Acknowledgments Preface 1. Introduction: Historical Understanding and Human Action 2. Kant's Conjecturalism 3. Cultivating the Ethical Commonwealth: Kant's Religion and Reason in History 4. Benjamin's Modernism 5. Modernist-Materialist Criticism and Human Possibility: Benjamin's One-Way Street and Traces of Free Life 6. Self-Unity and History Bibliography

"What is the relation between the contingency of our historical situation and the universal ambitions of our moral and political norms? Just that there must always be a relation, each forever putting the other to the test. Richard Eldridge's penetrating examination of the philosophies of history of Kant and Benjamin illuminates this simple but profound insight."-- Paul Guyer, Brown University "Richard Eldridge has written a sustained reflection on the question of the historical actualization of human freedom and on the character of a genuinely historical human agency...Eldridge's book is a significant contribution to the renewed interest in problems of the philosophy of history and their relevance for contemporary moral and political philosophy in the Anglo-American tradition. The approach that Eldridge presents and in particular the continuity that he finds with the Kantian project offers a distinct and important alternative reading to recent appropriations of Benjamin's work in continental philosophy." -- Eli Friedlander, Tel Aviv University "Deftly bridging the rationalist/Continental divide, Eldridge accommodates the fact or fiction, modernist/postmodernist potential antagonisms and focuses on confounding given/constructed historical storied landscapes of Western culture. He demonstrates how the philosophical confrontations of rationalist Immanuel Kant and postmodernist Walter Benjamin contrast but are not necessarily in opposition...Despite the potentially existential malaise brought on by history, Eldridge remains optimistic as new possibilities of disclosure reveal themselves to individuals in lived historical experiences, enlivening a sense of freely chosen self-identity." -- CHOICE "Eldridge's book not only enriches our grasp of its two principal authors and our appreciation of the problems of historical understanding. It is a refreshing departure from a strong tendency in contemporary philosophy to convey the nostrum that suitable mutually recognizing discourses and rational norm-giving are adequate to satisfy our intelligent sense of life with its complexity and its intractable problems. Eldridge writes of 'the temptation, wish, or fantasy to find an absolute ground both of assurance in linguistic performance and of the achievement of practical self-unity and reasonable self-presentation under an intelligible role' (188). His lively and penetrating study of Kant and Benjamin should help to firm up resistance to this temptation." -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "Eldridge's is both a brilliant scholarly study in its own right and a beacon of hope for those seeking to find their way anew in the mired field of the contemporary humanities...anyone seeking a lucid and revealing introduction to the work of Benjamin, or a compact précis of the difficulties posed by Kant's incipient philosophy of history, could not do better than to read Eldridge's incisive and enlightening book." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "I found this book to be highly original and provocative in the way it creates a force field of interpretations around Kant and Benjamin's seemingly diverse pursuits. Drawing on each separately and together, Eldridge provides a compelling and convincing picture of what it means to be human and how to actualize freedom in history." --The Review of Metaphysics

Selling point: Presents a philosophical anthropology (a general conception of human beings as having interests and powers) of human beings as historical beings, capable of active, critical reflection on historical affordances Selling point: Argues that effective, critical, normative moral-political philosophy and historical understanding that includes reference to ideals require each other Selling point: Provides detailed readings of both Kant and Benjamin as developing critical, philosophical anthropologies as the general frameworks for their treatments of specific topics

Richard Eldridge is Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College. He has held visiting appointments at Essex, Stanford, Bremen, Erfurt, Freiburg, Brooklyn, and Sydney. He is the author of 5 books and over 100 articles in aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of literature, and Romanticism and Idealism. He has edited 4 volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Literature, and he is the Series Editor of Oxford Studies in Philosophy and Literature.

Selling point: Presents a philosophical anthropology (a general conception of human beings as having interests and powers) of human beings as historical beings, capable of active, critical reflection on historical affordances Selling point: Argues that effective, critical, normative moral-political philosophy and historical understanding that includes reference to ideals require each other Selling point: Provides detailed readings of both Kant and Benjamin as developing critical, philosophical anthropologies as the general frameworks for their treatments of specific topics