Is ‘Europe’ an Idea in the Kantian Sense?

Abstract

Undoubtedly, when we speak about ‘Europe’ it is far from clear whether this name designates a concept, a notion, or an idea. Yet, if ‘Europe’ is a task — in fact, an infinite task, as has been suggested throughout the reflections on Europe within phenomenological thought from Husserl to Derrida — then its determination as a task entails that ‘Europe’ is, first and foremost, an idea rather than a concept. As a concept, that is, as a cognitive representation, Europe would necessarily have to be something unified, something that holds a multiplicity of geographical entities and histories together in one whole, through one essence, which would be difficult, if not impossible, to assert both geographically and historically. Indeed, a concept of Europe would require the conclusive determinateness, or definite outlining, of its object within its particular limits. If Europe is not a reality that a concept could make known to us, however, to speak about Europe as an idea suggests, at first, that it is just that: merely, solely an idea, in short, a nebulous or ambiguous representation to which nothing really corresponds from an empirical perspective. But if an idea does not present its object by way of complete determination of the elementary components of its essence but only highlights certain moments of it, is it not because the idea, as opposed to the concept, suggests that the object is incomplete, that there is something missing?