IASC Talk To Address ‘Naturalism and the Claims of Philosophy to Authoritative Knowledge’

John Zammito, the John Antony Weir Professor of History at Rice University, will give a free public talk at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture on “Naturalism and the Claims of Philosophy to Authoritative Knowledge” on Feb. 14 at 4 p.m.

The talk will happen at the IASC, located at Watson Manor, 3 University Circle, with a reception to follow.

A scholar of European intellectual history, particularly during the Enlightenment, Zammito is also an expert on the history and philosophy of science, known as the field of “science studies.” He traces the emergence of this field in his 2004 book, “A Nice Deragement of Epistemes: Post-Positivism in the Study of Science from Quine to Latour.”

Zammito’s books on intellectual history include “Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology” and “The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment,” both published by the University of Chicago Press.

His current research focuses on the “prehistory” of the science of biology in 18th-century Germany.

He is the author of a forthcoming Hedgehog Review article on "Normativity and/in Nature: Why Think Them Together."

The talk is co-sponsored by the IASC and U.Va.’s Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures.