FAGI - Forschungskolleg Analytic German Idealism

The primary partner institution of the Chicago Center for German Philosophy is the Research Center for Analytic German Idealism, or FAGI (Forschungskolleg Analytic German Idealism) at the University of Leipzig. FAGI is the nucleus of an international network of philosophical activity, presently funded by James Conant’s Humboldt Professorship at the Institut für Philosophie at the University of Leipzig. It hosts a variety of events in Leipzig including several annual conferences, a weekly colloquium that runs throughout the winter semester (the Humboldt Colloquium), a philosophical conversation series that runs throughout the academic year (the Humboldt Conversations), and two intensive seminars per year taught by visiting professors. It also sponsors a research collegium with both long-term and short-term visiting scholars at the doctoral, postdoctoral, and professorial levels. Beyond Leipzig, it seeks to promote a network of cooperation with philosophy departments in Chicago, Göttingen, Patras, Potsdam, Tel-Aviv, Pardubice, Frankfurt and UCL. In this connection it sponsors at least one conference per year with each of these institutions. Finally, it helps to finance a series of academic publications including the book series Analytischer Deutscher Idealismus, published by Suhrkamp Verlag, as well as the book series Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research, published by Walter de Gruyter Verlag.

Mission

The FAGI brings together analytic philosophy and German Idealism — as historical traditions of thought and as contemporary forms of ongoing philosophical inquiry — in three ways. First, it facilitates dialogue between scholars working on classical German philosophy and those working within the tradition of analytic philosophy respectively. Second, it promotes scholarship on the common root, subsequent impingement, and recent forms of confluence of these two traditions. Third, and most importantly, it provides a home for the exploration of the mutual implication of these traditions on one another — especially as embodied in the work of those contemporary philosophers, on both sides of the Atlantic, whose work resists classification within one of these traditions to the exclusion of the other.

History

The FAGI stems from a prehistory of forms of cooperation funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung: first for six years between Leipzig and Chicago (in the form of a pair of consecutive Humboldt TransCoop Awards to James Conant, Sebastian Rödl, and Pirmin Stekeler) and then for a subsequent five years between Chicago, Potsdam, and Leipzig (in the form of an Anneliese Maier Prize awarded to James Conant). During those final two years, the cooperation was further intensified through The Idealism Project, funded by a grant from the Neubauer Collegium at the University of Chicago, awarded to James Conant, Robert Pippin, and David Wellbery. The FAGI itself was founded in December of 2012 and is co-directed by Andrea Kern and James Conant. Its founding manifesto can be found here. Since July 2017 its primary source of funding comes from the Humboldt research prize associated with the Humboldt Professorship held by James Conant at the University of Leipzig.

Primary Institutional Partner and Funding Source

The current primary funding source for the FAGI’s contributions to these ventures comes from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung.

Research at the FAGI

Research conducted at the FAGI takes a variety of forms, including: work in the philosophy of mind, action, and logic, among other areas of contemporary philosophy; historical and interpretive scholarship on the work of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Frege, and Wittgenstein, among other major philosophical figures; and, most centrally, forms of philosophical reflection that seek to unite research in these areas of contemporary philosophy with forms of philosophical understanding gained from reflection on the achievements represented by these historical high-water marks in the philosophical tradition.