Kant & Post-Kantian German Philosophy Group Talk (Sacha Golob, King’s College London)

The newly established Kant & Post-Kantian German Philosophy Research Interest Group is pleased to welcome as a speaker Sacha Golob, a senior lecturer in Philosophy at King’s College London. He is the director of the Centre for Philosophy and Visual Arts, and the associate editor of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy. Before joining King’s, he was a fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He has published extensively on French and German philosophy and the philosophy of art. His current research looks at contemporary conceptions of degeneration, transformation, and virtue.

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Passcode: 857825

Talk Title

Anti-Liberalism and the Rhetoric of Decline: The Case of MacIntyre

Talk Abstract

Anti-liberal theorists, from Maurras to MacIntyre, characterise liberal societies as suffering distinctive, structural forms of malaise: they are in “decline,” “decadent,” “degenerate,” or, as MacIntyre famously suggested, afflicted by “barbarism and darkness.” This paper has two aims. First, to understand the relationship between these accusations and traditional first-order ethics. Second, to identify what makes MacIntyre’s account of this decline distinctive among anti-liberals: in doing so, I focus particularly on strategies by which liberalism might accommodate or absorb his concerns.

This is a read-ahead meeting. The paper will be made available to those interested a week in advance of the event; please contact David Suarez for a copy.

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