Admission requirements
Admission to this course is restricted to:
BA students in Filosofie, who have successfully completed at least 70 ECTS credits of the mandatory components of the first and second year of their bachelor’s programme, including History of Modern Philosophy, Logica, Epistemologie or Wetenschapsfilosofie, Analytische filosofie.
BA students in Philosophy: Global and Comparative Perspectives, who have successfully completed at least 70 ECTS credits of the mandatory components of the first and second year of their bachelor’s programme, including World Philosophies: Modern Europe, Logic, Epistemology or Philosophy of Science, Language of Thought.
Pre-master’s students in Philosophy who are in possession of an admission statement and who have to complete an advanced seminar, to be selected from package C.
Description
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason has a credible claim to being the most important book of modern philosophy. Kant develops a new model of human cognition and a distinctive philosophical position, transcendental idealism, that amounts to a rejection of both empiricism and rationalism. In doing so, Kant is radically innovative and reaches dizzying heights of abstraction. For these reasons, the Critique of Pure Reason also has a credible claim to being among the most difficult books of modern philosophy. We will engage in a detailed reading of the entire book, but our focus will be on what are generally considered to be the most important and difficult parts, especially the Aesthetic and the Analytic.
Course objectives
This course aims to give students detailed insight into Kant’s thinking in the Critique of Pure Reason.
Students who successfully complete the course will have a good understanding of:
Kant’s overall argument in the Critique of Pure Reason;
Kant’s mature theories about space, time, causation, knowledge, and the relation between mind and world.
Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:
explain Kant’s mature theories in theoretical philosophy;
fruitfully engage with the secondary literature on the first Critique.
Timetable
The timetables are available through MyTimetable.
Mode of instruction
- Seminars
Class attendance is required.
Assessment method
Assessment
Mid-term paper (30%)
Final paper (70%)
Active participation in class is required for admission to the exam.
Weighting
The final mark for the course is established by determination of the weighted average of the two subtests (see above)
Resit
The resit covers the following exam component: paper (100%). The mark for the resit replaces any partial result.
Active participation in class is required for admission to the resit.
Students who have obtained a satisfactory grade for the first examination cannot take the resit.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
It is advisable to do your primary reading in a language that you are very familiar with. For Dutch students, the Veenbaas/Visser translation published by Boom is well worth considering. However, in class we will use the Guyer/Wood English translation, published as part of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. (Whatever translation you use, make sure it contains both the A-edition and B-edition texts as well as page numbers.)Sebastian Gardner’s Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason, Routledge Philosophy Guidbook.
Other materials to be announced and distributed on Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudymap is not possible for this course. Students are requested to submit their preferences for the third-year electives by means of an online registration form. They will receive the instruction and online registration form by email (uMail account); in June for courses scheduled in semester 1, and in December for courses scheduled in semester 2. Registration in uSis will be taken care of by the Education Administration Office.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc., contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga
Remarks
Not applicable.