Rudolf Makkreel
Rudolf A. Makkreel (born 1939) is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Philosophy at Emory University.
Biography and research
Makkreel was born in 1939 in Antwerp, Belgium, grew up in the Netherlands, and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He also taught at the University of California, San Diego and was the Editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy from 1983 till 1998.
His work has focused on the German philosophers Dilthey and Kant. Makkreel is most well known for emphasizing the roles of the imagination, judgment and interpretation within Kant's critical system. The implications of Kant's conception of reflective judgment for hermeneutics and for the theory of the human sciences are also central to Makkreel's writings. In particular he has argued for the relevance of Kant's determinant-reflective judgment distinction for Dilthey's explanation-understanding distinction. Some other themes that pervade Makkreel's writings include the difference between orientational and foundational principles as well as the relation between reflexive awareness and reflective consciousness.
References
- Dilthey, Philosopher of the Human Studies, Princeton University Press, 1975, 1992.
- Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, University of Chicago Press, 1990
- "Reflection, Reflective Judgment and Aesthetic Exemplarity' in "Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant's Critical Philosophy". Ed. Rebecca Kukla. Cambridge, 2006.
- Orientation and Judgment in Hermeneutics, University of Chicago Press, 2015
He is also the editor with Frithjof Rodi of Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected Works (Princeton University Press). Published volumes include:
- Volume I: Introduction to the Human Sciences
- Volume III: The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences
- Volume IV: Hermeneutics and the Study of History
- Volume V: Poetry and Experience
