Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2011
Liberal democracy has long been recognized ‘in principle’ as the political project of modern times. This is not a political philosophy of which we can say that it has followed the words of Hegel and taken flight only with the falling of the dusk. Rather it is a philosophy which observes the Aristotelian maxim that ‘the end aimed at is not knowledge but action’, and therefore concerns itself with a perspective from which the thought of its own recognition is still in question. This thought is the one of international order. Here the figure of Kant steps forth in the role of philosophical and political avant-garde.