Kant's Philosophy Today
The philosopher Immanuel Kant was born 300 years ago. His ideas remain important reference points for philosophers and theorists in various fields. Why has this interest persisted? Can Kant really help us to think through some of today’s most pressing issues?
This series of moderated discussions will introduce Kant’s philosophy to a general audience and will debate whether and how it remains relevant. In three sessions, panels of experts will discuss Kant’s theory of knowledge, ethics, and aesthetics, connecting the ideas to contemporary problems.
What Can We Know? Humility, Empowerment, and Hope
Kant’s major work in theoretical philosophy, the Critique of Pure Reason, investigates the extent and limitations of our knowledge. Three experts will introduce Kant’s rich and complex theory of knowledge. We will consider its relevance for current debates on topics such as objectivity, expert testimony, science, and disagreement
Anil Gomes is Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, Oxford, and a Professor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy in the University of Oxford. His philosophical interests include self-consciousness and objectivity, perception, the problem of other minds, and the work of Kant and Iris Murdoch. He has recently published The Practical Self (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Jessica Leech is Reader in Philosophy at King’s College London. She works on contemporary issues in the metaphysics of modality, such as the notion of essence, and the relationships between different kinds of necessity. She has recently published Thinking of Necessity: A Kantian Account of Modal Thought and Modal Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2023). She is the chair of the UK Kant Society.
Andrew Stephenson is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton. His work focuses on Kant and related topics in contemporary Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Logic, and Artificial Intelligence and Machine-Learning. He is particularly interested in the nature of mental activity, mental representation, imagination, the relation between anti-realism and transcendental idealism, and the epistemology of modality.
Stephen Howard is a senior postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at KU Leuven, Belgium, and, from October 2024, a fellow at FRIAS, Universität Freiburg, Germany. He specialises in early modern and modern European philosophy, taking a historical approach to issues in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of science. He has recently developed an interest in the philosophy of climate change. His publications includeKant’s Late Philosophy of Nature: The Opus postumum(Cambridge University Press, 2023).
Curated and chaired by Stephen Howard (FRIAS, University of Freiburg)
A collaborative event series organised by the Goethe-Institut London and the Institute of Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.