Political Theory

This book aims to demonstrate that Kant successfully bridges the gap between principle and practice in his international political theory. Although I would argue that it does not succeed in its aim, it provides a very useful and detailed account of Kant’s ideas about international relations, ways in which those ideas changed and the historical/political context within which they were formulated. As such this is the most thorough account of Kant’s international political theory that I have read and helps to make sense of what is a notoriously problematic aspect of Kant’s practical philosophy. Unfortunately, the book is marred by the author’s desire to distance himself from all previous readings of Kant which have tended to place Kant either in the familiar idealist or realist camps or, alternatively, to identify Kant’s thought on international politics as paradoxical. The author does not spend enough time demonstrating how it is that Kant’s supposed perspectivism on the one hand, and his evolutionary philosophy of history on the other somehow do the work of rescuing Kant from the stigma of idealism, realism or paradox. Instead the crucial thesis is repeatedly stated rather than argued.