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Aleksandar Molnar
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade.
Challenging Power Politics in the politeia Republicanism
In the article the author discusses the emergence and the disappearance of early connection between the strong republican aversion to power politics and the consequential anti-imperialism (which was oriented against authoritarian supranational formations ranging from Athenian hegemony to the Roman Empire). First impulses towards shaping a republican political theory (by Athenian philosophers in the 4th century B.C.) he identifies in an increased interest in the state organization of the winning party in the Peloponnesian war that had knocked down Athenian hegemony – Sparta. At the end of the article the author describes how Christian political thought took root in the bosom of the Roman Empire, with its controversial eschatology of the Kingdom of God on Earth, which would subsequently undergo versatile ideological transformations in Europe.
Boundaries of Enlightened Absolutism: Kant and Frederick the Great
This article presents the ambivalent attitude of Immanuel Kant towards Frederick the Great. Although he died before Kant wrote his critical writings in the field of legal and political philosophy, Friedrich left such a strong influence on Kant’s ideas that even the French Revolution failed to suppress. Because of this influence Kant was never able to develop all the liberal potentials of his legal and political philosophy, nor to make a consequent distinction, elaborated in the scriptures about eternal peace, between despotism and the republic, especially the best ones – monarchist – over which hovered a permanent shadow of Kant's favourite ruler – Frederick.