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Otfried Höffe

Published in English for the first time, Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason is a slightly abridged and updated edition of Professor Höffe’s groundbreaking work originally published in German. In the book, the author systematically introduces one of the most important areas of Kant's philosophy, and relates its basic ideas to the debates of today. 

The first part introduces the four driving forces that motivated Kant’s practical philosophy and which are still relevant today: Enlightenment, critique, morality and cosmopolitanism. The second part demonstrates the extent to which Kant revolutionised moral philosophy. In the third part, the author explains the provocations that lie at the heart of Kant’s practical philosophy. The remaining parts deal with political philosophy, the philosophy of history, and Kant’s thinking about religion and education.

University of Wales Press

Political Philosophy Now

Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Philosophy of Freedom

Manfred Weltecke

Andrew Jones

Kant denied biology the status of proper science, yet his account of the organism has received much attention from both philosophical and historical perspectives. This book argues that Kant’s influence on biology in the British Isles is in part due to misunderstandings of his philosophy. Highlighting these misunderstandings exposes how Kant influenced various aspects of scientific method, despite the underlying incompatibility between transcendental idealism and scientific naturalism. This book raises criticism against scientific naturalism as it demonstrates how some concepts that are central to biology have been historically justified in ways that are incompatible with naturalism. Approaching current issues in philosophy of biology from a Kantian orientation offers new perspectives to debates including our knowledge of laws of nature, the unity of science, and our understanding of organisms. Moreover, new avenues are forged to demonstrate the benefits of adopting Kant-inspired approaches to issues in contemporary philosophy of science.

How Kant Matters For Biology: A Philosophical History

Robert A. Kocis

Reacting against both the British Idealists and the logical positivists, Isaiah Berlin forged a new philosophy best described as post-Idealist. This philosophy was deeply informed by Kantian categories and methods, and conditioned by Vichian themes of historical and cultural variation. An advocate of pluralism without relativism, Berlin believed that it was possible to adopt and live by values, but he could not achieve moral certainty that our values are objectively preferable to all others. Like Collingwood and Oakeshott (and some neo-Kantians), Berlin believed that concepts matter and that they have a history; that human values are numerous and incommensurable; that rationalism in politics is dangerous; and that positivists’ hopes for rigorous social sciences are unrealistic. Interestingly, Collingwood and Oakeshott, both also candidates for post-Idealism, shared Berlin’s commitment to these themes. Ultimately, Berlin’s ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ is perhaps best perceived as a critique of Bradley’s Ethical Studies.

Isaiah Berlin: A Kantian and Post-Idealist Thinker

Milla Emilia Vaha

Kant’s moral and political philosophy has been important in developing ethical thinking in international relations. This study argues that his theory of the state is crucially important for understanding the moral agency of the state as it is discussed in contemporary debates. For Kant, it is argued that the state has not only duties but also, controversially, inalienable rights that ground its relationship to its citizens and to other states. Most importantly, the state – regardless of its governmental form or factual behaviour – has a right to exist as a state. The Kantian account provided, therefore, explores not only the moral agency but also the moral standing of the state, examining the status of different kinds of states in world politics and expectations towards their ethical behaviour. Every state has a moral standing that must be respected in a morally imperfect world gradually transforming towards the ideal condition of perpetual peace.

The Moral Standing of the State in International Politics: A Kantian Account

Georg Cavallar

This book argues that Kant’s theory of international relations should be interpreted as an attempt to apply the principles of reason to history in general, and in particular to political conditions of the late eighteenth century. It demonstrates how Kant attempts to mediate between a priori theory and practice, and how this works in the field of international law and international relations. Kant appreciates how the precepts of theory have to be tested against the facts, before the theory is enriched to deal with the complexities of their application. In the central chapters of this book, the starting points are apparent contradictions in Kant’s writings; assuming that Kant is a systematic and profound thinker, Cavallar seeks to use these contradictions to discover Kant’s ‘deep structure’, a dynamic and evolutionary theory that tries to anticipate a world where the idea of international justice might be more fully realized.

Kant and the Theory and Practice of International Right

How should we act? How should the world be organised? This new anthology on Kant’s practical philosophy guides the reader from the general question of the nature of reasons and rationality in Kant’s philosophical system to the Kantian task of promoting justice and peace at the global level. Contributions to this volume show how the Kantian idea of reason as a source of normativity is grounded, and which implications and applications the Kantian approach might bring about. The volume covers three areas – meta-ethics, political thought and theory, and applied politics – and although these are different spheres of thought, they are interconnected in a fundamental way through Kant’s account of normativity as derived from reason. The volume provides an overview of recent debates in Kant scholarship and groundbreaking new applications of Kant’s theory to current affairs.

Reason, Normativity and Law: New Essays in Kantian Philosophy

Luigi Caranti

This book focuses on Kant’s analysis of three issues crucial for contemporary politics. Starting from a new reading of Kant’s account of our innate right to freedom, it highlights how a Kantian foundation of human rights, properly understood and modified where necessary, appears more promising than the foundational arguments currently offered by philosophers. It then compares Kant’s model for peace with the apparently similar model of democratic peace to show that the two are profoundly different in content and in quality. The book concludes in analysis of Kant’s controversial view of history to rescue it from the idea that his belief in progress is at best over-optimistic and at worst dogmatic.

 

Congratulations to Professor Luigi Caranti and his book 'Kant's Political Legacy' which has been given a 'honorable mention' by the North American Kant Society in the competition for the best 2018 book on Kant!! http://northamericankantsociety.onefireplace.org/Announcements/6660588

Kant's Political Legacy: Human Rights, Peace, Progress

Dafydd Huw Rees

Jürgen Habermas is arguably the world’s most influential living philosopher – by introducing ideas such as the public sphere, constitutional patriotism, and the discourse theory of law and democracy, he has transformed modern political philosophy. But since 2001, Habermas’s thought has taken an unexpected turn. This book is the first full-length treatment of Habermas’s postsecular political philosophy, and critically analyses his new direction of thought. The author places the postsecular turn in the context of Habermas’s long-standing commitment to developing a postmetaphysical account of morality, politics and human communication; the tension between secular liberal democracy and religious freedom is real, but there may be losses as well as gains to Habermas’s quest to translate the sacred.

The Postsecular Political Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas: Translating the Sacred

For a very long time, Kant’s Doctrine of Right languished in relative neglect, even among those who wanted to defend a Kantian position in political philosophy. Kant’s more interesting claims about politics were often said to be located elsewhere. This anthology examines a wide range of issues discussed by Kant in the Doctrine of Right and other closely related texts, including his views on social contract theory, private property, human rights, welfare and equality, civil disobedience, perpetual peace, forgiveness and punishment, and marriage equality. The authors have all tested Kant’s arguments for possible political application, reaching different and sometimes opposing conclusions. The result is a highly original volume that not only enhances the understanding of Kant’s political philosophy, but also invites substantive debate within the Kantian tradition and beyond.

Kant's Doctrine of Right in the Twenty-first Century

Howard Williams

David Sullivan

E Gwynn Matthews

Fukuyama’s concept of the End of History has been one of the most widely debated theories of international politics since the end of the Cold War. This book discusses Fukuyama’s claim that liberal democracy alone is able to satisfy the human aspiration for freedom and dignity, and explores the way in which his thinking is part of a philosophical tradition which includes Kant, Hegel and Marx. Two new chapters in this second edition discuss the ways in which Fukuyama’s thinking has developed – they include his celebrated and controversial criticism of neoconservatism and his complex intellectual relationship to Samuel Huntington, whose Clash of Civilization thesis he rejects but whose notion of political decay is central to his more recent work. The authors here argue that Fukuyama’s continuing fundamental contributions to debates concerning the spread of democracy and threat of global terror mark him out as one of the most important thinkers of the twenty-first century.

Francis Fukuyama and the End of History


A similar book is Reidar Maliks, Kant’s Politics in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014, but it does not focus on international law. Pauline Kleingeld’s Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012 touches upon international relations, but is mainly a book on Kant’s cosmopolitanism, and a comparison with other 18c thinkers.
