Pauline Kleingeld, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1962. Ph.D. from Leiden University. Associate Professor at the Philosophy Department, Washington University, St. Louis, and Professor of Philosophy at Leiden University.
Fellow (1 September 2004 – 30 Juni 2005)
PHILOSOPHICAL COSMOPOLITANISM IN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GERMANY AND KANT ON THE UNITY OF REASON
Most of the fellowship period was spent on the completion of a book manuscript on German philosophical cosmopolitanism in the eighteenth century. Three chapters were written and revised. First, I wrote a chapter on the cultural cosmopolitanism of Georg Forster (1754-1794) and his disagreement with Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) over the concept of ‘race’. This chapter serves to highlight Forster’s radical egalitarianism and to compare this with Kant’s views on race. I point out Kant’s initial racial hierarchialism and its inconsistency with his own universalist premises.
I also argue, however, against the standard reading in the Kant literature, that Kant changed his views radically – in a more egalitarian direction – towards the end of his life. Second, I wrote a chapter on economic cosmopolitanism, especially as this can be found in the work of Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch (1746-1812). On the basis of evidence that several anonymously published papers on economic theory were all written by Hegewisch, I show that free market cosmopolitanism was present and influential in Germany much earlier than commonly thought. Third, I revised a chapter on the romantic cosmopolitanism of Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801). Additionally, I did editorial work on a volume, Immanuel Kant on Politics, Peace, and History, for Yale University Press. Finally, I wrote a paper on the relationship between philosophy and politics.