It is with sadness that we mark the passing of Robert Paul Wolff on January 6 of this year in Durham, North Carolina.  Professor Wolff is best known in the Kant world for two influential books, Kant’s Theory of Mental Activity (1963) and The Autonomy of Reason (1974).  He also wrote a great deal on political philosophy from a Marxist perspective, critiquing political liberalism in The Poverty of Liberalism (1968), arguing in favor of anarchism in In Defense of Anarchism (1969), taking particular aim at Rawl’s Theory of Justice in his Understanding Rawls (1977), and commenting on the works of Karl Marx in  Marx: A Reconstruction and Critique of Capital  (1984) and Moneybags Must Be So Lucky: On the Structure of Capitol (1988). 

Professor Wolff also wrote a book arguing for the self-governance of universities and, quite presciently, against the marketization and external interference of universities in The Ideal of the University (1969).  In a reflection of his deep political convictions, Professor Wolff left the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Philosophy Department for that universities Department of Afro-American Studies, and wrote about it in Autobiography of an Ex-White Man: Learning a New Master Narrative for America (2005).    He also founded USSAS, University Scholarships for South African Students, in 1990, which has helped more than 1,200 disadvantaged students in South Africa receive higher education in that country. 

Professor Wolff earned his BA, MA and PhD in Philosophy at Harvard and taught at Harvard from 1958-1961. He was then Assistant Professor  at the University of Chicago 1961-1964, Associate Professor at Columbia University 1964-1971, Professor in the Philosophy Department at UM-Amherst 1971-1992, the Department of Afro-American Studies there in 1992-2008, and then Professor Emeritus.

More information can be found at the following links:

https://professorsemeritus.columbia.edu/people/robert-p-wolff-1933-2025

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/robert-wolff-obituary?id=57223118

Profs. Pat Kitcher and Günter Zöller have finished their 10-year terms as members of the NAKS Board of Trustees, and Prof. Jane Kneller is also stepping down from the NAKS Board of Trustees. We would like to thank all three of them for all their work supporting NAKS for this last decade - reviewing papers and books for prizes, serving on program committees, and advising the Executive Committee on all manner of issues. Without their hard work and the work of the other members of the Board of Trustees, NAKS would not be able to function. Thank you, Prof. Kitcher, Prof. Zöller, and Prof. Jane Kneller!

We are now calling for nominations - including self-nominations - to stand for election to fill these three positions on the Board of Trustees. If you would like to nominate someone, perhaps yourself, please fill out the folllowing Google form:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdM418YHYotmehSBcuw5UkI9BVcYcqBAHx8S3SNkcrRYcAAow/viewform?usp=sharing

Deadline for nominations: February 15

De Gruyter Brill and NAKS both look back with pride on many years of efforts to honor and preserve Kant’s legacy. As a scholarly publisher with a wide range of titles dealing with Kant’s work and Kantian philosophy, De Gruyter Brill is offering now a 40 percent discount on all of their publications to NAKS members. – visit the link below to explore the full catalog and access your member discount.

https://cloud.newsletter.degruyter.com/NAKS

We are getting closer to our goal of $10,000 for the Cheerful Philanthropist Fund Drive!  

There are only four days left! This is not an annual fund drive (we promise!), but a special effort to supplement the generous donation of the Henry Allison family. We are at $8,200 and need just $1,800 more to reach our goal, but we have a generous matching fund to encourage and measure the commitment of our members that will double your donation, so practically speaking, we only need $900 more to reach our goal. (Of course, it would be great to exceed our goal). Any size donation will be much appreciated!

Whatever you decide to donate, whether it is $10 or $20 or $30 or $100 or . . . will be doubled. Small donations add up and make a difference, so please do your part by going to our donations page at: https://northamericankantsociety.org/donate

You have four more days – please make a donation!

Daniel Sutherland

President, North American Kant Society

p.s. NAKS is a 501(c)3, and we are more than happy to provide a tax-deduction form.

We are pleased to announce that Eli Benjamin Israel has received the NAKS Markus Herz Prize for 2024 for his paper “Kant on Moral Trust.” We also congratulate him for having his paper accepted last month for publication by Kantian Review!

Roberts Stern, a highly respected and deeply missed Kant and Hegel scholar, passed away on August 21^st of this year of brain cancer.  

After earning his PhD at Cambridge, he spent 34 years at the University of Sheffield.  

His research covered epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and political philosophy, and in addition to Kant and Hegel, his interests included Kierkegaard, Murdoch, Levinas, Peirce and Luther, and Løgstrup.  His many publications included the following books:  Hegel, Kant and the Structure of the Object (1990), Transcendental Arguments and Scepticism: Answering the Question of Justification (2000), The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel and the Phenomenology of Spirit (2002/2013), Hegelian Metaphysics (2009), Understanding Moral Obligation: Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard. (2011) Kantian Ethics: Value, Agency, and Obligation (2015), The Radical Demand in Løgstrup's Ethics (2019).

In addition to serving as head of the University of Sheffield Philosophy Department, he served as editor of the European Journal of Philosophy, editor of the Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, President of the Hegel Society of Great Britain and President of the British Philosophical Association, and President of the Aristotelian Society.

Robert Stern was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2019.

More information can be found at University of Sheffield, DailyNous, and PhilPapers.

The 2024 prize, sponsored by Kantian Review,  has been awarded to:

Anna Milioni (Université de Montreal), for “Nomads, Territory, and the Kantian State.”

We had a healthy number of very good submissions for the prizes; we thank the judges for their hard work.  Congratulations to the award winner!

The Henry Allison Senior Scholar Prize

The prize  for an article in the 2022-2023 calendar year has been awarded to two people this year:  

Melissa Seymour Fahmy (University of Georgia),  for “Never Merely as a Means: Rethinking the Role and Relevance of Consent,” Kantian Review (2023), 28, 41–62.

-and-

Tobias Rosefeldt (Humboldt University), for “Kant on Decomposing Synthesis and the Intuition of Infinite Space,” Philosopher’s Imprint (2022), 22 (1), 1–23.

Dear NAKS Members,

As we announced in the Summer Newsletter, NAKS has received a very generous donation of $41,000 from Henry Allison’s family (his wife Nora and his daughter Renee Nash) in his memory and in honor of his contributions to Kant scholarship.  We thank them again for their beneficence!  In a sign of our appreciation, NAKS is renaming the Senior Scholar Prize the Henry Allison Senior Scholar Prize. 

The Allison family donation constitutes the core of the newly formed Cheerful Philanthropist Fund.  Being good Kantians, we know what you are thinking: acting in conformity with the duty of beneficence will lack moral worth if it is done merely from an inner satisfaction in spreading joy, rather than acting from duty.  But let us assure you that cheerfulness is not incompatible with acting from duty, and we always hope that you will be cheerful! 

The principal of The Cheerful Philanthropist Fund will be preserved and invested, and earnings will be used to fund many NAKS activities and to expand opportunities for NAKS members.  For example, we hope to increase our conference travel stipends for graduate students and junior faculty without their own research funds.

We are now starting a fundraiser to complement the Allison family donation, and we hope that you will contribute whatever you can in order to help promote Kant scholarship, in the spirit of Henry Allison’s many contributions to the field.  NAKS is kicking off the fund drive by transferring $5,000 from its modest current reserves to The Cheerful Philanthropist Fund, for a starting total of $46,000.   Although this is a terrific start, that amount in a safe and responsible investment will not yield overwhelming sums ($2,300 at 5%, for example).  This will definitely help us meet our annual budget, but we hope to raise at least as much again, which will allow us to continue our activities and to expand the support we provide to Kant scholarship and NAKS members. 

We are looking for any size donation, starting from $10, $20, or anything you can afford and feel moved to contribute – with over 500 members, smaller donations add up.  We will also have a NAKS Donor Page to acknowledge larger contributions people have made – $100 or more – noting the level of those contributions.  You can, of course, remain anonymous if you choose.  And you may also dedicate the contribution if you wish – in memory or honor of Henry Allison, or someone else.  But again, we appreciate any and all contributions at any level; all of us together can have a large impact. 

Please contribute to make NAKS stronger and help us promote Kant scholarship throughout North America and beyond! 

You can make your contribution at our donation webpage:

https://northamericankantsociety.org/donate

Please specify in the comments section that you would like it to be added to The Cheerful Philanthropist Fund; if it is $100 or more, please let us know if you would prefer it to be anonymous or if you would like to donate in someone’s honor.  If you would like to make a larger donation and would like to discuss it with us, please feel free to contact Daniel Sutherland at his personal email address: sutherla@uic.edu.

Are you curious about Immanuel Kant's theory of race? If so, then look no further! The purpose of this reading group is to critically examine Kant’s essays on race.

No prior knowledge of Kant's work on race or other works is required for this group . Each meeting will focus on one essay with the aim of understanding Kant's arguments. The first hour of each session will begin with an overview of the text followed by analysis of the arguments presented therein. Questions, comments, and thoughts about the text are highly welcome during this time. The second hour will be dedicated to open discussion about the text.

For any questions about the reading group, please email Corey Beckford at cbeckford@gradcenter.cuny.edu. Additionally, if you do not own a copy of the readings please feel free to contact Corey for the readings.