James Kreines, "Reason in the World"

Book symposium: James Kreines, "Reason in the World" (OUP, forthcoming)

Tuesday, November 11th, 2014
Humboldt University Berlin, main building (Unter den Linden 6), room 2249a

Speakers:

James Kreines (Claremont McKenna College)
Luca Illetterati (University of Padova)
Robert Stern (University of Sheffield)
Franz Knappik (Humboldt University Berlin)

Hosted by the Chair for Classical German Philosophy (Tobias Rosefeldt), Department of Philosophy, Humboldt University Berlin.

Schedule (provisional):

10.30-11.00 Précis James Kreines
11.00-11.45 Comment Luca Illetterati: title t.b.a.
11.45-12.30 Discussion
12.30-14.00 Lunch
14.00-14.45 Comment Robert Stern: "Kreines on the problem of metaphysics in Kant and Hegel"
14.45-15.30 Discussion
15.30-16.00 Coffee
16.00-16.45 Comment Franz Knappik: "And yet he is a monist"
16.45-17.30 Discussion

No participation fee. If you wish to attend, please register with Sabine Hassel
([email protected]).

Book summary:
This book defends a new interpretation of Hegel’s theoretical philosophy, according to which Hegel’s project in his central Science of Logic has a single organizing focus, provided by taking metaphysics as fundamental to philosophy, rather than any epistemological problem about knowledge or intentionality. Hegel pursues more specifically the metaphysics of reason, concerned with grounds, reasons, or conditions in terms of which things can be explained – and ultimately with the possibility of complete reasons. There is no threat to such metaphysics in epistemological or skeptical worries. The real threat is Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic case that metaphysics comes into conflict with itself. But Hegel, despite familiar worries, has a powerful case that Kant’s own insights in the Dialectic can be turned to more metaphysical purposes. And we can understand in these terms the unified focus of the seemingly disparate discussions at the conclusion of Hegel’s Science of Logic. Hegel defends, first, his general claim that the reasons which explain things are always found in immanent concepts, universals or kinds. And he will argue from here to conclusions which are distinctive in being metaphysically ambitious yet surprisingly distant from any form of metaphysical foundationalism, whether scientistic, theological, or otherwise. Hegel’s project, then, turns out neither Kantian nor Spinozist, but more distinctively his own. Finally, we
can still learn a great deal from Hegel about ongoing philosophical debates concerning everything from metaphysics, to the philosophy of science, and all the way to the nature of philosophy itself.