Perpetual Peace, and Other Essays on Politics, History, and Morals (HPC Classics Series) [Paperback]

Immanuel Kant (Author), Ted Humphrey (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Hackett Pub Co (February 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915145472
• ISBN-13: 978-0915145478
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most influential philosophers of all time. His comprehensive and profound thinking on aesthetics, ethics, and knowledge has had an immense impact on all subsequent philosophy.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice, affordable edition, December 19, 1999

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Steven J. Heikkila "PDX Steve" (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Perpetual Peace, and Other Essays on Politics, History, and Morals (HPC Classics Series) (Paperback)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful, May 31, 2009

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R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Perpetual Peace, and Other Essays on Politics, History, and Morals (HPC Classics Series) (Paperback)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite astonishing - not once but twice, January 15, 2012

By 

H. Peter Nennhaus (Illinois) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Perpetual Peace, and Other Essays on Politics, History, and Morals (HPC Classics Series) (Paperback)

This is an unusual text, as it was written by a renowned philosopher over two hundred years ago. He expressed his thoughts during the age of the Enlightenment and Benevolent Absolutism punctuated by the brutal French Revolution. It seems a long time ago for someone to have pondered about, not just peace, but perpetual peace on the face of this earth. His principles were quite modern: There should be the abolishment of standing armies, a federation of nations should be established, the constitution of every nation should be republican and he required the conduct among nations to be civilized, hospitable and devoid of hostility. Republicanism is to be understood as meaning the separation of the legislative from the executive branches in contrast to his age where authoritarian rulers combined the two, a system he called despotism. He may have also been stimulated by the brand-new phenomena of the French and American constitutions.
Yes, the modernity of his thoughts is astonishing, but even more so is the fact that two centuries later the establishment of a world federation and the permanent abolition of warfare are still being discussed only by isolated, out-of-the-way theoreticians. Two world wars and an entire century of unheard of violence across the globe have made no difference on the mind of humanity. We are still playing the ancient game of one-upmanship and international power-play. The world is clogged with armed forces and weapons of mass destruction, while the cure from all that violence has been known for ages. Reading about his thoughts makes one realize that man has not become any wiser during the past 200 years.