The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events

Abstract
In his Doctrine of Right, Kant explains that it is not philanthropy but rather a principle of right that enables humans to coexist peacefully on Earth, their home planet (AA 6: 252). Kant refers to the corresponding right, which arises from the fact that the Earth is a sphere, and thus we are »enclosed within certain boundaries,« as cosmopolitan right. It encompasses a right of visitation (AA 6: 353) but not a right to hospitality nor to residence. Rather than debating the appropriateness of this idea to contemporary international relations, I aim to apply it to humans as finite beings: Do we, because we are mortal, possess only a right of visitation, rather than an ownership right, concerning the world? Eva von Redecker coined the term »phantom ownership« to describe a remaining excessive sense of entitlement, which is often associated with a purely instrumental relationship toward other people and fellow creatures, their rights and the resources of our planet. Meanwhile, Hannah Arendt remarked in her famous interview with Günter Gaus that »when other people understand in the same sense as I have understood, then it gives me a satisfaction akin to a sense of being at home«. Renowned Arendt-scholar Seyla Benhabib regards Arendt’s concept of »home« as one of her significant contributions. I will follow the alleged contradiction of visiting status qua finites and the possibility of having a home in the world via asking what it means and what it takes to have a home. The answers I will try to give stem – besides from psychoanalytical accounts framing the problem as a secular one – from Arendt’s notion of the private and the public, her adaption of the Kantian concept of communicability and the political meaning of the sensus communis in the sphere of the oikos.

The speaker
Larissa Wallner received her doctorate from Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich in 2023 with a thesis on the concept of theoretical productivity of Kant. In 2024/25 she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften at the invitation of Professor Rainer Forst and the Justitia Centre for Advanced Studies funded by the Alfons and Gertrud Kassel Foundation.

Participation
Closed event. Contact: Beate Sutterlüty; email: b.sutterluety@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de