I am a PhD student in the Department of Philosophy and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. I have historical interests in Kant, in German idealism, and in post-Kantian philosophy across traditions in the 19th and 20th centuries; topical interests in the philosophy of language, self-consciousness, intersubjectivity, perception, embodiment, freedom, responsibility, and modernity; and thematic interests in the formal and normative structure of human finitude and shared life, in philosophical interpretations of and challenges to the significance of religious and theological categories, in conceptions of first philosophy, and in metaphorical framings of the act of philosophical reflection. I also have research interests in Jewish philosophy and theology.
My dissertation offers an interpretation of Kant's claim in the Critique of the Power of Judgment that the reflecting power of judgment provides for the "determinability of the supersensible" and thereby accomplishes the "transition" between the domains of nature and freedom. Although my current research is focused on Kant, I have worked and/or taught on a wide range of philosophers across modern traditions, including Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Rosenzweig, Benjamin, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Kripke, McDowell, and Cavell.
My curriculum vitae can be viewed here, and my PhilPeople profile is here. You can contact me at akatwan [at] uchicago.edu.