ABSTRACT

During the time Kant wrote Perpetual Peace, he was subject to a royal edict prohibiting him from public discussion of religious topics. Yet we know from Kant’s other writings that he associates ewigen Frieden (perpetual peace or peace everlasting) with his theological picture of the ethical community and the eschatological concept of the Kingdom of God on earth. It is the purpose of this chapter to propose that there may be more theology between the lines of Perpetual Peace than is made explicit therein. In particular, we focus on the antinomy between politics and morals and how it is informed by the “crooked wood” problematic presented in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason.