Immanuel Kant is a famously difficult philosopher, but also undeniably an important one. It isn’t hard to argue that he belongs somewhere in the classical liberal tradition, but modern classical liberals are much more apt to cite the political theories of Locke, Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. Among those who follow Ayn Rand, Kant’s reputation is low; Rand notoriously called Kant the most evil philosopher of all time, and many now share her evaluation. But is it deserved?

Our lead essayist this month is Mark D. White, who says we should give Kant much more credit than we are often accustomed to giving him: Explicitly or implicitly, we base our political theory on Kant’s, he claims. Is he right? Replying to White this month we have three other philosophers: Stephen R. C. Hicks, Roderick T. Long, and Gregory Salmieri.

Discussion and comments will be enabled through the month, and we welcome your comments and questions for our panelists.