主讲：Tobias Rosefeldt (Humboldt-Universit？t zu Berlin)

时间：2018年10月25日（周四）16-18点

地点：清华大学新斋324教室

Tobias Rosefeldt is a philosophy professor at Humboldt-University in Berlin. His research interests include Kant's theoretical philosophy (esp. self-consciousness, transcendental idealism), early modern philosophy (esp. Descartes), early post-Kantian German Idealism, Philosophy of language and metaphysics (esp. existence and existence claims), meta-metaphysics.

Title：Kant's Logic of Existence

Kant’s famous dictum that existence ‘is not a real predicate that could be added to the concept of a thing’ (A 598/B 626) is standardly interpreted as an early variant of either (1) the Fregean thesis that existence is not a first-order, but a second-order concept, or (2) the Quinean claim that existence is a property of everything. This paper argues that both views are mistaken, because they can only make sense of some but not all claims that are distinctive of Kant’s notion of existence. Most importantly, they cannot account for the fact that Kant followed the philosophical tradition of his time in making use of the notion of an object according to which there are existing as well as non-existing objects. I propose an alternative and entirely novel interpretation of Kant’s dictum, which takes his distinction between ‘absolute and relative positing’ to be the key to an adequate understanding of his account of the logical form, and ontological implications, of existential judgments. This interpretation not only allows us to make sense of a wide variety of Kantian claims, but also shows that the least anachronistic way to interpret Kant’s position from a contemporary point of view is to understand it as a forerunner of a certain variant of Meinongianism. It will become evident that Kant was the first one to point out how we can take advantage of all the philosophical attractions of non-existent objects without having to accept an overly extravagant ontology.

清华哲学Colloquium

从2018年春季学期开始，本系西方哲学和逻辑方向的教师开办了一种全新的课程：论文讨论课（Colloquium）。

课程核心参与者：西方哲学和逻辑方向的教师，以及上述方向的在读本科生，硕士生和博士生。同时也非常欢迎其它方向乃至校外的老师和同学参加。

课程形式：目前尚不能在该课程上拿学分（将来会尝试纳入教学体制）。每次讨论课由一到两名同学或老师提前一周将一篇他（她）们自己写作的论文（包括学期论文，本科，硕士和博士毕业论文，以及成熟的学术论文）用邮件群发给参与的老师和同学，然后大家一同在讨论课上针对论文提出批评和修改意见。注意，课程的运作形式不仅仅是老师点评学生的论文，而是大家一起为论文作者提意见。提交的论文可用英语或汉语写作。

课程主要目的：集中训练并增强同学的学术论文写作能力以及相互进行学术批评的能力。