commission, Chairman of the Humboldt-University Council and until 2012, he has been a member of the German Ethics Council. Volker Gerhardt has received numerous prizes, including an honorary doctorate of the University of Debrecen, Hungary. His book publications include, among many: Partizipation. Das Prinzip der Politik (2007) and Öffentlichkeit: Die politische Form des Bewusstseins (2012).