2013 Issue №2(44)

The present paper focuses on the ethical and anthropological foundations of Kant’s philosophy of family law conceived as a “personal right that is real in kind”: the possibility of possessing a person as a property item presets the antinomy of moral and legal principles, which reproduces the conflict between Roman naturalistic legal theory and the contractual philosophy of natural law. The author also considers the ways to  overcome this antinomy, as well as ensuing solutions to the problems relating to the legal foundations and the subject of family law.

This article is devoted to the search for an adequate justification for the modern policy of cosmopolitism. The author maintains that the legitimation of cosmopolitism is of rather cultural than political nature. Liberal cultural pluralism based on universal political and legal principles (Kant and Rawls) proves to be insufficient. However, it provides the means to solve the problems and to avoid the extremes of cultural cosmopolitism, such as the European “negative identity”, juridification, and new modern forms of identity-centred political moralism akin to the “hyperdemocracy of the masses”.

John Rawls’s interpretation of Kant’s categorical imperative is reviewed, some significant aspects of Rawls’ treatment of key notions of rationality, interests and ends are revealed, which limit the possibilities of application of Kantian ethics within Rawls’ liberal egalitarianism.

This article offers an analysis of the influence of Kant’s and Schopenhauer's philosophical ideas on Fet’s worldview. The author demonstrates that the poet was  not a strict follower of A. Schopenhauer, since he interpreted the German pessimist’s doctrine cum grano salis. The influence of Kant’s ideas on A. Fet was, at least, not less significant.

The paper is devoted to the contemporary discussions about the history of analytic philosophy, the criteria of its distinguishing as a philosophical movement and its present status. It is emphasized that its ambivalent attitude to Kant’s philosophy is important for understanding the character of analytic philosophy.

This article is somewhat of an afterword to the publication of Georg Hamann’s text — including his correspondence with Immanuel Kant, earlier not available to Russian readers and related to their complicated “philosophical” relation — on the pages of Kantovsky Sbornik. These materials have comprised a book entitled Hamann and Kant: a Struggle for Pure Reason, which will be published this year by Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University Press.

Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University announces the XI International Kant Readings “Kantian Project of Enlightenment Today”, dedicated to Kant’s 290th anniversary and to 230th anniversary of his widely influential essay “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?”