Kenneth R Westphal
BA (Illinois-Urbana Champaign). PhD (Wisconsin-Madison)
Professor of Philosophy
Office: CWG 36a
Tel: 4002
Email: K.R.Westphal@kent.ac.uk
Profile
My main areas of expertise include: Epistemology; Moral Philosophy (Ethics, Social, Political, & Legal Philosophy); Kant; Hegel; Modern Philosophy, especially Descartes & Hume. I also have substantial interests and competence in: Realism & Anti-Realism; 19th-century European Philosophy, especially Nietzsche; American Pragmatism; Aesthetics. For information about my research interests and publications please visit http://kent.academia.edu/KennethRWestphal.
I earned my BA in Social Theory from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (1973). I earned my MA and PhD in Philosophy at the Univerity of Wisconsin-Madison (1981, 1986 respectively). During my doctoral training I studied for a year at Die Freie Universität Berlin (the Free University of Berlin) under Prof. Dr. Michael Theunissen (1983–84), with generous funding from Die Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service), and for another year at The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH USA; 1984–85).
I remain Professorial Fellow in the School of Philosophy of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, a position to which I am grateful to have been named after my untimely retirement from what was then the Philosophy Sector in 2003. Subsequent to that, and prior to joining Kent I taught for two years in a visiting capacity at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL USA; 2004–06). Prior to joining UEA I was first Assistant, then Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH USA; 1988–94, 1994–2000 respectively). I first taught for two busy but productive and enjoyable years at Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN USA).
Whilst I obviously love philosophical inquiry, I equally enjoy prompting philosophical inquiry among my students, whom I relish working with. But this is the kind of phenomenon that can hardly be documented in writing. If a topic of one of my courses looks interesting to you, please by all means check it out! I have had the very good fortune to have studied with and learned from some truly outstanding teachers, and I do all I can to pass my good fortune on to my students.
Research
Author:
Hegel’s Critique of Cognitive Judgment: From Naïve Realism
to Understanding.
A detailed reconstruction and evaluation of Hegel’s epistemological
arguments in the first three chapters of his Phenomenology of Spirit.
(nearing completion.) Details.
Kant’s Transcendental Proof of Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Details. Reviews (kantreview.html).
Hegel’s Epistemology: A Philosophical Introduction to the PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT. Cambridge, Mass.: Hackett Publishing Co., 2003. Details. Reviews.
Hegel, Hume und die Identität wahrnehmbarer Dinge. Historisch-kritische Analyse zum Kapitel „Wahrnehmung“ in der Phänomenologie von 1807. Philosophische Abhandlungen, Bd. 72. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1998. Übersicht (Deutsch). Details (English). Reviewshegelhumereview.html .Title: ‘Hegel, Hume, and the Identity of Perceptible Things’. A comprehensive reconstruction and evaluation of Hegel’s chapter, „Wahrnehmung“ (‘Perception’; Phenomenology of Spirit, ch. 2) that shows that Hegel develops a sophisticated internal critique of Hume’s concept-empiricism in ‘Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses’ (Treatise of Human Nature, I.iv §2).
Hegel’s Epistemological Realism: A Study of the Aim and Method
of Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT. Philosophical Studies Series
in Philosophy, vol. 43; Keith Lehrer, ed.. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer,
1989. Details. Reviews (hegelhumereview.html).
A critical reconstruction of Hegel’s epistemological aims and method
in close consideration of Sextus Empiricus, Descartes, Kant, Carnap, and
Alston.
Editor:
The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Edited
by Kenneth R. Westphal.
Contributors: Frederick C. Beiser, Marina Bykova, Franco Chiereghin, Allegra
deLaurentiis, George diGiovanni, Cinzia Ferrini, David C. Hoy, Jocelyn
Beck Hoy, Frederick Neuhouser, Terry Pinkard, Jürgen Stolzenberg,
and Kenneth R. Westphal. (Now at the editing stage.) Details.
Pragmatism and Realism, by Frederick L. Will. Foreword by Alasdair
MacIntyre; edited, with critical introduction (xiii–lxi), by Kenneth
R. Westphal. Studies in Epistemology & Cognitive Theory, Paul Moser,
ed.. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997. Details.
Reviews.
An integrated set of 9 essays that develop an original pragmatic account
of cognitive and practical norms that shows, inter alia, that
a social account of knowledge is consistent with realism.
Pragmatism, Reason, & Norms: A Realistic Assessment. Kenneth
R. Westphal, ed.. Studies in American Philosophy, Vincent Colapietro,
ed.. New York: Fordham University Press, 1998. Details.
Reviews.
Contributors: William P. Alston, Thomas F. Green, William H. Hay, Matthias
Kettner, Stanley L. Paulson, Martin Perlmutter, Nicolas Rescher, Michael
Root, Marcus G. Singer, James E. Tiles, James D. Wallace, Kenneth R. Westphal.
Joint Revies (pragmatism.html) or Discussions of Pragmatism and Realism and Pragmatism, Reason, & Norms
An Introduction to Hegel’s Logic, by Justus Hartnack; Lars Aagaard-Mogensen, translator. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1998.
With John Shook: William Caldwell, Pragmatism and Idealism — and Responses and Reviews. Series: Early Critics of Pragmatism; Bristol: Thoemmes, 2001. Co-author of critical introduction, vii–xix.
Translator:
With Fred Rauscher (Michigan State University), Kant’s Lectures, Notes, and Drafts on Political Philosophy. To appear in: The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ca. 2008).