Talk
Radical Universalism with Omri Boehm

Part of our Double Exposure series, on what the idea of solidarity means in different contexts

Wed, 09/25/2024
6:30 PM Goethe-Institut New York

"We hold these truth to be self evident, that all men are created equal". So begins the US Declaration of Independence. "Human Dignity is inviolable". So begins the German Basic Law. Can we still stand by the universalist humanism that's expressed in these statements? Or is the tradition of enlightenment universalism that they embody - based as it is in Kant's thinking - the expression of colonial Eurocentrism that crushes identities and enables injustice? In this talk, Omri Boehm will address the difficult questions of identity politics, universalist tradition and the critique of universalism from a Kantian perspective, touching also the difficult conversations about the post-colonial left on the one hand and international law on the other. 
 

Omri Boehm is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research, focusing on Kant, Early Modern Philosophy and on the philosophy of religion. He has also written extensively on Israel and Palestine. Among his publications are Kant's Critique of Spinoza (Oxford University Press, 2014), Haifa Republic (New York Review Books, 2020) and Radikaler Universalismus (Propyläen, 2022), for which he received the Leipzig Book-Award for European Understanding. Together with the author Daniel Kehlmann, he has published Der bestirnte Himmel über mir: Ein Gespräch über Kant (Propyläen, 2024). Boehm's writings have been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Haaretz, Die Zeit and F.A.Z., among others.

about Double Exposure

Double Exposure, a series of talks and discussions, focuses on the question of what the idea of solidarity means in different contexts.

What constitutes a society based on solidarity? Is there a right to solidarity? Is solidarity a duty? To whom is solidarity practiced? - These questions will be explored from a transatlantic perspective. In discussions between German and US philosophers and experts such as Omri Boehm, Susannah Heschel, Jan-Werner Müller and Susan Neiman, the differences and similarities on both sides of the Atlantic will be debated when it comes to what holds a society together.

Double Exposure is a project organized by the Goethe-Instituts North America in collaboration with the American Council on Germany and funded by the Executive Board of the Goethe-Institut.