Alix Cohen

Professor

Biography

Background

Before joining the University of Edinburgh in January 2014, Alix taught at the universities of York and Leeds, having previously held a Junior Research Fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge, a Research Fellowship with the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Neuchâtel, and an Experienced Researcher Humboldt Fellowship at the Zentrum für Ethik und Philosophie in der Praxis at the udwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Previous roles at Edinburgh include Head of Philosophy, Deputy Head of Philosophy, Director of Postgraduate Teaching, and Tutor Coordinator.

Books

Edited volumes

Emotion / Feeling

Epistemic normativity

Anthropology

Aesthetics

Biology

Education

History

  • ‘Philosophy and History’, Routledge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, Aaron Garrett (Ed.) (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 753-72.
  • ‘Kant’s Biological Conception of History’, Journal for the Philosophy of History 2, pp. 1-28, 2008.
  • ‘The Making of a Classic: The Reception of David Hume in Europe’, New Essays on David Hume, E. Mazza & E. Ronchetti (Eds.) (Milan: Franco Angeli), 2007, 457-68
  • ‘In Defence of Hume’s Historical Method’, British Journal of History of Philosophy 13, pp. 489-502, 2005 [Chosen for the 'Editor's Choice Collection' that celebrates the 21st birthday of the BJHP].

Miscellaneous

  • ‘The Notion of Moral Progress in Hume's Moral Philosophy’, Hume Studies 25(1), pp. 109-28, 2000.
  • ‘La rêverie comme tentative de s'évader du monde des ob-jets’, Études Jean-Jacques Rousseau 12: 59-70, 2000.
  • ‘Le mal, funeste hasard ou tragique nécessité?’, Études Jean-Jacques Rousseau 11: 257-68, 1999.

Short pieces and Reviews

  • Review of Kant’s Empirical Psychology, Patrick Frierson, Metascience.
  • ‘Temperament’, ‘Pathological’, Kant Lexicon, Julian Wuerth (Ed.), (CUP, 2020).
  • ‘La dignité’, Dictionnaire des Valeurs, J. Deonna & E. Tiffenbach (Eds.), (Paris: Ithaque, 2018).
  • Review of Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the 'Critique of Judgment', Rachel Zuckert, Metascience, 18(2): 343, 2009.

Forthcoming papers

  • ‘Kant on Morality and Human Nature’, Kant's Ethics in Context, Stefano Bacin and Oliver Sensen (eds.), CUP.
  • 'Kant on Feeling and the Power of Judgment', Oxford Handbook of Kant, Andrew Stephenson and Anil Gomes (eds), OUP.
  • ‘Kant on feeling and agency: On the locus of agential self-awareness’, Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Analytic Philosophy, Jonas Held and James Conant (eds.), Palgrave.
  • 'The Supreme Principle of Reason: 'the unity of practical with speculative reason in a common principle' (G, 4:391)', Kant's Fundamental Assumptions, Colin Marshall and Colin McLear (eds.), OUP.

Selected recent / forthcoming talks

  • Moral Science Club, Cambridge, 14th May 2024.
  • 2024 SGIR Annual Conference, Cambridge, May 2024.
  • German Philosophy Workshop at the University of Chicago, 10th November 2023.
  • Kant on Epistemic Authority, University of Cologne, Sept. 15-16, 2023.
  • Conference on Kant and Stoicism, University of New South Wales, May 2023.
  • Conference on Kant's Dialectic, Simon Frasier University, October 2022.
  • Keynote speaker, Società Italiana di Studi Kantiani Annual conference, Milan, November 2022.
  • Keynote, UK Kant Society, KCL, September 2022.
  • Kant on belief and agency, Workshop: Assent, Belief, and Testimony in Kant and his Predecessors, April 2022.
  • Departmental seminar, University of Southampton, February 2022.
  • Kant on epistemic autonomy’ Epistemic Autonomy in Kant and Beyond, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago de Chile, August 2021.
  • A Kantian Defense of Epistemic Autonomy, Cologne Knowledge Router, Cologne Center for Contemporary Epistemology and the Kantian Tradition, March 2021.
  • Kant on Feeling, Self-Awareness and Agency, Conference on Kant on the Self, Princeton University, February 2021.
  • Kant on Pleasure, Judgment and Common Sense, Panel on Cognitive Emotions in Kant, North American Kant Society, Central APA, February 2021.
  • Kant on Epistemic Pleasure and Judgment, Workshop on Pleasure, University of New South Wales, December 2019.
  • Kant on the Feeling of Life, International conference on The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy: Between Biology, Anthropology, and Metaphysics, University of Munich, October 2019.

Editorial work

Link to my academia page: https://edinburgh.academia.edu/AlixCohen

Link to my PhilPeople page: https://philpeople.org/profiles/alix-cohen

 

Qualifications

Ph.D., Philosophy, Newnham College, University of Cambridge

Responsibilities & affiliations

Executive committee, British Society for the History of Philosophy

Member of the Advisory Board, UK Kant Society

Founder and co-organiser of 'Kant’s Scots’, University of Edinburgh and University of St Andrews

Member of the Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy (2020-)

Member of the Executive Committee of the Mind Association (2022-)

Undergraduate teaching

I have lectured on the Greats (Descartes and Kant) and taught two Honours courses, one on Kant's Critical Philosophy and one on Freedom and the Social Contract. I also have teaching interests in History of Modern Philosophy and Aesthetics.

Student consultation hours: by appointment.

Current PhD students supervised

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