Today’s meeting of the Dialectics Working Group is cancelled. We shall resume Tuesday, November 7 at 4pm in Hagerty 159 with discussion of Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. 

Kant’s first critique has shown us that the synthetic unity of apperception constitutes objectivity. For both Kant and Hegel, this defines dialectic. in the Critique of Pure Reason this transcendental unity leads inevitably to the antinomies of pure reason. We shall see today how these antinomies, for Kant an indirect proof of transcendental philosophy, help us understand dialectic. Their solution helps us understand the nature of judgment, and the difference between human and animal consciousness.

For more information go here. 

Today at 4pm we’ll be taking stock as we prepare to finish the Critique of Pure Reason next week. This brief and straight-forward article may be clarifying: Rödl, Sebastian (2013) Self-Consciousness and Knowledge-1nyj4cy.

Tuesday we’ll discuss the material covered in Roedl’s fifth lecture–passages on the dialectic from the First Critique. Line numbers listed below. Email brown.2583@osu.edu for the sound file.

(3 + 4) Transzendentale Logik: Dialektik: Antinomie der reinen Vernunft

• Dialektik: Einleitung (AA III 234-244 = B349-366)
• Dialektik: Antinomie: Antithetik (AA III 290-321 = B448-489)
• Dialektik: Antinomie: 6.-8. Abschnitt (AA III 338-352 = B513-543)
• Dialektik: Antinomie: 9. Abschnitt: III, IV (AA III 353-382 = B543-595)