Stephan Kirste is a university professor of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy at the University of Salzburg's Faculty of Law since 2012. He studied Law, History and Philosophy in Germany, receiving his PhD in Law in Freiburg and completing his habilitation in Public Law, Philosophy of Law, Sociology of Law and Constitutional History at the University of Heidelberg. Until 2012, he was a professor of European law, comparative public law, and fundaments of law at the German-speaking Andrássy University in Budapest. He has been a visiting professor at various universities in the USA and Brazil and, since 2020, has been a Professor Colaborador at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). From 2010 to 2018, Stephan Kirste was chairman of the German Section of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR) and since 2024 a member of the Executive Committee of the IVR. Since 2022, he has been Head of the Department of Legal Theory, Public International and European Law at the University of Salzburg. He is co-editor-in-chief, together with Mortimer Sellers, of the “Encyclopedia for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy”, published by Springer. His research interests include: Legal and social philosophy (theory of jurisprudence, theory of law, legal ethics), its history, and constitutional law (human dignity, legal person, human rights, populism).
