Introduction

Summary

In 2005 the Brazilian Kant Society hosted the International Kant Congress, the first time it has ever been held outside Germany and the United States. Hundreds of Kant scholars from throughout the world joined hundreds of Brazilian professors and students for five days of keynote lectures, contributed session papers, and discussion. Nonetheless language barriers prevented extensive interaction. While most of the Brazilian scholars understood English or German, very few of the non-Brazilian scholars understood Portuguese. The keynote lectures in Portuguese that were simultaneously translated into English and the handful of Brazilian contributed session papers read in English or German testified to the high level of work that one could assume lay behind the other papers presented in Portuguese. A desire on both sides to break through this barrier sparked the idea for this book of translations.

The publication of the proceedings from the São Paulo Congress in 2008 has contributed to alleviating the language barrier. All contributions presented at the Congress in Portuguese were translated into English, French, or German for publication. In one stroke, the amount of Brazilian work on Kant accessible to US Kant scholars increased severalfold. The extensive scope of this work goes a long way toward showing the multitude of approaches to virtually every aspect of Kant scholarship undertaken in Brazil. The Congress proceedings serve as a snapshot that captures the breadth of this work at one time.