Content area
Full Text
For Harmut Rudolph, in recognition of his unfailing support
Leibniz is not usually numbered among the precursors of Kant's essay Zum ewigen Frieden (1795), which played an important role in the last two centuries and presented its author as the first philosopher of our era not only to study the political measures needed to ensure peace but also to elevate the suppression of war to a moral duty, as expressed in his famous statement: "our moral-practical reason utters within us its irrevocable veto: there ought not to be war"1. Undoubtedly, the merit of Kant's work lies in his analysis of the concept of peace and the assumptions he makes from a philosophical standpoint, as the subtitle of his essay, A philosophical project, makes clear. At the same time, the essay systematises ideas on federalism among Free States, on universal cosmopolitan law and on the elimination of standing armies: these are the pillars upon which the international law of the United Nations will be raised. Nevertheless, his proposals are indebted to some earlier projects, such as those of the Abbé de Saint- Pierre or Jean-Jacques Rousseau2, to name only the nearest ones, since among the forerunners of the pacifist movement who demanded European unification as a condition of peace, one would have to mention, among others, Erasmus of Rotterdam, L. Vives, S. Frank, E. Crucé, M. de Béthune (Duke of Sully), A. Comenius, W. Penn or Leibniz himself. In a previous work I examined the "pre-history" of Kant's essay3; in this work I shall focus on Leibniz's criticism of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre's Perpetual Peace Project, especially insofar as it may be said to criticise Kant's proposals avant la lettre, in order to show how up-to-date Leibniz's political point of view is on European and world unity. In this respect I shall be looking for the historical roots of a problem that is now discussed in international forums.
As I see it, Leibniz's philosophy provides a metaphysical basis of universalism for the confederalist approach, which is lacking in the Europe-focused proposals of Rousseau and the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, and to which Kant's cosmopolitanism will later return.
All of Leibnizian philosophy is a quest for harmony, for the reconciliation of opposing elements. This disposition is what...