Somos conflictivos, pero... Actualidad de la tesis de Kant sobre la insociable sociabilidad de los humanos y su prolongación por parte de Hegel

Abstract

In this paper we address Kant’s thesis of human beings’ unsocial sociability and a number of related themes such as perpetual peace, cosmopolitanism and patriotism and how this thesis was extended by Hegel. We consider Kant’s thesis to be a more suitable framework with which to observe modern- day reality than that offered by many of the political and social theories that are currently in use. Although there is no doubt that Kant was a moral philosopher, this thesis shows a certain degree of distrust of mere moral imperatives. The latter are, on their own, ineffective for «humanizing humanity». Today we know that rationality expressed through language is what distinguishes us as a species. However, it is likely that this is not what constitutes us as individuals of this species. Unsocial sociability works well as a conceptual framework with which to address the current difficulties facing democracies, in both the international sphere and in the sphere of their internal pluralism of a cultural and, in some cases, a national, nature. Kant and Hegel are philosophers of History because both offer ways to overcome many conflicts through politics. From a contemporary perspective, unsocial sociability is a concept which complements —in an individual dimension (Kant) as well as in a socio-political dimension (Hegel)— what is an unavoidable feature of the contemporary world: the pluralism of values, interests and identities, which are usually agonistic in nature, and which are endowed with emotional components.