Global Limits

Global Limits Synopsis

Explores the limits of Kantian approaches to the study of international affairs.

Global Limits challenges both the current proliferation of Kantian readings of international affairs and the theoretical foundation Kant is presumed to provide the discipline. By thoroughly examining Kant's writings on politics, history, and ethics within the context of his larger philosophical project, Franke demonstrates that Kant's approach to international politics flatly contradicts many of the debates on which the modern discipline of International Relations rests. Paying specific attention to Kant's philosophy of judgment and the geopolitical vision one may draw from it, Franke concludes that scholars must give up the universal limits offered by concepts such as the international, world, or global, in favor of a far less certain and much more open interpretive framework emphasizing the political.