Barbary Captivity and the French Idea of Freedom

Weiss, Gillian

doi:10.1215/00161071-28-2-231

Cited by 23 publications

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“…But assessed against the anthropological background, Perpetual Peace's main innovation (the right to hospitality), and its core foci (trade and violence), the mention of Maghrebi corsairs makes sense as a stark contrast with Kant's orderly vision of communication and trade. Maghrebi corsairing disrupted coastal towns in Italy, Spain and beyond (Weiss 2005;Semple 1916) and the crowded and conflict-ridden Mediterranean routes could be seen as predecessors to the disruptive over-extended and unconventional sea battles that Kant lamented had become the rule through imperial expansionism. Most importantly, while Kant was writing Perpetual Peace, privateers from the Moroccan coast had targeted the fleets of the young republic of the United States, eventually leading to the creation of the US's permanent standing navy in 1794 (Lambert 2007: 199-200).…”

Section: Kant's Cosmopolitanism and His Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Narrow Cosmopolitanism: Kant’s Anthropology, Racialized Character and the Construction of Europe

Valdez

2022

Kantian rev.

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This article explores the distinctions among European peoples’ character established in Kant’s anthropology and their connection with his politics. These aspects are neglected relative to the analysis of race between Europeans and non-Europeans, but Kant’s anthropological works portray the people of Mediterranean Europe as not capable of civilization because of the dominance of passion in their faculty of desire, which he ties to ‘Oriental’ influences in blood or government. Kant then superimposes this racialized anthropology over the historical geopolitics of Europe, obscuring the indebtedness of Northern European trade dominance to Mediterranean historical tactics and financial wealth. By relegating the Mediterranean to the margins and dismissing contentious commercial exchange in the region as mere violence spearheaded by North African corsairs, Kant gives us an elitist cosmopolitanism unable to cope with hierarchy and inequality, diminishing its potential for egalitarian global projects today.

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Section: Kant's Cosmopolitanism and His Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%