Michael Sonenscher, "After Kant: The Romans, the Germans, and the Moderns in the History of Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2023)

Jan 26, 2025

Michael Sonenscher, a Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, explores the evolution of modern political thought in light of Kant's philosophy. He reveals how Kant's questions about human lives and history reshaped ideologies, connecting ancient Roman and modern German perspectives. The discussion delves into Kant's legacy, the interplay of autonomy and perfectibility between Kant and Rousseau, and the rich historical ties of humanitarianism. Sonenscher's insights uncover the profound impact of these philosophical debates on contemporary political discourse.

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INSIGHT

Earlier Origins of Concepts

Many concepts attributed to later thinkers originated earlier, like Marx's "tragedy then farce" from Kant.
Kant's idea of "unsocial sociability" and the "death of God" also predate common understanding.

INSIGHT

Unsocial Sociability

Kant's "unsocial sociability" emphasizes humans forming societies too early and partially.
This leads to competition between societies with differing needs and resources.

INSIGHT

Palingenesis and Metamorphosis

Palingenesis, meaning rebirth, describes societal regeneration after destruction.
Kant viewed this more as metamorphosis, like a caterpillar changing to a moth, rather than true rebirth.

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In this wide-ranging work, Michael Sonenscher traces the origins of modern political thought and ideologies to a question, raised by Immanuel Kant, about what is involved in comparing individual human lives to the whole of human history. How can we compare them, or understand the results of the comparison? Kant’s question injected a new, future-oriented dimension into existing discussions of prevailing norms, challenging their orientation toward the past. This reversal made Kant’s question a bridge between three successive sets of arguments: between the supporters of the ancients and moderns, the classics and romantics, and the Romans and the Germans. Sonenscher argues that the genealogy of modern political ideologies—from liberalism to nationalism to communism—can be connected to the resulting discussions of time, history, and values, mainly in France but also in Germany, Switzerland, and Britain, in the period straddling the French and Industrial revolutions.

What is the genuinely human content of human history? Everything begins somewhere—democracy with the Greeks, or the idea of a res publica with the Romans—but these local arrangements have become vectors of values that are, apparently, universal. The intellectual upheaval that Sonenscher describes involved a struggle to close the gap, highlighted by Kant, between individual lives and human history. After Kant is an examination of that struggle’s enduring impact on the history and the historiography of political thought.

Michael Sonenscher is a fellow of King’s College at the University of Cambridge. His many books include Before the Deluge (Princeton), Sans-Culottes (Princeton), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

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