Katharina Kraus is Miller Associate Professor of Philosophy, as well as associated faculty of the German Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Before moving to Hopkins in January 2023, she taught for six years at the University of Notre Dame, where she also served as a member of the steering committee of the newly established History of Philosophy Forum. Before that, she taught at the University College Freiburg of the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg and was a post-doctorial fellow of the Martin Buber Society at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

After her studies of physics, mathematics, and philosophy, she received a Diplom in physics (including a BA and MA equivalent) from the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg in 2008, a MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science in 2010 and a PhD in philosophy in 2014, both from the University of Cambridge.

Kraus is the author of Kant on Self-Knowledge and Self-Formation (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and numerous articles on Kant’s theoretical philosophy. She is currently working on a short monograph on Kant’s Ideas of Reason (Cambridge Elements Series).

Kraus’s research is primarily concerned with the history of modern philosophy, focusing especially on Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and the German tradition of transcendental philosophy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In systematic respects, she examines issues in philosophy of mind, such as self-consciousness, self-knowledge, and personhood, as well as in epistemology and philosophy of science, such as the perspectivity of knowledge and methodological issues of psychology.

A major goal of my research is to combine textually accurate interpretations of historical works with systematic analyses of the underlying philosophical positions. In particular, I apply methods and concepts from analytic philosophy of language to the study of historical positions (e.g., expressivism and perspectivalism). In turn, the classical texts also serve me as important sources of ideas for developing answers to current questions in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophy of science.

Kraus is the author of Kant on Self-Knowledge and Self-Formation (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and numerous articles on Kant’s theoretical philosophy. She is currently working on a short monograph on Kant’s Ideas of Reason (Cambridge Elements Series).

In her new research project, The Life of the Mind, she examines theories of mental development and personal growth in the German tradition of transcendental philosophy that model the mind on a conception of life and place particular emphasis on intellectual life (“geistiges Leben”). This project has been funded by the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

More recently, she has developed a strong interest in the work, influence, and legacy of women philosophers of the German tradition in the long nineteenth century and studies in particular Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861–1937) and Edith Stein (1891–1942).

Selected Courses:

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY:

• Proseminar: Readings & Skills (Graduate Course AS.150.822) (co-taught with Prof. Ben Holguín)
• The Nature of Consciousness in Kant and Beyond (Upper-level undergraduate course AS.150.413)
• Self and of Self-Formation in Kant and selected Post-Kantian thinkers (Graduate course AS.150.637)

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME:

• The Soul (Hylomorphism in Aristotle and Kant) (Graduate Seminar, co-taught with Prof. Christopher Shields)
• History of Modern Philosophy. From Descartes to Kant (Survey course)
• Self-Knowledge and Identity (Undergraduate Seminar)
• Introduction to Philosophy: What is the human being? (First-year requirement)
• A History of Self-Consciousness: From Augustine to Kant (Graduate Seminar, co-taught with Prof. Thérèse Cory)
• Kant and the Sciences (Graduate Seminar)
• Kant’s First Critique (Graduate Seminar)

Selection of Representative Publications 

BOOK

1. Kant on Self-Knowledge and Self-Formation: The Nature of Inner Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Reviews and Comments:

• European Journal of Philosophy 29: 679–682 (2021), Patricia Kitcher.
• Journal of the History of Philosophy 60(3): 515-517 (2022), Stefanie Buchenau.
• The Philosophical Review 131 (3): 365–369 (2022), Béatrice Longuenesse.
• Kant-Studien 114 (2):388–395 (2023), Ekin Erkan.
• Notre Dame Philosophical Review (2023, online), Pirachula Chulanon
• Kantian Review 27(3): 461–508 (2022), Comments by Patrick Frierson, Janum Sethi, Clinton Tolley, and Allen Wood and author’s replies.
• The Journal of the Society of German Idealism and Romanticism 5(1): 1–41 (2023), Comments by Karin Nisenbaum and Julia Peters and author’s replies.

SPECIAL ISSUE 

2. Kant’s Philosophy of Science. Bridging the Gap between the Natural and the Human Sciences. Special Issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 71 (2018): 1-98 (edited with Silvia De Bianchi).

JOURNAL ARTICLES

3. “An Expressivist Interpretation of Kant’s ‘I think’”. Noûs 56(1): 110-132 (2022) (with Wolfgang Freitag).
4. “Rethinking the Relationship between Empirical Psychology and Transcendental Philosophy in Kant”. International Yearbook of German Idealism 15 (2019): 47-76.
5. “The Parity and Disparity between Inner and Outer Experience in Kant”. Kantian Review 24, no. 2 (2019): 171-195.
6. “The Soul as the ‘Guiding Idea’ of Psychology: Kant on Scientific Psychology, Systematicity, and the Idea of the Soul”. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 71 (2018): 77-88.
7. “Quantifying Inner Experience? – Kant’s Mathematical Principles in the Context of Empirical Psychology”. European Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 2 (2016): 331-357.

BOOK CHAPTERS AND PROCEEDINGS

8. “On the Formality of Kant’s Transcendental Philosophy and his Transcendental Idealism”. In The Palgrave Handbook of Transcendental and Psychological Idealism, edited by Faustino Fabbianelli and Andrea Staiti. London: Palgrave (forthcoming).
9. “The Perspectival Nature of Consciousness in German Idealism and Analytic Philosophy”. In The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Analytic Philosophy, edited by James Conant and Jonas Held. London: Palgrave (forthcoming).
10. “Salomé on Life, Religion, Self-Development, and Psychoanalysis: The Spinozistic Background”. In Spinoza in Germany: Political and Religious Thought across the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by Jason M. Yonover and Kristin Gjesdal. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
11. “Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861 – 1937)”. In The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition, edited by Kristin Gjesdal and Dalia Nassar. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
12. “Contemporary Kantian Philosophy of Science”. In The Kantian Mind, edited by Sorin Baiasu and Mark Timmons, 568-580. London: Routledge, 2023.
13. “Kant’s Argument Against Psychological Materialism in the Prolegomena”. In The Critical Guide to Kant’s Prolegomena, edited by Peter Thielke, 154-174. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

WORK IN PROGRESS

MONOGRAPHS

1. Ideas of Reason. Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Lou Andreas-Salomé. Elements in Women in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The Life of the Mind. A Theory of Personal Development in Modern Thought.