Modern life is experienced as representation; as the philosopher of representation, Kant most comprehensively rationalizes the experience of moderns. Kant’s three Critiques show the power of reason but also reason’s inadequacy to itself, which brings on unendlicher Schmerz–the infinite pain of self-contradiction. In weekly meetings on Tuesdays at 4pm in Hagerty 159 we shall work to experience the pain of reason as a touchstone of our humanity.
In 2016-2017 Sebastian Rödl gave a full-year invited seminar at the University of Pittsburgh with participation from John McDowell, Stephen Engstrom, Michael Thompson, Robert Brandom, graduate and post-doctoral students in philosophy, culminating in the conference Reconsidering Hegel’s Logic. Over the year 2017-2018 the Dialectics Working Group retraces the work of this seminar, which may prove seminal as the implications of the rediscovery of Hegel’s Logic are more widely understood.