Cosmopolitanism

According to Eurocentric narratives the concept of

cosmopolitanism has a rich lineage beginning its life with
Diogenes’ (c. 412 BC – 323 BC) cry to be a “citizen of the
world” and then being most commonly associated with the
Stoics, Pauline Christianity, and Enlightenment thinkers such
as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). This expresses the core idea
shared by some cosmopolitan thinkers that all human beings
belong to a single community and the ultimate units of moral
or theoretical concern are individual human beings, and not
the state or particular forms of human association. However,
critiques of Kant in particular note the limitations to who is
included in, and excluded from, European understandings of
humanity. Kant’s understanding of racial hierarchies excluded
those he understood to be less than human from his moral
frames and therefore from ethical treatment and cosmopolitan
engagement (see Charles W. Mills 1997). (1)

Further, ‘cosmopolitanism’ itself is not a Western universal.

The cosmopolitan desire does not emanate from one epistemic
location. It is found in traditions globally. This desire has
been shaped from a diverse legacy of epistemologies,
ontologies, methodologies, and imaginaries other than those
developed in the Western academy. As such, cosmopolitan
thought can be found within the diverse ancient works of
numerous Egyptians, Hebrews, Chinese, Ethiopians, Assyrians,
and Persians (see Brown & Held, 2010:3—4; for a wide ranging
and important discussion of non-Western and pre-modern forms
of cosmopolitanism, see Webb 2015).

Historically, another cry for human connectedness was

formulated alongside that of Diogenes and comes from Buddhism
(See Ward 2013, for an account of Buddhist cosmopolitanism).
As Dharwadker (2001: 7) states, the cosmopolitan argument of
an inclusive idea of humanity and our interconnectedness put
forward by the Buddha foreshadows the Greek formulation of
cosmopolitanism in interesting ways. Similarly, in the work of
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) we find a challenge to
overcome uncritical loyalty to nationalism and to build a
world not broken into fragments (Tagore 2008; See also Rao
2012 and Bose 2006).

From the African tradition of Ubuntu, Desmond Tutu also brings

a similar perspective in which “my humanity is caught up and
inextricably bound up in yours.” As Ngcoya (2015) states such
a view promotes a reflective sense of interdependence which
stresses that our identity and potential for being human is
realized through our engagement with others. Such an
understanding is articulated in the expression: Umuntu umuntu
ngabantu (a person is a person because of/by/ through other
people). Such a principle states that the ethical foundations
of a just society are not to be found in material gain but
through the development of ethical relationships based on
reciprocity, hospitality and through recognizing our
interconnectedness.
From the tradition of Confucianism, we find a similar account
of the connectedness of being human and also of our
responsibility to others that can be understood as having
cosmopolitan themes. In Confucianism’s concern for “all under
Heaven” (tianxia), stands an ethical concern and
responsibility for literally all that is under heaven.
Following on from this is a distinctive principle of the
“unity of Heaven and man” that refutes any opposition between
man and nature. Lastly, the idea that if one has developed as
a person one should contribute to society (See Young and Sang
2014).

The work of Walter Mignolo crosses time and space to explore

consciousness in an effort to understand how we have
collectively arrived at this place and what possibilities are
available to us for the future. He has attempted over a long
career to provide space through which various anti-colonial,
post-colonial and de-colonial epistemologies can exist and
connect in order to provide opportunities for new ways of
seeing the world. Mignolo too sees the creative possibilities
incumbent in the cosmopolitan imagination. However, in his
concept of border thinking the opportunity for change occurs
at the epistemic and ontic border between the marginalised and
modernity. Border thinking then becomes a ‘tool’ of the
project of critical cosmopolitanism and a ‘future planetary
epistemological and critical localism’ (Mignolo, 2012[ 2000]:
157). This would not aim at the creation of a universal
ideological position but instead emphasises the acceptance of
different ways of being, not by positing a “blueprint of a
future and ideal society projected from a single point of view
[that of abstract universals] that will return us [again] to
the Greek paradigms and European legacies” (Mignolo 2000:
744), but by being reflexive about one’s own, and more
importantly, the ‘Other’s’ standpoint.
Essential Reading:

Mignolo, W. (2000). The Many Faces of Cosmo-Polis: Border

Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitanism. Public Culture, 12(3),
721-748.

Rao, R. (2012). ‘Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism: Making Place

for Nationalism.’ In: Tripathy, Jyotirmaya and Padmanabhan,
Sudarsan, (eds.), The Democratic Predicament: Cultural
Diversity in Europe and India. New Delhi: Routledge, pp.
165-187.

Tagore, S. (2008). Tagore’s Conception of Cosmopolitanism: A

Reconstruction. University of Toronto quarterly, 77 (4, fall),
1070-1084.

Webb, A. K. (2015). Deep Cosmopolis: Rethinking World Politics

and Globalization. Abingdon: Oxon: Routledge.

Further Reading:

Dharwadker, V. (2001). Cosmopolitanism in Its Time and Place.

In V. Dharwadker (Ed.), Cosmopolitan Geographies: New
Locations in Literature and Culture (pp. 1-14). New York:
Routledge.

Flikschuh, Katrin and Lea Ypi (eds) 2014. Kant and

Colonialism: Historical and Critical Perspectives. Oxford
University Press.

Mills, C. W. (1997). The Racial Contract. Cornell University

Press.

Nandy, A. (1998). A New Cosmopolitanism: Toward a Dialogue of

Asian Civilizations. In K.H. Chen (Ed.), Trajectories: Inter-
Asia Cultural Studies (pp. 142-149). London and New York:
Routledge.

Ngcoya, M. (2015). Ubuntu: Toward an Emancipatory

Cosmopolitanism? International Political Sociology, 9,
248–262.

Ward, E. (2013). Human Suffering and the Quest for

Cosmopolitan Solidarity: A Buddhist Perspective. Journal of
International Political Theory, 9(2), 136-154.

Young-Do Park, Sang-Jin Han. (2014). Another Cosmopolitanism:

A Critical Reconstruction of the Neo-Confucian Conception of
Tianxiaweigong (天下爲公) in the Age of Global Risks. Development
and Society, 43 (2) 185-206.

Footnote:

(1) However, as Katrin Flikschuh and Lea Ypi point out there
is a developmental trajectory, though underdeveloped, in
Kant’s writings on cosmopolitanism in respect of European
relations with the non-European that is often not included in
literature critical of Kant’s cosmopolitanism.

Questions:

1) Can you describe the ‘cosmopolitan imagination’?

2) After your reading of accounts of cosmopolitanism do you

think that “… to belong or not to belong is the cosmopolitan
question”? (Beck 2003).

3) The cosmopolitan is apparently arguing that cultures are

incomplete and that each culture can learn from other
cultures. What do you think they could mean by this? Can you
give some examples?
Submitted by Michael Murphy

Image Credit: “Awareness of Between-ness” between Memory and

Self. Miho Watanabe | Artist | Sydney | 2014.