I am Reader (Docent) in Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University. My book Nonideal Social Ontology: The Power View (Oxford University Press, 2023) argues for the use of nonideal theory in the research field of social ontology. It thus picks up a theme from my thesis Power and Social Ontology, which deals with the concept of power. In 2007, I did my dissertation at Lund University. After my defense I worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and with social entrepreneurship. I currently work as a project manager for the Forum for doctoral students at Stockholm University. I am an affiliated researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies.
I conduct research in the research field of social ontology, which concerns questions about the foundations of society. Social ontology deals with the metaphysics of social reality, for example by trying to understand how events such as the French Revolution, entities such as nations and corporations, and institutions such as private property or monarchy are constituted. A related area within this field deals with social groups; What distinguishes a social group from a collection of individuals? How should we analyze collective action? And collective responsibility?
Precisely the latter question is relevant to the research project Individual and collective responsibility for discrimination due to implicit prejudices that I participated in at the Institute for Futures Studies. The project is about what moral responsibility, if any, we have for our implicit biases (since we seem to have neither knowledge nor control over them). The project was a collaboration with Katharina Berndt Rasmussen at the Institute for Futures Studies, and was funded by the Jane and Dan Olsson Foundation.
Read more on my personal website asaburman.org.
