Acknowledgments

This book is a product of the Branco Weiss Fellowship that provided the impetus, funding, and protected time necessary to complete it. I am deeply grateful for many kinds of help I received along the way.

This book greatly benefited from the erudition, questions, and unwavering support of Professor Lutz Wingert, who gave the project a home at his Chair for Philosophy at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich. I am grateful to Johann Steurer for numerous valuable observations and for his interest in the study from the very beginning. Profound thanks to Victoria Laszlo for all manners of administrative help and support. For encouragement and generous insights, I thank Martin Beckstein, Cornelius Borck, Rachele Delucchi, Fabienne Forster, Jörg Goldhahn, Michael Hagner, Michael Hampe, Martin Hurni, Oskar Jenni, Matthias Kettner, Christine Kuhn, Jérôme Léchot, Nadia Mazouz, Raphael Meyer, Michael Mittelman, Silvan Moser, Tobias Rees, Edith Schmid, Lisa Schurrer, Kaj Späth, Romila Storjohann, Dieter Sturma, Effy Vayena, Sophie Witt, and Monika Wulz. In Zürich, I feel particularly lucky for the feedback and friendship of Maria Böhmer, Nadja El Kassar, Janina Kehr, Anita Winkler, and Vera Wolff.

In a second phase, the project profited enormously from the knowledge and enthusiasm of Daniel Weinstock, who enabled it to find a home at McGill, first at the Institute for Health and Social Policy and then at the Department of Equity, Ethics, and Politics. In Montréal, I learnt from the work of wonderful interns, particularly Esther Kim, Sarah Kim, Alua Kulenova, and Kristin Vanderwee. I am particularly lucky to have collaborated with Athena Ko. Grateful thanks to Anaik Fortier and Sonia Bichler for their long-standing support and perfect administrative work. I am profoundly grateful to Mary Bartram, Michael Da Silva, Hazar Haidar, Jonathan Kimmelman, Nicholas King, Arijit Nandi, Thomas Schlich, and David Wright for their insights into aspects of this project and organizational help. Warmest thanks to Phoebe Friesen for the comradeship.

Every time I presented elements of this work at the Branco Weiss Symposium, I came away seeing it differently. I am very grateful to Peter Chen, Detlef Günther, Angelika Steger, Heidi Wunderli-Allenspach, and Josef Zeyer for accepting me into the fellowship and supporting my project. Thank you to Sonja Isliker, Alessandro Monachesi, Kathrin Ringger, George Slavich, Martine Vernooij, and Eberhard Zangger for all manners of administrative and personal support. The solidarity of different fellows meant so much to me; I am particularly thankful to Kelly Clancy, Lea Haller, Laura Hendriks, Stephanie King, Rain Liivoja, Hannah Mumby, Carolin Schurr, Aurore Schwab, Tetyana Vasylyeva, Anna-Sophia Wahl, Karim Bschir, Klaus Eyer, and Matthieu Galvez. I feel very lucky that Marie Kolkenbrock and Simone Schürle were there during the fellowship and beyond. Lara Keuck illuminated and inspired me in this project, and our meetings during long COVID weeks kept it afloat.

I am grateful to organizers and audiences at workshops and conferences where I discussed this work, among others at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich, ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, University of St. Gallen, University of Twente, Leibniz University Hannover, Humboldt University Berlin, and McGill University. Ideas I develop here are related to research funded by the ETH Postdoctoral Fellowship program, the support of which I gratefully acknowledge. In the project’s last stages, I profited from being surrounded by wonderful colleagues at Assisted Lab, including Charlotte Frank, Marc Keller, Jordan McCullough, Alexander Meienberger, Robyn Otto, Carlos Pittella, and Joe Wood.

At Cambridge University Press, I am very grateful to Rosa Martin and Lucy Rhymer, the editing team, and to anonymous reviewers whose suggestions and references improved this book. I gratefully acknowledge the Swiss National Science Foundation for providing open access funding for this project. I also thank the Philadelphia Museum of Art for supplying the cover image.

Academic research relies on a huge amount of behind the scenes support. I thank the personnel at institutions where I worked in both Zürich and Montréal, as well as educators at institutions ranging from Kinderkrippe to école secondaire. I am grateful to friends, in particular Penelope Bruha, Elgin Brunner, Noah Cannon, Rocío Carvajo, Jérome Ebiner, Mayssun El-Attar, Manon Fantini, Nazlie Faridi, Muriel Gschwend, Florin Ivan, Aleksandra Kucharczyk, Cara MacMillan, Fabienne Müller, Lorraine Price, Christine Rösch, Stefan Rösch, Louisa Sage, Maude Théoret, Susan Turcot, Sonia Vedrunes, Chris Wilbert, and Milena Zulczyk for helping me with aspects of this project and acting as sources of inspiration. Isabelle Cornaz has thought through my projects with me for decades and improved the book with her suggestions. I am so lucky for the friendship and colleagueship of Anna Elsner, who has been a source of solidarity and support for this project since its inception.

A special kind of gratitude to my extended and immediate family, particularly to my mother and father, and to Alexis, Adrian, and Nicholas. I am most grateful to Nour, Maya, Anouk, and Roman for being with me throughout.