Kant on the Frontier: Philosophy, Politics, and the Ends of the Earth

by Geoffrey Bennington

Overview

This book examines the figure of the frontier (both bilateral border and open edge of civilization) both literally in Kant’s political writings, and figuratively in Critiques, developing via a reading of teleological judgment the concept of “interrupted teleology” as a reasoned but non-rationalistic response to rationalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823276004
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Series:	Lit Z
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	260
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Geoffrey Bennington is Asa G. Candler Professor of Modern French Thought at Emory University.

Table of Contents

Preface to the English Edition

Pre-liminary

Prolegomena

Chapter I-The End of Nature

Chapter II-The Return of Nature

Chapter III -Rest in Peace

Interlude-The Guiding Thread (on Philosophical Reading)

Chapter IV-Radical Nature

Chapter V-The Abyss of Judgment

Finis

Appendix: On Transcendental Fiction (Grenze and Schranke)

Editorial Reviews

"This is a magnificent, thrilling book. Bennington shows that the geopolitical vocabulary that pervades Kant's critical system—frontiers, limits, borders boundaries, territories, battlefields—is not merely a analogy but rather the index of the essentially political nature of thought. His brilliant, gorgeous readings manage to negotiate the fragile boundary between Kant's usually marginalized historical-political writings and the central problematic of the critical-transcendental project. The problems of philosophy cannot be cordoned off from the 'cosmopolitan' concerns of humanity. This is truly an achievement."—Rebecca Comay, University of Toronto

"Beyond meticulously describing the impasses around which Kant conducts what he sometimes calls his 'critical business,' Kant on the Frontier culminates in an analysis of the Critique of Teleological Judgment that is at once philologically exact and strikingly topical: here we encounter a thinker who, in seeking to erect impregnable borders, opens onto the 'abyss of judgment.'" —Peter Fenves, Northwestern University

From the Publisher

Beyond meticulously describing the impasses around which Kant conducts what he sometimes calls his 'critical business,' Kant on the Frontier culminates in an analysis of the Critique of Teleological Judgment that is at once philologically exact and strikingly topical: here we encounter a thinker who, in seeking to erect impregnable borders, opens onto the 'abyss of judgment.'

Northwestern University - Peter Fenves

This is a magnificent, thrilling book. Bennington shows that the geopolitical vocabulary that pervades Kant’s critical system–frontiers, limits, borders boundaries, territories, battlefields–is not merely a analogy but rather the index of the essentially political nature of thought. His brilliant, gorgeous readings manage to negotiate the fragile boundary between Kant’s usually marginalized historical-political writings and the central problematic of the critical-transcendental project. The problems of philosophy cannot be cordoned off from the 'cosmopolitan' concerns of humanity. This is truly an achievement.

University of Toronto - Rebecca Comay