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War and Peace after Kant

Hegel’s Political Realism and the Aesthetics of Conflict

War and Peace after Kant cover

War and Peace after Kant

Hegel’s Political Realism and the Aesthetics of Conflict

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Pre-order. Available Dec 24 2026
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Description

This timely volume explores the significance of Kant's notion of perpetual peace and its implications for contemporary political and philosophical thought.

Kant believed that perpetual peace should be conceived not as a static 'state' but rather as a form of activity that needs to be constantly exercised and actualized. But how achievable is this? In 14 chapters, leading and emerging scholars ask whether Kant's perpetual peace is a political and theoretical utopia, as it is often characterized, or whether it is in fact a fundamentally realistic theoretical proposal that remains productive in light of today's global conflicts.

The book is divided into three neat parts: an introduction to Kant's vision of cosmopolitan peace, framed in the context of contemporary debates around peace-making; an in-depth examination of the critiques that Hegel, often regarded as a political realist, launched against Kant's idealism; and a deep dive into the underexplored connection between Kant's aesthetic thought and his moral-political philosophy.

Engaging with a number of Kantian texts from Perpetual Peace to Critique of Judgment, War and Peace after Kant reveals not only the breadth of Kant's reflections on conflict, but also their enduring relevance to today's world where war seems inescapable.

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Table of Contents

Introduction: War and Peace after Kant, Martin Hergouth (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Lea Kuhar (Södertörn University, Sweden)

Part I: Kant's Cosmopolitanism Today
1. Cosmopolitan Right and Peace, Roberta Picardi (University of Molise, Italy)
2. The Vast Graveyard of the Human Race: Kant on the Future of Warfare, Ognian Kassabov (Sofia University, Bulgaria)
3. The Actuality of Evil as the Ground of the Possibility of the Good, Levi Haeck (Ghent University, Belgium)
4. The Potential Relevance of a Kantian Perspective for the Political Upheavals and Wars of the 21st Century, Daniel Elon (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany)
5. Kant on War and Evil, Bojana Jovicevic (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Part II: Confronting Hegel's Critique
6. Hegel on Modality of War, Martin Hergouth (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
7. Speculative Philosophy and War in Hegel, Gregor Schäfer (University of Basel, Switzerland)
8. Perpetual War, the Nomos and Society of Egoists: The Contribution of Schmitt and Stirner to the Hegelian Critique of Kant, Hector Jimenez Garcia (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)
9. Should We Say that War is Necessary?, Attay Kremer (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
10. Just as the Movements of the Winds Prevent the Seas from Stagnation”: Another Look at Hegel and War, Cæcilie Varslev-Pedersen (University of Southampton, UK)
11. Kant, Hegel, and Marx on Morality, War, and Historical Progress, Lea Kuhar (Södertörn University, Sweden)

Part III: Aesthetic Reflections on War and Peace
12. A Peace without Peace. Kant's 'ewiger Friede' and The Line – The Light (Peace Sculpture 1995), Anna Enström (Södertörn University, Sweden)
13. The Taste of War: Some Observations on Kant's Aesthetics, Goran Vraneševic (University of Belgrade, Serbia)
14. The Trap of Sublime Warfare, Igor Cvejic (University of Belgrade, Serbia)

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published Dec 24 2026
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Pages 272
ISBN 9781350585324
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Lea Kuhar

Lea Kuhar is Post-Doctoral Researcher at Södertörn…

Anthology Editor

Martin Hergouth

Martin Hergouth is Assistant Researcher in Philoso…

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