This year’s Summer School will focus on a central issue in value theory: the good. We will explore some of the major conceptions of the good in German Idealism, starting from Kant’s conception of the highest good and its post-Kantian reception and transformation in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. One of the guiding threads of our discussion will be how freedom as self-determination is possible in light of an ontological notion of the good. Can we reconcile the idea of the good as determining the value of an action, character, or even a whole form of life with the notion of freedom as radical self- determination? Is it possible to spell out a concept of the will as both self-positing (autonomous) and oriented towards a highest good that cannot be thought of as in any way produced by us (as individuals or historical, social collectives of any kind)?

Seminar Instructors:
Prof. Dr. Markus Gabriel (Universität Bonn),
Prof. Dr. Nicholas Stang (University of Toronto),
Prof. Dr. Karl Schafer (UT Austin)

Please register by July 25 with:
Dr. Alex Englander – alexeng@uni-bonn.de

Seminar language:
English