Call for Papers - Geltung: Categories - Post Kantian and Phenomenological Perspectives - 2025/2
This special issue is devoted to the problem of categories, i.e. the problem of how reality and the capacities to think about it are divided, structured or organized.
The topic of categories, that can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, and played a central role in philosophical debates during the Middle Ages, fell into disrepute during early Modernity. German metaphysics engaged in discussions concerning categories but it is with Kant and his successor that the question concerning the status of categories and their role to understand the world and our capacities to make sense of it come to the fore again. From Kant through his early critics, the tradition of German Idealism and 19th Century Neo Kantians, through to Frege, Brentano, Lask and Husserl, the question of categories plays a central role in the philosophical debates surrounding the birth both of analytic philosophy and phenomenology. More recently, discussions within Analytic Metaphysics have brought the question of categories back into mainstream philosophical discussions. However, the contributions of the Kantian, Neo-Kantian, Phenomenological and Hermeneutical traditions to the debate have not been taken into account into more recent developments in analytic metaphysics.
This special issue aims to remedy that situation by re-examining the 19th and early 20th century discussions on the question of categories, both in its historical significance and its potential contribution to contemporary debates.
Some of the questions the papers in this Special Issue aim to address are the following:
- What and how many are the categories? What is their status: real or mental?
- Are the categories themselves entities, concepts or terms?
- How is access to them possible: through analysis or experience?
- What are the theoretical yields of a reflection on categories for ontological research in general?
- Is a unitary system of categories possible or is it necessary to identify specific categories for each field of reality?
- Are categories modes of being?
- What kind of generality is proper to categories? Are they genera, species, or is it a question of a peculiar kind of generality?
- What kind of definition corresponds, therefore, to categories? Or are they simply indefinable?
Papers discussing such questions from a systematic perspective or with reference to authors of the Kantian, Neo-Kantian, Phenomenological and Hermeneutic Traditions are welcome. References to the work of, e.g. Kant, Lotze, Rickert, Windelband, Lask, Natorp, Cassirer, Brentano, Bolzano, Frege, Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer will be welcome.
Guest Co-Editors: Prof. Róbson Ramos dos Reis (UFSM - Brazil) / Bernardo Ainbinder (University of Wollongong - Australia)
Submission Deadline (CFP): September 1, 2025
Guidelines for Authors: https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/geltung/about/submissions
