Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T18:25:15.934Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Kant or won’t: theory and moral responsibility (The BISA Lecture, December 1995)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2001

PHILIP ALLOTT
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge, UK

Abstract

Theory and morality

All history is the history of human consciousness.

To say such a thing is not merely to take a certain view of the metaphysics of history or of the epistemology of historiography - aligning oneself, perhaps, with R. G. Collingwood.R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford, 1946), p. 305. In An Autobiography (London, 1939), Collingwood said: 'My life's work ... has been in the main an attempt to bring about a rapprochement between philosophy and history' (p. 77). May greater success attend our efforts to reconcile philosophy and international studies! To say such a thing is itself a significant event within the history of human consciousness, an event whose ironical power is centred in the word 'is'. And that is really all I want to talk about this evening. The word 'is' - and the awful moral responsibility which rests on the shoulders of those of us who are masters of the word Is. Let us call ourselves isarchs, the ruling-class of Istopia. Let us call ourselves the Wizards of Is.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1997 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)