Béatrice Longuenesse

Longuenesse is well known for her work on Kant's theory of judgment, which, she argues, provides the crucial backbone for central arguments in Kant's critical system. Her first Kant book was originally published in French (Kant et le Pouvoir de Juger), then translated into English in a revised and expanded version (Kant and the Capacity to Judge). The book was broadly discussed and was especially influential in generating a new interest in Kant's logic and Kant's views on the role of imagination in perception and cognition, and Kant's explanation of concept acquisition. Longuenesse's work connects Kant's view to contemporary debates in philosophy of mind, for instance around the question of the conceptual or non-conceptual content of perception and the nature of rule following. Longuenesse's responses to the discussions elicited by her book have appeared in numerous articles, some of which were included in her second Kant book, Kant on the Human Standpoint (2005). This book expands her interpretation of Kant's theory of judgment to consideration of its role in Kant's philosophy of nature, moral philosophy and aesthetic theory.

She studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris), the University of Paris 1 (Sorbonne), and (as a visiting student) at Princeton University. She received her PhD ("doctorat de troisième cycle") in 1981 and her Doctorat d'Etat in 1992 from the Sorbonne. She taught at la Sorbonne (1978–79), the École Normale Supérieure (1980-82), the Université de Franche-Comté (1983–85) and the Université de Clermont-Ferrand (1985–93) before joining Princeton University as an Associate Professor (1993–96) then full Professor (1996-2004). In 2004 she left Princeton for New York University (NYU). In 2011 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1979–80, Longuenesse was a Jane Eliza Procter fellow at Princeton, and from 1981-1983 she served as a research fellow in the department of music at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In 2005 she was appointed as a fellow at NYU's Institute for the Humanities, a position she still holds. Starting in 2006 she held a fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin), and in 2010 she was appointed Silver Professor of Philosophy at New York University. In 2011 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2012 and 2013 she received two different Berlin Prizes from the American Academy in Berlin, a Siemens fellowship and John Birkelund fellowship, respectively. At Princeton Lachlan Murdoch was a student of Longuenesse.

Béatrice Longuenesse (born September 6, 1950) is a French philosopher and academic, who is the Silver Professor of Philosophy Emerita at New York University. Her work focuses on Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and the philosophy of mind. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Longuenesse is one of the most prominent living Kant scholars, and her works have generated significant discussion around parts of Kant's corpus that were previously largely overlooked.