Alison Laywine

Academic title(s): 

Associate Professor

Alison Laywine
Contact Information
Address: 

855 Sherbrooke St. W.
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 2T7

Phone: 
514-398-1671
Email address: 
a.laywine [at] mcgill.ca
Office: 
LEA 918
Curriculum vitae: 
Degree(s): 

Baccalauréat en sciences sociales, magna cum laude, Université d'Ottawa, 1984
Maîtrise ès Arts, Université de Montréal, 1986
PhD with honours, University of Chicago, 1991

Research areas: 
Kant
Early Modern Philosophy
Areas of interest: 

History of Political Philosophy
History and Philosophy of Science
Jewish Philosophy
Ancient Greek Philosophy

Current research: 

I am currently working on a book-length project on Kant's philosophical development from 1770 to 1787. The aim of the book is to reconstruct the philosophical motivations behind the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Portions of this book have appeared or will appear as articles in Kantian Review and the Canadian Journal of Philosophy. In addition, I have become interested in philosophical treatments of music theory as a branch of mixed mathematics in antiquity and the early modern period.

Teaching areas: 

History of Early Modern Philosophy
Kant's Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy
18th Century Natural Philosophy
Kant's Moral Philosophy and Teleology
Philosophy of Religion

Selected publications: 
  • Kant's Early Metaphysics and the Origins of the Critical Philosophy, published as volume three in the North American Kant Society Studies in Philosophy, (Ataacadero: Ridgeview, 1995)
  • "Intellectual Appearances" in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol.3, September, 1995
  • Review of Causation and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Steven Nadler, in Philosophical Books, October 1996
  • "Emanuel Swedenborg" in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Routledge: London, 1998)
  • "Martin Knutzen" in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Routledge: London, 1998)
  • "Problems and Postulates: Kant on Reason and Understanding" in the Journal of the History of Philosophy,volume 36, number 2, April 1998
  • "Malebranche, Jansen and the Sixth Meditation" in the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, Band 81, 1999
  • "Kant in Reply to Lambert on the Disputed Ancestry of General Metaphysical Concepts" in Kantian Review, vol.5, December 2001
  • Review of Jeffrey Edwards, Substance, Force, and the Possibility of Knowledge: On Kants Philosophy of Nature in Philosophical Review, July 2002
  • Review of Micha Brumlik, Deutscher Geist und Judenhaß, forthcoming in Jahrbuch für deutschen Idealismus
  • "Kants Unanswered Questions about Aging" forthcoming in Pensare la natura, ed. Cinzia Ferrini, (Napoli: Bibliopolis, January 2004)
  • "Kant on the Self as Model for Experience" forthcoming in Kantian Review
  • "Kant on Sensibility and the Understanding in the 1770s" forthcoming in the Canadian Journal for Philosophy
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