We are glad to give notice that the first lecture of the Leuven Seminar in Classical German Philosophy will be held by Michael Olson. The title of the conference is Kant and ‘the Limitless Field of Oneiric Transcendental Medicine’.

The event will take place online, via Zoom, on October 15th, 2020, at 5.00 pm (CET).

In order to attend the seminar, please register at this link.

Organizers: Karin de Boer, Henny Blomme, Stephen Howard and Pavel Reichl.

Below you can find the abstract of the talk.

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In this paper, I will explore an odd comment in §54 of the Critique of Judgment in which Kant contrasts the gratification of the feeling of one’s own health caused by witty socialization and listening to music with the disinterested pleasure of pure aesthetic judgments. As I unpack this passage, I consider the degree to which published texts, unpublished notes, early drafts, and student lecture notes that address questions of health and medicine might justify the idea that Kant in fact had a considered and durable view about the nature of human health. This latter consideration opens the related question of how Kant’s published comments about human health and how we ought to safeguard it stand with respect to the system of transcendental philosophy in general. Despite the snickers Kant’s recommendations in this domain elicit among modern readers, I will show that his thinking about medicine and health is more intimately related to his central interest in the a priori structures of human experience and the systematic unity of knowledge than one might expect.