Immanuel Kant

In this course

Kant grounds modern debates about transcendental idealism and the conditions for knowledge that contemporary theorists like Badiou and Lacan repurpose when thinking through artificial intelligence and computational systems. In these readings, Kant's framework—particularly his distinction between phenomena and the structure of the thinking subject—becomes a philosophical scaffold for asking whether AI can access reality or merely process representations, and whether intelligence itself is bound by the transcendental conditions Kant identified in human cognition. His work appears primarily as a touchstone for posthuman philosophy's efforts to move beyond or reimagine Enlightenment epistemology in the context of non-human intelligence.

Background

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher. Born in Königsberg in the Kingdom of Prussia, he is considered one of the central thinkers of the Enlightenment. His comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, political theory, and the philosophy of religion have made him one of the most influential and highly discussed figures in modern Western philosophy.

Mentioned in 10 readings