Thomas Pendlebury

Thomas Pendlebury
Assistant Professor
Stuart Hall, Room 210
Office Hours: Autumn Quarter:
PhD, Harvard University, 2021; BA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2014
Teaching at UChicago since 2023
Research Interests: Kant, Early Modern European Philosophy, Post-Kantian German Idealism

Thomas Pendlebury's principal research interests are in the theoretical and practical philosophy of Kant and its connection to early modern European philosophy and post-Kantian German idealism. He is especially concerned with the character of Kant's positive projects in the critical period, the expression of the constitution and prosecution of these projects by the expository structure of his critical works, and the conception of philosophy which these works exemplify. His teaching interests extend to the history of western philosophy in general.

Pendlebury joined the Department in July 2023. From 2021 to 2023 he was Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his PhD in Philosophy from Harvard University.

Selected Publications

The Shape of the Kantian Mind (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2022)

The Real Problem of Pure Reason (European Journal of Philosophy, 2022)

Related Courses

PHIL 26000 History of Philosophy II: Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy

(HIPS 26000, MDVL 26000)

A survey of the thought of some of the most important figures of the period from the fall of Rome to the Scottish Enlightenment. The course will begin with an examination of the medieval hylomorphism of Aquinas and Ockham and then consider its rejection and transformation in the early modern period. Three distinct early modern approaches to philosophy will be discussed in relation to their medieval antecedents: the method of doubt, the principle of sufficient reason, and empiricism. Figures covered may include Ockham, Aquinas, Descartes, Avicenna, Princess Elizabeth, Émilie du Châtelet, Spinoza, Leibniz, Abelard, Berkeley, Hume, and al-Ghazali.

Completion of the general education requirement in humanities required; PHIL 25000 recommended.

2024-2025 Winter
Category
Early Modern Philosophy (including Kant)
Medieval Philosophy

PHIL 50208 Kant’s Ethics

In this course we will read, write, and think about Kant's ethics.  After giving careful attention to the arguments in the Second Critique, portions of the Third Critique, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Metaphysics of Morals, and several other primary texts, we will conclude by working through some contemporary neo-Kantian moral philosophy, paying close attention to work by Christine Korsgaard, David Velleman, Stephen Engstrom, and others. (IV)

2024-2025 Winter
Category
Ethics

PHIL 27500/37500 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

(FNDL 27800, HIPS 25001, CHSS 37901)

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) (IV)

2024-2025 Autumn

PHIL 26000 History of Philosophy II: Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy

(HIPS 26000, MDVL 26000)

A survey of the thought of some of the most important figures of the period from the fall of Rome to the Scottish Enlightenment. The course will begin with an examination of the medieval hylomorphism of Aquinas and Ockham and then consider its rejection and transformation in the early modern period. Three distinct early modern approaches to philosophy will be discussed in relation to their medieval antecedents: the method of doubt, the principle of sufficient reason, and empiricism. Figures covered may include Ockham, Aquinas, Descartes, Avicenna, Princess Elizabeth, Émilie du Châtelet, Spinoza, Leibniz, Abelard, Berkeley, Hume, and al-Ghazali.

Completion of the general education requirement in humanities required; PHIL 25000 recommended.

2023-2024 Winter
Category
Early Modern Philosophy (including Kant)
Medieval Philosophy

PHIL 57502 Finite Knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason

A consideration of the positive part of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as the reflective investigation of the human capacity for empirical knowledge and as the advancement, under the title of transcendental idealism, of a conception of metaphysics as the science of the object of that capacity as such, with attention to alternative interpretive possibilities. (IV)

2023-2024 Winter

PHIL 28202/38202 Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit

(SCTH 28202, SCTH 38202)

A study of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and its topics, including knowledge, self-consciousness, desire, culture, morality, religion, art, and the character of phenomenological investigation. (B) (IV)

2023-2024 Autumn
Category
Phenomenology