Dean Komel


Dean Komel is a Slovenian philosopher.
He was born in the small village of Bilje in the Goriška region of Slovenia, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
After finishing the Nova Gorica Grammar School, he studied philosophy and comparative literature at the University of Ljubljana. After further studies under Bernhard Waldenfels and Klaus Held in Germany, he obtained his PhD in 1995 on the theme of a hermeneutic critique of the anthropological orientation in contemporary philosophy. He is the professor of contemporary philosophy and the philosophy of culture at the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. He is additionally president of the Phenomenological Society in Ljubljana and is on the editorial board of a number of journals for philosophy and culture, including Phainomena, Nova revija, Orbis Phaenomenologicus. Since 2005 he has also headed research activities at the . He has lectured at numerous universities and international symposia. Hermeneutic questions of contemporary philosophy stand out in his philosophical works. Within this context he develops philosophical reflection on language, historicity, art, interculturality and humanistics.
Komel is considered one of the major exponents of the phenomenological current in Slovene philosophy, continuating the tradition of France Veber, Dušan Pirjevec Ahac, Ivan Urbančič and Tine Hribar. In 2003 he received the Zois Award of the Republic of Slovenia for top scientific achievements in the field of philosophy.

Major works