Early Modern Philosophy (including Kant)

This seminar will be devoted to a close reading and discussion of certain portions of Kant's First Critique, focusing especially on the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. We will explore a handful of proposals for how to understand the project of the First Critique that turn especially on an interpretation the Transcendental Deduction, including especially those put forward by Henrich, Kern, Rödl, Sellars, Strawson, Stroud, and McDowell. The aim of the course is both to use certain central texts of recent Kant commentary and contemporary analytic Kantian philosophy to illuminate some the central aspirations of Kant's theoretical philosophy and to use certain central Kantian texts in which those aspirations were first pursued to illuminate some recent developments in recent epistemology and the philosophy of mind.

This course provides an introduction to the major ethical positions from the Enlightenment era, with primary focus give to Hume, Smith, Rousseau, and Kant. These positions have shaped our popular thinking about ethics, moral psychology, and moral education. They also continue to directly inform dominant views in contemporary philosophy. As we read through selections from major works, we will be guided by questions about the foundations of morality and the nature of moral motivation. For example, what is the source of our distinction between good and bad? Is our moral judgment grounded in reason or the senses? How can we make sense of motivation to do the right thing, sometimes even at great personal cost? As we will see, the answers to these questions are directly tied to the larger question of how to understand human nature and the relationship between our capacity to reason and our capacity to feel.

The philosophical ideas and methods of Immanuel Kant's "critical" philosophy set off a revolution that reverberated through 19th-century philosophy. We will trace the effects of this revolution and the responses to it, focusing on the changing conception of what philosophical ethics might hope to achieve. We will begin with a consideration of Kant's famous Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which the project of grounding all ethical obligations in the very idea of rational freedom is announced. We will then consider Hegel's radicalization of this project in his Philosophy of Right, which seeks to derive from the idea of rational freedom, not just formal constraints on right action, but a determinate, positive conception of what Hegel calls "ethical life". We will conclude with an examination of three very different critics of the Kantian/Hegelian project in ethical theory: Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

We will do a comparative reading of the beginnings of the philosophies of right of Fichte, Kant and Hegel. We will start with Fichte's attempt for a swift deductions of the concept of right from the 'I think' and then look how the introduction of rights is more complicated in the case of Kant and Hegel. (A) (I)

In this course we will read through the Critique of Practical Reason, a short but dense work which contains the most complete expression of Kant's mature practical philosophy. We will go beyond the famous formulations of the categorical imperative found in the more widely read Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and try to understand the problems Kant aims to address in his moral investigations. We will be guided by questions like the following: what distinguishes good from bad willing? What role does sensible desire play in the life of the virtuous person? How does our capacity to reason shape the way we desire and experience the world? What is the nature of moral motivation? How do the ideas of freedom, God, and immortality of the soul figure in Kant's philosophical system? And finally, how does Kant's view relate to those of his early modern predecessors? In addition to the Critique of Practical Reason, we will look at excerpts from Kant's other practical works, as well as contemporary secondary source material.

A survey of the thought of some of the most important figures of this period, including Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.

Spinoza's philosophy is classical in conception, in that it aims to show us how to live wisely. But his ethical interpretation of wisdom is shaped by a psychological account of human affect and a firm sense of the empowering role of politics. To live wisely we have to understand our affects and use them to create co-operative ways of life. At the same time, we have to take account of the ways in which our affects are shaped by political circumstances and ideals. This seminar will examine Spinoza's account of the shifting relations between these variables. Drawing on several of his writings (Ethics, Theologico-Political Treatise, Political Treatise, Correspondence) we shall examine his central conceptions of affect, imagination, understanding, power and politics. Our discussions will also address a sequence of questions. What constructive and destructive roles does imagination play in political life? How is social co-operation related to understanding? How far can Spinoza's conception of imagination help us to develop a compelling theory of ideology? Is politics, as Spinoza conceives it, fundamentally agonistic? What part does politics play in the blessed life envisioned at the end of the Ethics? What makes this way of life more empowering than any other?

This will be a careful reading of what is widely regarded as the greatest work of modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Our principal aims will be to understand the problems Kant seeks to address and the significance of his famous doctrine of "transcendental idealism". Topics will include: the role of mind in the constitution of experience; the nature of space and time; the relation between self-knowledge and knowledge of objects; how causal claims can be justified by experience; whether free will is possible; the relation between appearance and reality; the possibility of metaphysics. (B) (V)

As we read this work we will be concerned with its place in history of philosophy and we shall engage with some of its contemporary readers.

The philosophical ideas and methods of Immanuel Kant's "critical" philosophy set off a revolution that reverberated through 19th-century philosophy. We will trace the effects of this revolution and the responses to it, focusing in particular on the changing conception of what philosophical ethics might hope to achieve. We will begin with a consideration of Kant's famous Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which the project of grounding all ethical obligations in the very idea of rational freedom is announced. We will then consider Hegel's radicalization of this project in his Philosophy of Right, which seeks to derive from the idea of rational freedom, not just formal constraints on right action, but a determinate, positive conception of what Hegel calls "ethical life". We will conclude with an examination of three great critics of the Kantian/Hegelian project in ethical theory: Karl Marx, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche.