International Conference: “More than a Machine”. On the Human Being in Kant and Post-Kantian Philosophy
Radboud University, June 20-21, 2023
Organisation: Manja Kisner and Giovanni Pietro Basile
One of the central landmarks of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy is to describe human beings in non-mechanistic terms and to point out the limits of mechanistic natural philosophy for understanding animal and human life. The early modern attempts to view human beings as machines – from Descartes to La Mettrie’s book L’homme machine (1747) and Holbach’s Système de la nature (1770) – were completely defeated by the end of 18th century. Kant played a prominent role in this defeat. In his famous essay What is Enlightenment (1784), he claims that human beings are more than machines, a view that he substantiates in his ethical, anthropological, and political writings. This shift of focus in philosophy was strongly shaped by the emerging life sciences. Biological research importantly influenced Kant’s and post-Kantian accounts of the human being. Epigenesis, one of the leading theories of generation in the second half of the 18th century, viewed the creation of living beings as a gradual, formative process based on the self-organizing capabilities of organisms. This idea proved fruitful not only for contemporaneous life sciences and their views of organic nature, but also for philosophical anthropology. Inspired by biological models, philosophers from Kant to Hegel (and beyond) turned their attention to the idea of the formation (Bildung) of human beings. Moreover, the burgeoning field of natural history encouraged questions concerning the progress of the human species as a whole. In German idealism, these different perspectives – biological, teleological, and historical – were brought together in order to pave the way for a holistic understanding of humanity. The aim of this conference is to discuss the philosophical conceptions of human beings found in Kant and German Idealism, and to shed light on their heritage in later psychoanalytical and phenomenological debates.
Online Workshop: Kant and Metaphysics
University of Wuppertal, February 19, 2021
Organisation: Manja Kisner and Gesa Wellmann
As Kant emphasizes in the preface to the Critique of Pure Reason, one of the chief goals of his critical project is to reach a “decision about the possibility or impossibility of a metaphysics in general.” (A xii). Although Kant’s critical attitude towards traditional metaphysics is widely acknowledged, it is much less clear what the main tenets of his own theory of metaphysics are. Our workshop aims to reopen this debate through a discussion of Karin de Boer’s newly published book Kant’s Reform of Metaphysics. The Critique of Pure Reason Reconsidered (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
The program includes six talks and commentaries, starting with an introductory presentation by Karin de Boer. Through the presentations and discussions, this workshop hopes to shed light on the following questions: What are the distinctive features in Kant’s critical account of metaphysics? How does Kant’s metaphysics relate to early modern approaches? Is it possible to talk about a “Kantian” metaphysics, i.e. is metaphysics after the Critique possible and, if so, in which sense?
Program and Registration: https://kant2021.uni-wuppertal.de
Workshop: Metaphern, Symbole und Analogien in Kants kritischen Schriften
LMU Munich, January 25, 2020
Organisation: Manja Kisner and Larissa Wallner
Conference: Aufklärung über Aufklärung – Zur Aktualität der klassischen deutschen Philosophie
Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, December 12-13, 2019
Organisation: Giovanni Pietro Basile, Manja Kisner, Ansgar Lyssy, Michael B. Weiß
International Conference: The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy
Organisation: Manja Kisner and Jörg Noller
LMU Munich, October 11-12, 2019
The concept of drive plays a crucial role in Classical German Philosophy for the foundation of theoretical as well as practical philosophy. Moreover, the concept of drive becomes essential in this period not only for philosophy, but also for other areas such as biology, anthropology, and psychology. As such, this concept facilitates new ways to describe nature and to define humans not only as merely natural, but also as cultural and moral beings that possess freedom. In this way, the idealist concept of drive brings together various philosophical traditions such as empiricism, rationalism, and the Enlightenment. The focus of the conference is thus both historical and systematic. Its aim is to portray, reconstruct and discuss the development of the concept of drive in Classical German Philosophy.
International Conference: The Concept of Will in Classical German Philosophy
Organisation: Manja Kisner and Jörg Noller
LMU Munich, November 24-25, 2017