Università Roma Tre

The course will try to delineate the possible relationship between Kant's writing on history, politics and right and the concepts of "right" and "justice" in Walter Benjamin's theory of politics of the early Twenties.

We will examinate Kant's writings on history, politics and right, among them them "Metaphysical first Principles of the Doctrine of Right" (in the "Metaphisics of Moral"), "What Is Enlightenment?", "On perpetual Peace", "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" and others.
We will relate these writings to Benjamin's writings on politics, among them the "Critique of violence" and the "Theological-political Fragment" (1920-21).

Immanuel Kant, "Scritti di storia, politica e diritto", a cura di Filippo Gonnelli, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1995. (English version)
Immanuel Kant, "La metafisica dei costumi”, Parte prima, "Principi metafisici della dottrina del diritto", pp. 3-51 e paragrafi 43-62, pp. 139-195, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 1991 (or other editions). (English version)
Walter Benjamin, La politica e altri scritti. Frammenti III, cura di Dario Gentili, Mimesis 2016.

Optional: "Massimiliano Tomba, La "vera politica". Kant e Benjamin: la possibilità della giustizia, Quodlibet, Macerata 2006.