Abstract
Undoubtedly, when we speak about ‘Europe’ it is far from clear whether this name designates a concept, a notion, or an idea. Yet, if ‘Europe’ is a task — in fact, an infinite task, as has been suggested throughout the reflections on Europe within phenomenological thought from Husserl to Derrida — then its determination as a task entails that ‘Europe’ is, first and foremost, an idea rather than a concept. As a concept, that is, as a cognitive representation, Europe would necessarily have to be something unified, something that holds a multiplicity of geographical entities and histories together in one whole, through one essence, which would be difficult, if not impossible, to assert both geographically and historically. Indeed, a concept of Europe would require the conclusive determinateness, or definite outlining, of its object within its particular limits. If Europe is not a reality that a concept could make known to us, however, to speak about Europe as an idea suggests, at first, that it is just that: merely, solely an idea, in short, a nebulous or ambiguous representation to which nothing really corresponds from an empirical perspective. But if an idea does not present its object by way of complete determination of the elementary components of its essence but only highlights certain moments of it, is it not because the idea, as opposed to the concept, suggests that the object is incomplete, that there is something missing?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
François Jullien, De l’Universel, de l’uniforme, du commun et du dialogue ente les cultures (Paris: Fayard 2008), 271.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. W. Kaufman (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 65.
Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson (New York: MacMillan Company, 1931), 397–398.
Immanuel Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, trans. M. Gregor et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 440.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998a), 402.
Hermann Cohen, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1918), 640.
See Eric Weil, Problèmes kantiens (Paris: Vrin, 1963).
Jacques Denida and Anne Dufourmantelle, Of Hospitality, trans. R. Bowlby (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 141.
Giovanna Bonadori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 133.
Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, trans. D. Allison (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 101–102.
Jacques Denida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. P.-A. Brault and M. Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005b), 135.
Jacques Derrida, ‘Double mé moire,’ in Le Thé âtre des idé es. 50 penseurs pour comprendre le XXIe siècle, ed. N. Traong (Paris: Flammarion, 2008), 15.
Jacques Derrida, Politics of Friendship, trans. H. Collins (London: Verso, 1997), 79.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Rodolphe Gasché
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gasché, R. (2014). Is ‘Europe’ an Idea in the Kantian Sense?. In: Lindberg, S., Ojakangas, M., Prozorov, S. (eds) Europe Beyond Universalism and Particularism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137361820_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137361820_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47242-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-36182-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political Science CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)