Employment

2005-            Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego

2005-7       Humboldt Fellow, Humboldt University, Berlin (Host: Prof. R. Horstmann)
2001-5          Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego

2000             Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy, Yale University

1999-2001    Associate Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

1996-7    Lorenz Krüger Fellow at the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin

1994-1999    Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Education

1994    Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Notre Dame (Director: Prof. Karl Ameriks)

1992-3    Visiting Graduate Student (Fulbright), Philosophy, Georgia Augusta Universität Göttingen

1990    M.A., Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

1987    B.A. equivalent, Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin

Areas of Research

Kant, History of Early Modern Philosophy, German Idealism, History of Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion

Publications

Single-Authored Book:

Watkins, Eric, Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005) xiv + 451 p.

Edited Books:

Watkins, Eric and Ariew, Roger, Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Texts (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998) vi + 749 p.

Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Werner Pluhar, abridged and with an introduction by Eric Watkins (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999) xx + 229 p.

Watkins, Eric, Kant and the Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) xii + 291 p.

Watkins, Eric and Ariew, Roger, Readings in Modern Philosophy Vol. I: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Associated Texts (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000) 322 p.

Watkins, Eric and Ariew, Roger, Readings in Modern Philosophy Vol. II: Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Associated Texts (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000) 464 p.

Watkins, Eric, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Edited Books in Progress:

Immanuel Kant, Scientific Writings, transl. O. Reinhardt, J. Edwards, and M. Schönfeld (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, under contract).

Kant Lexikon, eds. G. Mohr, J. Stolzenberg, M. Willaschek, E. Förster, H. Klemme, B. Ludwig, P. McLaughlin, E. Watkins, 3 volumes (Berlin: De Gruyter, tentatively 2010).

Articles:

“The Development of Physical Influx in Early Eighteenth Century Germany: Gottsched, Knutzen, and Crusius,” Review of Metaphysics 49 (1995): 295-339.

“Kant’s Theory of Physical Influx,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 77 (1995): 285-324.

“Recent Developments in Kant Scholarship: Kant’s Philosophy of Mind,” Eidos 12 (1995): 83-107.

“Is a Transcendental Deduction Necessary for the Metaphysical Foundations?” in Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1995) Vol. II, pp. 381-389.

“Kant’s Third Analogy of Experience,” Kant-Studien 88 (1997): 406-441.

“The Laws of Motion from Newton to Kant,” Perspectives on Science 5 (1997): 311-348.

“Kant’s Antinomies: Sections 3-8,” in Kooperativer Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ed. G. Mohr & M. Willaschek (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998) pp. 445-462.

“The Argumentative Structure of Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 36 (1998): 567-593.

“Kant’s Justification of the Laws of Mechanics,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 29 (1998): 539-560.

Reprinted in Kant and the Sciences, ed. E. Watkins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) pp. 136-159.

“Kant on the Material Ground of Possibility: From The Only Possible Argument to The Critique of Pure Reason,” with Mark Fisher, Review of Metaphysics 52 (1998): 369-395.

“From Pre-established Harmony to Physical Influx: Leibniz’s Reception in Early 18th Century Germany,” Perspectives on Science 6 (1998): 136-203 (Special Issue “Leibniz and the Sciences” ed. D. Garber).

“Kant’s Categorical Imperative,” in Metaethics, Normative Ethics & Applied Ethics, ed. J. Fieser, (New York: Wadsworth, 2000) pp. 268-276.

“Kant on Rational Cosmology,” in Kant and the Sciences, ed. E. Watkins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) pp. 70-89.

“Kant on Force and Extension: Critical Appropriations of Leibniz and Newton” in Between Leibniz, Newton and Kant: Philosophy and Science in the 18th Century, ed. W. Lefevre, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001) pp. 111-127.

“O’Neill and Korsgaard on the Construction of Normativity” with Bill FitzPatrick, Journal of Value Enquiry (2002): 1-19.

“The ‘Critical Turn’: Kant and Herz from 1770 to 1772” in Kant und die Berliner Aufkärung, ed. V. Gerhardt, R. Horstmann, and R. Schumacher, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001, Vol. 2, pp. 69-77.

“Transcendental Idealism and the Categories,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 19 (2002): 191-215.

“Forces and Causes in Kant’s Early Pre-Critical Writings,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 34 (2003): 5-27.

“Kant’s Philosophy of Science,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2003 Edition), ed. E. Zalta , URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-science).

“Autonomy in and after Kant,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69 (2004): 727-740.

“Kant’s Model of Causality: Causal Powers, Laws, and Kant’s Reply to Hume,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 42 (2004): 449-488.

“On the Necessity and Nature of Simples: Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten, and the pre-Critical Kant,” Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 3 (2006): 261-314.

“Kant on Transcendental Laws,” in Thinking about Causes: Past and Present, ed. J. Machamer & G. Wolters (Pittsburgh: Pittsburg University Press, 2007), pp. 100-122.

“Leibniz und Wolff im Vergleich: Sine entibus simplicibus composita existere nequent,” in Christian Wolff und die Eureopäische Aufklärung, ed. J. Stolzenberg & O.Rudolph (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2007), Vol. 3, pp. 13-28.

“Die Antinomie der teleologischen Urteilskraft und Kants Ablehnung alternativer Teleologien §§69-71 & 72-73,“ in Kooperativer Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft, ed. O. Höffe & I. Goy (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2008), pp. 241-258.

“Kant and the Myth of the Given,” Inquiry 51 (2008): 512-531.

“Kant on the Hiddenness of God,” Kantian Review 14, 1 (2009): 81-122.

Entries for S.J. Apin, J.U. von Cramer, J.Fr. Höhn, G. Fr. Richter, and D. Weymann in Dictionary of 18th Century German Philosophy ed. H. Klemme & M. Kuehn (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2009) (in press).

“Kant,” in Oxford Handbook on Causation, ed. C. Hitchcock, H. Beebee, & P. Menzies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) (in press).

“Making Sense of Mutual Interaction: Simultaneity and the Equality of Action and Reaction,” in Kant and the Concept of Community, ed. L. Thorpe (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 2009) (in press).

“The Reception of Newton’s Principles of Mechanics and Concept of Force,” in The Reception of Isaac Newton in Europe, ed. S. Mandelbrote & H. Pulte (London: Continuum, 2009) (in press)

“The Antinomy of Practical Reason: Reason, the Unconditioned, and the Highest Good,” in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009) (in press).

“The Antinomy of Teleological Judgment,” Kantian Yearbook (2009) (in press).

“The System of Principles,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, ed. P. Guyer, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009) (forthcoming).

“Kant’s Theory of Action,” Blackwell’s Companion to the Philosophy of Action, eds. T. O’Connor & C. Sandis, (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell) (forthcoming).

Translations:

Books:

Haeffner, Gerd, The Human Situation, translated by Eric Watkins (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989) vii + 207 p.

Ricken, Friedo, Philosophy of the Ancients, translated by Eric Watkins (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991) x + 280 p.

Brandt, Reinhard, The Table of Judgments, Critique of Pure Reason A 67-76; B92-101, translated and edited by Eric Watkins (North American Kant Society Studies in Philosophy, Atascadero: Ridgeview Press, 1995) vii + 147 p.

Articles:

Theunissen, Michael, “The Repressed Intersubjectivity in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” (pp. 3-63)

translated by Eric Watkins, in Hegel and Legal Theory, edited by Drucilla Cornell et al. (New York: Routledge, 1991).

Sturma, Dieter, “Self and Reason,” (pp. 199-215) translated by Eric Watkins, in The Modern Subject: Conceptions of the Self in Classical German Philosophy, edited by Karl Ameriks and Dieter Sturma (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995).

Løgstrup, Knud, “Ethics and Ontology,” (pp. 265-293) translated by E. Watkins, in The Ethical Demand, Introduction by H. Fink & A. MacIntyre (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).

Krüger, Lorenz, “Did Kant Aim to Prove the Completeness of His Table of Judgments?,” tr. E. Watkins, in Why Does History Matter to Philosophy and the Sciences?, Ed. T. Sturm, W. Carl, & L. Daston (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), pp. 21-44.

Reviews:

R. Brandt, Die Urteilstafel, Kritik der reinen Vernunft A67-76; B92-101 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1989) in Review of Metaphysics (1992) pp. 602-604.

K. Köhnke, Die Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986) in Owl of Minerva 24 (1993), pp. 215-226.

A. Brook, Kant and the Mind, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) in Journal of the History of Philosophy 33 (1995), pp. 524-525.

R. Hahn, Kant’s Newtonian Revolution in Philosophy, (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986) in Kant-Studien 86 (1995), pp. 231-234.

Bericht über die Tagung “Idealistische Konzeptionen des Selbst in der klassischen deutschen Philosophie,” in Information Philosophie (March, 1995), pp. 124-126.

H. Klemme, Kants Philosophie des Subjekts, (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1996) in Journal of the History of Philosophy 36 (1998) pp. 471-473.

I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, edited and translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) in International Philosophical Quarterly 39 (1999), pp. 235-237.

H. Hudson, Kant’s Compatibilism, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994) in International Studies in Philosophy (1999), pp. 147-149.

J. van der Zande & R. Popkin (eds.), The Skeptical Tradition around 1800 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998) in Isis 90(1999), pp. 810-811.

I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) in Kant-Studien (2001), pp. 118-121.

I. Kant, Correspondence, edited and translated by Arnulf Zweig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) in Ethics 111 (2001) p. 453.

B. Longuenesse, Kant and the Capacity to Judge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) in The Kantian Review 5 (2001) pp. 128-132.

M. Schönfeld, The Philosophy of the Young Kant: The Precritical Project (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) in International Philosophical Quarterly 41 (2001), pp. 498-499.

M. Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) in Journal of the History of Philosophy (2002), pp. 127-128.

M. Oberhausen and R. Pozzo  (eds.) Vorlesungsverzeichnisse der Universität Königsberg (1720-1804): Mit einer Einleitung und Registern, (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1999) in History of Universities 17 (2002), pp. 209-211.

D. Warren.  Reality and Impenetrability in Kant’s Philosophy of Nature, (New York: Routledge, 2001) in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2002), http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2002/2/watkin-warren.html.

F. Wunderlich. Kant und die Bewußtseinsheorien des 18.ten Jahrhunderts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004) in Review of Metaphysics (2007) (in press).

Presentations

“Kant and Guyer on the Third Analogy” presented in Louisville at the Central Division APA 1992.

“Kant’s Theory of Physical Influx” presented in Marburg, Germany, December 17, 1992 (sponsored by the Kant-Gesellschaft), and at the Notre Dame Philosophy Department Colloquium, November 12, 1993.

“Descartes’ Ontology” presented in Atlanta at the Eastern Division APA 1993.

“Hume’s Theory of the Self” presented at the 20th Hume Conference, Ottawa, July 10th, 1993.

“Kant’s Third Analogy” presented in Göttingen, Germany, May 10th, 1993.

“The Argumentative Structure of Kant’s ‘Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science’” presented in Chicago at the Central Division APA 1993.

“The Development of Physical Influx in Early 18th Century Germany” presented in West Lafayette, Indiana, at the 1994 Fall Meeting of the Midwest Seminar in the History of Early Modern Philosophy.

“Kant’s Pre-Critical Theory of Causality” presented in Kansas City at the 1994 Central Division APA.

“Transcendental Idealism: Some Theses” presented in Chicago at the 1995 Central Division APA.

“Post-Leibnizian Reactions to Pre-established Harmony” presented March 17, 1995, at a conference "Leibniz in the 90’s", Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

“Is a Transcendental Deduction Necessary for the Metaphysical Foundations?” presented March 3, 1995 at the Eighth International Kant Congress in Memphis, March 1-5, 1995.

“Kant’s Justification of Newtonian Science” presented January 23rd, 1995, at Ohio State University, and February 9th, 1995, at Rutgers University.

“Practical Rationality: Kant or Habermas” presented at the Symposium in Honor of William Williams, at Virginia Tech, January 28th, 1995.

“Transcendental Idealism and the Categories” presented in Seattle at the North American Kant Society Session at the 1996 Pacific Division APA, and March 27th, 1996 at the University of Virginia.

“Habermas’s Critique of Monologism” presented in Seattle at the 1996 Pacific Division APA.

“Kant’s Justification of the Laws of Mechanics” presented at the 1996 History of Philosophy of Science Conference, Roanoke, Virginia, April 19-21, 1996 and at the Virginia Philosophical Association meeting, held at the University of Virginia, October 17, 1997.

“Kant on the Material Ground of Possibility: From The Only Possible Argument to The Critique of Pure Reason” with Mark Fisher, presented at the Southeastern Seminar in the History of Early Modern Philosophy at the University of Kentucky, November 15th, 1997.

“Kant on Self-Consciousness as the Source of Normativity” presented October 15, 1997, at The Catholic University of America.

Commentator on Michael Oberhausen and Riccardo Pozzo’s “New Sources in Kant Scholarship: Course Announcements at Königsberg, 1720-1804” in Chicago at the North American Kant Society Session at the Central Division APA.

“Kant on Rational Cosmology” presented at a conference, “Kant and the Sciences” at Virginia Tech, March 8, 1998, and at the Second History of Philosophy of Science Conference, at Notre Dame, March 14, 1998.

Commentator on Andrew Carpenter’s “‘Vis activa’ is not ‘Vis motrix’: Kant’s Criticism of Leibnizian Wolffian Mechanics” in Washington, D.C. at the 1998 Eastern Division APA.

“The ‘Critical Turn’: Kant and Herz from 1770 to 1772” March 28, 1999 in Berlin at the Ninth International Kant Congress.

“Kant’s Model of Causality” presented April 23, 1999 at Emory University; May 4, 1999, the University of London; November 5, 1999, Duke University; December 5, 1999, the Midwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee), Yale University, September 15, 2000, University of California, San Diego, December 11, 200, University of Iowa, April 15, 2001, University of Toronto, January 29, 2004.

“Kant on Force and Extension: Critical Appropriations of Leibniz and Newton” presented July 14-16, 1999 at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science, Berlin.

“Kant’s Pre-Critical Reflections on Causality” October 27, 2001 at the University of California at Irvine.

“Kant on Events and Causal Powers,” December 2002, Eastern Division APA, Philadelphia.

Commentator on Andrew Janiak’s “Rethinking Kant’s Conception of Space” at the 2003 Pacific APA.

“Wolff on the Necessity and Nature of Simples” April 8, 2004 at the University of Halle, Germany.

“Kant on Transcendental Laws” May 28, 2005 at Universität Konstanz; October 14, 2005 at Indiana University; and November 19, 2005 at UCLA.

“Kant on the Experience of Freedom” June 20, 2005 at Sussex University; February 22, 2006 at Pomona College; March 25, 2006 at the Pacific Division APA (Portland); May 5, 2006 at San Diego State University (Crawford Memorial Lecture); May 20, 2008 at Oslo University, Norway.

“Kant über das Unbedingte” July 5, 2006, at Universität Bielefeld; June 28, 2007 at Universität Wuppertal.

“Kant and the Myth of the Given” July 26, 2006 at Wolfgang von Goethe Universität Frankfurt; March 31, 2007, University of South Carolina; July 5, 2007, Humboldt Universität (Horstmann Colloquium).

“Kant on the Hiddenness of God” May 19, 2006 at Society for Christian Philosophers Eastern Division Meeting at Houghton College.

“Die Antinomie der teleologischen Urteilskraft und Kants Ablehnung alternativer Teleologien §§69-71 & 72-73“ June 29, 2007 at Universität Tübingen.

“The Antinomy of Practical Reason: Reason, the Unconditioned, and the Highest Good,“ on Augest 30, 2007, at St. Andrews University, and June 21, at the University Leiden, Netherlands.

Honors and Awards

1992-3Fulbright and Germanistic Society of America Fellowship

1992DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Research Grant

1993-4University of Notre Dame Freshman Writing Teaching Fellowship

1993Central Division APA, Graduate Student Travel Stipend 

1994Central Division APA, Graduate Student Travel Stipend 

1994Outstanding Doctoral Student in the Humanities, University of Notre Dame

1994National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Seminar, The Enlightenment and its Critics

1995Travel Grant and Creative Match Grant, Virginia Tech

1995Winner of Dissertation Essay Competition, Philosophy Education Society, Review of Metaphysics

1995Winner of North American Kant Society Essay Contest (for Pacific Division APA 1996)

1996-7NEH College Teachers and Independent Scholars Fellowship

1996Lorenz Krüger Fellowship at the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte

1998Franklin J. Matchette Foundation Grant (for conference “Kant and the Sciences”)

1998Review of Metaphysics Dissertation Essay Competition, Judge

1998Small Project Pilot Grant, Virginia Tech

1999Humanities Summer Stipend, Virginia Tech

2000Millennium Grant, Virginia Tech

2000-1NEH College Teachers and Independent Scholars Fellowship

2002Center for the Humanities Grant, UCSD

2002DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Grant

2002-3NSF Scholars Grant

2004Research Grant at the Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte

2005Journal of the History of Philosophy Book Prize

2005-7 Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Professional Service

Member of the American Philosophical Association 1992-

Member of the Virginia Philosophical Association 1994-2001

Member of the North American Kant Society 1992-

Vice-President of the North American Kant Society 1998-2007

Member of Various Department, College, and University Committees at VPI&SU and UCSD

Member of Graduate Review Committee and Admissions Committee at UCSD 2001-2003.

Chair of the Curriculum Committee (Department of Philosophy, VPI&SU) 1995-6, 1999-2001

Member of the Five Year External Review of the Department of Philosophy (VPI&SU) 1998-9

Chair, Faculty Search Committee, 2006-7

Chair, Graduate Council, UCSD, 2006-7

Vice-Chair, CAPARTS, UCSD, 2007-8

Chair, CAPARTS, UCSD, 2008-9

Reviewer for Journal of the History of Philosophy, The Philosophical Review, Journal of the History of Ideas, Kant-Studien, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Science, Eighteenth Century Studies, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, Review of Metaphysics, Kantian Review, Hume Studies, Journal of Philosophical Research, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, Perspectives on Science, History of Universities, Mind, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, Princeton University Press, SUNY Press, Greenwood Press, Penn State Press, Routledge Press, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the National Science Foundation.

Conference Organizer, Kant and the Sciences, March, 1998, VPI&SU,

Southeastern Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, November 1998, VPI&SU,

Conference in Honor of Henry Allison, October, 2007

Pacific Study Group of the North American Kant Society,

October 2002, UCSD

November 2003, UC-Berkeley

November, 2004, Pomona College

November, 2005, Stanford University

November, 2006, University of California-Riverside

October, 2007, UCLA

October, 2008, UC-Irvine

              October, 2009, UCSD