Abstract

Within the vast semantic plurality of the concept of utopia, the essay privileges its dimension as a negative critical exercise capable of demystifying the necessity of reality, above all the possibility that the past and the present exhaust the surplus potential of the future. This declination of utopia is analysed in relation to Kant’s reflection on perpetual peace and order between states, a realm of reality in which the discomfort with the present is translated into thinking capable of transformation. The concepts of progress, prudence and acceleration are critically analysed in order to show how Kant’s original and innovative reflection on politics, including international politics, can be configured in terms of a pragmatic utopia