| Abstract [eng] |
Throughout human history, there has been a constant and ever-new tension between the universalist ideal of the unity of humanity and the particularist reality of the fragmentation of humanity into limited states and nations. The transformation of Western Christianity into modernity has made a Christian solution to the problem of unity impossible. In the emerging system of absolute sovereign states, this tension has taken on a new form in the dilemma of nationalism and cosmopolitanism. The ideal of the unity of mankind, and later of the unity of Europe as it understood itself, was gradually formulated. However, this Europe was not being renovated, but was being created as an entirely new reality - an arena for the dissemination of the modern individual. It could only be united on entirely new foundations. The thesis analyses how the philosophy of S. Pufendorf, G. Leibniz, I. Kant and finally F. Nietzsche created the preconditions for the refinement of the perspectives for the political unity of modern Europe. It was Nietzsche who stated that the unification of modern Europe was only possible at the expense of nations and nation states. The political projects for European unity that emerged in the middle of the 20th century offered different strategies for dealing with this conclusion. The strategy of avoiding the political question, which has so far ensured the viability of the European Union, is reaching the end of its tether. |
