Alix Cohen

Reader

Biography

Background

Before joining the University of Edinburgh as Chancellor’s Fellow in January 2014, Alix taught at the universities of York and Leeds, having previously held a Junior Research Fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge, and a Visiting Fellowship with the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Neuchâtel.

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

Books

Edited volumes

Emotion / Feeling

Epistemic normativity

Aesthetics

  • Feeling and Life in Kant’s account of the beautiful and the sublime', written with Yoon Choi, The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy, Manja Kisner and Jörg Noller (eds.), Palgrave, 2021.
  • ‘Kant on the Possibility of Ugliness’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 53(2), pp. 199-209, 2013.
  • ‘Kant’s Categories of Ugliness’, Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht, Akten des XI. Kant-Kongresses 2010 (Berlin: de Gruyter), pp. 25-35, 2013.

Biology

Anthropology

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

  • Review of Kant’s Empirical Psychology, Patrick Frierson, Metascience (forthcoming).
  • ‘Temperament’, ‘Pathological’, Kant Lexicon, Julian Wuerth (Ed.), (CUP, forthcoming).
  • ‘La dignité’, Dictionnaire des Valeurs, J. Deonna & E. Tiffenbach (Eds.), (Paris: Ithaque, 2018).
  • ‘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.

Forthcoming / Work in progress

  • ‘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.
  • '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.
  • ‘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.

Proceedings and short pieces

  • ‘Temperament’, ‘Pathological’, Kant Lexicon, Julian Wuerth (Ed.), (CUP, forthcoming).
  • ‘La dignité’, Dictionnaire des Valeurs, J. Deonna & E. Tiffenbach (Eds.), (Paris: Ithaque, 2018).
  • ‘Le rôle des sentiments moraux dans l’éthique kantienne: Le complément nécessaire à la raison pratique’, Années Kant (Paris: Vrin), pp. 145-53, 2015.
  • ‘Kant’s Categories of Ugliness’, Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht, Akten des XI. Kant-Kongresses 2010 (Berlin: de Gruyter), pp. 25-35, 2013.
  • Review of Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the 'Critique of Judgment', Rachel Zuckert, Metascience, 18(2): 343, 2009.
  • ‘Physiological vs. Pragmatic Anthropology: A Response to Schleiermacher’s Objection to Kant’s Anthropology’, Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants, Akten des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses (Berlin: de Gruyter), vol. 5: 3-14, 2008.
  • ‘A Kantian Stance on Teleology in Biology’, South African Journal of Philosophy 26(2): 109-21, 2000.

Recent talks

  • 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

 

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

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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