Immanuel Kant’s work on freedom of speech is not among the best-known parts of his philosophy, but has much to offer today’s discussions. Among his various arguments for freedom of speech, two share a basis in a notion of "cosmopolitan" speech, yet are very different. First, Kant argues that the public use of reason should be free among cosmopolitan citizens. Second, he claims that people have cosmopolitan rights to approach and communicate with others. Yet it is unclear what the relation between these two arguments is, and how they can contribute to today’s debates on the freedom of border-crossing communication.
