Cosmopolitanism and Space in Kant's Political Thought

Kant’s cosmopolitanism can be read from two main perspectives: temporal and spatial. Reading cosmopolitanism from a temporal perspective means paying attention to the historical realization of the ideal of cosmopolitanism and to its related issues such as: the progress of humankind, its final destination, the purpose of universal history, the highest purpose of nature. Instead, reading cosmopolitanism from a spatial perspective means paying attention, e.g. to the ‘fact’ of the sphericity of the earth and to its relationship with cosmopolitan right, territoriality, borders and freedom of movement. In this paper I would like to show how adopting a spatial perspective is useful not only in order to delimit a field of inquiry, but also to shed new light on apparently well- known and thoroughly investigated notions of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, such as the notions of the citizen of the world, of the cosmopolitan right, and of the World republic

La società possibile. Una lettura del Contrat social di Jean-Jacques Rousseau (A. Loche)

Il volume pubblicato da Annamaria Loche rappresenta il denso distil-lato di uno studio serio ed appassionato durato anni, che ha prodotto una comprensione utile e originale di un’opera così difficile quale è il Contrat social di J.-J. Rousseau, che sempre lascia sconcertati per il contrasto tra la cristallina chiarezza della lingua e la complessità – che talvolta rasenta l’oscurità – del suo pensiero..

Cosmopolitismo e migrazione nel pensiero di Hannah Arendt

Arendt assigns to humanity as a political actor the ‘cosmopolitan’ responsibility to defend the right to have rights. A prerequisite for this to be at least possible is that a reform of the state and international organisation is initiated in order to establish a ‘cosmopolitan system of relations’, a system of federal entities based on the council system of government, where the right to have rights can be agreed upon and guaranteed and, at the same time, recognised by citizens and always actively defended locally. In anticipation of this reform, Arendt would be in favour of guaranteeing all residents, including de jure and de facto stateless people, the possibility of participating in political life in the country of arrival, and thus acquiring a political even before legal citizenship

(Re)defining the Commonwealth: Shaftesbury’s Concept of Political Freedom

This volume investigates the impact the first and third Earls of Shaftesbury had on Enlightenment thought. The focus is on both their tangible actions on the political stage of the day and on the more general intellectual repercussions of what these men stood for in word and deed. As a result, «Shaping Enlightenment Politics» offers important re-evaluations of what two towering figures of the age had to contribute to much-contested topics such as slavery, the discourse of civic humanism, or party politics

La felicità nel dibattito politico del '600. Hobbes e i suoi critici

This article explores the political use of Hobbes's conception of happiness, with particular regard to the distinction between happiness and «civil happiness». It analyses the critics of Hobbesian political theory in the framework of two categories: those who consider happiness as the aim of government, and those who consider happiness as the «daughter of happiness». It also makes a comparison between Hobbes's idea of happiness as the duty of a state, and Locke's conception of happiness as an individual pursuit; it shows how the latter is at the basis of the conviction, stated in the Preamble to the United States Constitution, that the pursuit of happiness is an individual natural right. Finally it explains how Hobbes's and Locke's different ideas of liberty - both negative - influence their conceptions of happiness

Cosmopolitanism, (open?) borders and migration = Il dilemma dei cosmopoliti. Confini (aperti?) e migrazione

It is frequently assumed that cosmopolitans must be committed to open (or more open) borders and to policies aimed at reducing restrictions on immigration. But this is not always the case. In this paper I will show, first, that some cosmopolitans are not supporters of open state borders when the issue of immigration is at stake; second, I will give a possible account of this stance, holding that it might derive either from the objectives pursued by their theories (i.e., global social justice, global democracy) or from their philosophical sources (i.e., Rawls, Kant)