Volume 20, No. 2, Fall 2025

FORTHCOMING

The Idea of Europe

Kant's Treatise on Peace as a Draft for an International Peace Order
Ulrich W. Diehl | Heidelberg, Germany

Immanuel Kant's treatise on perpetual peace has been highly influential in international law, but it is hardly studied by politicians anymore. In his treatise, Kant has extended the idea of the social contract to relations among nations in order to contribute to lasting peace among them and their peoples. This essay outlines the key concepts and main principles Kant proposed, and I investigate how they could still be received and understood by the regimes and peoples of the three current hegemonic powers, China, Russia, and the United States. It is sometimes assumed that humanity is currently moving from a bipolar to a multipolar world order. However, there are two important factors that cause tensions around the idea of a so-called liberal world order governed by the rules of international law: Hegemonic powers do rarely follow these rules and instead adhere to historical myths about their own importance and special role among other nations. In the case of the United States, this historical myth is the rather messianic idea of American exceptionalism. Although the European Union is economically, militarily, and politically dependent on the United States, it tends to conceive of itself not as a mere vassal of the United States, but rather even as the vanguard of Western civilization.

Keywords: Kant, Immanuel; perpetual peace; international law; hegemonic powers; liberal world order; People's Republic of China; Russian Federation; United States of America.

Who is European Now? From Karl Jaspers to the War Against Ukraine
Mats Andrén | University of Gothenburg, Sweden

After the Second World War, Karl Jaspers and others in the community of philosophers and intellectuals were eagerly reflecting on Europe, Europeanness, and the future of Europe. After 1989, philosophers returned to pondering these questions yet again. My essay addresses how the idea of Europe has been reflected in these historical times, with a focus on three speeches, namely, one held by Karl Jaspers, one by José Ortega y Gasset, and one by Jacques Derrida. From this exploration, key themes are selected, with special attention given to the idea of Europe in the wake of Russia's war against Ukraine, which began on 24 February 2022.

Keywords: Ortega y Gasset, José; Derrida, Jacques; European identity; national sovereignty; Europeanness; Ukraine; Russian Federation.

Europe between Athens and Rome: Phenomenological Discourses on Europe in Hannah Arendt, Reiner Schürmann, and Jan Patočka
Golfo Maggini | University of Ioannina, Greece

This essay examines the Greek and Roman origins of Europe through Hannah Arendt's political phenomenology and its encounter with Reiner Schürmann's topology of hegemonic phantasms as well as Jan Patočka's phenomenology of history. I argue that the tension between the Greek polis and the Roman triad of foundation, authority, and law shaped Europe's political identity and determined the trajectory of political modernity. By tracing the translation of Greek conceptuality into Latin, the essay offers a phenomenological interpretation of Europe's historical formation and contemporary crisis.

Keywords: Greek polis; Roman law; authority; hegemonic phantasms; phenomenology of history; care of the soul.

Europe Beyond the Wrecking
Laura Tușa-Ilea | Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania

In this essay, I propose an idea of how to conceive Europe that takes into account the failure of a model of Promethean expansion which led to the historical catastrophes of the twentieth century. Moreover, just as the flourishing civilizations of the Druids and of Troy disappeared, so too new values may emerge starting from the disquieting perspective of the end of the actual civilization. Paradoxically, instead of recreating bunkers or time shelters, as the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov calls them, this very constitutive situation, on the contrary, proposes by way of integrating the "myth of the Minotaur"—who is the abandoned and expelled one—"catalogs of the perishable" (Gospodinov), "life on the edge" (Volodymyr Yermolenko and Tetyana Ogarkova), "ethics of the passerby" (Achille Mbembe), and "intellectual nomadism" (Elif Shafak). By opening dialogues with writers and thinkers such as Amin Maalouf, Milan Kundera, Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, and Jan Patočka, the essay proposes an idea of homeland—not in the form of identity politics, but of fictional politics capable of leaving behind more enduring traces than the specters of contemporary wars.

Keywords: Greek polis; intellectual nomadism; political failure; need for roots; life on the edge; histories of the Unhappened; the Minotaur myth.

The Idea of Europe and Beyond: Husserl, Patočka, Derrida, Spivak
Eddo Evink | Open University, Netherlands

This essay aims to articulate a few answers to the question of what remains of the idea of Europe. After a brief outline of this idea in the work of Edmund Husserl, the thoughts on Europe by Jan Patočka and Jacques Derrida are discussed and then compared to the views of Gayatri Spivak. Finally, several insights into the idea of Europe emerge from comparing these different viewpoints.

Keywords: phenomenology; deconstruction; responsibility; postcolonialism; post-Europe.

Uncovering Heidegger's Philosophy in The Little Prince
Victoria Desimoni | Arizona State University

This essay explores Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince through a Heideggerian lens, arguing that the book engages with deep existential themes such as authenticity, dwelling, and the role of the poet. By drawing on Martin Heidegger's philosophical framework, the analysis reveals how Saint-Exupéry critiques modernity and the loss of meaningful rootedness in an increasingly cosmopolitan and technological world. The essay emphasizes the alignment between Heidegger’s notion of the poet as a thinker and Saint-Exupéry's literary project, particularly in addressing the crises of meaning and Being. By combining literary and philosophical insights, it demonstrates how The Little Prince serves as an accessible yet profound exploration of existential questions, reaching audiences beyond those of traditional philosophical discourse.

Keywords: De Saint-Exupéry, Antoine; Heidegger, Martin; Dasein; existentialism; authenticity; meaning; dwelling; phenomenology; literature and philosophy.