PD. Dr. Dr. Christina Schneider on occasion of Philosophia’s 50th anniversary 

In 1980, the publisher Ulrich Staudinger bought the Philosophia Verlag, founded 1966 by Lutz Geldsetzer and Wilhelm Schütte. Since then, the publishing house resides in Munich. Immediately after taking charge, Ulrich Staudinger and his good friend, Hans Burkhardt, began to reshape the program as well as the philosophical orientation of the publishing house. For 35 years until his death in 2015, Hans Burkhardt was the managing editor of the most important series of Philosophia. From the beginning, he was responsible for the focus of the program: the great European metaphysical and ontological tradition as well as its theoretical orientation. The signet of Philosophia – the arbor porphyriana – reflects this. Monographies taking up themes of this wide systematic field still form the core of Philosophia’s program. 

A program of this kind was very remarkable in 1980 and far from the main stream. The prevailing attitude towards Metaphysics and Ontology was in fact rather sceptical: the analytic Anglo-Saxon tradition was still influenced by the heirs of positivist empiricism and its main topic was the philosophy of language. German philosophy was dominated by Kant, Kantianism, Hegel and by what is now called “continental philosophy” .  Concerning the Anglo-Saxon analytic tradition, this has changed during the last fifty years, – a change that is reflected in the publications of Philosophia. Moreover, a publishing program that decidedly regards Philosophy as a theoretic, if not a scientific, enterprise could at that time not expect much understanding in the German speaking philosophical community.  It is due to the courage of the publisher that this theoretical and scientific attitude could find a platform – for authors and readers.  In that context the series BASIC PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS, initiated in 2010, deserves special mention.  

From the beginning in 1980, topics in Logic, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Language as well as authors of the analytic tradition contributed to Philosophia. The publishing house remains dedicated to this programmatic orientation and task. Today, the Philosophia Verlag publishes books, Monographs and Handbooks in German and English and features eight different series, representing its spectrum of topics. The most important of these series is ANALYTICA the first publication of which dates back to 1980. It is complemented by the PHILOSOPHIA INTRODUCTIONES, with contributions which, on the one hand are basic texts concerning special topics of (philosophical) Logic, Ontology, Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Science, and on the other hand are publications of a decidedly non-main-stream character.  In 2019 the series PHILOSOPHIA THEOLOGICA, dedicated to philosophical theology or “philosophia naturalis“, started with a first publication. Concerning the historical part of the program, the series ANALYTICA LIBER CONVERSUS, dedicated to translations of Latin medieval texts are worth mentioning. In 2010 Philosophia Verlag began with its Internet-Edition, PHILOSOPHIA CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHILOSOPHY. Since then, all new publications are published, parallel to the printed version, also as e-books. 

The aesthetic trademark of the publishing house is the black background color of the dust jackets of Philosophia books.