Special issue on: Kant and problems in contemporary analytic philosophy – the nature of experience

An Online Journal of Philosophy DIAMETROS announces the call for papers for a special issue on Kant and problems in contemporary analytic philosophy – the nature of experience. The deadline for submission is January 30, 2011.

Purpose of the special issue

Kant influenced philosophers belonging to different philosophical traditions but recently his thought is gaining in importance among those versed in the analytic philosophical background. In particular, Kant's theory of empirical cognition has been made a point of reference in the debate about the nature of experience and the role of concepts in it. According to J. McDowell, the leading proponent of Conceptualism, experience must be conceptually shaped because only then can it relate to objects. Nonconceptualists, the adversaries of this view, claim that object-relatedness of a variety of mental states does not require conceptual mediation. More broadly, the controversy deals with the nature of consciousness and human rationality. It can be traced back to W. Sellars's publication of “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” with the critique of logical empiricism, as encouraging the notorious “Myth of the Given”, as the main target. And it ranges into the very recent discussions in cognitive psychology concerning different kinds and degrees of consciousness and the specificity of perceptual experience. Against this background, the epistemological issues expounded by Kant, mainly in the Critique of Pure Reason, emerge as particularly relevant, as do many of his doctrines, such as the dualism of concepts and intuitions, the account of the forms of intuition or the transcendental unity of apperception.

We expect that the papers published in the 27th special issue of DIAMETROS, by raising the above outlined problems, will cast more light on Kant's place in the recent discussions and will help appreciate the importance of Kant's contribution to the shape of the contemporary analytic philosophical scene.

For more information regarding the special issue, please contact Anna Tomaszewska at: diametros@iphils.uj.edu.pl.