Matt Roggo
Philosopher
Ancient and modern metaphysics
Guitar Teacher
Classical and romantic virtuosity
Students are always welcome!
Matt or Matthias Roggo was born in 1969 in Berne, Switzerland. He dedicated his younger years to the Classical Guitar and had the chance to meet many famous guitar virtuosos around 1990. The one notable exception is John Williams for whom Mr. Roggo is presently composing. Music and literature lead him eventually to the gates of philosophy. He studied at the University of Basle Philosophy (with Prof. Dominik Perler, now in Berlin), with Sociology and Ethnology (Cultural Anthropology) as secondary branches. He studied for some time at the Universities of Berne (with Prof. Andreas Graeser) and Geneva (with Prof. Jonathan Barnes) concentrating on ancient philosophy. He also went to the University of Fribourg to hear Dominic O’Meara and to attend a seminary held by Richard Sorabji.
Matt Roggo is deeply impressed by the beauty of Plotinus’ and Bergson’s writings. He is mainly a process philosopher with an idealistic bent as can be seen in his major study on James and Whitehead (2009). His interests span from English literature, Russian guitar music, wolf ethology, political theory to his philosophical heros Bergson, Spencer, James, Dewey, Royce, Whitehead and others.
Dr. Roggo is currently working on his second book which is on practical rationality. The Natural Light of Actions (2012) that is now being written in German is in many ways an application of his major metaphysical study on James, Whitehead and their wider historical background.
A joint project with Dr. Aivar Jürgenson (Tallinn) will hopefully take the form of an Introduction to Ethnophilosophy (2015) written in English. There will be two aspects in this practical guide: understanding the reason of others there, and reflecting the process of theory building here.
Spring 2010