HPhil Seminar: March 6, 2025

The HPhil (History of Philosophy) Research Group of the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon announces the 2024/25 edition of its permanent seminar on the history of philosophy, devoted to the presentation of conferences by renowned specialists while also creating opportunities to emerging scholars, aiming to promote advanced studies in groundbreaking debates and the permanent training of its academic community.

In this session of the seminar, Karin de Boer (KU Leuven) will present a paper, entitled “Kant’s Conception of Transcendental Cognition” (abstract below)

The session will take place on March 6, 2025 at 5 p.m., in the Room C201.J (Room Mattos Romão, Department of Philosophy). Admission is free.

 

Abstract

Investigating the conditions under which a priori cognition of objects is possible, the Critique of Pure Reason does not seem to account in any clear way for the possibility and status of this second-order investigation itself. This is all the more remarkable because Kant considers transcendental cognition to be a mode of a priori cognition that proceeds from concepts alone and is capable of apodictic certainty. Since Kant rejects Wolffian metaphysics on the ground that it seeks to obtain a priori cognitions of objects independently of pure intuition, it is hard to see why transcendental philosophy should not be indicted on the same ground. In this paper, I address this problem by starting from Schulze’s challenge to Kant to this effect and Reinhold’s attempted defense of Kant. Drawing on various sections of the Critique, I argue that Kant conceives of transcendental cognition as a purely intellectual mode of philosophy that treats the human mind without objectifying its subject matter. On this account, it cannot be judged by means of the criterion for cognition proper established in the Critique.

This work/event is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/00310/2025, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
(https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/00310/2025)