A Lawful Freedom: Kant’s Practical Refutation of Noumenal Chance

This paper asks how Kant’s mature theory of freedom handles an objection pertaining to chance. This question is significant given that Kant raises this criticism against libertarianism in his early writings on freedom before coming to adopt a libertarian view of freedom in the Critical period. After motivating the problem of how Kant can hold that the free actions of human beings lack determining grounds while at the same maintain that these are not the result of ‘blind chance,’ I argue that Kant’s Critical doctrine of transcendental idealism, while creating the conceptual space’ for libertarian freedom, is not intended to provide an answer to the problem of chance with respect to our free agency. I go on to show how the resources for a refutation of chance only come about in the practical philosophy. In the 2nd Critique, Kant famously argues for the reality of freedom on the basis of our consciousness of the moral law as the law of a free will. However, Kant also comes to build into his account of the will a genuine power of choice, which involves the capacity to deviate from the moral law. I conclude by showing that this apparent tension can be resolved by turning to his argument for the impossibility of a diabolical will. This involves a consideration of the distinct kind of grounding relationship that practical laws have to the human will, as well as the way that transcendental idealism makes this possible

After Dark:temporal matter in the nighttime city

Cities are often understood as complex meshes of people, technologies and ‘animated spaces’ (Amin, 2015). However, the atmosphere of cities can change distinctly at night. For in the nocturnal hours identities become slippery, motives less easily defined, and architecture itself may appear far less assured of its role. Structures, rules and regulations that engender ‘tactile sterility’ (Sennett, 1994) in the urban realm quickly break down at night. The city at night may evolve into the ‘terrain vague’ (Levesque, 2002) with places undergoing transformation through conspicuous absence or cultures of darkness. This paper will seek to examine an underrepresented perspective on the nighttime urban landscape, and offer a new dialogue with the city. The processes of change that occur when walking in the city and urban hinterlands at night may be understood as ‘inscriptive practice’ enriched with the potentialities that Bergson (1913) describes. Freed from the spaces of everyday life, the vectors (Gatt, 2013) of nighttime walking enable us to reconnect with the city and give things our undivided attention, which affords the ‘divining’ (De Boeck, 2015) of a different experience of place, providing a welcome respite from the ongoing erosion and subdivision of our time and sense of belonging in the world. This paper will draw on extensive empirical data and personal experience in order to elucidate on the on-going entanglement that occurs at the boundaries of body and urban landscape; day and night; space and materiality

Dark Futures:the loss of night in the contemporary city?

The artificial but widely held binary conceptions of day versus night find themselves condensed in cities where strategies to recalibrate the nocturnal urban landscape are abundant. This transformation requires considerable energies and technologies to facilitate illumination. The night-time city remains poorly understood, requiring new inquiries to examine the tensions and coexistences of light and darkness. This article examines the city of Manchester, United Kingdom, its pioneering history of industrialisation, and subsequent phases of regeneration and gentrification to explore its contemporary urban landscape. It draws on extensive autoethnography of experiences in the city to consider the potential of different lights and darknesses for how we might think more holistically with regard illumination, and the reciprocity between our senses and the urban environment

Urban Imaginaries and the Palimpsest of the Future

How and why should we imagine new, positive urban futures? As we look forwards, the world seems highly likely to be shaped by its cities. We anticipate that cities will become the ultimate destination of future generations and they will play a crucial role in the lives of everyone around the globe. How these urban futures look, feel and operate has long been, and will continue to be, an important series of issues. Urban imaginaries have been conceived throughout history but their paths are increasingly critical as we seek to develop sustainable practices and environments for our collective tomorrow. The role of imagination is fundamental to processes of conceptualisation, envisioning and performing urban futures. The importance of such creativity extends in other ways to their questioning of reality, reshaping our spatial conceptions or providing expressions of alternatives. This chapter, therefore, examines the power of visions for urban futures across multiple media and how they contribute to our social imaginary. Considering these projections from a historical perspective can provide new insights and greater understanding of the developments and patterns that shape the present and, in turn, their implications for our future. The chapter also aims to provide insights for the way urban imaginaries have evolved and converged different ideas of the city. It thus explores dominant paradigms and how these have emerged, echoed or perished over time enabling certain futures to be visible, even if their trade-offs are less so

Alumina-based aerogels by rapid supercritical extraction for use in green automotive catalysis

Aerogels are highly porous solids with low bulk density, high specific surface area, high thermal stability and tunable chemical composition. These properties make aerogels interesting for use as catalysts in automotive exhaust remediation. Noble metals such as platinum are currently used for this function, but are costly and harmful to the environment. Aerogels offer a potential alternative to noble metals that could reduce both the cost and environmental impact associated with catalytic converter production. Alumina and nickel-alumina aerogels have shown activity in catalyzing exhaust processing reactions. The environmental impact of the production of aerogel catalysts could be further reduced by using a rapid supercritical extraction (RSCE) technique, which reduces the time and solvent waste associated with aerogel preparation. Alumina, nickel-alumina and copper alumina aerogels were prepared using an epoxide-assisted gelation technique followed by a solvent rinse, then RSCE on a hydraulic hot press. Samples were characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM, EDX, nitrogen adsorption porosimetry and pycnometry. Alumina aerogels with surface areas of up to 790 m2/g and bulk densities as low as 0.05 g/mL were prepared, while nickel-alumina aerogels with surface areas of up to 580 m2/g and bulk densities as low as 0.06 g/mL were produced. In the nickel-alumina and copper-alumina samples, the nickel and copper were evenly distributed throughout the material. Alumina aerogels exhibit catalytic activity for the conversion of ethanol to diethyl ether under hot press conditions. Preliminary characterization of the aerogels\u27 exhaust-processing ability has begun, utilizing a catalytic test bed and a simulated emissions gas blend

Conference Report –Judgment, Pluralism, and Democracy: On the Desirability of Speaking with Others (Nicholas Dunn, Julia Kiernan)

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