This talk will present a conceptual framework developed to unify two dimensions of Kant’s theoretical philosophy widely considered to be incompatible. Kant attempted to lay a new foundation for human knowledge in his Critique of Pure Reason with a critical examination of our faculty of cognition. However, in pursuing this strategy of revolutionizing metaphysics by investigating our cognitive faculties, Kant has often been accused of psychologism. In response, a dominant camp of Kant scholars has advocated separating Kant’s metaphysics from his cognitive psychology, and focusing on his analytical arguments concerning the conditions of knowledge. However, another camp of Kant scholars has pointed to Kant’s reflections on cognitive psychology as being the more valuable for contemporary philosophy and cognitive science, at the cost of abandoning the core of Kant’s metaphysics. Although these two camps locate Kant’s major contribution in different areas, both see a strong tension between Kant’s psychology and metaphysics. It will be shown that not only have the two major interpretations failed to do justice to Kant’s strategy, but that it is entirely possible to resolve the tension that they see as existing between the two dimensions of Kant’s philosophy.

This talk proposes an understanding of cinema as a form of soft power tool and Taiwan as a paradigmatic example of cinema’s effect in assisting a small nation gain prominence on the international stage. Its object of analysis is Taiwan New Cinema (hereafter TNC), a movement that begun in the early 1980s that has attracted global attention for nearly forty years. The talk will lay out the premise for TNC’s soft power and draw out some methodological implications for a study of this kind. In arguing for TNC’s significance as a case of a small nation with enormous soft power, this talk aims to push us to recast the terms and stakes of both cinema studies and soft power studies in academia.

Considering how the old categories of style developed by traditional art history may be irrelevant to the understanding of the bewildering variety of art practices of today, it seemed important to adopt a mode of classification based on a relational model called a Piaget group, a model that can help make better sense of the simultaneous presence of art forms that might seem entirely antithetical in today’s Hong Kong. This presentation, based on the research undertaken to write Hong Kong Soft Power – Art Practices in the Special Administrative Region, 2005-2014 (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2018) – intends therefore to understand the relationship of such different art forms as calligraphy and dialogic aesthetics in the SAR, a relationship that cannot be understood without relating it to similar practices in Mainland China.