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Organisers: Lia Nordmann

Date/time: Thursdays, from 10am to 12noon

If you'd like to join the group, please contact Lia (lsn26)

Michaelmas Term 2023

This term, the group has been reading Kant's Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality.

 

Lent Term 2022: Aesthetic Judgment

week 1

1st and 2nd Moment (§§ 1-9; 5:201-219)

 

week 2

3rd and 4th Moment (§§ 10-22; 5:219-244)

 

week 3

Analytic of the Sublime (§§ 23-29; 5:244-266)

 

week 4

General Remark (5:266-278)

 

week 5

Deduction (§§ 30-40; 5:279-296)

 

week 6

Deduction (§§ 41-49; 5:296-319)

 

week 7

Deduction (§§ 50-54; 5:319-337)

 

week 8

Dialectic (§§ 55-60; 5:337-356)

 

Easter Term 2022: Teleological Judgment

week 1

Analytic (§§ 61-64; 5:357-372)

 

week 2

Analytic (§§ 65-68; 5:372-384)

 

week 3

Dialectic (§§ 69-75; 5:385-401)

 

week 4

Dialectic (§§ 76-78; 5:401-415)

 

week 5

Doctrine of Method (§§ 79-83; 5:416-434)

 

week 6

Doctrine of Method (§§ 84-86; 5:434-447)

 

week 7

Doctrine of Method (§§ 87-90; 5:447-466)

 

week 8

Doctrine of Method (§ 91; 5:467-486)

 

 

Previous terms

Michaelmas Term 2021

7 October

Section 1: The Ideal in General

(A567-571/B595-B599)

 

14 October

Section 2: The Transcendental Ideal

(A571-583/B599-611)

 

21 October

Section 3: On the Grounds of Proof

(A583-591/B611-619)

 

28 October

Section 4: The Ontological Proof

(A592-602/B620-630)

 

4 November

Section 5: The Cosmological Proof

(A603-620/B631-648)

 

11 November

Section 6: The Physico-Theological Proof

(A620-630/B648-658)

 

18 November

Section 7: Critique of all Theology

(A631-642/B659-670)

 

25 November

Buffer/Speaker

 

Easter Term 2021

30 April Introduction to the Dialectic (A293-309/B349-B366)

 

7 May

Book One of the Dialectic (A293-309/B349-B366)

 

14 May

First Part of the Appendix (A642-668/B670-696)

 

21 May

Second Part of the Appendix (A669-704/B697-732)

 

28 May

Intermezzo: Talk by Samantha Matherne (Harvard)

 

4 June

Introduction to the third Critique (5:171-197)

 

11 June

Leibniz, tbd

 

18 June

Leibniz, tbd

 

Lent Term 2020

23rd January

Kant, The only possible argument for the
existence of God
(1763), Section 2, First to Third Reflections (2:93-108)

Board Room, Philosophy Faculty

30th January

The only possible argument, Section 2, Fourth
and Fifth Reflections (2:108-23)

Board Room, Philosophy Faculty

6th February

The only possible argument, Section 2, Sixth Reflection (2:123-37)

Board Room, Philosophy Faculty

13 February

Phemister & Strickland (2015) ‘Leibniz's Monadological Positive Aesthetics’, BJHP, 23:6, 1214-1234 Three short pieces by Leibniz:
Happiness; The elements of true piety, or,
on the love of God over everything (1677/78?)
, and On the continuous increase in the perfection of the world

Board Room, Philosophy Faculty

20 February

Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics sections 5-9, 12-16, 23-29, 32-35

Maletin Room, Hughes Hall

27 February

Paper by Julia Borcherding, ‘“Every Feeling is the Perception of a Truth”: Leibniz on Moral Instincts’

Board Room, Philosophy Faculty

Monday 2 March

Kant, Third Critique, ss. 42, 84-6 and Intro IX. Background: ss. 1-5, 9-11, 61, 82-3.

Maletin Room, Hughes Hall

5 March

Guest Talk: Justin Shaddock (Williams College),
"Kant on Receptivity, Spontaneity, and the Limits
of Cognition"

Room E4, Gibbs Building, King’s

Organisers: Senthuran Bhuvanendra and Julia Borcherding. For further details or to be added to the mailing list, please contact Senthuran (sb2276).

Michaelmas Term 2019: Kant and Hannah Arendt on political and moral judgement

Thursday 10 October

Arendt, The Human Condition, ch.1, s.1 (“Vita activa and the human condition”)

Thursday 17 October The Human Condition, ch.1, ss.2,3,6 (“The term vita activa”, “Eternity versus immortality”, “The rise of the social”)
Thursday 24 October Kant, Third Critique, Second Moment of the Analytic of the Beautiful (on subjective universal judgements)
Friday 1 November Third Critique, Fourth Moment of the Analytic of the Beautiful (5:236-40) and ss.39-41 (5:291-8): common sense and social dimensions of judgement
Friday 8 November Guest Talk: Chenghui Ma (Fudan University / Mudanjian Normal University), “Why Arendt was Right - A General Introduction to the Banality of Evil and Defence of It”
Friday 15 November Third Critique, s.40 (on common sense) and “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?”
Friday 22 November Kant, Doctrine of Virtue, ss.13-16 (on conscience)
Friday 29 November

Arendt, Some Questions of Moral Philosophy, Second Lecture

Organisers: Senthuran Bhuvanendra and Chenghui Ma

 

Easter Holidays and Easter Term 2019

Thursday 11 April

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics, Preamble and First Chapter (2:317-28)

Thursday 18 April Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Second Chapter (3:329-41)
Thursday 25 April Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, end of Second Chapter and Third Chapter (2:334-48)
Thursday 2 May Dreams of a Spirit Seer, Third and Fourth Chapters (2:342-52)
Thursday 16 May Notes on Aesthetics, pp.488-501 in Cambridge Edition
Thursday 30 May Guest Talk: João Lemos (IFILNOVA/FCSH, Nova University of Lisbon), “How to make use of Kantian beauty”
Thursday 6 June Doctrine of Virtue, Introduction ss.I-VIII (6:379-94)
Thursday 13 June Doctrine of Virtue, Introduction ss.IV-XII (6:386-406)
Thursday 20 June Doctrine of Virtue, section II: 6:448-74 on duties towards others

Organiser: Senthuran Bhuvanendra

 

Michaelmas Term 2018

Thursday 1 November

Theorie und Praxis (“On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice”), First Section

Thursday 15 November Theorie und Praxis, Second and Third Sections
Thursday 22 November

Nick Stang, “Is Kant’s Critique of Metaphysics Obsolete?”

Organiser: Rachel Robertson

 

Easter Term 2018

Conceptions of Kantian Unity Workshop

Workshop of the DAAD Network “Conceptions of Unity in German Philosophy”

1st June 2018, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Sidgwick Site, Cambridge

9.30-10.00 am

Registration and welcome

 

10.00-11.00 am

Anastasia Berg
(pre-circulated paper)

Kant’s Feeling of Moral Respect as Practical Self-Consciousness

11.00-11.30 am Break

 

11.30-12.30 pm

Rae Langton
(pre-circulated paper)

'Real Grounds’ in Matter and Things in Themselves

12.30-1.30 pm

Lunch

 

1.30-2.30 pm

Rachel Robertson
(pre-circulated paper)

The embodied human being in Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

2.45-3.45 pm

Robert Watt

The Transcendental Unity of Apperception
3.45-4.15 pm Break

 

4.15-5.15 pm

Benjamin Marschall
(pre-circulated paper)

Kant's Mereological Relativism
Organisers: Rachel Robertson (rsr35), Angela Breitenbach (ab335)

 

 

This workshop is supported by the DAAD Cambridge Research Hub with funds from the German Federal Foreign Office

 

 

 

Lent Term 2018: Kant on modality

Monday 22 January

Chapter 2 (‘Is Existence a Real Predicate?’) of Nicholas Stang’s Kant’s Modal Metaphysics (2016)

Monday 5 February Preface and Section 1 of The only possible argument in support of a demonstration of the existence of God
Monday 26 February Second half of Section 1, and the beginning of Section 2 of The only possible argument

Organiser: Rachel Robertson

 

Michaelmas Term 2017: Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

Monday 9 October

Preface

Monday 16 October First Chapter – Phoronomy (up to but not including the Proposition)

Monday 23 October

First Chapter – Phoronomy (Proposition until end) & Second Chapter – Dynamics (up to but not including Proposition 3)

Monday 30 October

Second Chapter – Dynamics (Proposition 3 up to but not including Proposition 7)
Monday 6 November Second Chapter – Dynamics (Proposition 7 up to but not including General Remark)
Monday 13 November Second Chapter – Dynamics (General Remark until end)
Monday 20 November Third Chapter – Mechanics
Monday 27 November

Fourth Chapter – Phenomenology

Convenors: Samuel Hughes, Rachel Robertson and Angela Breitenbach