Calendar | Conference

Classical and Contemporary German Philosophy

Köln, 20 - 24 June 2022

The term “Classical German Philosophy” usually refers to the philosophy developed by Immanuel Kant in the last decades of the 18th century and furthered by German Idealism in the 19th, then later critiqued and developed by the Neo-Kantians and then the Phenomenological Movement in the 20th century. However, the significance of the Classical German tradition extends far beyond the limits of the German-speaking world, so that it would be no exaggeration to claim that most part of European philosophy has been developed against a background modelled on Transcendental Philosophy. German Idealism, Historicism, Psychologism, Neo-Kantianism, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics are just a few of the philosophical traditions which have addressed the question of the method and substance of Classical German philosophy and which have tried in different ways to either reject the programs developed as a result or to defend them against ever-present criticisms.

This year’s Summer School is co-organized by Marquette University and the Universität zu Köln (Cologne University) and aims to give a broad historical and systematic overview of Classical German Philosophy in its development from the end of the 18th till today for advanced B.A., M.A. and PhD students. Through a program that retraces the main stages of the path of this tradition in the 19th and 20th centuries (German Idealism, post-Hegelian philosophy, Neo-Kantianism, Phenomenology, and Speculative Realism), the summer school will offer keynote lectures by experts in the field in addition to close reading sessions of classical texts on the dominant philosophers that count as part of this tradition. In the afternoon, doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers are invited to present their work falling into these thematic fields.

CFP is closed

Guidelines for Presentations by Early Career Scholars:

 

We invite submissions of 300 words-abstracts for a 30-minutes presentation by early career

scholars (PhD students, Post-Doctoral researchers), followed by a discussion. Papers may be

submitted on any topic dealing with the following issues:

1) Early reception of Kant’s philosophy by German Idealists (Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling,

Hegel);

2) Criticisms and transformations of Transcendental Idealism in post-Hegelian philosophy

(e.g. Historicism, Materialism, Psychologism);

3) Neo-Kantianism: between critique of natural science and critique of culture;

4) Phenomenology and the Phenomenological Movement broadly construed;

5) Recent criticisms of Transcendental Idealism (e.g. Speculative Realism);

6) Or any other topic related to Classical German Philosophy.

 

Abstracts must be prepared for blind review and sent as a digital copy (.docx or .pdf) by June 1, 2022. Please enter your name and affiliation in the email. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by mid-June.

 

Please send abstracts and other inquiries to:

 

Sebastian Luft (sebastian.luft@marquette.edu) and

Thiemo Breyer (tbreyer@uni-koeln.de)