PHIL41570 Problems from Kant

Academic Year 2023/2024

The 'Problems from Kant' seminar this Autumn 2023–24 will focus on a close reading of Kant's famous _Critique of Pure Reason_ (1781), i.e. the 'first Critique', a work that has been so central to later work in both the 'analytic' and 'continental' styles of philosophical inquiry. Kant's Critique explored such questions as: What are the limits of reason in seeking to answer ultimate questions about the nature of reality, for example whether God exists or does not exist, whether we possess immortal souls, whether all our actions are free or determined? If such questions are beyond the reach of theoretical proof, as Kant argues, then what is the nature of the knowledge that we do have of the world? Kant famously argued that despite the impossibility of traditional rational metaphysics, rigorous demonstrations of the coherence of our knowledge of nature were indeed possible in answer to sceptical empiricist arguments such as David Hume's. Kant's revolutionary 'transcendental' focus on the 'unity of consciousness' and on the very possibility of any experience at all enabled him to construct novel arguments in defence of an 'a priori metaphysics of experience' (e.g., of permanent matter, causality, the external world) that subsequently were deeply influential throughout 19th century German idealism, and remain influential today in all strands of philosophy. In this seminar we will attempt to take in the perspective of the whole first Critique, including Kant's 'practical' or moral defence of freedom and morality (including a 'practical faith' of reason in God), defending the possibility of which was one of the mains aims of the Critique.

I will provide a pdf of my book _Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction and Interpretation_ (Routledge 2012), which will provide a helpful guide to the content of the seminar (feel free to email me for a copy of this: jim.oshea@ucd.ie). The Cambridge edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant has now become standard, and I will be using this translation in the seminars:
Kant, Immanuel, _Critique of Pure Reason_ Paul Guyer and Allen Wood, tr. & eds, Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-521-65729-6 (pbk). But any other translation that has the 'A' and 'B' pages in the margins (the standard way of referring to Kant's CPR) will be fine. I will also provide a handy 'abridged' pdf version of Kant's CPR using Werner Pluhar's translation from Hackett Press, in case this useful.

(General Description of the 'Problem from Kant' module: Each year this MA seminar focuses on selected themes from Kant's critical philosophy, and brings to bear on them insights, debates, and extensions of Kant's ideas from 20th/21st century philosophers strongly influenced by Kant. In some years the seminar might focus more on interpreting Kant's own systematic philosophy in detail, selecting themes from his philosophy of mind, knowledge, and nature, or in some cases his views on freedom, morality, and aesthetics. In other years the seminar might focus more on the 20th/21st c. philosophers defending or criticising influential variations of fundamental Kantian themes. Usually there will be a mixture of the two approaches, historical and more recent, with openness to both 'continental' and 'analytic' approaches to Kant's philosophy.)