The preponderance of scholarship on Kant’s philosophy of science has focused on his conception of physics — especially expressed in his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science — and its grounding in the Critical metaphysics of the Critique of Pure Reason. This emphasis appears warranted by Kant’s assertion that physics is the sole “properly so-called natural science” and his explicit dismissal of chemistry and psychology from this rank of natural science. However, recent comprehensive investigations of Kant’s theories of psychology (in both its rational and empirical manifestations), anthropology, and biology have revealed him to have detailed, informed conceptions of these “improperly so-called natural sciences.”

This conference seeks to reinforce this trend in scholarship — reorienting our understanding of Kant’s conception of natural science by examining the non-physical sciences — and to discover unifying themes in Kant’s accounts of the improper natural sciences. We will be interested not only in specific, detailed accounts of Kant’s views on chemistry, psychology, anthropology, biology, and so forth, but additionally in the morals that can be extracted from these considerations bearing on Kant’s overarching architectonic, philosophy of science, and theoretical philosophy.

Angela Breitenbach (Cambridge) and Thomas Sturm (Barcelona) will give keynote presentations. We are interested to elicit abstract submissions for presentations to be given over the three-day conference. Abstracts must be less than 500 words, exclusive of bibliography, and prepared for blind review. Abstracts are due on March 15th, 2020, and notifications of acceptance will be given by April 1st, 2020.

Abstract submissions should be sent to kantandimproperscience@gmail.com. Questions can be addressed to Bennett McNulty (mcnu0074@umn.edu).