Raef Zreik
Kant in Jerusalem
In recent years there has been a rising interest in Kant’s ideas on issues of race, ethnicity and colonialism. Some argue that he was an apologist who facilitated settler colonial projects, while others find enough critical edge in his writings on morality, law, justice and international relations which can be used to develop a critique of racial supremacy, colonial projects, as well as other forms of subjugation between people and nations.
This talk will engage in these debates not by dealing with historical issues but by thinking with Kant about the ongoing conflict in Palestine-Israel. Rather than
judging the situation in Palestine-Israel in the light of Kant’s moral-legal principles, the talk will take the opposite direction: to try to judge Kant in the light of the discussion surrounding Israel-Palestine, thus offering a critique of the universal in the light of the particular. Instead of asking what can we learn from Kant, I will ask what Kant could have learned from us—here and now in Palestine-Israel.
Raef Zreik is a jurist and political philosopher, graduate of Hebrew University, Columbia University and Harvard law school where he earned his doctorate that dealt with Kant’s concept of right titled Rereading Kant’s metaphysics of morals (2008). Now he teaches Jurisprudence at Ono academic college and moral and political philosophy at Tel Aviv College. His recent book, Kant’s struggle for Autonomy, was published in 2023. His fields of interest include legal and political
philosophy, Palestine-Israel, Zionism, politics of identity and citizenship.
Vortrag im Rahmen der Tagung Enlightenment in the World
Lecture at the conference Enlightenment in the World