Nina Stremersch, a 4th year student in the Department of Philosophy, delivered a virtual presentation at the Bristol Undergraduate Student Conference, held at the University of Bristol, on 26 April 2026, a strong achievement at undergraduate level.
Her paper examined how reflective judgement fits into Kant’s Transcendental Deduction, drawing a novel connection between the First and Third Critiques. In Nina’s own words:
“My presentation raises the issue of how, if at all, reflective judgement fits into Kant’s Transcendental Deduction. The issue is that while the Deduction is interested in the conditions for the possibility of synthetic judgement, it only works out the case of determinative judgement; the other, reflective use of synthetic judgement is left out of its considerations.
I argue that reflective judgement necessarily fits into the Deduction — not as something transcendentally conditioned, but as a transcendental condition itself. I achieve this by working out the functional similarity between reflective judgement and the synthetic unity of apperception: both are productive uses of the imagination which secure a pre-cognitive unity which makes possible cognition, i.e. determinative judgement. This dispels the concern that reflective judgement, as subjective, is simply not relevant to the Deduction, which is interested only in the possibility of objective judgement.”
We congratulate Nina on this achievement and wish her continued success in her studies.
