Hi. I’m the Edward S. Gould Professor of Philosophy, at Claremont McKenna College. My research concerns the History of European Philosophy, and mostly Classical German Philosophy.
I am the author of Reason in the World (Oxford University Press, 2015), Hegel and Spinoza (Cambridge University Press, 2026), and numerous articles on Kant, Hegel, and post-Kantianism. I amcurrently working on an NEH-funded book project titled Nothing Halfway, about productive conflict between system-critique and system-building in post-Kantian philosophy.
I teach more broadly about philosophy that is distant, historically and/or culturally.
My pages at PhilPapers : Google Scholar
I usually spend roughly May/June of each year based in Berlin, to travel for conferences and talks. Email questions to jkreines@cmc.edu.
Projects
Hegel and Metaphysics — 2006–
The Importance of Life in Hegel’s Philosophy — 2009–
Hegel and Spinoza — 2018-
Nothing Halfway: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and System-Critique — 2024–
A Dialectic-First Re-Reading of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy — 2015–
Kant and the Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science: Teleology, Life, Law, Essence, and Kinds — 2005–
Books
Kreines, Hegel and Spinoza. Cambridge: Cambridge Elements.
Workshops and Panels on the book: Munich : Basel : Padua : Eastern APA
Kreines, Reason in the World: The Philosophical Appeal of Hegel's Metaphysics. Monograph. 2015. Oxford University Press.
Nothing Halfway: Post-Kantian Philosophy from System-Critique to System, and Back (NEH funded, in progress)
Selected Essays (Writing page for more).
‘Aristotelian Priority, Metaphysical Definitions of God, and Hegel on Pure Thought as Absolute’ Final Draft Free : Hegel Bulletin
“The third way to Kant: the hidden return of the best system and strengthened non-epistemic necessitation” Synthese 2026
“The Poison Chalice of Metaphysical Grounding: Jacobi and Hegel as Reversing Contemporary Expectations” Hegel Bulletin.
“A Theory of German Idealism: Where the PSR Turns Upside Down”. Forthcoming in Oxford Philosophical Concepts: Principle of Sufficient Reason.
“Reasons for the Importance of the Post-Kantian Idea of a System: Nothing Halfway, Jacobi and Schelling”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies. 2025.
“Schelling's Critique of Hegel: Options and Responses, in the Spirit of Highlighting Shared Insights”Society for German Idealism and Romanticism Review. 2024.
Selected older:
Kant on the Laws of Nature: Restrictive Inflationism and Its Philosophical Advantages. The Monist 100(3) 2017.
Metaphysical Grounding and Kant's Things in Themselves: on Allais' Manifest Reality. European Journal of Philosophy, 24:1 2016: 253–266. [html draft]
Kant on the Laws of Nature and the Limitations of our Knowledge. European Journal of Philosophy 2009 17 (4):527-558. Free final Draft.
The Inexplicability of Kant's Naturzweck: Kant on Teleology, Explanation and Biology.Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 87:3 (2005): 270-311. Free final draft.
See the Writing page for other essays and chapters