Rainer Schäfer earned his doctorate in Cologne for a thesis on dialectics in the logic of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He completed his habilitation at Heidelberg University, writing about self-consciousness as a principle in Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s work. He has held a professorship at Beijing University’s Department of Philosophy since 2013. Since 2016, he has been a professor of classical German philosophy at the University of Bonn.

His current research focuses on the deduction of categories in classical German philosophy, from Kant to Hegel, and on the mind-body problem. He is the author of numerous academic articles and books. His most recent publication is »Aus der Erstarrung – Hellas und Hesperien im ›freien Gebrauch des Eigenen‹ beim späten Hölderlin« (»Out of Stagnation: Hellas and Hesperia in the ›Free Use of One’s Own‹ in Late Hölderlin«).