Upplysning, romantik, nation och stat: Ideér om nation och stat från Kant till Hegel

Sammanfattning: In the debate surrounding the genealogy of nationalism, the link has often been made between nationalism and the intellectual history of eighteenth century Germany — particularly to the German philosophers associated with transcendental idealism. Are such claims just, or are they simply the product of wishful thinking? If they are, to what extent? Is it fair, as Elie Kedouri once famously put it, that nationalism is an ideology invented in Germany in the beginning of the nineteenth century? The following is a swift exposé of eighteenth century philosophical history in Germany from a political perspective that investigates the possible contributions to nationalistic thinking in the four prominent philosophers of the era: Kant, Herder, Fichte and Hegel.