Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

Dr. Catherine Wilson (CUNY Graduate Center/University of York)

The event will be held in the Philosophy Library, 303 Griffin Floyd Hall

Immanuel Kant is universally regarded as a philosopher of freedom in both pure and applied moral philosophy. His ‘critical philosophy’ is often said to have reconciled human freedom with Newtonian science. It is also believed to articulate a sharp moral distinction between persons ” who ought not be used for others’ ends” and things which may be. But Kant was not critical of certain coercive or freedom-limiting social mechanisms. This talk will examine how the critical philosophy was constructed to hold the line against certain egalitarian and progressive ideas of the radical Enlightenment.