Peter Fenves (Northwestern) poses some unexpected questions relating to Immanuel Kant’s thought. How does politics emerge from a shortage of space? Should we understand humans as two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional creatures? Why do we so often desire to fly? Is the moral destiny of humanity to give way to a new species of rational beings on Earth? Is Nicholas delusional? (Listen at minute 53.) Finally, we consider what disappointed Walter Benjamin in Kant’s writings on history and how Benjamin’s critique reframes the Enlightenment conception of science.
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RECOMMENDED READING
Titles by Peter Fenves (Amazon)
-The Messianic Reduction: Walter Benjamin and the Shape of Time
-Late Kant: Towards Another Law of the Earth
-Arresting Language: From Leibniz to Benjamin
-“Chatter”: Language and History in Kierkegaard
-A Peculiar Fate: Metaphysics and World History in Kant