ÀÖÓãºǫ́

In an interview with podcast , prof. Rutger Claassen (Philosophy and Religious Studies) talked about the interdisciplinary interests that lie at the heart of his academic work.

Philosophy, politics, and economics

Claassen is the Program Director of the new Philosophy, Politics & Economics (PPE) bachelor that started in 2018. He himself studies all three of these topics, and specifically the ways in which they intersect. Claassen started out as a law student, and quickly took on philosophy as well. Economics and politics fitted in with these interests, and thus Claassen takes ideas from different disciplines to incorporate into his own theories of political philosophy.

Navigational agency

All of these topics come together in Claassen's idea of 'navigational agency', about which he wrote his latest book Capabilities in a Just Society. A Theory of Navigational Agency. "A navigational agent is someone who is able to reflect on and make choices about the ways in which he or she is participating in social practices," Claassen explains. This does not only mean that the person can start or stop participating in social practices (in which we're always embedded), but also influence the norms of those practices.