Valdai Club

Reason and individualism are important components of civilisational development, although they are not the only components. The key focus for discussions about the development of civilisation should therefore be the limits of reason. Is the pre-modern heavy luggage slowing down development, or is it the foundational building block of civilisation as the primordial instincts of human nature cannot be transcended?

Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace, long considered one of the jewels in the Enlightenment’s crown imagining true, well-founded and lasting peace, provides the philosophical basis of the war that the West is today waging against the World Majority, specifically against Russia, with China also in its sights, in the name of the Rules Based International Order (RUBIO), writes Radhika Desai, Professor of the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba (Canada), for the Valdai Club session at the International Kant Congress, titled “Reason and Progress? History of Civilisations Turned to the Future”.

The original, Kantian, if you like, anthropology will be common to everyone. If this is so, we have the grounds for building a new world order, one which is organically acceptable for the entire planet. It remains for us, also in the Kantian way, to hope for this.

It appears that humanity is once again approaching a significant turning point, where the cumulative impact of the costs associated with progress may lead to further calamities and disruptions. These events could serve as a powerful impetus for the human mind to reflect upon its limitations, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.