CANCELLED–Kant & Post-Kantian Philosophy Group Talk (Nicolás García Mills, Binghamton)

This event has unfortunately had to be cancelled due to illness.

The Kant & Post-Kantian Philosophy Group is delighted to welcome as its guest speaker Nicolás García Mills, a lecturer in Philosophy at Binghampton University. Dr. García Mills’s research focuses primarily on the history of moral, social and political philosophy in the post-Kantian tradition. His current work includes three research projects, respectively devoted to (1) Hegel’s ethical views; (2) the social theories of Hegel, Marx, and the Frankfurt School; and (3) 20th-century Latin American philosophy. Each of these projects is concerned in one way or another with the broader question: In what ways are we free (or unfree) and how do our animal nature and the natural and social worlds outside us bear on our capacity for freedom and its exercise?

Talk Title

Hegel’s Neo-Aristotelianism and Hierarchical Ontology

Talk Abstract

In this paper, I argue that, in addition to a familiar, broadly neo-Aristotelian view, Hegel espouses another view of evaluative judgment, which is undergirded by his hierarchical conception of the natural and spiritual worlds. I argue further that this hierarchical view is not only compatible with Hegel’s neo-Aristotelian view but also supplements this latter view by answering the question: In what sense is the good of human, spiritual beings higher than the good of non-human animals and other living things? I end by addressing the accusation that Hegel’s hierarchical view has speciesist implications.

The Kant & Post-Kantian Philosophy Group is a a subgroup of the History of Philosophy Research Group, which focuses on European philosophy in Kant and post-Kantian traditions.