Aldo Kempen's research operates at the intersection of metaphilosophy, aesthetics, and ontology, investigating how the formal dimensions of philosophical writing shape and constrain the claims philosophy can make about being, matter, and difference. His doctoral dissertation, Praxis at the Limits, developed the concept of "formal pluralism" to explore how thinkers like Derrida, Barad, and Malabou use diagrammatics and neologisms to negotiate philosophy's encounter with the natural sciences and what this reveals about the relationship between form and ontological commitment. Drawing on continental philosophy, feminist philosophy of science his work asks what happens when philosophy is forced to account for its own expressive conditions. Current research pursues an immanent critique of philosophical form, connecting the German critical tradition to metaphilosophical questions about the limits and possibilities of how philosophy is shaped.

More information about Aldo Kempen

Fields of interest

• Continental Philosophy
• Feminist Philosophy of Science
• Aesthetics
• Metaphilosophy

Curriculum Vitae

Aldo Kempen studied philosophy and media studies at the University of Amsterdam and University of Cambridge before completing his PhD in 2026, supervised by Eddo Evink (Open University) and Ian James (University of Cambridge).

He held a Fulbright Fellowship at UC Santa Cruz, where he worked with Karen Barad, a Descartes Fellowship at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and was a visiting researcher at Universität der Künste Berlin.

He has published, amongst others, in Film-Philosophy, Krisis, and Paradigmi, and served as board editor of Locus: Journal for Cultural Studies.