We are glad to give notice of the international conference War and Peace after Kant, which will take place on November 6th-9th, 2024, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
This conference is a collaborative effort between the University of Ljubljana, Goethe Institute, Humboldt University, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade and Cankarjev dom.
Programme Committee: Tobias Rosefeld, Petar Bojanić, Zdravko Kobe & Alix Landgrebe.
Organizational Committee: Lea Kuhar, Bojana Jovićević, Martin Hergouth, Giulia La Rocca & Goran Vranešević.
Please find below the abstract as well as the program of the conference.
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The conference will explore the continuing relevance and significance of Kant’s notion of perpetual peace, both within the context of Kantian and post-Kantian thought, and in the broader scope of contemporary political and philosophical discourse. At a time when wars are raging both in Europe and beyond, it has become evident that the issue of war and peace has received too little attention in scientific and academic circles. The conference aims to fill this gap by examining the proper role of war and peace in Kant’s essay on Perpetual Peace and its implications for contemporary political and philosophical thought.
According to Kant, perpetual peace should not be conceived as a static ‘state’ but rather as a form of activity that needs to be constantly exercised and actualized, both conceptually and politically. In this context, the conference will seek to answer whether perpetual peace is a political and theoretical utopia, as Kant’s idea is often characterised, or a fundamentally realistic theoretical proposal that remains productive for contemporary thought. Alongside discussions on Kant’s historical predecessors (Saint-Pierre, Rousseau) and successors (especially Hegel, who was famously dismissive of Kant’s pacifist ideal and instead accepted, even affirmed, the necessary possibility of war), the conference will also address related questions, such as he relationship between war and politics (Schmitt), the mechanisms of exploitation (Spivak), and the effects of military technology and organisation on the overall structure of society. The conference will reflect on and develop the first outlines of a theoretical framework for understanding war and peace in our times.
Thursday, 7. November, Alma Karlin Hall
9:30-10:00 – Opening
10:00-10:50 – Roberta Picardi, Cosmopolitan Right and Peace
11:00-11:50 – Hector Jimenez Garcia, Perpetual war, the nomos and a society of egoists: the contribution of Schmitt and Stirner to the Hegelian critique of Kant
12:00-12:50 – Ognian Kassabov, The Vast Graveyard of the Human Race: Kant on the Future of Warfare
15:00-15:50 – Petar Bojanić, Unjust enemy in Kant
16:00-16:50 – Bojana Jovićević, Kant on Perpetual Peace as Capacity
17:00-17:50 – Corina Mieth, Kant’s Cosmopolitanism and the Right Not to be Treated with Hostility
Friday, 8. November, Alma Karlin Hall
10:00-10:50 – Daniel Elon, The Potential Relevance of a Kantian Perspective for the Political Upheavals and Wars of the 21st Century
11:00-11:50 – Attay Kremer, Should We Say that War is Necessary?
12:00-12:50 – Levi Haeck, The actuality of evil as the ground of the possibility of the good
15:00-15:50 – Caecilie Varslev Pedersen, “Just as the Movements of the Winds Prevent the Seas from Stagnation”: Another Look at Hegel and War
16:00-16:50 – Martin Hergouth, Hegel on Modality of War
Saturday, 9 November, Alma Karlin Hall
10:00-10:50 – Anna Enström, A Peace without Peace. Kant’s ‘ewiger Friede’ and The Line – The Light (Peace Sculpture 1995)
11:00-11:50 – Yuval Kremnitzer, War is Senseless, or, how to end a War?
12:00-12:50 – Igor Cvejić, The Trap of Sublime Warfare
15:00-15:50 – Goran Vranešević, The Taste of War: Some Observations on Kant’s Aesthetics
16:00-16:50 – Alexei Krouglov, Kants Auffassung des Krieges
For further information, please visit the conference website.
