In my previous post I reflected on Nelson Maldonado-Torres’ concept of “Imperial Man,” the self-apotheosizing attitude of a conquistador like Cortés who sees himself and his desires as elevated above the people of color he colonizes, thereby setting up a paradigm of war through which world history gets constructed as the story of Europeans civilizing the globe through subordinating it. I reflected on how Kant’s philosophy of history plays into this paradigm of war, ironically undermining his desire for perpetual peace. I wish to further extend the theological implications of this way that Kant betrays his own best insights by reduplicating the Leibnizian theodicy he criticizes. In other words, in straining to see social inequality as justified—in straining for empirical confirmation that Providence has…

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