KOSAK

Director: Professor Sorin Baiasu

The Keele-Oxford-St Andrews Kantian Research Centre (KOSAK) is a research centre for philosophy, located at Keele University and led by philosophers at Keele, Oxford University and University of St Andrews. The Centre builds on Keele’s prominent place in the UK and Europe in the area of Kantian studies; Keele University is one of the main centres of activities of the UK Kant Society and of the Kantian Standing Group of the European Consortium for Political Research. The Centre was officially launched in 2015.

​​The Kantian character of the Centre is not to be understood in a dogmatic way as entirely concerned with research on the works of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), but as referring to research which acknowledges (even when only critically) the significant role of Kant in the history of philosophy. As such, the Centre encourages, promotes and supports interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary work, including critical, exegetical, reconstructive and applied philosophical investigations, of both historical and systematic character.

For more details about KOSAK, please take a look at the KOSAK Blog.

Members

The KOSAK Research Centre is led by philosophers at Keele, Oxford University and University of St Andrews. The Centre is Directed by an Executive Board, which includes Sorin Baiasu, James Tartaglia, Giuseppina D’Oro, Sophie Allen and Jonathan Head from Keele, Adrian Moore and Anil Gomes from Oxford, and Jens Timmermann and Leslie Stevenson from St Andrews. The Executive Board is assisted by members of an Advisory Board, which includes top international researchers in the area of Kantian studies broadly defined. Howard Williams (Cardiff) is Honorary President of the Centre. There are two types of memberships: members (who are academics at Keele – for instance, current staff in Philosophy, but also members of staff with philosophical interests, for instance, political philosophers in SPGS) and affiliated members.

Events

We regularly hold events, such as the Royal Institute of Philosophy Invited Lectures, the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Annual Lecture and Conference, reading groups, special lectures and other conferences and workshops.

The Jean-Jacques Rousseau Annual Lecture and Conference usually take place at the end of November (occasionally moved on the following year in March). The previous Rousseau Annual Lectures were given by Susan Shell (2018), Pauline Kleingeld (2017 - took place in March 2018), Julian Savulescu (2016), Mark Timmons (2015 - took place in March 2016), Howard Williams (2014),  Adrian Piper (2013), Alan Montefiore (2012), John Horton (2011 - took place in March 2012), Stephen Engstrom (2010), Miranda Fricker (2009) and Giuseppina D'Oro (2008).