A new look at Kant, Fichte and Hegel
When you think of political philosophy, you think of Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel and Johann Fichte. Both philosophers are considered great representatives of German idealism. University lecturer in Continental Philosophy Marie Louise Krogh has received a Veni subsidy to delve deeper into the German idealists and how colonialism and imperialism shaped their thinking.
‘What we today call the German Idealists were a group of philosophers who wrote highly influential works in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,’ says Krogh. 'Although the term “German Idealism” itself can be controversial - a united Germany did not exist at the time and not all authors explicitly identified with the concept of idealism - the term is used today to refer to a particular kind of philosophical thinking that further developed Kant's critical philosophy. In political philosophy, these are thinkers who were concerned with the principles and conditions of human freedom and autonomy, justifications for state borders and the legitimacy of law, as well as international relations.
Empire
‘The most important aspect in my research is not so much the legitimacy of the category “German Idealism”, but rather what it means to think of it together with the concepts of “empire” and “imperialism”,’ Krogh says. 'The project will test the hypothesis that, although none of the German territories in that period possessed substantial colonial territories, questions about the legitimacy and political effects of empire-building were much more important to the political thinking of the German Idealists than has been recognised so far. To explore this, I will look at two things: both what these authors wrote directly about colonialism and imperialism, and how imperial power politics in their time might have influenced their understanding of more general political concepts, such as sovereignty, territory and state.'
'All this first requires us to answer some fundamental questions: what could “empire” actually mean to Kant, Fichte and Hegel in their time? They wrote their central texts after or in the final days of the Holy Roman Empire, after the American and Haitian Revolutions and in a period with frequent trade disputes between imperial powers. So how did they reflect on these phenomena and what did it mean for how they thought about political communities, rights and freedom?'
Control
With these questions in mind, one of Fichte's texts, for example, takes on a different connotation, says Krogh. 'He wrote The Closed Trade State, a text that can be read as a philosophical response to the rise of imperialist dominance in the (global) trade market. In it, Fichte reflects on the role of the sovereign state as a bulwark against increasing imperial control over the consolidation of a capitalist world.
'This is thus one of the ways in which colonialism and imperialism may have influenced the political thinking of the German Idealists. In my project, I want to look deeper into these epistemic effects,' Krogh explains. ‘To do that, I also look at how these thinkers used different historical and contemporary models of empire: from the Roman Empire to the Russian Empire to the British, Spanish, French and even Dutch colonial empires.’
Legacy
When asked how all this can still have an impact today, Krogh is unequivocal: ‘We are living in a time when many people are gaining a fundamental understanding of the mismatch of political and economic power and how these are linked to the histories of colonisation and imperialism. Much important research has already been done on this topic, but we are still at the beginning of understanding how these histories have shaped the times we live in and the concepts we use to understand them. My project is just one of a series of follow-up steps needed to fully map the influence of imperialism and colonialism, including in philosophy.'