For almost forty years, German enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant gave lectures on geography, more than almost any other subject. Kant believed that geography and anthropology together provided knowledge of the world, an empirical ground for his thought. Above all, he thought that knowledge of the world was indispensable to the development of an informed cosmopolitan citizenry that would be self-ruling. While these lectures have received very little attention compared to his work on other subjects, they are an indispensable source of material and insight for understanding his work, specifically his thinking and contributions to anthropology, race theory, space and time, history, the environment and the emergence of a mature public. This indispensable volume brings together world-renowned scholars of geography, philosophy and related disciplines to offer a broad discussion of the importance of Kant's work on this topic for contemporary philosophical and geographical work.

Perspectives on Kant's teachings on geography and how they relate his understanding of the world.

This is a work in Kantian conceptual geography. It explores issues in analytic epistemology, philosophy of language, and metaphysics in particular by appealing to theses drawn from Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Those issues include the nature of the subjective, objective, and empirical; potential scopes of the subjective; what can (and cannot) be said about a subject-independent reality; analyticity, syntheticity, apriority, and aposteriority; constitutive principles, acquisitive principles, and empirical claims; meaning, indeterminacy, and incommensurability; logically possible versus subjectively empirical worlds; and the nature of empirical truth. Part One introduces two theses drawn from the Critique. The first, Empirical Dualism, concerns the subjective, objective, and empirical. The second, Subjective Principlism, concerns principles that might bear on the empirical. Part Two examines work of influential analytic philosophers to reveal how conceptually expansive the territory formed by Empirical Dualism and Subjective Principlism is. Part Three defends that territory by defending Empirical Dualism and Subjective Principlism themselves. Part Four discloses two new lands within the territory that have so far remained uncharted. The first is a Kantian account of meaning, which is shown to be superior to other accounts of meaning in the analytic literature. The second are Kantian thoughts on truth, which illuminate the nature of empirical truth itself. Finally Part Five shows how engaging in Kantian conceptual geography enriches epistemology, philosophy of language, and metaphysics generally.

In an approach that differs from other publications on U.S. multiculturalism, Multicultural Geographies examines the changing patterns of race and ethnicity in the United States from geographical perspectives. It reflects the significant contributions made by geographers in recent years to our understanding of the day-to-day experiences of American minorities and the historical and current processes that account for living spaces, persistent patterns of segregation and group inequalities, and the complex geographies that continue to evolve at local and regional levels across the country. One of the book's underlying themes is the dynamic and complex nature of U.S. multiculturalism and the academic difficulty in evaluating it from a single viewpoint or theoretical stance. As such, Multicultural Geographies is derived from the joint efforts of selected scholars to bring together diverse perspectives and approaches in documenting the experiences of American minorities and the issues that affect them.

Late eighteenth-century writings on race by Kant and four of his contemporaries. Kant and the Concept of Race features translations of four texts by Immanuel Kant frequently designated his Racenschriften (race essays), in which he develops and defends an early theory of race. Also included are translations of essays by four of Kant’s contemporaries—E. A. W. Zimmermann, Georg Forster, Christoph Meiners, and Christoph Girtanner—which illustrate that Kant’s interest in the subject of race was part of a larger discussion about human “differences,” one that impacted the development of scientific fields ranging from natural history to physical anthropology to biology.

This is the first comprehensive account of Kant's cosmopolitanism, highlighting its moral, political, legal, economic, cultural and psychological aspects. Contrasting Kant's views with those of his German contemporaries and relating them to current debates, Pauline Kleingeld sheds new light on texts that have been hitherto neglected or underestimated. In clear and carefully argued discussions, she shows that Kant's philosophical cosmopolitanism underwent a radical transformation in the mid 1790s and that the resulting theory is philosophically stronger than is usually thought. Using the work of figures such as Fichte, Cloots, Forster, Hegewisch, Wieland and Novalis, Kleingeld analyses Kant's arguments regarding the relationship between cosmopolitanism and patriotism, the importance of states, the ideal of an international federation, cultural pluralism, race, global economic justice and the psychological feasibility of the cosmopolitan ideal. In doing so, she reveals a broad spectrum of positions in cosmopolitan theory that are relevant to current discussions of cosmopolitanism.

Kant’s Nonideal Theory of Politics argues that Kant’s political thought must be understood by reference to his philosophy of history, cultural anthropology, and geography. The central thesis of the book is that Kant’s assessment of the politically salient features of history, culture, and geography generates a nonideal theory of politics, which supplements his well-known ideal theory of cosmopolitanism. This novel analysis thus challenges the common assumption that an ideal theory of cosmopolitanism constitutes Kant’s sole political legacy. Dilek Huseyinzadegan demonstrates that Kant employs a teleological worldview throughout his political writings as a means of grappling with the pressing issues of multiplicity, diversity, and plurality—issues that confront us to this day. Kant’s Nonideal Theory of Politics is the first book-length treatment of Kant’s political thought that gives full attention to the role that history, anthropology, and geography play in his mainstream political writings. Interweaving close textual analyses of Kant’s writings with more contemporary political frameworks, this book also makes Kant accessible and responsive to fields other than philosophy. As such, it will be of interest to students and scholars working at the intersections of political theory, feminism, critical race theory, and post- and decolonial thought.

Brings together work by Kant never before available in English, along with new translations of his most important publications in natural science. The volume is rich in material for the student and the scholar, with extensive linguistic and explanatory notes, editorial introductions and a glossary of key terms.

This important collection of more than twenty original essays by prominent Kant scholars covers the multiple aspects of Kant’s teaching in relation to his published works. With the Academy edition’s continuing publication of Kant’s lectures, the role of his lecturing activity has been drawing more and more deserved attention. Several of Kant’s lectures on metaphysics, logic, ethics, anthropology, theology, and pedagogy have been translated into English, and important studies have appeared in many languages. But why study the lectures? When they are read in light of Kant’s published writings, the lectures offer a new perspective of Kant’s philosophical development, clarify points in the published texts, consider topics there unexamined, and depict the intellectual background in richer detail. And the lectures are often more accessible to readers than the published works. This book discusses all areas of Kant's lecturing activity. Some essays even analyze in detail the content of Kant's courses and the role of textbooks written by key authors such as Baumgarten, helping us understand Kant’s thought in its intellectual and historical contexts. Contributors: Huaping Lu-Adler; Henny Blomme ; Robert Clewis; Alix Cohen; Corey Dyck; Faustino Fabbianelli; Norbert Fischer; Courtney Fugate; Paul Guyer; Robert Louden; Antonio Moretto; Steve Naragon; Christian Onof; Stephen Palmquist; Riccardo Pozzo; Frederick Rauscher; Dennis Schulting; Oliver Sensen; Susan Shell; Werner Stark; John Zammito; Günter Zöller

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “ambitious and challenging” (The New York Review of Books) work, the bestselling author of Monsoon and Balkan Ghosts offers a revelatory prism through which to view global upheavals and to understand what lies ahead for continents and countries around the world. In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world’s hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands. The Russian steppe’s pitiless climate and limited vegetation bred hard and cruel men bent on destruction, for example, while Nazi geopoliticians distorted geopolitics entirely, calculating that space on the globe used by the British Empire and the Soviet Union could be swallowed by a greater German homeland. Kaplan then applies the lessons learned to the present crises in Europe, Russia, China, the Indian subcontinent, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Middle East. The result is a holistic interpretation of the next cycle of conflict throughout Eurasia. Remarkably, the future can be understood in the context of temperature, land allotment, and other physical certainties: China, able to feed only 23 percent of its people from land that is only 7 percent arable, has sought energy, minerals, and metals from such brutal regimes as Burma, Iran, and Zimbabwe, putting it in moral conflict with the United States. Afghanistan’s porous borders will keep it the principal invasion route into India, and a vital rear base for Pakistan, India’s main enemy. Iran will exploit the advantage of being the only country that straddles both energy-producing areas of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Finally, Kaplan posits that the United States might rue engaging in far-flung conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan rather than tending to its direct neighbor Mexico, which is on the verge of becoming a semifailed state due to drug cartel carnage. A brilliant rebuttal to thinkers who suggest that globalism will trump geography, this indispensable work shows how timeless truths and natural facts can help prevent this century’s looming cataclysms.