Åke Elden, PhD
Researcher in Philosophy of Technology, Social Epistemology, and Theological Anthropology
Research Advisor · NLA University College, Oslo
I study the conditions under which judgment, responsibility, agency, and explanation become possible — and how technological and institutional systems reorganize those conditions.
Artificial intelligence is a diagnostic context rather than the object of study: a particularly revealing case in which changes to judgment, answerability, and human formation become visible.
14 peer-reviewed articles published online or formally accepted in 2026, including 4 in Level 2 channels.
Selected publications
6 papers to read first
Comparative Desire and Social Violence: Mimetic Structure, Inequity, and the Scapegoat Dynamic
Philosophy & Social Criticism · 2026
Studies in Christian Ethics · 2026 · Level 2
Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie · 2026 · Level 2
The Gifted Subject: Kenosis, Phenomenology, and the Constitution of Responsive Agency
Studia Theologica — Nordic Journal of Theology · 2026 · Level 2
When Responsibility Fails to Arise: Institutional Conditions of Action in Algorithmic Governance
AI and Ethics · 2026
Conceptual Inflation and Explanatory Entitlement: On the Limits of Construct Extension in Science
Philosophies · 2026
Research programme
Six problem areas, one programme
The work is organised around philosophical problems rather than domains or technologies.
Area 01
Judgment, Answerability and Institutional Reason
The normative question: what makes an institutional decision answerable, and who can be held to it.
Area 02
Normativity, Moral Standing and Ethical Disclosure
The conditions under which moral claims arise, and the difference between admission to consideration and priority within it.
Area 03
Formation, Agency and the Human Subject
Moral and subject formation under conditions of optimisation and technological mediation.
Area 04
Desire, Comparison and Social Relations
Mimetic desire, comparative entitlement, and the platform mediation of grievance and social violence.
Area 05
Explanation, Object Constitution and Philosophy of Science
Explanatory entitlement, object constitution, and the inferential license of scientific and statistical models.
Area 06
Institutions, Infrastructure and Technological Mediation
The material question: which infrastructures make institutional knowing and deciding possible in the first place.
Researcher in philosophy of technology, social epistemology, and theological anthropology. Research Advisor at NLA University College. Views and research presented here are my own.