讲座预告 | Prof. Jens Timmermann：Kant’s Fact of Pure Reason

讲座主题：Kant’s Fact of Pure Reason康德的“纯粹理性的事实”

主讲人：Prof. Jens Timmermann 延斯·蒂默曼 英国圣安德鲁斯大学教授

主持人：Prof. Liu Zuo 刘   作 太阳集团tcy8722教授

评议人：Prof. Zhu Huihui 朱会晖 北京师范大学教授

腾讯会议号：891-596-998（密码123456）

Introduction to the Speaker

Professor Jens Timmermann is the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. He was elected a member of the Academia Europaea in 2023. His research focuses primarily on Kant’s moral philosophy, especially the moral law, rationality and irrationality, and moral conflict, while also engaging with ancient philosophy and aesthetics. He is regarded as one of the leading contemporary scholars in Kantian ethics. Professor Timmermann has published several monographs and authoritative annotated editions of Kant’s works, including Kant’s Will at the Crossroads (2022), Kant and the Supposed Right to Lie (2025), and Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary (2007). He has also contributed to the revised Cambridge editions of Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Doctrine of Virtue. In addition, he is the editor of Critique of Practical Reason for new standard Academy edition of Kant's work the Berlin–Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Professor Timmermann has exerted a wide influence in international Kant studies and moral philosophy.

Lecture Abstract

In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant demonstrates how categorical imperative is possible, thereby responding to the sceptic’s challenge by means of the ‘deduction’. In the Critique of Practical Reason, however, he dismisses scepticism and argues that a deduction of categorical imperative is neither possible nor needed, and instead declares the moral law itself to be a ‘Fact of Reason’. This marks a crucial turning point in Kant’s moral philosophy, which has often been criticised as dogmatic.

In this lecture, Professor Jens Timmermann will examine the concept of the Fact of Reason from multiple perspectives, elucidating it’ s a priori synthetic proposition and it’ s indemonstrable. He will analyse the function of this concept within the Critique of Practical Reason, and reveal its fundamental role in the deduction of freedom. Through a careful re-examination of Kant’s texts, the lecture will show that Kant’s rejection of deduction does not mean abandoning justification. The fact of reason expresses the universal moral consciousness and confirms its validity not through dogmatic assertion, but through philosophical validation or authentication.