Education
Knoepffler studied Philosophy and Theology in Würzburg and Rome (1981–1990) where the Pontifical Gregorian University awarded him a Licentiate in Theology (1989), in Philosophy (1990), and a doctorate in Philosophy (1992).
philosopher theologian university professor
Knoepffler studied Philosophy and Theology in Würzburg and Rome (1981–1990) where the Pontifical Gregorian University awarded him a Licentiate in Theology (1989), in Philosophy (1990), and a doctorate in Philosophy (1992).
He received his habilitation in 1998, further doctorates in Political Science (Lueneburg) and Theology (Bern). He was a Fellow at the Institute for Technology, Theology and Natural Sciences (TTN) from 1996 to 2000 and was appointed Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Munich in 1998. He then became Deputy Manager at TTN (2000-2002) and received an appointment with the Commission for Bioethics with the Bavarian Government in 2001.
In 2002, he was a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University, Washington District of Columbia. He was then appointed Professor of Applied Ethics at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena (FSU), where he also leads the Center of Applied ethics (Ethikzentrum) and the Department of Ethics in Sciences.
He is the second Vice President of the German Academy for Transplantation Medicine and since 2005 has served as Chair of the Ethic Commission of FSU’s Department of Social and Humanistic Studies. From 2006-2013 he was speaker (Jena) of the graduate school on human dignity and human rights of the German Research Foundation (German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)).
Since 2013 he is member in the trilateral project "Hearts of Flesh - not Stone" of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) among Israel, Palestine, and Germany. Among other things, he lectured at the “Wissensforum 2007” of the Süddeutsche Zeitung on the topic "Kant and the Stock Exchange" and his research specialties include "values and management", "human dignity", and conflicts in bioethics.
Since 2011 he serves as member of the Central Ethic Committee for Stem Cell Research of the German Government.