Peter Szendy's 'Kant chez les extraterrestres' Explores Alien Life in Philosophy

In his book 'Kant chez les extraterrestres: Philosofictions cosmopolitiques,' published by Les Éditions de Minuit, philosopher Peter Szendy shifts focus from music and listening to the role of extraterrestrial life in political philosophy. He argues that the hypothesis of alien beings is essential to thinkers like Immanuel Kant and Carl Schmitt, serving not as mere metaphor but as a conceptual tool to explore the limits of human thought and cosmopolitanism. Szendy traces the figure of the extraterrestrial in Kant's work from 1755's 'Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens' through the 'Critique of the Power of Judgment' and 'Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View,' where aliens become a model for defining human moral physiognomy. He then turns to Carl Schmitt, whose concept of the 'nomos' is challenged by spatial conquest and the idea of a free cosmic space as the condition for global law. Szendy coins the term 'philosofiction' to describe this method of using imagined worlds for conceptual work. The book argues that the occupation of the cosmos by humanity eliminates the political, as humanity has no enemy in space.