Rosemin Keshvani

Research project: Thinking life through the third Critique: Kant and 'the feeling of life' [das Lebensgefühl]

Abstract

My research investigates the sources of Immanuel Kant's notion of ‘the feeling of life' [das Lebensgefühl] and the implications of this concept for Kant's transcendental philosophy in informing the production of knowledge of nature and the possibility of a transcendental theory of life.

Kant's pivotal role in shaping the theoretical foundations of the life sciences in Germany during the late 18th and early 19th centuries and the scientific context in which he practiced have gained fresh scholarly attention. Less understood, however, are how Kant's contributions into the life sciences through his work in law, natural philosophy and physiology systemically intertwine with his discovery of a transcendental method that would entirely reorient the practice of philosophy. By conceptualising all of nature, including life, and through his explorations into the conditions of possibility for life, Kant interrogated the limits of what may properly constitute knowledge natural philosophy and the life sciences. Yet, scholarly investigation into Kant's critique of life and his theory of life as organised and self-organising being, remain at an early stage of development. Moreover, Kant's later speculations in the Opus Postumum that attempt to think life as force continue to elude scholarly attention.

A sustained and systematic inquiry into Lebensgefühl will shed new light on Kant's project of unification in the Critique of Judgement and the final philosophical quest evident in his post-critical writings. By reframing Kant's transcendental philosophy in terms of Lebensgefühl, my research will investigate Kant's critique of the metaphysical foundations of a scientific theory of organic form and reframe Kant's entire project in terms of his investigations into ‘life', opening new avenues of philosophical inquiry that bear directly on contemporary European philosophy and theories on the emergence, organisation and normativity of life.