An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation

An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation

It is now some 122 years since Kant wrote the essay, Zum ewigen Frieden. Many things have happened since then, although the Peace to which he looked forward with a doubtful hope has not been among them. But many things have happened which the great critical philosopher, and no less critical spectator of human events, would have seen with interest. To Kant the quest of an enduring peace presented itself as an intrinsic human duty, rather than as a promising enterprise. Yet through all his analysis of its premises and of the terms on which it may be realised there runs a tenacious persuasion that, in the end, the rgime of peace at large will be installed. Not as a deliberate achievement of human wisdom, so much as a work of Nature the Designer of thingsNatura daedala rerum. To any attentive reader of Kant's memorable essay it will be apparent that the title of the following inquiryOn the nature of peace and the terms of its perpetuationis a descriptive translation of the caption under which he wrote. That such should be the case will not, it is hoped, be accounted either an unseemly presumption or an undue inclination to work under a borrowed light. The aim and compass of any disinterested inquiry in these premises is still the same as it was in Kant's time; such, indeed, as he in great part made it,viz., a systematic knowledge of things as they are. Nor is the light of Kant's leading to be dispensed with as touches[Pg viii] the ways and means of systematic knowledge, wherever the human realities are in question. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 20694
Author: Veblen, Thorstein
Release Date: Feb 27, 2007
Format: eBook
Language: English