Overview
After having graduated from the German High School of Istanbul and Bogazici University University, Umur Başdaş completed his Ph.D. at Yale University in the field of political philosophy and started working as an Assist. Prof. at Koç University. In his dissertation, he examined the evolution of the concept of “nature” in the Critical Theory tradition. Through aesthetic readings of Kant, Hegel, Fichte and Adorno, he criticized Habermas’s reduction of nature to a mute object. In his subsequent works, he focused on the intertwinement of being and beauty in Kant and on the relationship between logic and consciousness in Hegel. He currently continues to contemplate on the connection between aesthetics and ontology.
Publications
Umur Basdas (2023), “Nature as a concrete other: An alternative voice in Kant’s conception of beauty and dignity” in Another Universalism: Seyla Benhabib and The Future of Critical Theory, eds. Anna Jurkevics, Stefan Eich, Nishin Nathwani, and Nica Siegel (Columbia University Press).
Umur Basdas (2022), Review of Practical necessity, freedom, and history: From Hobbes to Marx by David James, in the journal of Contemporary Political Theory
Umur Basdas ( 2021), “Meta-Encyclopaedic Reflections on the Beginning of Philosophy” in Hegel Bulletin, vol. 42, issue 3, pp. 323-343.
Research areas
Kant and German Idealism , Philosophy of Art , Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School , Religion and PoliticsEducation
PhD, Yale University
Bachelor’s, Boğaziçi University