Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society

Please join us for our 1st reading group of the year this Tuesday, 10/7, from 6:30-8:30pm in Harper 135! This week we are discussing the idea of civil society and the foundations of Bourgeois society.

Please come prepared to discuss the following readings (•required/+recommended):

• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)
( http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/kant/universal-history.htm)
( http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/kant/enlightenment.htm)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms
( https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/cutrone_beingbecoming082217.pdf)

+Kant's 3 Critiques ( https://platypus1917.org/cutrone_kant3critiques033020b/) and philosophy ( https://platypus1917.org/cutrone_kant3critiques033020philosophyb/) charts of terms

• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)
( http://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/constant_liberty.pdf)

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origin of inequality (1754)
( https://constitution.org/2-Authors/jjr/ineq.htm)

+ Rousseau, selection from On the social contract (1762)
( https://constitution.org/2-Authors/jjr/socon.htm)

You can also get a list of the readings, plus the readings themselves, at the following location:


https://platypus1917.org/2025/07/09/platypus-primary-marxist-reading-group-summer-and-fall-2025-winter-2026/

(Note these readings are under the title "Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society")

Also check out other Arts events in Lemont, Literary Art events in Lemont.