Founded in 2008 through the collaboration of scholars and institutions from Europe and the Americas, the Multilateral Kant Colloquium is an international, multilingual conference devoted to the study of Kant’s philosophy and its continuing relevance for contemporary philosophical debate.

The theme of the 2027 edition, Kant and the Future, aims to explore the many ways in which Kant’s thought engages with the future and with the prospects of human development. Several dimensions of his philosophy testify to his profound engagement with questions concerning the future and the conditions under which humanity may advance. The concept of progress, for instance, plays a central role in Kant’s account of various aspects of human life and knowledge. His reflections on moral and political progress address the possibility of humanity’s gradual advancement toward more just civil and international conditions, while simultaneously emphasizing the fragility and contingency of such progress. Likewise, Kant employs the notion of progress to describe the historical development of metaphysics itself. Another concept that reveals Kant’s openness to the future is that of orientation, which he employs to identify the role that certain rational assumptions play in guiding moral improvement. Furthermore, with regard to science and knowledge, the importance he assigns to regulative principles and ideas underscores the future-oriented and heuristic function of reason, whose vocation is to guide inquiry toward the continuous expansion and systematic unity of human knowledge.

Keynote Speakers

• Ileana Beade (Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina)

• Angela Breitenbach (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)

• Catalina González Quintero (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia)

• Joel Klein (Federal University of Paraná, Brazil – Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)

• Faustino Oncina Coves (University of Valencia, Spain)

• Paola Rumore (University of Turin, Italy)

• Marcus Willaschek (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)

Organisers

• Gabriele Gava (University of Turin)

• Sandra V. Palermo (University of Pavia)

Organising Committee

• Giorgia Cecchinato (University of Bologna)

• Serena Feloj (University of Pavia)

• Luca Fonnesu (University of Pavia)

• Claudio La Rocca (University of Genoa)

• João Lemos (University of Turin)

• Paola Rumore (University of Turin)