1st Berlin Kant Workshop – Kant on Following Rules

(Note: A PDF of the program can be downloaded below.)

In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, human knowledge appears as the end result of a plurality of cognitive activities. Perception, synthesis, intuition, thought, and judgment are only some of the cognitive activities involved in human knowledge. In contemporary epistemology, such cognitive activities have often been understood as involving normative aspects, the spontaneous activity of conscious cognitive subjects and the active following of rules. However, as a reading of Kant, such a thesis is rather controversial: it is unclear whether and how a normative understanding of the various cognitive activities can be reconciled with the role of psychological deterministic processes in the genesis of human cognition. What is then the place of rule following in Kant’s overall picture? How are the normative aspects of the rule-governed activities of the different cognitive faculties to be specified? What are the law-giving grounds of the epistemic norms?

The graduate workshop will explore the controversial issue of normativity and rule-following in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. A special focus will be on his account of human knowledge and cognition. The workshop will feature talks by Konstantin Pollok and Clinton Tolley and presentations-discussion sessions by graduate students working on the relevant aspects of Kant’s philosophy.

(Attendance is free, but please register in advance by sending an email to [email protected])