CFP: Kant and the Question of Community (9/22/03; WSECS, 2/14/04-2/15/04)

The Western Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Annual Meeting
February 14-15, 2004 University of San Francisco

Kant and the Question of Community

In section 20 of his third critique, Kant emphatically notes a
distinction between "common sense" [Gemeinsinn] and "sensus
communis." Since the faculty of judgment is posited as the
harmonizing force between the faculties of reason and understanding,
the necessity of a "sense" that is common, or even "universal"
underlies the entire critical project. In section 20 Kant
demonstrates the existence of sensus communis on the ground that
there must be a common sense that allows the "necessary condition of
the universal communicability of our cognition." In this cryptic yet
seminal moment in The Critique of Judgment, Kant presupposes a
concept of community that is vaguely defined by its ability to
communicate universal cognitions, and thereby to communicate both
reason and understanding. Kant insists that the harmonizing that
makes this all possible is not "merely subjective play." This
implies that community itself is not merely constituted by subjects
but more fundamentally by some sense of community that transcends
subjectivity. However, the question of community (as well as its
answer) remains rather obscure. The panel invites paper proposals
(300 words) that interrogate this question within Kant's own work
and/or in comparison with later philosophers, literary theorists,
historians, or social scientists.

One page proposals (300 words) by September 22, electronically or by mail:

machosky_at_stanford.edu

Please send mail to:

-- 
Brenda Machosky, Ph.D.
Fellow in the Humanities
Stanford University
Introduction to the Humanities
Building 250-251J
Stanford, CA 94305-2020
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