Paul Franks

Areas of Interest:

Kant, German Idealism, Post-Kantian Analytic Philosophy, Neo-Kantianism and Phenomenology, Jewish Philosophy, Early Modern Philosophy, Metaphysics and Epistemology, Philosophy of the Human Sciences

Education:
Ph.D. 1993, Harvard
Areas of Interest

Recent Courses Taught:

  • Post-Kantian Themes in Analytic Philosophy (S12)
  • Directed Studies (S12)
  • Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (F11)
  • Jewish Philosophy (F11)

Books:

  • All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (2005)
  • Franz Rosenzweig: Philosophical and Theological Writings (with Michael L. Morgan), Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing (2000)

Selected Articles:

  • “Divided by Common Sense: Mendelssohn and Jacobi on Reason and Inferential Justification”, in Moses Mendelssohn’s Metaphysics and Aesthetics, ed. Reinier Munk, Dordrecht: Springer (2011), 203-215
  • “Inner Anti-Semitism or Kabbalistic Legacy? German Idealism’s Relationship to Judaism”, in Yearbook of German Idealism, Volume VII, Faith and Reason, eds. Fred Rush, Jürgen Stolzenberg and Paul Franks, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (2010), 254-279
  • “Skepticism, Naturalism, and Nihilism in Hegel’s Early Jena Writings”, in Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth Century Philosophy, ed. Frederick Beiser, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2008), 52-73
  • “Serpentine Naturalism and Protean Nihilism: Transcendental Philosophy in Anthropological Neo-Kantianism, German Idealism, and Neo-Kantianism”, in Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy, eds. Brian Leiter and Michael Rosen, Oxford University Press (2007), 243-286
  • “From Quine to Hegel: Naturalism, Anti-Realism, and Maimon’s Question Quid Facti”, in German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Espen Hammer, Routledge (2007), 50-69
  • “Jewish Philosophy after Kant: The Legacy of Salomon Maimon”, in Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy, ed. Michael L. Morgan and Peter Eli Gordon, Cambridge University Press (2007), 53-79
  • “Everyday Speech and Revelatory Speech in Rosenzweig and Wittgenstein”, Philosophy Today (Spring 2006), 24-39
  • “Talking of Eyebrows: Religious Belief and the Space of Reasons in Wittgenstein, Rosenzweig, and Diamond”, in Claremont Papers on the Philosophy of Religion: Wittgenstein, ed. D. Z. Phillips, London: Ashgate (2005), 139-159
  • “Does Post-Kantian Skepticism Exist?”, in The International Yearbook of German Idealism: Conceptions of Rationality, Volume 1, eds., Karl Ameriks and Jürgen Stolzenberg, with Paul Franks and Dieter Schönecker, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (2003), 141-163
  • “What should Kantians learn from Maimon’s skepticism?”, in The Philosophy of Salomon Maimon and its Place in the Enlightenment, ed., Gideon Freudenthal, Dordrecht: Kluwer Press (2003), 200-232
  • “From Kant to Post-Kantian Idealism”, in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 76: 1 (2002), 229-246
  • “Transcendental Arguments, Reason, and Skepticism: Contemporary Debates and the Origins of Post-Kantian Idealism”, in Transcendental Arguments: Problems and Prospects, ed. Robert Stern, Mind Association Occasional Series, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000), 111-146
  • “Freedom, Tatsache, and Tathandlung in the Development of Fichte’s Jena Wissenschaftslehre”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 79: 3, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (1997), 331-344
  • “The Discovery of the Other: Cavell, Fichte, and Skepticism”, Common Knowledge, 5: 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1996), 72-105; reprinted in Reading Cavell, eds. Alice Carey and Sanford Shieh, London: Routledge (2006), 164-201

Ongoing Edited Volumes:

  • International Yearbook of German Idealism (associate editor)