Alix Cohen
Professor
![](https://www.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/styles/uoe_profile_picture/public/alix_0.jpg?itok=jwk5qFsL)
- Philosophy
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
Contact details
Address
- Street
- City
- 40 George Square, Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9JX
Availability
On leave in 2023-24.
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
- Kant on the Human Sciences: Biology, Anthropology and History (Palgrave, 2009)
- Kant on Emotions (under contract with OUP)
Edited volumes
- Critical Guide to Kant's Critique of Judgment (CUP, in preparation).
- Thinking about the Emotions: A Philosophical History (with Bob Stern, OUP, 2017).
- Kant on Emotions and Value (Palgrave, 2014)
- Critical Guide to Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology (CUP, 2014)
- ‘Kantian Philosophy and the Human Sciences’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 39(4), 2008.
Emotion / Feeling
-
‘Feeling, Orientation and Agency in Kant: A Response to Merritt and Eran’, Kantian Review, vol. 26(3), pp. 379-391, 2021.
- Response to Melissa Merritt’s 'Feeling and Orientation in Action: A Reply to Alix Cohen'.
- Response to Uri Eran’s ‘Are Kantian Feelings Emotions? A Response to Alix Cohen’.
- ‘A Kantian Account of Emotions as Feelings’, Mind, vol. 129, pp. 429–460, 2020. [one of the three most read articles in Mind in 2020]
- ‘Kant on Moral Feelings, Moral Desires and the Cultivation of Virtue’, International Yearbook of German Idealism, Begehren / Desire, Dina Emundts and Sally Sedgwick (Eds.), pp. 3–18, 2018.
- ‘Rational Feelings’, Kant and the Faculty of Feeling, Diane Williamson and Kelly Sorensen (Eds.) (CUP, 2017), pp. 9-24.
- ‘Kant on Emotions, Feelings and Affectivity’, The Palgrave Kant Handbook, Matthew Altman (Ed.) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 665-681.
- ‘Kant on the Moral Cultivation of Feelings’, Alix Cohen and Bob Stern (Eds.), Thinking about the Emotions: A Philosophical History (OUP, 2017), pp. 172-183.
- ‘From Faking it to Making it: The Feeling of love of Honor as an Aid to Morality’, Reading Kant's Lectures, Robert Clewis (Ed.) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), pp. 243-56.
- ‘Le rôle des sentiments moraux dans l’éthique kantienne: Le complément nécessaire à la raison pratique’, Années Kant (Paris: Vrin), pp. 145-53, 2015.
Epistemic normativity
- ‘Kant on Epistemic Autonomy’, Proceedings for the 13th International Kant Congress (de Gruyter, 2021), pp. 687-695.
- ‘Kant on Science and Normativity’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, vol. 71, pp. 6-12, 2017.
- ‘Kant on Beauty and Cognition: The Aesthetic Dimension of Cognition’, Thinking about Science and Reflecting on Art: Bringing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Science Together, Steven French and Otavio Bueno (Eds.), (Routledge, 2017), pp. 140-154.
- ‘Kant on the Ethics of Belief’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. CXIV, Part 3, pp. 317-333, 2014.
- ‘Kant on Doxastic Voluntarism and its Implications for the Ethics of Belief’, Kant Yearbook, vol. 5, ‘Kant and Contemporary Theory of Knowledge’, pp. 33-50, 2013.
Anthropology
- ‘The Natural and the Pragmatic in Kant’s Anthropology: The Case of Temperaments’, Tamas Demeter (Ed.), Early Science and Medicine, vol. 22, pp. 1-18, 2017.
- ‘Kant’s Anthropology and its Method: The Epistemic Uses of Teleology in the Natural World and Beyond’, Palgrave Handbook on German Idealism, Matthew Altman (Ed.) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 186-202.
- ‘The Anthropology of Cognition and its Pragmatic Implications’, Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: CUP, 2014), pp. 76-93.
- ‘Kant’s ‘curious catalogue of human frailties’: The Great Portrait of Nature’, Critical Guide to Kant’s Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, Susan Shell & Richard Velkley (Eds.) (Cambridge: CUP), 2012, pp. 144-62.
- ‘Sociabilité, art de la fête et vertu chez Rousseau et Kant’, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-2012). Matériaux pour un renouveau critique, C. Van Staen (Ed.) (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles), 2012, pp. 245-55.
- ‘Kant’s Concept of Freedom and the Human Sciences’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39(1), pp. 113-36, 2009.
- ‘Kant on Anthropology, Alienology and Physiognomy: The Opacity of Human Motivation and its Anthropological Implications’, Kantian Review 13(2), pp. 84-104, 2008.
- ‘Kant’s Answer to the Question ‘What is Man?’ and its Implications for Anthropology’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 39(4), pp. 506-14, 2008.
- ‘The Ultimate Kantian Experience: Kant on Dinner Parties’, History of Philosophy Quarterly 25(4), pp. 315-36, 2008.
- ‘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.
Aesthetics
- ‘Feeling and Life in Kant’s account of the beautiful and the sublime’, co-written with Yoon Choi, The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy, Manja Kisner and Jörg Noller (eds.), Palgrave, pp. 169-189, 2021.
- ‘Kant on the Possibility of Ugliness’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 53(2), pp. 199-209, 2013.
Biology
- ‘Biology’, The Kantian Mind, Mark Timmons and Sorin Baiasu (Eds.) (Routledge, forthcoming).
- ‘Kant on Evolution: A Re-Evaluation’, Kant on Animals, John Callanan and Lucy Allais (Eds.), (OUP, 2020), pp. 124-34.
- ‘A Defence of Kant’s Biological Model for the Human Sciences’, special issue on ‘Kant and the Empirical Sciences’, Nuria Sánchez Madrid (Ed.), Estudos Kantianos, vol. 2(2), pp. 15-27, 2014.
- ‘Kant on Epigenesis, Monogenesis and Human Nature: The Biological Premises of Anthropology’, Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37(4), pp. 675-93, 2006.
- ‘Kant’s Antinomy of Reflective Judgment: A Re-evaluation’, Teorema 23(3), pp. 183-97, 2004 [winner of the 2004 Teorema Essay Prize].
- ‘A Kantian Stance on Teleology in Biology’, South African Journal of Philosophy 26(2), pp. 109-21, 2007.
Education
- ‘The Role of Feelings in Kant’s Account of Moral Education’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 50, Issue 4, November 2016, pp. 511–523.
- ‘Enabling the Realization of Humanity: The Anthropological Dimension of Education’, Kant and Education: Interpretations and Commentary, Chris Surprenant & Klaus Roth (Eds.) (Routledge), 2011, pp. 152-62.
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
- Co-Editor, British Journal for the History of Philosophy.
- Standing Editorial Board of Oxford Bibliographies OnLine: Philosophy.
- Editorial Board, Philosophical Quarterly.
- Editorial Board, Con-Textos Kantianos. International Journal of Philosophy and ‘Con-textos Kantianos E-Books’.
- Advisory Board, Journal of Transcendental Philosophy (Berlin, de Gruyter).
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
In the press
- The Independent (UK), May 2012
- York University main page, April 2012
- Politis (France), December 2010
- The Age (Australia), September 2009
Podcasts / Youtube videos
-
In Defense of Epistemic Autonomy: A Kantian Proposal, Conference on “Kant on Epistemic Authority and Autonomy”, University of Cologne (September 2023)
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Kant on Epistemic Autonomy, Figments of the Brain, Cologne Knowledge router podcast (March 2021)
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Dare to Know Podcast: Kant on the human sciences, biology and emotion