Perpetual Peace and Other Essays

A nice, inexpensive edition of some of Kant's notable essays including his famous short essay An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? and To Perpetual Peace. The latter and the Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent are some of Kant's notable political writings. Generally more accessible than Kant's major critical works and sometimes written vividly, not a quality associated generally with Kant. The political writings feature Kant's emphasis on grounding in his moral philosophy and a contractual approach. To Perpetual Peace includes Kant's famous and to this point vindicated prediction that properly constituted Republics (though not direct democracies, which he sees as tending to despotism) are likely to form peaceful federal relationships with each other. All well worth reading, and also an interesting comparison with the work of John Rawls, much influenced by Kant's general approach. To Perpetual Peace is clearly the direct inspiration and model for Rawls' last book, The Law of Peoples. Also included are the essays Speculative Beginning of Human History and The End of All Things, which are interesting and sometimes obscure combinations of philosophical speculation and scriptural exegesis. Good footnotes and introductory essay.

It is very useful to have a Kant's shorter essays on political philosophy and the philosophy of history collected in a single volume. While a larger, more comprehensive collection, edited by Hans Reiss, is published by Cambridge Univ. Press under the title *Kant: Political Writings*, this smaller Hackett version is nicely translated and much more affordable. Hackett Publ. Co. in general has been very kind to philosophy. They deserve your patronage.