“Do we Think in Order to Like?”
Speaker: Gamze Keskin
January 6th, Thursday
Perhaps one of the most influential philosophers in the history of philosophy, Immanuel Kant discussed his views on taste in the third and last of his Critiques, the Critique of the Power of Judgment. Thinking that there is a gap between the theoretical and practical fields of philosophy, with this work he provided a ground for reflective judgement that was attempting to bridge this gap. Having this new function, the power of judgement does not act according to established laws. Thus, it allows becoming aware of pleasure, the manifestation of which is unpredictable. In Kant’s system interwoven with concepts and laws, this uncertainty corresponds to the introduction of cognitive faculties into free play. These faculties that are brought into harmony freely, beyond their limited and assigned roles, are at the basis of the judgement of taste, owing to these different roles. In this talk, from a Kantian perspective, we will be discussing how we reach a judgement when we make a judgement of taste such as ‘This is beautiful’, and whether we pass it through the filter of thought before arriving at such a judgement.
Gamze Keskin graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters, Department of Philosophy in 2008, and pursued further studies at the same university to complete her master’s degree with her dissertation titled “Kant’ın Transsendental Mantık Anlayışı” (The Conception of Kant’s Transcendental Logic) in 2011, and received her PhD in Philosophy with a thesis titled “Kant’ın Estetiği ile Bağlantı İçerisinde Felsefe ve Sanatta Romantisizm Sorunu” (The Problem of Romanticism Related With Kant’s Aesthetics in Philosophy and Art) in 2015. She is the president of the Turkey Kant Society that was founded in 2020, and the owner of the academic journal, Kant Çalışmaları (Kant Studies). Her research interests include the philosophy of Kant, aesthetics, philosophy for children, philosophy of art, and the Romantic Period. She has published various articles, translations and chapters in books in these fields. She is the editor of Estetik Üzerine Yazılar: Baumgarten’dan Postmodernizme (Texts on Aesthetics: From Baumgarten to Postmodernism) (Alfa Yayınları), and the author of Kant Estetiği ve Romantisizm (Kant’s Aesthetics and Romanticism) (Alfa Yayınları). She is currently working as an Associate Professor at Kırklareli University’s Department of Philosophy.