Speaker: Sila \u00d6zkara (Duquesne University)<\/p>\n
Date: Wednesday, December 21
\nTime: 11:00-12:30
\nPlace: H-232<\/p>\n
Title: Cognition and Foundationalism in German Idealism<\/p>\n
Abstract: In this paper I will discuss the notion of cognition as it is found in German Idealism and will present an overview of it in terms of issues related to foundationalism. I will argue that starting with and following Kant\u2019s Copernican Revolution, cognition, or its derivatives, is problematized as the notion(s) that ought to be the foundation of the system of philosophy. Given the German Idealists\u2019 emphasis on systematicity, this laying of a foundation for the whole system is significant and characterizes the trajectory of the projects of the philosophers involved in the German Idealist tradition. I will frame the issue through Hegel\u2019s criticism of the \u201cfounding and grounding tendency\u201d, and present Kant\u2019s, Schelling\u2019s, Fichte\u2019s, and Reinhold\u2019s approaches to foundationalism based on cognition. Then I will suggest a Hegelian alternative, which is an epistemology based on a self-justifying, in Hegel\u2019s terms, \u201ccircular\u201d (but non-fallacious) pattern of the interrelation of knowledge-claims.<\/p>\n