Dr. Konrad Werner
Personal website: konradwerner.com
Publications available here: https://uw.academia.edu/KonradWerner
Contact: k.werner2@uw.edu.pl
I studied philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where I completed my Ph.D. in 2013, and economics at the University of Warsaw. I have worked on a number of research grants at the University of Warsaw, funded by the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), from 2016 to the present.
I also worked on a research project at the Philosophical-Theological College in Brixen, Italy, funded by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano-South Tyrol from 2024 to 2025. Additionally, I spent two academic years as a visitor at Columbia University from 2016 to 2017 and at the University of Pittsburgh from 2021 to 2022.
My research focuses on two broad topics. The first is the ontological foundations of the embodied/enactive paradigm in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. The second is social ontology, informed by institutional economics and economic history.
My research project at the University of Bayreuth, sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation and supervised by Professor Olivier Roy, focuses on the cognitive (collective) capacity for problematization. This involves identifying or even creating problems for which solutions may be beneficial. While there is a significant body of literature on problem solving, literature on the origin of problems is scarce.
I studied philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where I completed my Ph.D. in 2013, and economics at the University of Warsaw. I have worked on a number of research grants at the University of Warsaw, funded by the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), from 2016 to the present.
I also worked on a research project at the Philosophical-Theological College in Brixen, Italy, funded by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano-South Tyrol from 2024 to 2025. Additionally, I spent two academic years as a visitor at Columbia University from 2016 to 2017 and at the University of Pittsburgh from 2021 to 2022.
My research focuses on two broad topics. The first is the ontological foundations of the embodied/enactive paradigm in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. The second is social ontology, informed by institutional economics and economic history.
My research project at the University of Bayreuth, sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation and supervised by Professor Olivier Roy, focuses on the cognitive (collective) capacity for problematization. This involves identifying or even creating problems for which solutions may be beneficial. While there is a significant body of literature on problem solving, literature on the origin of problems is scarce.
Books
2025 The Ontology of Ecological Cognition, Routledge
2022 The Embodied Philosopher. Living in Pursuit of Boundary Questions, Palgrave Macmillan
Papers:
2026 (with Łukasz Hardt) Actions, routines, and the common pool of opportunities: Defining the institutional environment, Journal of Institutional Economics, online first: doi:10.1017/S174413742610085X
2025 Confined truths and cognitive ecologies. When the social pursuit of questioning becomes pathologized, Topoi 44: 431 - 444
2025 Who asks questions and who benefits from answers. Understanding institutions in terms of epistemic dependencies, Erkenntnis 90, 865–895
2025 (with Cuizhu Wang & Simon Graf) An Operational Definition of Institutional Belief, to appear in A. Dyrda et al (eds.) Ethics of Institutional Beliefs. From Theoretical to Empirical, Edward Elgar (Elgar Studies in Legal Theory)
2024 Enacted institutions, participatory sense-making and social norms, Synthese 203, 152
2024 The tension between embodied structures and the pursuit of change: Exploring the metaphysical underpinnings of Olga Tokarczuk’s ‘Flights’, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 65 (3): 437-451
2023 Enactment. A Preliminary Study in Varela and Traditional Metaphysics, Journal of Consciousness Studies 30 (11-12)
2022 The Problem of Presentations: How it is that one object is perceptually given in multiple ways, Synthese 200, 181
2022 (with M. Kiełkowicz-Werner) From Shared Enaction to Intrinsic Value. How Enactivism Contributes to Environmental Ethics. Topoi 41: 409-423
2022 Institutions as Cognitive Niches. A Dynamic of Knowledge and Ignorance. In S. Arfini. L. Magnani (eds.) Embodied, Extended, Ignorant Minds. New Studies on the Nature of Not-Knowing (Synthese Library), Springer 2022: 161 – 190
2021 Cognitive confinement: theoretical considerations on the construction of a cognitive niche, and on how it can go wrong. Synthese 198: 6297–6328
2021 (with M. Kiełkowicz-Werner) Prospects for internal embodied realism with respect to intrinsic value, Ethics and the Environment 26 (2): 21 – 50
2020 Enactment and construction of the cognitive niche: toward an ontology of the mind-world connection, Synthese 197: 1313–1341
2020 Cognitive confinement, embodied sense-making, and the (de)colonization of knowledge. Philosophical Papers 49 (2): 339 – 364
2020 Structural coupling and the puzzle of surfaces: ontology of boundaries from the minimally cognitive perspective, Adaptive Behavior 29 (6): 601 – 615
2020 Philosophical Intuition Is the Capacity to Recognize one’s Epistemic Position. An Old-Fashion Approach Based on Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, and Husserl. Philosophia 48: 1725–1751
2020 The Little Word “as.” On Making Contexts and Aspects Explicit, Axiomathes 30: 69 – 90
2020 Philosophy in Poland: Varieties of Anti-Irrationalism. A Commitment to Reason without the Worship of Reason, Philosophia 48, 2020: 1–32
2017 Coordination produces cognitive niches, not just experiences. A formal constructivist ontology based on von Foerster, Constructivist Foundations 12 (3): 301 – 308
2016 What is it like to be the metaphysical subject? An essay on early Wittgenstein, our epistemic position, and beyond, Philosophia 44: 921 – 946
2015 Towards a PL-metaphysics of Perception. In Search for the Metaphysical Ground of Constructivism, Constructivist Foundations 11 (1): 148 – 157
Books
2025 The Ontology of Ecological Cognition, Routledge
2022 The Embodied Philosopher. Living in Pursuit of Boundary Questions, Palgrave Macmillan
Papers:
2026 (with Łukasz Hardt) Actions, routines, and the common pool of opportunities: Defining the institutional environment, Journal of Institutional Economics, online first: doi:10.1017/S174413742610085X
2025 Confined truths and cognitive ecologies. When the social pursuit of questioning becomes pathologized, Topoi 44: 431 - 444
2025 Who asks questions and who benefits from answers. Understanding institutions in terms of epistemic dependencies, Erkenntnis 90, 865–895
2025 (with Cuizhu Wang & Simon Graf) An Operational Definition of Institutional Belief, to appear in A. Dyrda et al (eds.) Ethics of Institutional Beliefs. From Theoretical to Empirical, Edward Elgar (Elgar Studies in Legal Theory)
2024 Enacted institutions, participatory sense-making and social norms, Synthese 203, 152
2024 The tension between embodied structures and the pursuit of change: Exploring the metaphysical underpinnings of Olga Tokarczuk’s ‘Flights’, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 65 (3): 437-451
2023 Enactment. A Preliminary Study in Varela and Traditional Metaphysics, Journal of Consciousness Studies 30 (11-12)
2022 The Problem of Presentations: How it is that one object is perceptually given in multiple ways, Synthese 200, 181
2022 (with M. Kiełkowicz-Werner) From Shared Enaction to Intrinsic Value. How Enactivism Contributes to Environmental Ethics. Topoi 41: 409-423
2022 Institutions as Cognitive Niches. A Dynamic of Knowledge and Ignorance. In S. Arfini. L. Magnani (eds.) Embodied, Extended, Ignorant Minds. New Studies on the Nature of Not-Knowing (Synthese Library), Springer 2022: 161 – 190
2021 Cognitive confinement: theoretical considerations on the construction of a cognitive niche, and on how it can go wrong. Synthese 198: 6297–6328
2021 (with M. Kiełkowicz-Werner) Prospects for internal embodied realism with respect to intrinsic value, Ethics and the Environment 26 (2): 21 – 50
2020 Enactment and construction of the cognitive niche: toward an ontology of the mind-world connection, Synthese 197: 1313–1341
2020 Cognitive confinement, embodied sense-making, and the (de)colonization of knowledge. Philosophical Papers 49 (2): 339 – 364
2020 Structural coupling and the puzzle of surfaces: ontology of boundaries from the minimally cognitive perspective, Adaptive Behavior 29 (6): 601 – 615
2020 Philosophical Intuition Is the Capacity to Recognize one’s Epistemic Position. An Old-Fashion Approach Based on Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, and Husserl. Philosophia 48: 1725–1751
2020 The Little Word “as.” On Making Contexts and Aspects Explicit, Axiomathes 30: 69 – 90
2020 Philosophy in Poland: Varieties of Anti-Irrationalism. A Commitment to Reason without the Worship of Reason, Philosophia 48, 2020: 1–32
2017 Coordination produces cognitive niches, not just experiences. A formal constructivist ontology based on von Foerster, Constructivist Foundations 12 (3): 301 – 308
2016 What is it like to be the metaphysical subject? An essay on early Wittgenstein, our epistemic position, and beyond, Philosophia 44: 921 – 946
2015 Towards a PL-metaphysics of Perception. In Search for the Metaphysical Ground of Constructivism, Constructivist Foundations 11 (1): 148 – 157
I studied philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where I completed my Ph.D. in 2013, and economics at the University of Warsaw. I have worked on a number of research grants at the University of Warsaw, funded by the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), from 2016 to the present.
I also worked on a research project at the Philosophical-Theological College in Brixen, Italy, funded by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano-South Tyrol from 2024 to 2025. Additionally, I spent two academic years as a visitor at Columbia University from 2016 to 2017 and at the University of Pittsburgh from 2021 to 2022.
My research focuses on two broad topics. The first is the ontological foundations of the embodied/enactive paradigm in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. The second is social ontology, informed by institutional economics and economic history.
My research project at the University of Bayreuth, sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation and supervised by Professor Olivier Roy, focuses on the cognitive (collective) capacity for problematization. This involves identifying or even creating problems for which solutions may be beneficial. While there is a significant body of literature on problem solving, literature on the origin of problems is scarce.
Books
2025 The Ontology of Ecological Cognition, Routledge
2022 The Embodied Philosopher. Living in Pursuit of Boundary Questions, Palgrave Macmillan
Papers:
2026 (with Łukasz Hardt) Actions, routines, and the common pool of opportunities: Defining the institutional environment, Journal of Institutional Economics, online first: doi:10.1017/S174413742610085X
2025 Confined truths and cognitive ecologies. When the social pursuit of questioning becomes pathologized, Topoi 44: 431 - 444
2025 Who asks questions and who benefits from answers. Understanding institutions in terms of epistemic dependencies, Erkenntnis 90, 865–895
2025 (with Cuizhu Wang & Simon Graf) An Operational Definition of Institutional Belief, to appear in A. Dyrda et al (eds.) Ethics of Institutional Beliefs. From Theoretical to Empirical, Edward Elgar (Elgar Studies in Legal Theory)
2024 Enacted institutions, participatory sense-making and social norms, Synthese 203, 152
2024 The tension between embodied structures and the pursuit of change: Exploring the metaphysical underpinnings of Olga Tokarczuk’s ‘Flights’, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 65 (3): 437-451
2023 Enactment. A Preliminary Study in Varela and Traditional Metaphysics, Journal of Consciousness Studies 30 (11-12)
2022 The Problem of Presentations: How it is that one object is perceptually given in multiple ways, Synthese 200, 181
2022 (with M. Kiełkowicz-Werner) From Shared Enaction to Intrinsic Value. How Enactivism Contributes to Environmental Ethics. Topoi 41: 409-423
2022 Institutions as Cognitive Niches. A Dynamic of Knowledge and Ignorance. In S. Arfini. L. Magnani (eds.) Embodied, Extended, Ignorant Minds. New Studies on the Nature of Not-Knowing (Synthese Library), Springer 2022: 161 – 190
2021 Cognitive confinement: theoretical considerations on the construction of a cognitive niche, and on how it can go wrong. Synthese 198: 6297–6328
2021 (with M. Kiełkowicz-Werner) Prospects for internal embodied realism with respect to intrinsic value, Ethics and the Environment 26 (2): 21 – 50
2020 Enactment and construction of the cognitive niche: toward an ontology of the mind-world connection, Synthese 197: 1313–1341
2020 Cognitive confinement, embodied sense-making, and the (de)colonization of knowledge. Philosophical Papers 49 (2): 339 – 364
2020 Structural coupling and the puzzle of surfaces: ontology of boundaries from the minimally cognitive perspective, Adaptive Behavior 29 (6): 601 – 615
2020 Philosophical Intuition Is the Capacity to Recognize one’s Epistemic Position. An Old-Fashion Approach Based on Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, and Husserl. Philosophia 48: 1725–1751
2020 The Little Word “as.” On Making Contexts and Aspects Explicit, Axiomathes 30: 69 – 90
2020 Philosophy in Poland: Varieties of Anti-Irrationalism. A Commitment to Reason without the Worship of Reason, Philosophia 48, 2020: 1–32
2017 Coordination produces cognitive niches, not just experiences. A formal constructivist ontology based on von Foerster, Constructivist Foundations 12 (3): 301 – 308
2016 What is it like to be the metaphysical subject? An essay on early Wittgenstein, our epistemic position, and beyond, Philosophia 44: 921 – 946
2015 Towards a PL-metaphysics of Perception. In Search for the Metaphysical Ground of Constructivism, Constructivist Foundations 11 (1): 148 – 157