Contact Information

Professor:

 Abe Stone (abestone@ucsc.edu)

• Email Abe

Office:

 Cowell Annex A-106

Phone (office):

 459-5723

Push notification:

 Notify Abe

• Notify Abe

Website:

 https://people.ucsc.edu/~abestone/courses

• Website

Zoom link for lectures:

 https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97605212320?pwd=NmFwdjhDQ3ZQb01SbXpwUTEwSjBSZz09

• Zoom link

Office hours:

 Tuesday 11:30am–12:30pm (in person)

Zoom office hours:

 Mon. 2pm–3pm; Tues. 11:30am–12:30pm (or by appointment)

Course Description

We will read (large parts of) the fundamental text of Kant’s philosophy, The Critique of Pure Reason.

Modality: I will lecture in person in our assigned classroom, but I intend also to live-stream every lecture over Zoom. Due to the very inconvenient Jewish holiday schedule this year, there will also be three lectures towards the beginning of the quarter via Zoom only: one on 11/4 at the normal class time and two on Wednesdays, 9/28 and 10/19. I will also make a recording of every lecture available on YouTube. Office hours will be via Zoom only.

Course Requirements

Two take home midterms exams, due Monday, October 24 and Monday, November 14 (a choice of essay questions) (each worth 20% of the grade); take home final (also a choice of essay questions), due Wednesday, December 7 (60% of the grade). Students who receive an A- or higher on the first two exams may choose to write a final paper (approximately 8–10 pages) in place of the final, on a topic to be discussed in advance with me.

• First midterm assignment
• Second midterm assignment
• Final exam assignment

Papers are due as an attachment via the “Assignments” tool on Canvas. The assignments will be available online and there will be links to them from the online version of this syllabus as well as from my main course page.

• Canvas site
• main course page

Note that all three exams are due by 11:55pm on the due date.

You can find answers to some commonly asked questions about my assignments and grading in my FAQ.

• FAQ

Attendance at lecture is strongly encouraged, but it is not a course requirement and I will not be taking attendance.

Texts

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

, tr. Norman Kemp Smith (Palgrave Macmillan; 2nd edition, 2007) (ISBN: 978-0230013384).

The above text is available via the Bay Tree Bookstore, and also on reserve at McHenry; it is also available as an e-book via the Library course reserves page.

• Library course reserve

If you want to use a different translation you are welcome to, but you should be aware that it may be confusing because translations can differ greatly. Of course, if you know German, you should read in the original.

We will be reading exclusively the text of the second (“B”) edition. Page numbers in both the first and second (“A”) editions are marked in the margin of Smith’s translation. In most cases where the two editions differ, it should be relatively easy to figure out what the text of the B edition says: Smith mostly either prints the B-edition text with A-edition difference in footnotes, or, where there are big differences, prints the two texts separately.