Above and below: Pragmatist Kant at Berlin Finnish Institute. An International conference (within the series of American and European Values-Berlin Edition) that took place on July 10-13, 2017. 30 speakers from the US and Europe discussed on various topics related to the future developments of the Kantian philosophical tradition and the pragmatist philosophical tradition.

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Chris Skowroński (Opole University/Berlin Practical Philosophy International Forum) talks to Sarin Marchetti (University of Sapienza, Rome, Italy) on the occasion of the Berlin Forum’s international conference they both co-organize at the Finnland Institut in Berlin (July 10-13, 2017).

Professor Marchetti talks about his contribution to the Pragmatist Kant conference in Berlin. The title of his project is:“Kant, James, and Pragmatic Anthropology.” He explains the connections between these two great philosophers in the context of philosophical anthropology. Their seminal works (Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View and James’s Principles of Psychology) give us a wonderful and pregnant material for philosophical, moral and anthropological research. Marchetti discusses also some practical dimensions of his approach towards philosophical anthropology.

Marchetti authored Ethics and Philosophical Critique in William James, London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015

Chris Skowroński (Opole University/Berlin Practical Philosophy International Forum) talks to Sami Pihlström (Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki) on the occasion of the Berlin Forum’s international conference they both co-organize at the Finnland Institut in Berlin (July 10-13, 2017).

The general title of the conference is “Pragmatist Kant” and its main idea is to discuss various aspects of the pragmatist philosophy and the Kantian philosophy as seen from the viewpoint of their mutual interrelationships. Professor Sami Pihlström is talking about his own contribution to the project. He discusses his ideas that are present in his paper/speech, entitled “Jamesian Pragmatism, Rortyan Ironism, and Kantian Antitheodicy.” He briefly explains some practical aspects of his theoretical investigations on religion, ethics, evil, suffering, and others. For example, one can detect a practical dimension of a philosophical discussion on suffering while looking for its possible justification. More generally, some people can ask: is there any deeper sense in suffering? Various philosophies provide us with different answers to this question. Both pragmatism and Kantianism do not see any cosmic, divine, and universal justification of evil and suffering.

Sami Pihlström is a professor of philosophy of religion; his recent book, co-authored with Sari Kivistö , is entitled “Kantian Antitheoicy: Philosophical and Literary Varieties.” In his numerous books and papers he investigates the problems of metaphysics and religion in the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism, and its relationships with the philosophy of I. Kant and the Kantian tradition in general.