Elisabeth Ellis - Kants Political Theory: Interpretations and Applications

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kants political theory : interpretations and applications / edited by Elisabeth Ellis.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: A collection of essays examining Immanuel Kants lectures and minor writings as well as his political essays.

Offers a comprehensive introduction to Kants political thought from a position of engagement with modern political and philosophical questionsProvided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-271-05377-6 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Kant, Immanuel, 17241804Political and social views.

I. Ellis, Elisabeth.

JC 181. K 4 K 379 2012

320.01dc23

2011051036

Copyright 2012 The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,

University Park, PA 16802-1003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.

This book is printed on Natures Natural, which contains 50% post-consumer waste.

ABBREVIATIONS

A note on citation of Kants works:

Page references in parentheses are to the Prussian Academy (now the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften) edition of Kants works (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1900). These standard volume and page numbers are reproduced in most translations of Kants writings, including The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant , edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), which, unless otherwise indicated, is the source of the translated quotations in this volume. The volume and page numbers of the Academy edition are preceded by an abbreviation or short title referring to the individual work in which the text appears.

INTRODUCTION

Elisabeth Ellis

The study of Kants politics is undergoing what Patrick Riley has called a remarkable renaissance.

Kants critical account of freedom is at the root both of the extraordinary appeal of his political thought and of its formidable interpretive challenge. Asking as he does about the conditions of possibility for human freedom in the world, Kant is able to offer authoritative and vigorous criticism of given social and political institutions while refraining from the construction of what he calls castles in the air (that is, idealized, specific models meant to apply across space and time). Focusing on the real and manifestly imperfect institutions of his day, Kant asks whether each political practice leaves open the possibility for progress toward freedom. Kant is much more interested in the drivers of actually possible, necessarily incremental improvement in human conditions than he is in describing profound but unreachable political perfection. His sustained interest in the public sphere, for example, attests to Kants conviction that it is more important to assure the underlying mechanisms that might promote political progress over time than it is to make pronouncements about exactly what is wrong with our present circumstances.