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Why is there so much attention on Kant's global politics in present day law and philosophy? This book highlights the potential fruitfulness of Kant's cosmopolitan thought for understanding the complexities of the contemporary political world. It adopts a double methodological strategy by reconstructing a genealogical conceptual journey showing the development of international law, as well as introducing an interpretation of cosmopolitanism centred on Kant's theory of a metaphysics of freedom. The result is a novel focus on Kant's notion of the world republic. The hypothesis here defended is that the world republic stands as a way of thinking about international politics where the possibility of progression towards peace results from its use as a regulative idea.
List of contents
Part 1 - Kant and the Legacy of Modernity;
1. From Universal Monarchy to Global Authority;
2. The Tradition of Internationalist Pacifism before Kant: Utopia or Cosmopolis?;
Part 2 ¿ Kant’s Critique of Just War Theory and Colonialism;
3. The ‘Sorry Comforters’;
4. Kant’s Rejection of Just War Theory;
5. Kant on Race and Colonialism;
Part 3 – Theory and Practice. The World (State) Republic as a Regulative Idea of Reason;
6. Freedom, Nature and Right;
7. The Illusions of Reason: Freedom as a Regulative Idea of Reason;
Part 4 – Juridical Constructivism and the Cosmopolitan Constitution;
8. Thinking Political, Thinking Cosmopolitan;
9 Constructivism in Cosmopolitan Law: Kant’s Right to Visit;
10 Thinking with Kant ‘beyond’ Kant. Actualizing Sovereignty and Citizenship in the Transnational Sphere;
Conclusion;
About the author
Claudio Corradetti is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He has been a lecturer at the University of Oslo, Norway and at Karl Franzens Universität, Graz, Austria. In previous years he has been a visiting scholar at McGill University, the University of Oxford, the European University Institute and the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin. In 2019 he was awarded a Fulbright Research Scholarship at the Philosophy Department, Columbia University, NY.
Summary
This book argues that to understand the complexities of our current legal-institutional arrangements, we first need an insight into Kant’s global politics, and highlights the potential fruitfulness of Kant’s cosmopolitan thought for contemporary political thinking.
