SuchThatCast Episode 7: David Koepsell

David Koepsell earned his PhD in philosophy as well as his law degree from the University at Buffalo, where he studied with Barry Smith. He has authored numerous articles as well as authored and edited several books, including Searle on the Institutions of Social Reality, The Ontology of Cyberspace: Law, Philosophy, and the Future of Intellectual Property. He has lectured worldwide on issues ranging from civil rights, philosophy, science, ontology, intellectual property theory, society, and religion. Koepsell has practiced law, worked for Bowstreet, Inc. as an ontologist in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and taught at the University at Buffalo. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy at TU Delft in September 2008. Koepsell and I spend quite some time discussing his controversial views on patenting and copyright, which naturally leads us into the foundations of ethics and law. Despite Koepsell’s largely analytic style, we also touch upon phenomenology and the value of continental philosophy. Since Koepsell was executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, we also dicuss the culture wars in the US before concluding with the relation between popular culture and philosophy.