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Previous seminars from the Norwegian Kant Society

2019

The 13th International Kant Congress: The Court of Reason

The 13th International Kant Congress is hosted by The Norwegian Kant Society and will take place in Oslo, August 6-9, 2019. It is dedicated to the topic of the court of reason.

Time and place: Aug. 6, 2019–Aug. 9, 2019, University of Oslo, Faculty of Law

The idea of reason being its own judge is not only pivotal to a proper understanding of Kant’s philosophy, but can also shed light on the burgeoning fields of meta-philosophy and philosophical methodology.

The International Kant Congress 2019 will have a special emphasis on Kant’s methodology, his account of conceptual critique, and the relevance of his ideas to current issues in especially political philosophy and the philosophy of law.

There will also be additional sections dedicated to a wide range of topics in Kant’s philosophy.

The Congress languages are English, German and French.

Keynote speakers         

  • Karl Ameriks
  • Monique Castillo
  • Mirella Capozzi
  • R. Lanier Anderson
  • Katrin Flikschuh
  • Andrew Chignell
  • Andrea Esser    
  • Mario Caimi
  • Alessandro Pinzani
  • Marcus Willaschek
  • Arthur Ripstein
  • Klaus Düsing
  • Michael Friedman
  • Jill Vance Buroker

The call for papers runs from January 31 – October 1, 2018.

Please submit a full paper, consisting of a maximum of 20.000 characters (spaces, footnotes and references included) as well as an abstract consisting of around 1.000 characters (spaces included). Papers can be written in any of the Congress languages and address any of the 18 thematic sections listed below and should clearly state which section(s) the author finds most fitting.

The paper must be suitable for anonymous review. Hence, they must not contain any references to previous works by the author or to any other element that might reveal the author’s identity. The paper must be submitted as a PDF file. Selected papers will be allotted a slot of 30 minutes, including Q&A.

Authors will be notified of the review outcome in February 2019. Participation in the Congress is also possible without submission of a paper.

Please e-mail your contribution to: 13thkant2019@gmail.com

Thematic sections
  1. Kant's Pre-Critical Philosophy
  2. Metaphysics
  3. Metaphilosophy and Philosophical Methodology
  4. Epistemology and Logic
  5. Philosophy of Science and Nature
  6. Teleology
  7. Ethics and Moral Philosophy
  8. Legal and Political Philosophy
  9. Philosophy of History and Culture
  10. Philosophy of Education
  11. Anthropology and Psychology
  12. Religion and Theology
  13. Aesthetics
  14. Kant and German Idealism
  15. Kant and Neo-Kantianism
  16. Kant and Phenomenology
  17. Kant and Non-Western Philosophy
  18. Enlightenment and Reason in the Public Sphere

2018

Oslo-Bonn Colloquium on Kant's Practical Philosophy

Tid og sted: 15. nov. 2018 10:00, Room 652, Georg Morgenstierne's House

  • 10:00 Welcome, Reidar Maliks (Oslo)
  • 10:15 - 11:15: Feroz Mehmood Shah (Oslo) "The Reflective Judgements of Conscience"
  • 11:15 - 11:30 Coffee break
  • 11:30 - 12:30: Antonino Falduto (St Andrews/Halle) "Magnanimity or rather Virtue? Kant on Greatness of Soul"
  • 12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
  • 13:30 - 14:30: Stephan Zimmermann (Bonn) "What are "Categories of Freedom"?"
  • 14:30 - 14:45 Coffee break
  • 14:45 - 15:45: Christoph Horn (Bonn) "Kant's argument from the consciousness of freedom in Groundwork III"

The colloquium is open to everyone and no registration is necessary.

Kant's Legal and Political Philosophy

The workshop is free and open to everyone. This is a read ahead workshop and papers will only be briefly presented. Sign-up is not necessary, but write to Reidar Maliks if you will participate and would like access to papers.

Time and place: June 15, 2018 10:00 AM–3:45 PM, HF-12, Niels Treschows hus, Blindern campus, Niels Henrik Abels vei 36, University of Oslo

Programme

  • 10:00-10:15 Coffee, opening
  • 10:15-11:15 Luke Davies (Oxford), "Kant on the independence of citizens"
  • 11:15-11:30 Coffee break
  • 11:30-12:30 Christopher Meckstroth (Cambridge), ”Kant on the Politics of History”
  • Lunch 12:30-13:30
  • 13:30-14:30 Christian Rostbøll (Copenhagen), “Freedom in the External Relation of All Human Beings: On Kant’s Cosmopolitanism,”
  • 14:30-14:45 Coffee break
  • 14:45-15:45 Reidar Maliks (Oslo), ”Kant's French Revolution”

The workshop is supported by the Norwegian Kant Society and the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo.

2017

Sovereignty as a Right and as a Duty: Kant’s Theory of the State

Time and place: May 15, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Room 152, Georg Morgenstierne's House

Critics of Immanuel Kant’s legal and political philosophy argue that his theory of the state collapses into one of two extremes. For some, Kant is a quietist who regards positive law as the instantiation of justice and thereby deprives himself of a moral standpoint for the criticism of positive law. For others, Kant is an anarchist who denies the authority of law whenever it deviates from the demands of justice. I argue that these interpretations are the opposing products of a common error: the failure to distinguish between Kant’s justification of the right of the state to exercise public authority and his corresponding theory of a perfectly just state. Once these aspects of his theory of the state are disentangled, Kant’s transformative vision comes into view. Far from reducing the idea of a state to either an authoritative fiat or a utopian vision of justice, Kant offers a standpoint for recognizing (1) the public authority of existing states, (2) the standard of justice for assessing the moral adequacy of those states, and (3) the ongoing duty of existing states to direct the exercise of public authority to the deepest possible fulfillment of public justice.

Jacob Weinrib is an Assistant Professor at the Queen’s Faculty of Law. He graduated from the Combined JD/PhD Program in Law and Philosophy at the University of Toronto, where he studied as a Vanier Scholar and received the David Savan Dissertation Prize. Before joining Queen’s, he held a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the New York University School of Law as a Global Hauser Research Fellow in the Center for Constitutional Transitions (2013-4) and as a Dworkin-Balzan Fellow in the Center for Law and Philosophy (2014-2015).  Weinrib is the author of Dimensions of Dignity: The Theory and Practice of Modern Constitutional Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Ariel Zylberman on "The Bounds of Rights"

Ariel Zylberman, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCLA, will deliver the talk "The Bounds of Rights" for this session of Filosofisk seminar and The Norwegian Kant-Society. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by a reception on the third floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.

Time and place: May 11, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 George Morgenstiernes Hus

Abstract

The possibility of conflicts of rights raises a puzzle: if with the utilitarian tradition we seek to resolve conflicts by appealing to a balancing model of reasons, then we risk losing from view the peremptory character of rights as moral norms, but if with the deontological tradition we seek to make conflicts impossible by deeming moral rights absolute, then we risk becoming committed to an empty and dogmatic rule fetishism. My aim in this article is to introduce and defend a relational alternative to these familiar accounts. For the relational account, any moral norm, including rights, is ultimately grounded in a basic reciprocal relation of respect. Focusing on the relational grounding of rights opens up a non-balancing framework for resolving (apparent) conflicts of rights. This framework distinguishes the absolutely binding form of morally justified rights (rights as bounds) from the limited content of morally justified rights (the bounds of rights). My argument is that drawing this distinction enables us to see how morally justified rights can bind in a peremptory fashion without having an absolute or unbounded scope.

About Ariel Zylberman

Ariel Zylberman is a postdoctoral research fellow in Law and Philosophy at the School of Law and the Department of Philosophy at UCLA. He has published numerous articles in ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of law. His current research develops an irreducibly relational account of the foundations of moral norms.​ Zylberman completed his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 2013.

Martin Sticker on "Kant’s case against Heterosexual Marriage"

The Norwegian Kant Society and Filosofisk seminar invite you to the lecture "Kant's Case against Heterosexual Marriage" by Martin Sticker, research fellow at Trinity College Dublin. The seminar is open for everyone, and will be followed by a reception on the third floor of Georg Morgenstiernes hus.

Time and place: Feb. 10, 2017 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 152 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus

Abstract

My paper reconsiders Kant’s conception of marriage against the background of his remarks on the differences between men and women. I argue that, despite what Kant says about the immorality of homosexual intercourse, his framework of marriage and gender is more open to same-sex marriage than to heterosexual marriage. For Kant, marriage requires equality between the spouses. Given Kant's notion of the inequality between men and women Kant cannot approve of heterosexual marriage, according to his own account. Matters are different for same-sex couples, since same-sex partners are not immediately affected by the inequalities that obtain between the sexes. Same-sex couples therefore more easily satisfy the crucial equality condition Kant puts on marriage.

About Martin Sticker

Martin Sticker received his PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2014 on a thesis on "Common Human Reason in Kant's Philosophy - A Study in Kant's Moral Psychology and Philosophical Method". In 2012, Sticker was an academic visitor at the University of Notre Dame's philosophy department. From 2014 to 2016 he was a lecturer at the University of Göttingen. Since October 2016 Sticker is an IRC funded research fellow in Trinity College Dublin's philosophy department and with a desk in the Trinity Long Room Hub, Arts & Humanities Research Institute.

2015

A Peculiar Fate: The Reception of Confucianism in German Philosophy

The Norwegian Kant Society will host a guest lecture by professor Eric Nelson, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, on the topic "A Peculiar Fate: The Reception of Confucianism in German Philosophy".

Time and place: Nov. 3, 2015 5:00 PM–7:00 PM, Seminar room GM 452, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, Blindern (University of Oslo)

Eric S. Nelson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

He has published over sixty articles and book chapters on Chinese, German, and Jewish philosophy.

All interested are heartily welcome!

Eric Nelson on “A Peculiar Fate: The Reception of Confucianism in German Philosophy”

In this paper, I explore the odd and twisting story of the German philosophical reception of Confucius from Leibniz and Wolff through Kant and Hegel to Rosenzweig, Misch, and Buber. The European and German reception of the thought associated with Confucius, called rujia (儒家; the school of the erudites) in Chinese, has been primarily shaped by internal European philosophical and political-theological debates. Early Enlightenment figures (Leibniz, Wolff, and French philosophers such as Voltaire) interpreted Confucian China as offering a model of enlightened progressive monarchy and natural theology that could help reform Western thought and practice.

Later Enlightenment, Romantic, and Idealist thinkers (Kant, Herder, and Hegel) dismissed Confucian and Chinese thought as religiously pantheistic and politically despotic in light of debates over Spinozism and Enlightened despotism. Often these criticisms targeted earlier forms of European philosophy (Leibniz and Spinoza) more than anything specifically Chinese The idea of "oriental despotism" dominated the German and Western understanding of China in subsequent centuries.

This conception is passionately reaffirmed by Franz Rosenzweig in "The Star of Redemption" and is challenged in the early twentieth-century by Martin Buber and Georg Misch. They argued for the philosophical significance of Confucius and for a more tolerant and dialogical relationship with Confucian and other forms of non-Western philosophy.

About Eric Nelson

Nelson is currently finishing a monograph on the German reception of Chinese philosophy. He is the co-editor with Francois Raffoul of the "Bloomsbury Companion to Heidegger" (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) and "Rethinking Facticity" (Albany: SUNY Press, 2008).

He has also co-edited with John Drabinski, “Between Levinas and Heidegger” (Albany: SUNY Press, 2014); with G. D’Anna and H. Johach, “Anthropologie und Geschichte. Studien zu Wilhelm Dilthey aus Anlass seines 100. Todestages” (Wurzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann, 2013); and with A. Kapust and K. Still, "Addressing Levinas" (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2005). He has edited special topic issues of Frontiers of Philosophy in China and the Journal of Chinese Philosophy.

Conscience and Moral Self-Knowledge in Kant and German Idealism

Time and place: Aug. 20, 2015–Aug. 22, 2015, University of Oslo

According to Kant, your first duty to yourself and the “beginning of all human wisdom” is to know yourself (MM, 6:441). But what kind of knowledge is this, how can we attain it, and how is it relevant to our moral agency? Kant’s conception of the self and the subjective conditions for moral actions were challenged by subsequent thinkers like Fries, Fichte, and Hegel who identified alleged tensions in Kant’s account and proposed innovative solutions. The question about the relation between self-knowledge and morality is still subject to debate among scholars of Kant and German Idealism.

Program

Thursday (August 20th)
  • 09.00: Opening Remarks
  • 09:30: Keynote Lecture: Jeanine Grenberg: Self-Deception and Self-Knowledge:  A Kantian Account of Becoming a Moral Person
  • 11.00: Coffee Break
  • 11.15 Session I:
    • Martin Sticker: Ain’t no Party like a Third Party
    • Carsten Fogh Nielsen: On the very idea of a Kantian moral phenomenology
  • 13.15 Lunch
  • 14.15 Session II:
    • Laura Papish: Self-Deception, Evil, and Lack of Virtue
    • Markus Kohl: Radical Evil as a Regulative Idea
  • 19.00 Dinner
Friday (August 21st)
  • 09:00: Keynote Lecture: Jens Timmermann: Kant’s Theory of Conscience – Open Questions
  • 10.30: Coffee Break
  • 10.45 Session III:
    • Carla Bagnoli: Kant on self-knowledge as practical knowledge
    • David Zapero: Kant on moral self-opacity
  • 12.45 Lunch
  • 13.45: Keynote Lecture: Dean Moyar: Self-Certainty and Self-Blindness in Moral Judgment: Hegel’s Immanent Critique of Fichtean Conscience
  • 15.15: Coffee
  • 15.30: Session IV:
    • Irina Schumski: Can We Know What to Do without Knowing What We Are Doing? Unpacking Kant’s Opacity Thesis
    • Feroz Mehmood Shah: Kantian Conscience and the Threat of an Ethics of Conviction
  • 19.00 Conference dinner
Saturday (August 22nd)
  • 09.00: Session V:
    • Marijana Vujosevic: Kant on Moral Self-Control and Conscience
    • Jonas Jervell Indregard: A Self-Knowledge (Morally) Worth Having
  • 11.00: Coffee and snacks
  • 11.30: Session VI:
    • Ryan Wines: Respect for Law and Kant’s Causal Account of Moral Self-Consciousness
  • 12.30 Lunch
  • 13.30: Keynote Lecture: Owen Ware: Fichte on Conscience
  • 15.00: Concluding remarks

2014

Using Kantian Ethics to Improve Economics

Philosophical seminar and the Norwegian Kant Society invites you to the lecture "Using Kantian Ethics to Improve Economics" by professor Mark D. White.

Time and place: Apr. 25, 2014 2:00 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

In this talk, Professor White will explain how he incorporates the structure of Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy into economic models of choice. First, he will show how Kant’s perfect and imperfect duties fit surprisingly well into the standard economic model of constrained preference-satisfaction. Next, he will tackle moral fallibility, or contingent rationality, which requires more effort because the deterministic nature of economic models does not leave room to explain how agents can act against their best judgment. Finally, White will discuss judgment itself, explaining why it is necessary to understand economic choice, and how it can offer a way for economics to contribute to moral deliberation.

Mark D. White is chair of the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, where he teaches courses in philosophy, economics, and law. He has also authored a number of journal articles, book chapters, and books in these fields, including Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and Character (Stanford University Press).

2013

Guest lecture by Hans Marius Hansteen, University of Bergen

The Norwegian Kant Society has the pleasure to announce the following guest lecture by Hans Marius Hansteen, University of Bergen: The Sublime and the Revolution: Notes on Aesthetics, Rhetoric and Politics in Kant. All interested are welcome!

Time and place: Sep. 12, 2013 5:00 PM–7:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes hus, room 152, Blindern

The "Critique of Judgment" has no systematic counterpart, writes Kant. This, however, does not necessarily imply that it has no counterpart whatsoever. My - admittedly somewhat daring - proposal is to read Kant’s minor, political writings as an "unsystematic" counterpart to the third critique. The point of this is to link interpretations of Kant’s political thinking and his aesthetics by way of rhetorical considerations (including Kant’s reflections on rhetoric and his appropriation of concepts from the rhetorical tradition as well as rhetorical analysis of Kant’s writings).
 
The paper will elaborate on one of the observations that motivate this undertaking, namely the striking parallels between what Kant writes on the French revolution in the "Conflict of the Faculties" and the description of the experience of the sublime in the "Critique of Judgment". In both contexts, Kant focus on the experience of someone who is witnessing something dangerous from a safe distance, and on the impact of such experience on the self-understanding of a subject which, in an at least seemingly paradoxical way, is both observer and participant: What are we taking part in, when we are profoundly impressed by a spectacle that strictly speaking is none of our business?
 
I want to substantiate the claim that these parallels are not merely surface coincidence, but constitute a proper analogy. An analogous relation between disparate phenomena exists on basis of common features in the structure of their exposition ("Darstellung"). Citing Kant’s own example, we must admit that a hand mill really have no features in common with despotism, both, however, might be described under the same aspect, i.e. as being moved by a single will. Accordingly, I will analyze the presentation of the sublime and of the revolution. More specifically, I will focus on the rhetorical devices at work, and argue that they might most appropriately be taken together under the heading of "hypotyposis", a term that in rhetoric denotes a lifelike description of a thing or scene.
 
Now, "hypotyposis" is not only an apt rhetorical term for what is going on in the texts under scrutiny - it is used by Kant himself. Rodolphe Gasché (one of several scholars who have emphasized the importance of rhetoric to the conception of Kant’s third critique) maintains that "hypotyposis" is among the most important rhetorical notions appropriated by Kant: "Hypotyposis" is not just one of several possible forms of rhetorical presentation; it informs the very concept of presentation or "Darstellung" itself. This may not only support my general interpretative hypothesis - that rhetoric is central if we are to understand the relation(s) between the aesthetic and the political in Kant's writings - but is also give directions as regards the more specific understanding of the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric in Kant's writings
 
Hans Marius Hansteen is dr.art. and associate professor at the Department of philosophy (Institutt for filosofi og førstesemesterstudier), University of Bergen. His primary research interests are social and political theory, rhetoric and didactics. Publications include:
”Adornos philosophische Rhetorik oder »Wie zu lesen sei«” / i: Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie Nr 30/31, 2010, s 97-124
"Sofisten Immanuel Kant og den stridbare samtalen" / i: Syn og Segn.årg 111 (nr 3 2005), s 67-70

2012

Kantian Theory and International Human Rights Courts

MultiRights Workshop & Graduate Conference

Time and place: Aug. 27, 2012–Aug. 28, 2012, University of Oslo

Human rights are rapidly becoming an important force in international relations. The number of human rights covenants and conventions is increasing, human rights courts and other regulatory organs proliferate, and the discourse of human rights has become important to global political agents ranging from NGOs to world leaders. While this indicates a new respect for human dignity and the rule of law it also raises several difficulties. How are human rights courts to be legitimate unless they are held accountable in properly democratic procedures? How can human rights treaties avoid reflecting ethnocentric values? What is the justification for the margin of appreciation courts sometimes gives states when it comes to human rights? At the deepest level: what is the philosophical foundation of international human rights?

This workshop will explore the contribution of Kantian theory in understanding these difficulties. Kantian theory is often invoked in debates about international human rights, but rarely systematically and with attention to the connection between principles and institutions such as courts. Participants are encouraged to explore how human rights should be understood in a Kantian perspective, and what the implications are for the legitimacy of the emerging international human rights regime.

Workshop program

  • Katrin Flikschuh (LSE): ‘Universal Human Rights and Selective Enforcement: some Kantian Reservations’
  • Peter Niesen (Darmstadt): ‘Border-crossing Speech as a Human Right: a Kantian Perspective’
  • Thomas Pogge (Yale): ‘Kantian Theory and International Human Rights Courts’
  • Howard Williams (Aberystwyth): ‘Kantian Underpinnings for a Theory of Multirights’

Graduate conference

A graduate conference on Kantian philosophy and human rights jurisprudence will take place on August 28. Abstracts of less than 200 words may be submitted by May 18 to Jacob Lautrup Kristensen at j.b.l.kristensen@ifikk.uio.no.

Norwegian Kant Society: Helen Haav

The Norwegian Kant Society welcomes you to the presentation “Misplaced Respect: Kant on Subreption and the Status of the Sublime” by Helen Haav.

Time and place: May 8, 2012 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, Georg Morgenstiernes Hus Møterom 652

Abstract: Judgments about the sublime are treated as a type of aesthetic reflective judgments in the Critique of Judgment and as such, they share a number of characteristic features with judgments about the beautiful. However, these formal and structural similarities also serve to conceal some important differences between the two kinds of aesthetic judgments.

Perhaps the most important distinctive feature of the sublime, from which all else follows, is the differentiation between the “proper” and “improper” sense of the sublime. According to Kant, true sublime is always located only in the mind of the judging subject and not in any natural object, whereas we can correctly call many natural objects beautiful.

Ostensibly, Kant seems to explain this distinction by referring to the representation of formlessness and contrapurposiveness that comes with the experience of the sublime. However, this alone does not suffice to justify the peculiar status of sublimity, compared to that of beauty.

I argue that the reason why we can speak of a proper and improper sense of the sublime lies in the peculiar nature of the feeling of the sublime – respect – and the mechanism by which this respect is accorded to an object of nature.

Kant terms this feature of the sublime “subreption”. Respect can only ever be directed to ourselves, our moral consciousness or the idea of humanity, but by a certain subreption we come to feel respect for the natural object instead. Although subreption is a kind of a fallacy, it serves an essential and legitimate role in the experience of the sublime.

Much literature has been devoted to the moral dimension of the sublime. This raises the question of the status of the sublime in relation to morality, considering that the proper object of the feeling of the sublime turns out to be our own self and moral vocation.

Here, too, a difference from beauty becomes evident. I argue that although judgments of the sublime are treated as free aesthetic judgments, the relation between the sublime and morality is too strong for the sublime to serve as a symbol of morality alongside the beautiful.

Helen Haav is a guest researcher at IFIKK.

2011

Kant's Theory of History: A Couple of Problems and Some Proposals

Lecture by professor Christoph Horn (Universität Bonn), organized by Filosofisk seminar and the Norwegian Kant Society.

Time and place: Sep. 23, 2011 2:00 PM–4:00 PM, Seminarrom 203, Georg Morgenstiernes hus

Kant’s account of history is highly problematic starting from its very beginning in the writing Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim [1784]. I want to identify five different problems that it contains: namely the problem of heteronomy, the problem of cynicism, the problem of fatalism, the problem of dogmatism, and the problem of naturalism. As I try to make plausible, the last problem is the most fundamental and the most serious one. Reflecting on it, one might get even the impression that Kant is leaving behind such fundamental convictions as that of pure moral normativity and of transcendental freedom.

Christoph Horn is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bonn. He works on various aspects of ancient philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine) as well as modern moral and political thought, especially on Kant.

Publications: Plotin über Sein, Zahl und Einheit, Stuttgart/Leipzig 1995. Augustinus, München 1995. Antike Lebenskunst, München 1998. Politische Philosophie, Darmstadt 2003. He has also the following volumes: Augustinus, De civitate dei, Berlin 1997. (with Ch. Rapp):Wörterbuch der antiken Philosophie, München 2002. (with N. Scarano) Philosophie der Gerechtigkeit. Texte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Frankfurt a.M. 2002. (with D. Schönecker): Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Frankfurt a.M. 2006. (with C. Mieth und N. Scarano): Kant. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Frankfurt a.M. 2007. (with Ada Neschke): Politischer Aristotelismus. Die Rezeption der aristotelischen ‚Politik’ von der Antike bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart/Weimar 2008. (with Jörn Müller and Joachim Söder): Platon-Handbuch. Leben – Werk – Wirkung, Stuttgart/Weimar 2009. (with Guido Löhrer): Gründe und Zwecke - Texte zur aktuellen Handlungstheorie, Berlin 2010.

Kant on Causality

PhD course/workshop at the University of Oslo, jointly given by Houston Smit (University of Arizona), Robert Hanna (University of Boulder, Colorado), Eric Watkins (UCSD), and Camilla Serck-Hanssen (University of Oslo).

Time and place: May 5, 2011–May 10, 2011, Georg Morgenstiernes hus 452

Lecture Plan

May 5

Camilla Serck-Hanssen (UiO)

  • 10.15 - 12.00 Intro to Kant’s views on causality I
  • 14.14 -16.00  Intro to Kant’s views on causality II
May 6

Robert Hanna (University of Boulder, Colorado)

  • 10.15 - 12.00 Causality in the deduction
  • 14.14 -16.00  Causality in the analogies
May 7

Houston Smit (University of Arizona)

  • 10.15 -12.00 Causal laws and the mechanism of nature
  • 14.00 -16.00 Kant’s reply to Hume
May 9

Houston Smit

  • 10.15 - 12.00 What we know about things in themselves, the problem of noumenal causality or affection

Robert Hanna

  • 14.15 - 16.00 Kant's Theory of Free causality
May 10

Eric Watkins (UCSD)

  • 10.15 -12.00 Causality in Kant’s early writings (before 1781)
  • 14.15 - 16.00 Kant’s critical theory of causality (KrV and MAN)

2010

Making it Clear: Attention and Self-Affection in the Critique of Pure Reason

Time and place: Sep. 15, 2010 5:00 PM–7:00 PM, "Kjøkken" in P. A. Munchs hus, 4th floor, Blindern, University of Oslo

Jonas Indregard

Modality, Existence and Metaphysics in Kant

Time and place: Apr. 13, 2010 4:15 PM–6:00 PM, PM, Seminarrom 7, Sophus Bugges hus, Blindern, University of Oslo

Toni Kannisto

2009

Kant and Religion

Conference at the University of Oslo, December 3-5, 2009  

Time and place: Dec. 3, 2009 4:00 PM–Dec. 5, 2009 6:00 PM, Georg Sverdrups hus, und. rom 2

Program

December 3
  • 16.00-16.15 Opening
  • 16.15–17.00 Svend Andersen: "Kant on Religion in Philosophy and Politics"
  • 17.00–17.45 Discussion
  • 18.00–20.00 Reception
December 4
  • 09.30–10.00 Roe Fremstedal: “Kant on the Metaphysics of Hope”
  • 10.00–10.30 Discussion
  • 10.30–10.45 Break
  • 10.45–11.30 Toni Kannisto: ”The Idea of God as Regulative Principle”
  • 11.30–12.15 Discussion
  • 12.15–13.45 Lunch
  • 13.45–14.30 Christoph Horn: “Kant's Idea of a Virtue-Based Moral Community and his Political Philosophy"
  • 14.30–15.15 Discussion
  • 15.15–15.30 Break
  • 15.30–16.15 Jens Timmermann: “Divine Existence and Moral Motivation”
  • 16.15–17.00 Discussion
December 5
  • 09.15–10.00 Oswald Bayer: “Scheidekunst und Ehekunst. Glaube und Geschichte bei Kant und Hamann”
  • 10.00–10.45 Discussion
  • 10.45–11.00 Break
  • 11.00–11.45 Steinar Mathisen: “Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der Humanität. Das Umgestalten von Kant im Neukantianismus.”
  • 11.45–12.30 Discussion
  • 12.30–14.00 Lunch
  • 14.00–14.30 Ilmari Jauhiainen: "Hegel's Criticism of Kant’s Moral Religion"
  • 14.30–15.00 Discussion
  • 15.00–15.30 Olli Koistinen: "Kant and Spinoza on the Existence of God”
  • 15.30–16.00 Discussion
  • 16.00-16.30 Break
  • 16.30-17.15 Sigurd Hjelde: "Kant und die Anfänge der Religionswissenschaft"
  • 17.15-18.00 Discussion

2008

On the Infinite

Levture by Francoise Monnoyeur, St.Johns College, MD, USA.

Tid: 29. aug. 2008 14:15–16:00

Abstract

In their consideration of the infinite, it can be seen that Descartes and Kant do not free themselves from the Rationalist tradition. For both, the infinite as such is actual and applicable to God. Of course, they disagree on how to think about this actual infinite.  Also, both encounter a similar set of problems when they try to identify the non-finite, the “indefinite,” for application in mathematics and physics.

Descartes’ problem is that any characterization of a mathematical or physical infinite brings him face to face with his own presupposition of a correspondence between the mathesis universalis and the world.

For Kant, the key to the problems of the mathematical infinite can only be in his conception of time, but he must develop his conception of time to show how this is so. 

In this talk I will explore how Descartes and Kant each developed fundamental aspects of their thinking in order to solve problems posed to them by their attempts to characterize a mathematical or physical infinite.

Kant's Theory of Free Agency

Conference at The University of Oslo May 22-24, 2008

Time and place: May 22, 2008–May 25, 2008, Oslo

Program

May 22 (Undervisningsrom 3, Georg Sverdrups hus)
  • 09.00–09.15 Opening
  • 09.15–09.45 Øystein Skar: "On Translating the Second Critique"
  • 09.45–11.00 Jens Timmermann: "Autonomy, Means and Respect for Ends"
  • 11.00–12.15 Bertram Kienzle: "Character Variations on a theme by Immanuel Kant"
  • 12.15–13.15 Lunch
  • 13.15–14.30 Eric Watkins: "Kant on the Experience of Freedom"
May 23 (Auditorium 2, Georg Sverdrups hus)
  • 09.00-10.15 Heiner Klemme: "Kant's Hidden Antinomy of Pure Practical Reason in the 'Metaphysics of Morals'"
  • 10.15-11.30 Camilla Serck-Hanssen: "Radical Evil and Human Agency"
  • 11.30-12.45 Olli Koistinen: "On Drawing a Line in Thought"
  • 12.45-13.45 Lunch
  • 13.45-15.00 Thomas Krogh: "Time and Action in the Practical Philosophy of Kant"
  • 15.00-16.15 Jens Saugstad: " Free Causality - Just Bad Metaphysics?"
May 24 (Auditorium 2, Georg Sverdrups hus)
  • 09.00-10.15 Kari Refsdal: "Kant on What is Entailed in Having a Practical Normative Competence"
  • 10.15-11.30 Andrews Reath: "The Possibility of Free Will"
  • 11.30-12.45 Christel Fricke: "Practical Deliberation and the Freedom of Choice - Reflections on Kant's Moral Project"
  • 12.45-13.45 Lunch
  • 13.45-15.00 Carola vonVilliez: "What's Wrong with the World-Republic, Professor Kant?"
  • 15.00-16.15 Marcel Quarfood: "Two ways of reading Groundwork III"

Invited lecturers

  • Betram Kienzle, Rostock
  • Georg Mohr, Bremen
  • Heiner Klemme, Wuppertal
  • Andrews Reath, Harvard
  • Jens Timmermann, St. Andrews
  • Eric Watkins, UCSD
  • Christel Fricke, Oslo
  • Jens Saugstad, Oslo

2007

Kant's Paralogisms

Mini-conference on the Paralogisms.

Time and place: May 4, 2007, Georg Sverdrups hus

Program

  • 10.15: Camilla Serck-Hanssen (Oslo): "Is the Idea of the Soul an Illusion?"
  • 12.00: Lunch
  • 13.15: Discussion resumes
  • 14.15:Tobias Rosefeldt  (Heidelberg) "Subjects of Kant's first Paralogism"

2006

Kant and the Given

Workshop organized by the Norwegian Kant-Society in cooperation with Filosofisk Seminar.

Time and place: Dec. 1, 2006–Dec. 2, 2006, Universitetet i Oslo, Blindern Campus,Georg Sverdrups hus, Moltke Moes vei 39, Undervisningsrom 2

Friday, Dec. 1st , 2006

10.00 – 13.00: Stig Hareide (IFIKK, UiO): Was ist ein reiner Verstandesbegriff? Momente zur Interpretation der transzendentalen Deduktion der Kategorien.

Comments by Steinar Mathisen (IFIKK, UiO) and Carola von Villiez (Universitaet Bremen).

Discussion and Lunch break

  • 14.00 – 17.00: Michael Wolff (Universitaet Bielefeld): Daten der reinen Anschauung. Bemerkungen zu Kants Erklärung der Moeglichkeit der reinen Geometrie als einer synthetischen Erkenntnis a priori (preliminary title)

Comment by Camilla Serck – Hanssen (IFIKK, UiO)

Saturday, Dec. 2nd , 2006

  • 10.00 – 13.00: Frode Kjosavik (Department of Economics and Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences): The Kantian Conception of 'Anschauung'. (preliminary title)

Comments by Thor Sandmel (UiO) and Terje Sparby (Oslo)

Conference languages will be English and German

All welcome !

Thinking about Limits and Borders

The First Philosophical Conference on Borderology at the Barents Institute in Kirkenes, at Rica Hotel Kirkenes

Time and place: June 1, 2006–June 2, 2006, Rica Hotel Kirkenes

Thursday, June 1st

Chairs: Christel Fricke/Camilla Serck-Hanssen, University of Oslo

  • 0900-0930: Welcome by Urban Wråkberg, Research Director of the Barents Institute
  • 0930 - 1130: John McDowell, University of Pittsburgh: "Sensory Consciousness in Kant and Sellars" with Comments by Jennifer Church, Vassar College
  • 1130 - 1200: Viggo Rossvaer, University of Tromsoe: "Kant as observer"
  • 1400 - 1500: James Conant, University of Chicago: "McDowell & Kant on the Possibility of a Non-Restrictive Conception of Subjectivity"
  • 1500-1600: Discussion organized by Arnt Myrstad, University of Tromsoe
  • 1600-1700: Lisa van Alstyne, University of Pittsburg: "What Aristotle and Kant Both Knew About the Law but Contemporary Anglo-American Legal Theory Seems to Want to Forget"

Friday, June 2nd

Chairs: Christel Fricke/ Camilla Serck-Hanssen, University of Oslo

  • 0900 - 1100: Otfried Hoeffe, Universität Tübingen: "Kant's Universal Cosmopolitism - a Philosophical Argument Against Borders" with comments by Christel Fricke, Universitetet I Oslo
  • Carola von Villiez, Universität Bremen, Germany: "What's wrong with the world-state, Professor Kant?"
  • 1100 - 1200: General discussion
  • 1400 - 1500: Francoise Monnoyeur, St John's College,MD,USA: "The Starry Sky Above me and the Infinite Moral Law Inside Me".
  • 1500 - 1700: Marcelo Stam, University of Tasmania: "Grenzgang or Treading the Boundary"

2004

Law, Politics, Ethics, and Kant's Practical Philosophy - a Fruitful Connection?

International symposium and researcher education course

Time: May 12, 2004–May 14, 2004

2003

European Identity: If a European Identity is the solution for the European Union, what is the problem?

Professor Andreas Føllesdal, Filosofisk institutt, UiO og ARENA. Kommentator: dr. art. Henrik Syse, PRIO og Etikkprogrammet ved UiO

Tid: 7. okt. 2003 19:00

Do Europeans share a 'European Identity', uniquely theirs? If none exists yet, can such a thing be developed, should it be created in and by the European Union, and what should it consist of? Such fairly philosophical issues are currently debated among decision-makers in the European Union. We may gain some insight by reflecting on the prior question: If a European Identity is the solution for the European Union, what is the problem? Is the challenge to prevent wars on European soil? To mobilise soldiers to die for Europe? To secure support for EU decisions? To delineate the borders of the EU? To overcome resistance against an 'ever closer union'? To stand up to US hegemony? To make Europeans love the European Commission? With sound answers to this question it may be possible to assess the possibility, desirability and content of a "European Identity", and consider whether it should be unique to Europeans.

Should a European Identity consist of values and beliefs broadly shared and unique to the history of Europe? In that case human rights, democracy and enlightenment values are too popular outside Europe, leaving perhaps xenophobia and anti-Semitism as the strongest nominees. Or may a commitment to solidaristic, redistributive welfare state arrangements be central? This seems odd both to those who perceive the EU‚s market freedoms as a main threat to these institutions rather than their guarantor, and to those on the political right who have thought of themselves as Europeans in good standing.

Andreas Føllesdal invites to reflection on these issues, suggesting that one main role of 'European Identity' is to bolster trust and trustworthiness among Europeans participating in a multi-level political order. If so, the set of shared beliefs, norms and values needs not be especially extensive, nor need it be unique to Europeans. Dr. Art. Henrik Syse, with the Ethics Programme of the University of Oslo, will comment. His background is especially relevant since many of the concerns and reflections concerning 'European Identity' are similar to those prompting the Norwegian Government Commission on Human Values 1998-2001 - Verdikommisjonen. Henrik Syse served as member of the Secretariat of that Commission.

Published Feb. 10, 2022 2:04 PM - Last modified Mar. 24, 2022 3:33 PM
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