Project at HIAS
The Bestowal of Life: An Ecological Theology of the Gift
On the one hand, life is irreducibly experiential; on the other, it is fundamentally shared. What organisms do can be understood as providing opportunities for life to other organisms—as a constant bestowal of the gift of life through the very act of living. Ecosystems can thus be understood as commons. A commons is a process of mutually bestowed life. What does the fundamental status of giving—the gift of life—reveal about the nature of reality itself? What kind of reality do we have before us—around, within, and as—us, if its fundamental layer is only concerned with the distribution of the gift of life?
His Tandem Partner is Frank Adloff, Professor for Sociology, especially Dynamics and Regulation of Economy and Society, and director of the DFG Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies “Futures of Sustainability” at the University of Hamburg.
Website
Funding
The HIAS Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.
Tandem
Prof. Dr. Frank Adloff, Sociology, University of Hamburg
Biography
Andreas Weber is a biologist, philosopher and writer. His work focuses on a re-evaluation of our understanding of life as felt, shared and sacred existential dimension. After his PhD in Cultural Studies (supervisor Hartmut Böhme, Francisco Varela) Andreas has worked as feature writer and editor for major German magazines and newspapers (GEO, Merian, FAZ, DIE ZEIT, among others), before starting a prolific career as a writer and public intellectual. Andreas has been visiting lecturer at a variety of German and international universities, particularly at Berlin University of the Arts. Currently, Andreas is visiting professor at the University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNISG), Pollenzo, Italy, and at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA), Portland, Maine, US. He has published more than fifteen books in German and English (translated into a variety of languages), most recently Butterfly Means Soul (Gometra Press) in spring 2026.
Andreas Weber proposes to view – and treat – all organisms as subjects and hence the biosphere as a meaning-creating and poetic reality. Andreas has received his PhD in Cultural Studies with an investigation into how subjectivity can be considered a biological phenomenon and culture an expression of aliveness (supervisor Hartmut Böhme, Francisco Varela). He has worked and published with Francisco Varela on how felt meaning and existential intentionality must be considered core criteria of life and cognition. Andreas is closely related with the project of creating a metaphysics of the commons inspired by the biosphere as a life-giving, co-creative process. This – the notion that life can be understood as a process entirely consisting of the reception and distribution of gifts (of life), and the parallel this observation shows with mystical conceptions if reality (Meister Eckhart, Ibn Al Arabi) has led him to his current interest of proposing an ecology theology of the gift.
Andreas Weber‘s HIAS Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.