Karl Schafer
@karlschafer.bsky.social
Philosophy professor and occasional philosopher | Kant's Reason (OUP): https://tinyurl.com/kantreason | https://philpeople.org/profiles/karl-schafer
It's 2025, and I'm still waiting for someone to drop a diss track entitled "False Friends" structured around a series of false cognates in different languages.
October 28, 2025 at 4:27 PM
It's 2025, and I'm still waiting for someone to drop a diss track entitled "False Friends" structured around a series of false cognates in different languages.
Never before seen levels of "Kant's dumb mistakes are actually expressions of his genius"
Martin Walter, Quellen Kants zur „Luftelectricität“ und zum „Katzentod“ - PhilPapers
This article investigates a puzzling episode in Immanuel Kant’s later life: his repeated references to „air electricity“ and the mysterious mass death of cats (‚Katzentod‘) as potential causes of his ...
philpapers.org
September 20, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Never before seen levels of "Kant's dumb mistakes are actually expressions of his genius"
Just got page proofs and had to read a bit of my prose.
September 17, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Just got page proofs and had to read a bit of my prose.
Woke up to a paper rejection with a pretty negative referee report, and you know what, the referee really nailed it this time
September 7, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Woke up to a paper rejection with a pretty negative referee report, and you know what, the referee really nailed it this time
Plato attacks poetry because it disorders the soul through lying, impersonation, and deception. Seen from that perspective, the problem with LLMs is not that they *can't* produce poetry – it's that they produce *nothing but*?
August 29, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Plato attacks poetry because it disorders the soul through lying, impersonation, and deception. Seen from that perspective, the problem with LLMs is not that they *can't* produce poetry – it's that they produce *nothing but*?
Why is ChatGPT so addicted to gaslighting me about Kant?
Even in the face of being called out repeatedly, it returns to the same hallucinated passage and offers it to me as real.
Does it think it's funny to lie to Kantians?
Is there some magic in that fake passage that attracts its attention?
Even in the face of being called out repeatedly, it returns to the same hallucinated passage and offers it to me as real.
Does it think it's funny to lie to Kantians?
Is there some magic in that fake passage that attracts its attention?
August 18, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Why is ChatGPT so addicted to gaslighting me about Kant?
Even in the face of being called out repeatedly, it returns to the same hallucinated passage and offers it to me as real.
Does it think it's funny to lie to Kantians?
Is there some magic in that fake passage that attracts its attention?
Even in the face of being called out repeatedly, it returns to the same hallucinated passage and offers it to me as real.
Does it think it's funny to lie to Kantians?
Is there some magic in that fake passage that attracts its attention?
When you ask whether Hegel's philosophy is truly "presuppositionless", remember that "presupposition" itself only acquire a determinate meaning for Hegel through the self-development of the logic. So, Hegel's logic gets to define for itself what it would mean for it to be presuppositionless.
August 18, 2025 at 2:19 PM
When you ask whether Hegel's philosophy is truly "presuppositionless", remember that "presupposition" itself only acquire a determinate meaning for Hegel through the self-development of the logic. So, Hegel's logic gets to define for itself what it would mean for it to be presuppositionless.
Honored to have my paper, "The PSR as a Practical Principle in Kantian Ethics" appear in this special issue of the BPA for Kant's 300th birthday with some *very* distinguished scholars.
scindeks.ceon.rs/issue.aspx?i...
scindeks.ceon.rs/issue.aspx?i...
SCIndeks - Sveska
scindeks.ceon.rs
August 5, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Honored to have my paper, "The PSR as a Practical Principle in Kantian Ethics" appear in this special issue of the BPA for Kant's 300th birthday with some *very* distinguished scholars.
scindeks.ceon.rs/issue.aspx?i...
scindeks.ceon.rs/issue.aspx?i...
Lol what is Gopnik talking about? The Vitruvian Man is an image of precisely the opposite of individualism?
August 5, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Lol what is Gopnik talking about? The Vitruvian Man is an image of precisely the opposite of individualism?
I'm not directly involved in these searches for the most part, but I'm happy to answer questions about them or put people in touch with others who are more directly involved.
philjobs.org/job/show/29386
philjobs.org/job/show/29382
philjobs.org/job/show/29386
philjobs.org/job/show/29382
History of Philosophy, Political Thought, Intellectual History, & Humanities (Associate or Full Professor), University of Texas at Austin
- PhilJobs:JFP
History of Philosophy, Political Thought, I...
An international database of jobs for philosophers
philjobs.org
July 31, 2025 at 3:50 PM
I'm not directly involved in these searches for the most part, but I'm happy to answer questions about them or put people in touch with others who are more directly involved.
philjobs.org/job/show/29386
philjobs.org/job/show/29382
philjobs.org/job/show/29386
philjobs.org/job/show/29382
"Intelligibility, Idealism, and Alienation in Post-Kantian Metaethics", now forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Metaethics
How to develop a post-Kantian metaethics via the idea that metaethical idealism best explains the essential intelligibility of the normative domain
philpapers.org/rec/SCHIIA-13
How to develop a post-Kantian metaethics via the idea that metaethical idealism best explains the essential intelligibility of the normative domain
philpapers.org/rec/SCHIIA-13
Karl Schafer, Intelligibility, Idealism, and Alienation in Post-Kantian Metaethics - PhilPapers
In this essay, I explore some avenues for developing Kantian views in metaethics in a more post-Kantian direction. In doing so, I focus on motivating a broadly idealist approach to metaethics ...
philpapers.org
July 25, 2025 at 4:46 PM
"Intelligibility, Idealism, and Alienation in Post-Kantian Metaethics", now forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Metaethics
How to develop a post-Kantian metaethics via the idea that metaethical idealism best explains the essential intelligibility of the normative domain
philpapers.org/rec/SCHIIA-13
How to develop a post-Kantian metaethics via the idea that metaethical idealism best explains the essential intelligibility of the normative domain
philpapers.org/rec/SCHIIA-13
Truly depressing to see what's happening at Chicago right now.
"The charges, Delogu said, stem from a growing need in higher education to justify the existence of the humanities at large and to demonstrate the value of humanities students beyond academia" bit.ly/46TruQP
UChicago Arts & Humanities Division to Restructure Amid “Historic Funding Pressures”
“The status quo is not an option,” Deborah Nelson, dean of the Division of the Arts & Humanities, wrote to division faculty on June 18.
bit.ly
July 22, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Truly depressing to see what's happening at Chicago right now.
Yet another entry for the ever-growing file of ways in which tenure never meant what some people claimed it did
👀
What a time to propose this policy:
"Duke University School of Medicine (SOM) plans to implement new faculty productivity guidelines that would tie tenured professors’ salaries to external research funding, according to documents reviewed by The Chronicle"
www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...
What a time to propose this policy:
"Duke University School of Medicine (SOM) plans to implement new faculty productivity guidelines that would tie tenured professors’ salaries to external research funding, according to documents reviewed by The Chronicle"
www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...
Duke School of Medicine plans salary cuts for tenured faculty who do not meet grant expectations
Set to go in effect in 2026, the proposed policy would apply to the School’s basic sciences units. These units rely heavily on grants from the National Institutes of Health, which have been increasing...
www.dukechronicle.com
July 22, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Yet another entry for the ever-growing file of ways in which tenure never meant what some people claimed it did
Rough day, over at the other place, for the “analytic philosophy isn’t just arguing about shrimp welfare while kids starve” crowd.
July 22, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Rough day, over at the other place, for the “analytic philosophy isn’t just arguing about shrimp welfare while kids starve” crowd.
"Today I visited our Kant, who is a very careful observer of his evacuations and ruminates on this material uncommonly often ... I assured him that I struggle over my smallest oral and written evacuations just as much as he does with his evacuations a posteriori."
- Hamann to Herder (1783)
- Hamann to Herder (1783)
July 15, 2025 at 5:45 PM
"Today I visited our Kant, who is a very careful observer of his evacuations and ruminates on this material uncommonly often ... I assured him that I struggle over my smallest oral and written evacuations just as much as he does with his evacuations a posteriori."
- Hamann to Herder (1783)
- Hamann to Herder (1783)
Really happy to see that this tribute to the work of Béatrice Longuenesse is finally out in the world.
July 11, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Really happy to see that this tribute to the work of Béatrice Longuenesse is finally out in the world.
so nice to return to a set of referee comments one set aside without really reading and find that they are actually almost uniformly extremely helpful and constructive
July 10, 2025 at 4:46 PM
so nice to return to a set of referee comments one set aside without really reading and find that they are actually almost uniformly extremely helpful and constructive
Great, looks like I need to explain to the state tenure review board *yet again* that crying during a lecture is actually a sign of empathy and emotional strength
July 9, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Great, looks like I need to explain to the state tenure review board *yet again* that crying during a lecture is actually a sign of empathy and emotional strength
I *love* the kids room at the Austin public library, but this time I made the mistake of checking out the philosophy section. And it is bleak. Any one know how to organize donations for this sort of thing?
June 28, 2025 at 4:00 PM
I *love* the kids room at the Austin public library, but this time I made the mistake of checking out the philosophy section. And it is bleak. Any one know how to organize donations for this sort of thing?
This meme hits different after a thousand hours of Yo Gabba Gabba
June 26, 2025 at 1:49 AM
This meme hits different after a thousand hours of Yo Gabba Gabba
Call for papers for a special issue of Topoi on "Capacities-First Philosophy" with me and others: link.springer.com/collections/...
Capacities-first Philosophy
Paper submissions are invited for the special issue/collection of Topoi entitled: CAPACITIES-FIRST PHILOSOPHY. This special issue aims to analyze various ...
link.springer.com
June 24, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Call for papers for a special issue of Topoi on "Capacities-First Philosophy" with me and others: link.springer.com/collections/...
MacIntyre's critique of Hume and Smith here fails to convince for one simple reason: Neither asks sympathy to do the work he claims. Still there is a real problem for them here. But to respond to it, we need to reinterpret Smithian sympathy in light of Kantian reason, not turn our back on both.
June 22, 2025 at 11:05 PM
MacIntyre's critique of Hume and Smith here fails to convince for one simple reason: Neither asks sympathy to do the work he claims. Still there is a real problem for them here. But to respond to it, we need to reinterpret Smithian sympathy in light of Kantian reason, not turn our back on both.
Rereading After Virtue and I had forgotten that it opens like this...
June 22, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Rereading After Virtue and I had forgotten that it opens like this...
How do naive realists about perception explain the fact that dilating your eyes *makes your vision worse*?
June 18, 2025 at 4:24 PM
How do naive realists about perception explain the fact that dilating your eyes *makes your vision worse*?