Perpetual Peace and Other Essays

Written at the height of Kant’s philosophical maturity, the six essays included in this volume reflect his concern with issues of critical interest to his contemporaries—and to us. Their major themes include the nature and course of human history, the role of war in the history of people and nations and the principles on which lasting peace among them might be built, and the role of human reason and freedom in shaping the world in which we find ourselves.

These essays on politics, history, and moral practice build on and illustrate the consequences of Kant’s philosophy in his three Critical masterpieces and provide an important key for understanding that watershed in historical theory between the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century idealistic theories. With entirely new typesetting, this updated edition of Ted Humphrey’s 1983 translation restores inadvertent textual elisions, modifies translations of some significant terms, makes idiomatic adjustments in the English throughout, updates the Bibliography, and clarifies the conceptual and argumentative relationships among the essays.

Essays included in this volume:

•  Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Objective
• A Response to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
• Speculative Beginning of Human History
• On the Proverb: That May Be True in Theory, But Is of No Practical Use
• The End of All Things
• To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch