Originally from Luxembourg with Italian heritage, Olivier Del Fabbro studied Philosophy, Italian and Media Studies in Freiburg i. Br. and Basel. He holds a position as Senior Researcher at the Chair for Philosophy at ETH Zurich, in Switzerland. As a research scholar he visited UMass Boston, UC Berkeley, and the Santa Fe Institute. His interests are Complex Systems, Artificial Intelligence, French Historical Epistemology, US-American Pragmatism, Philosophy of Medicine, and Philosophy of War. He is co-founder of the Complexity Club, a transdisciplinary network of researchers based in Switzerland. Email: olivier.delfabbro [at] phil.gess.ethz.ch
by O. Del Fabbro In 2007, at the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Putin announced that the current world order had changed. The unipolar world order, with one centre of power, force and decision-making, was unacceptable to the leader in the Kremlin. Yet, more than that, Putin’s speech prepared the replacement of the unipolar world order,…
by O. Del Fabbro Why do we fight? That question has been asked by so many in the history of mankind: philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, historians, sociologists, political theorists have come up over and over again with explanations as to why humans fight. Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy at the University Massachusetts Boston, and founding director…
by O. Del Fabbro In recent public debates it has been argued that the implementation of Artificial Intelligence in weapons systems is changing the nature of war, or the character of war, or both. In what follows, my intention is to clarify these two concepts of nature of war and character. It will show that…
by Olivier Del Fabbro Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the “most ancient of all societies and the only natural one is that of the family.”[1] Similarly, Rousseau’s great antagonist, Thomas Hobbes, claims that “family is a small commonwealth.”[2] But what if the most natural and ancient of all societies is confronted with war? According to a…
by O. Del Fabbro Bürgenstock, near lake Lucerne, June 15-16, 2024. Switzerland has organized a peace summit to address the war in Ukraine. Many countries participate, but the aggressor, Russia, was not invited. The main topics of discussion that Switzerland and Ukraine have listed are nuclear and food safety, as well as humanitarian aspects. In…
by Olivier Del Fabbro No matter where you go, Aristotle believes, the rich will be few and the poor many. Yet, to be an oligarch means more than to simply be part of the few, it means to govern as rich. Oligarchs claim political power precisely because of their wealth. Rightfully then, we associate oligarchy…
by O. Del Fabbro In September 2022, Fiona Hill claimed that with the war in Ukraine, World War III had begun. The statements of the American expert on Russia were clear: World War I and World War II should not be regarded as static and singular moments in history. Even though they were separated by a peaceful period,…
by O. Del Fabbro If a city could be an organism, then Kherson in Eastern Ukraine would be a sick body. For eight months, between March and November 2022, Kherson was occupied by Russian forces. Kidnapping, torture, and murder – in terms of violence and cruelty, Kherson’s citizens have seen it all. Today, even though…
by O. Del Fabbro Of 969 days in captivity, Stanislav Aseyev spent 875 days in complete isolation in a modern concentration camp in Russian occupied Donetsk. In his memoir, The Torture Camp on Paradise Street, Aseyev aims to write about this personal experience.[1] Torture is, according to Aseyev, a complex system of measures. The goal…
by O. Del Fabbro I met Kseniia during my second visit to Ukraine, in June 2023. The moment I met her, I knew that this thirty-four-year-old woman is a special one. Kseniia belongs to the type of women who made Molotov cocktails to help defend Kyiv in March 2022. “I had some romantic idea to…