Werner Stegmaier (born 19 July 1946 in Ludwigsburg) is a German philosopher. He was the founding director of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Greifswald after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the German reunification. From 1994 until 2011, he was chair of philosophy with a focus on practical philosophy.[1] His main field of research is the philosophy of orientation. He first published it in the German Philosophie der Orientierung (2008); its English translation has been published as What is Orientation? A Philosophical Investigation (2019).[2] To promote the ideas of this philosophical approach, the Hodges Foundation for Philosophical Orientation was founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2018.[3] His second major field of research is Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. Both areas of research are integrated in his Nietzsche meets Luhmann. Orientierung im Nihilismus (2016). In 2018, the Hodges Foundation for Philosophical Orientation was founded in Nashville, Tennessee (USA) with the aim of making this philosophy known in the English-speaking world and continuing to develop it by collaborating with people from diverse backgrounds.