“Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, but which it also cannot hope to answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason. The battlefield of these endless controversies is called metaphysics.”
-Immanuel Kant
Kant - The Earthquake
The publication of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was an earth-shattering moment. Not only was reason and its presuppositions seriously critiqued for the first time. The Kantian revolution also firmly placed the human mind in the centre of cognition ensuring the validity of formal logic and scientific findings before any experience.
If you wish to gain an understanding of our age, Kant’s critical philosophy is indispensable.
For it is precisely by transcendental logic that flying airplanes becomes possible! Why that is, you will learn and begin to understand at the course.
In honour of Immanuel Kant’s 300th birthday in April 2024 we are offering a 9 week Masterclass on his Critical Philosophy.
Focusing largely on the First Critique and themes such as time and space; logic; the categories; refutation of idealisms; the antinomies of reason; phainomena and noumena;
we will also devote a lecture each on his Second and Third Critiques. Here we will focus on freedom and on the genius in art as well as the sublime respectively.
In this way we will gain an insight into the entirety of the Kantian project.
"Hence nature is sublime in those of its appearances whose intuition carries with it the idea of their infinity.“
Live Lectures &Seminar Dates 2024
We meet Saturdays, from 6-8pm UK time/ 1-3 pm EST.
First seminar will be on the 20th of April
All seminar dates:
April: 20th; 27th
May: 4th; 11th; 25th — reading week on May 18th (no seminar)
June: 1st; 8th; 15th; 22nd
Course Structure
During the first hour I will present a lecture for about 30-45 minutes each.
For the rest of our time together we will have time for smaller group sessions and a general group discussion.
“It is the land of truth, surrounded by a broad and stormy ocean, the true seat of illusion, where many a fog bank and rapidly melt- ing iceberg pretend to be new lands and, ceaselessly deceiving with empty hopes the voyager looking around for new discoveries, entwine him in adventures from which he can never escape and yet also never bring to an end.”
Lectures
On the First Critique:
1. The Battlefield of Metaphysics and the Copernican Revolution
2. Time and Space: Transcendental Aesthetic and Apperception
3. Transcendental Logic & Idealism; Phainomena and Noumena; Refutation of Idealism
4. Deduction and the Categories; Schematism
5. Dialectics: The Antinomies of Reason
6. The Architecture and History of Reason (gigantomachia)
On the Second Critique:
7. Practical Reason and Transcendental Freedom
On the Third Critique:
8. The Sublime, Nature and Genius
Your Teacher: Dr. Johannes A. Niederhauser
Johannes A. Niederhauser is founder and spiritus rector of Halkyon Guild & Academy. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Warwick University (2018). Johannes taught philosophy at the University of London from 2018 to 2021. His most recent book is “Heidegger on Death and Being” (Springer 2021).
He has lectured and presented internationally at Birkbeck College London, the Universities of Cambridge, Bologna, Tübingen, Bucharest.