Nationality from a Philosophical Point of View: Kant’s Critique of Hume on the Concept of National Character
Nationality from a Philosophical Point of View: Kant’s Critique of Hume on the Concept of National Character

Summary/Abstract: The intellectual foundations of the concept of the nation and its relationship with other forms of belonging, such as ethnicity, race, and citizenship, are often overlooked. This study examines Kant’s critique of Hume on the concept of national character and its role in the Enlightenment-era conceptual differentiation between “nation” and “race.” The study begins by examining the interpretation of ethnic belonging in European intellectual thought before the Enlightenment, with a focus on the paradigm shift of the 18th century. It then explores how 17th- and 18th-century thinkers conceptualized ‘nation,’ ‘race,’ and related social categories, providing the intellectual backdrop for Kant’s critique of Hume. The analysis identifies the epistemological foundations that separated their positions −Hume’s empiricist particularism versus Kant’s rationalist-teleological universalism− and argues that this confrontation constitutes one important episode in the intellectual genealogy of the primordialist-constructivist divide that has long structured contemporary nationalism studies.

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