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I am a French-Iranian-American Assistant Professor of Philosophy (with tenure) at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and a Senior Scholar at the Millennium Project: Global Futures Research and Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. From 2013 till 2018 I worked at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University. I hold a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Georgetown University (2012) and graduate degrees in History of Philosophy (on Spinoza) and Medical Ethics from the University of Paris, in my hometown and native city. I am currently working on a book project on the philosophy of Futures Studies focused on the role of narrative arguments in scenarios and lay visions of socio-techno-ecological futures. In this project, my approach draws on argumentation theory, American pragmatism, moral and political philosophy, anticipatory technology ethics, and intercultural/cosmopolitan philosophy (inclusive of non-Euro-American philosophical traditions).


Areas of Specialization:

  • Philosophy of Futures Studies: Ethics, political philosophy, and epistemology of methods and practices (e.g., scenario building, computer modeling, visioning, letters from the future) designed to anticipate socio-techno-ecological futures and to stimulate anticipatory moral imagination)

  • Applied ethics and political philosophy with a focus on:

    • anticipatory technology ethics (methodological improvements to this approach and application to different issues such as data sovereignty and e-justice)

    • ethics and philosophy of psychology

    • public health ethics and bioethics

    • food and agricultural ethics

Areas of Competence:

  • American pragmatism

  • Argumentation theory

  • Epistemology

  • History of modern philosophy (Spinoza and Radical Enlightenment)

  • History of psychology

  • Philosophical methodology and metaphilosophy from an intercultural/cosmopolitan philosophy perspective (China, India, Persianate world)

Besides my academic work, I’m dedicated to mind-body practices (qigong, tai chi, meditation), enjoy designing and caring for over 50 bonsai trees, appreciate Chinese and Persian arts, and love cooking delicious French recipes. I live with my wife Anastassia (a potter (you can see her beautiful work here), sustainable landscape designer, and gardening supervisor at De Viermarken social farm) and our gentle Siberian cat named Bhima.

This is a 20th century Persian miniature: the characters are playing polo (“chowgan”). The writing is in Judeo-Persian, that is, Persian written by Iranian jews in Hebrew script. The earliest known written text in modern Persian goes back to the 9th century CE and is also written in Hebrew script. Jews have been present in Iran since around 727 BCE. The current conflict between Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet and the totalitarian theocratic regime that oppresses Iranians of all faiths and terrorizes the rest of the world since 1979 does not entail any enmity between peoples whose destinies have been interwoven for millennia.

Selected publications:

To download my CV (2021), please click here.

Email: y.saghai@utwente.nl