Hermann Cohen

In this course

Hermann Cohen's neo-Kantian philosophy of consciousness and mediation through the other provides conceptual scaffolding for understanding how systems—artificial or otherwise—achieve self-awareness through relational structures rather than isolated introspection. The course readings invoke Cohen's dialectical framework to trouble the autonomy myth in AI systems, suggesting that machine consciousness (if legible at all) emerges through networked interdependence rather than self-contained optimization. His work allows the seminar to historically ground contemporary debates about whether algorithms can ever achieve genuine reflexivity or remain trapped in the formalist mechanics that Cohen's Kantian tradition attempted to escape.

Background

Hermann Cohen was a German philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".

Mentioned in 1 reading