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Cosmopolitanism and Beyond: Towards A Multiverse of Transformations
Edited By
Ananta Kumar Giri Madras Institute of Development Studies
Foreword by
Professor Fred R. Dallmayr University of Notre Dame, USA.
For Bhikhu Parekh, Pratibha Roy, Sudipta Kaviraj and Rajeev Bhargava
Table of Contents
Foreword
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Fred R. Dallmayr
Preface
Cosmopolitanism and Beyond:An Invitation to Adventure of Ideas and Multiverse of Transformations
Ananta Kumar Giri
Part One:
Cosmopolitanism and Beyond: Alternative Pathways of Explorations and Experimentations
Cosmopolitanism and Beyond:Towards a Multiverse of Transformations
Ananta Kumar Giri
Cosmopolitanism Beyond Anthropocentrism:The Ecological Self and Transcivilizational Dialogue
John Clammer
Varieties of Cosmopolitanism
Nigel Dower
Cosmopolitanism, the Cognitive Order of Modernity, and Conflicting Models of World Openness: On the Prospects of Collective Learning
Piet Strydom
Ethics of Cosmopolitanism: The Confucian Tradition
Karl-Heinz Pohl
Tolstoy and Cosmopolitanism
Christian Bartolf
Cosmopolitanism, Spirituality and Social Action: Mahatma Gandhi and Rudolf Steiner
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Ulrich Ross
The Divergent Cosmopolitanisms of Hannah Arendt
Liz Sutherland
Cosmopolitanism as Hospitality: Revisiting Identity and Difference in Cosmopolitanism
Gideon Baker
Cosmopolitanism and an Ethics of Sacrifice
Scott Schaffer
Part Two: Cosmopolitanism and Beyond: Complex Histories, Inadequate Theories and the Challenges of Transformations
Inclusion and Exclusion in the Cosmopolis: Some Critical Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism
Anil K. Jain
Cosmopolitanism and Reconciliation in a Postcolonial World
Reinhardt Koessler
Corporealising Cosmopolitanism: The “Right” of Desire
Anjana Raghavan and Jyotirmaya Tripathy
Old and Emerging Cosmopolitan Traditions at the Malabar Coast of South India: A
study with Muslim students in Kozhikode, Kerala
Barbara Riedel
De-Orientalising Vernacular Cosmopolitanism:Towards a Local Cosmopolitan Ethics
Pnina Werbner
Music, Civil Rights Movements and Cosmopolitanism
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Christian Bartolf
Part Three: Cosmopolitanism and the Calling of Planetary Realizations
Some Conceptual and Structural Problems of Global Cosmopolitanism
Hauke Brunkhorst
Human Rights, Universalism and Cosmopolitanism
Vittorio Cotesta
Constructing a Cosmopolitan Public Sphere:Hermeneutic Capabilities and Universal Values
Hans-Herbert Kögler
New Possibilities for Cosmopolitanism after the Financial Crisis
Jacob Dahl Rendtorff
Intercultural Communication and Cosmopolitanism Gernot Saalman
From Shahrukh Khan to Shakira: Reflections on Aesthetic Cosmopolitism Among
Young French People
Vincenzo Cicchelli and Sylvie Octobre
Cosmopolitanism and Understanding in the Social Sciences
Boike Rehbein
Cultivating Humanity? Education and Capabilities for a Global ‘Great Transition’
Des Gasper and Shanti George
Afterword
Marcus Bussey
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Contributors (to be updated)
Gideon Baker is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University, Australia. He has published articles on international political theory,
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particularly on democracy and global civil society, and is currently writing a book on Cosmopolitanism as Hospitality. He is the author of Civil Society and Democratic Theory (Routledge, 2002); Global Civil Society: Contested Futures (co-edited with David Chandler, Routledge, 2005); and The Future of Political Community (co-edited with Jens Bartelson, Routledge, 2008).
Christian Bartolf is the Director of Gandhi Information Center, Berlin
Hauke Brunkhorst is Professor of Sociology at University of Flensburg and is the author of the much noted work Solidarity.
Vincenzo Chichelli teaches Sociology at Sorborne, Paris.
John Clammer is with United Nations University, Tokyo
Vittorio Cotesta is full Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Sciences of education at the University Roma Tre. He is members of the board of the series ISSA: Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropologypublished by Brill (Leiden, Holland). He is also the editor of the series Globus. Perspectives on Europe, Global Society, cosmopolitanism and human rights (Carocci Editore, Rome). He has conducted research on language, modernity, cultural processes, ethnic conflicts, global society and on European identity. His latest works are: Global Society and Human Rights.Leiden:Brill 2012; Sociology of ethnic conflicts. Roma-Bari:Laterza2009. Address: Prof. Vittorio Cotesta, Università degli Studi Roma TreFacoltà di Scienze della FormazioneVia Milazzo 11 B00185 RomaEmail: [email protected]
Fred Dallmayr is with University of Notre Dame, USA
Des Gasper is a Professor at Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands
Shanti George is an independent scholar based in The Hague, The NetherlandsAnil K. Jain is an artist and social scientist with special interest in: the current transformation processes of (post-)industrial societies; modernization and globalization; information society; theory of space/time; post-modernism and post-structuralism; class, difference and ethnicity; political economy; metaphors and representation – and everything else which is interesting. Currently, he is working as a researcher in a research project on »Innovation and Institutional Reflexivity« at the TU Chemnitz. Further information and text-downloads at: http://www.power-xs.net/jain
Reinhart Koessler teaches at AB Institute, Freiburg, Germany
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Hans-Herbert Kogler is Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, USA.Sylvie Octobre works at the Department of Culture, Government of France, Paris.Karl-Heinz Pohl is with University of Trier, Germany
Martine Prange teaches Philosophy at Leiden University, The Netherlands
Anjana Raghavan has completed her PhD at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras.
Boike Rehbein teaches Sociology at Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin
Jacob Dahl Rendetorf teaches Business Ethics at Roskilde University, Denmark
Barbara Reidel is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at University of Freiburg, Germany
ULRICH RÖSCH was born in 1951, in Germany at the border to Switzerland. He completed scholastics in Philosophy, Pedagogy, German Literature and Social Sciences. In 1971 active at the International Cultural Centre in Achberg/Lindau, Germany, in particular at the Institute for Social Development Research. He has mainly researched on alternative economic forms and development of organisations. Fellow research worker of Joseph Beuys, Wilfried Heidt, Leif Holbaek-Hanssen, Ota Sik and Wilhelm Schmundt. In 1976, he co-founded the Waldorf School in Wangen in the Allgäu and was the principal teacher there. Since 1999, working as a social scientist at the Goetheanum, Free University in Dornach/CH. His publications include: 'From Social Science to Social Art' (Wangen 1993), 'An Elucidation of Joseph Beuys’ Concepts of Money and Capital', (Wangen 1991), 'Another World is Possible-Elements for a Post-Materialistic Understanding of Globalisation', (Vienna 2003). Vision and action for another world. Powerful ideas and inspiring practical approaches. (Kolkata 2004)
Scott Scaffer teaches Sociology at University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
Gernot Saalmann, 1963, PhD (Freiburg)Research interests: Sociological theory (Practice theory), Sociology of knowledge and religion, Sociology of culture (esp. music and film), Globalization (focus: India).Recent publications include: “The encounter, exchange and hybridisation of cultures”. In: D. Schirmer/G. Saalmann/C. Kessler (Eds.), Hybridising East and West. Tales Beyond Westernisation: Empirical Contributions to the Debate on Hybridity. Berlin 2006, pp. 125-44.
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“Tendenzen der kulturellen Globalisierung in Indien“ (Tendencies of cultural globalization in India). In: B. Rehbein/K. West (Eds.), Globale Rekonfigurationen von Arbeit und Kommunikatrion. Konstanz 2009, pp. 131-46.
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Piet Strydom is a retired member of the School of Sociology and Philosophy, University College Cork, Ireland, and associate editor of the European Journal of Social Theory. Major publications include Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology (Routledge, 2011), New Horizons of Critical Theory: Collective Learning and Triple Contingency (Shipra, 2009), Risk, Environment and Society (Open UP, 2002),Discourse and Knowledge (Liverpool UP, 2000). He edited Philosophies of Social Science (Open UP, 2003, with Gerard Delanty) as well as special issues of the European Journal of Social Theoryand the Irish Journal of Sociology. Address: Department of Sociology, University College, Cork, Ireland. [email: [email protected]]
Jyotirmaya Tripathi teaches at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras
Pnina Werbner teaches sociology and anthropology at University of Keele, U.K.
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Foreword Globalization is a catch word of our time. Taken by itself, the term only refers to a process of spatial expansion - while leaving the ethical and political dimensions of the process in the dark. The real question, however, is what kind of people will inhabit this expanded space and in which manner will they do so? It is in reference to this issue that the term "cosmopolitanism" is commonly employed. Implicit in this word is the notion that people live somehow as "citizens of the world" and that their manner of living transforms the world into a precious shared habitat or "cosmos". What is conjured up by the latter term is not a soulless uniformity or bland monotony but rather the sense of a "coincidentia oppositorum": of a harmony in disharmony, of concord in discord, or a unity in the midst of staggering diversity.
Taken in this sense, cosmopolitanism is far removed from some prominent trends of our time. Almost everywhere we find a disturbing tendency to embrace discord and disharmony, a hankering for exclusive identity completely aloof of shared ways of life. In opposition to an earlier celebration of multiculturalism, we find in many places an upsurge of xenophobia, of national or ethnic chauvinism, of the desire to erect dividing walls and barriers between peoples. This is what the poet Heine described as the descent into a "shabby and coarse" kind of backwardness. To be sure, what is wrong here is not a certain attachment to "roots", a moderate and unassuming cultivation of local traditions and customs. Perversion enters when attachment becomes a source of ill will, hatred, and unilateral aggression.
Recognition of the darker sides of our time provides no dispensation from struggle. Precisely in view of the rising tide of xenophobia it is imperative to uphold the vision of cosmopolitanism. The present volume tries to do exactly this. The book does not only talk about cosmopolitanism but exemplifies in its own structure and content the meaning of the term. The chapters have been contributed by distinguished writers hailing from different corners of the world and approaching the topic from diverse angles or perspectives. The editor, Ananta Kumar Giri, is himself the epitome of a cosmopolitan scholar, having visited the majority of the world's countries and having acquired an enviable reputation as a multicultural, multi-lingual, and multifaceted intellectual. One can only wish this book the greatest possible circulation.
Fred Dallmayr
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Cosmopolitanism and Beyond: An Invitation to Adventures of Ideas and the Multiverse of Transformations
(to be finalized) Ananta Kumar Giri
Cosmopolitanism is an epochal challenge of our times in thought and practice.
But current discourse of it, like many discourses of our times, is primarily Euro-American
and parochial. In this context, the present volumes presents us probably for the first
time a globally embracing view of cosmopolitanism building upon multiple traditions of
our world. It goes beyond the dominant Eurocentric conception of cosmopolitanism
which traces its roots to Greek Stoic and Kantian heritages and engages itself with
multiple trajectories and conceptions of being cosmopolitan in our world. It goes
beyond East and West, North and South and offers planetary conversations about
cosmopolitization brining together the thoughts of Confucius, Buddha, Kant, Neitzsche,
Goether, Steiner, Gandhi, Tolstoy, Habermas, Nussbaum and many others. It also
presents a complex history of cosmopolitanism and its entanglement with colonialism
and contemporary structures of inequality.
The volume has three parts. Part one, “Cosmopolitanism and Beyond:
Alternative Pathways of Explorations and Experimentations” begins with the essay,
“Cosmopolitanism and Beyond: Towards a Multiverse of Transformations” by Ananta
Kumar Giri in which Giri discusses the limits of contemporary dominant conceptions of
cosmopolitanism coming from scholars such as K. Anthony Appiah and Martha
Nussbaum. He traces this to their confinement within a narrow lineage of
cosmopolitanism starting from the Greek stoics to Kant and to Habermas. Giri discusses
multiple traditions of cosmopolitanism in histories and contemporary thinking. He talks
about the need to bring the notion of cosmopolitanism as citizen of the world and
member of the family of Mother Earth together in creative, critical and transformative
ways. This also finds a resonance in the contribution of Vittorio Cotesta who presents
us the perspective of Chinese thinker Tingyang for bringing the Greek concept of agora
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and the Confucian concept of “all under sky” together. As Cotesta tells us in this volume,
“The merging of these two cultural traditions, may lead to institutions capable of giving
peace and harmony to the world.” Bringing these three traditions—Chinese, Indian and
Greek—we can simultaneously cultivate agora, all under sky and Vasudheiva
Kutumbakam (the whole world is a family)—for realization of an expanding and
concentric circle of cosmopolitanism.
In his contribution Giri also points to the need to understand global justice
movements as bearers of cosmopolitan responsibility a theme which resonates in many
other contributions of the volume, especially in Jacob Dahl Rendetorff’s essay, “New
Possibilities for Cosmopolitanism after the Financial Crisis.” Along with the need for
cultivating dialogues across borders, cultures and civilizations and cultivating planetary
conversations, Giri also urges us to realize the spiritual dimension in
cosmopolitinization. The subsequent contribution of John Clammer resonates with this
urge to go beyond the dominant conception of cosmopolitanism especially
anthropocentrism. For this, Clammer presents ecological self as a bearer of
cosmopolitanism. This ecological self is based upon the realization that “it is possible
and indeed imperative to formulate a notion of human identity that is based not on
“difference” (a notion that has pervaded much of social theory in the recent past), but
on the continuity between humans and nature, a continuity that is shared by all human
beings regardless of culture or nationality, and hence of a sense of planetary identity
both in the sense of human existential unity and of communion with the rest of nature,
with the other bioforms and other geographical, geological and atmospheric
circumstances which are the context and requirements of our lives and are essential not
only to our physical survival (that should be fairly obvious), but also to our psychic,
aesthetic, and moral survival.” Clammer argues that the ecological self goes beyond the
subject-object dichotomy of modernist self and is non-subjectivist which “creates a
communal, even cosmic, sense of identity and interconnectedness that transcends the
limits of language and its endless discursive formations in favour of experience which
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while not entirely unmediated, certainly produces a sense of non-duality rarely available
through cognitive and linguistic processes.”
These foundational reflections on going beyond contemporary cosmopolitanism
is then by two contributions which relate to modernist roots of cosmopolitanism in
creative ways. In his essay, “Varieties of Cosmopolitanism” Dower tells us how
cosmopolitan thought in the modern world covers a wide range of concerns. It covers
the basic idea of a cosmopolitan ethic as applied to individuals, where a form of global
ethic is advanced in which trans-boundary obligations are significant. It also provides a
distinctive ethical basis of the assessment of international relations, in contrast to
internationalism and international skepticism. But cosmopolitan thought also has its
institutional aspects, “with distinctive proposals for new forms of global governance,
and also a focus on what the institutional expressions are of global citizenship.” Both the
ethical-attitudinal aspects of cosmopolitanism and the institutional aspects are
dependent upon models and practices of world openness and collective learning. In his
essay, “Cosmopolitanism, the Cognitive Order of Modernity, and Conflicting Models of
World Openness: On the Prospects of Collective Learning,” Strydom tells us: “Whereas
the development of society is the objective multilevel process of the opening up and
globalisation of the economic, political, social, legal and cultural forms of society,
cosmopolitanism is the internally experienced sense of the openness of social relations
and society which is carried by collective learning processes. However, learning depends
on competition, contestation and conflict between social actors who take for granted
and share the cognitive order, including the idea of cosmopolitanism, but interpret it
according to different values, act upon it in terms of different norms and therefore try to
realise it in contrary ways.”
Strydom’s essay is followed by the contribution of Karl-Heinz Pohl on the
Confucian tradition of the ethics of cosmopolitanism. For Pohl, “Confucianism has some
traits that are by its very nature "cosmopolitan": First of all, the Confucian concern is for
"all under Heaven" (tianxia), that is, "to take everything under Heaven as one's
responsibility". This is its all inclusive scope. Second, the "authentic" person, the one
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who has realized his or her "great self" through self-cultivation, "can assist the
transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth", leading to global peace –
one could muse about the positive effects this teaching could have on the leaders of
today's world super-powers. And lastly, the notion of the "unity of Heaven and man" –
interpreted by the Boston Confucianists (Tu Weiming a. o.) in a contemporary way as an
ecological "unity of nature and man" – would have far reaching implications if it could
be put into political currency. Seen from this perspective, we have here a vision of a
united mankind that should not make us feel uneasy anymore. One could truly call it an
ethics of cosmopolitanism – not by force but by choice.” This is then followed by the
contribution of Ulrich Ross on “Cosmopolitanism, Spirituality and Social Action:
Mahatma Gandhi and Rudolf Steiner.” Ross tells us how both Steiner and Gandhi bring
spirituality and social action together in their works which shows us new ways of
cosmopolitan engagement with the world.
Ross’s essay on Steiner and Gandhi is followed by Martine Prange’s essay on
Nietzsche and Goethe who tells us about the tradition of “dynamic interculturalism”
cultivated by both of them which is different from Kant’s political cosmopolitanism.
Prange tells us about Nietzschean ideal of good European which is not bound to Europe
and wishes to travel all around the world. Nietzsche found this ideal of good
Europeanism in Goethe. Prange presents us Nietzshcean and Goethean approach to
cosmopolitanism:
To become cosmopolitan means to give the self a style. Further, it involves a surprising moral philosophy that says that one should make oneself tolerable to others. Thus, rather than shaping a moral community in which pluralism is tolerated, as the current liberal theories drawing upon Kant propagate, Nietzsche’s good European strives to be an example to humanity. He makes himself ‘tolerable’ rather than that he tolerates by beautifying himself and the world with his art.
These reflections on these diverse trajectories of cosmopolitanism are followed
by five contributions which present us other enriching sources for rethinking
cosmopolitanism. In his essay, “Tolstoy and Cosmopolitanism,” Christian Bartolf
presents us a litany of cosmopolitan ideas in Tolstoy’s writings. This is followed by Liz
Sutherland’s essay, “The Divergent Cosmopolitanism of Hannah Arendt,” in which she
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tells us about the insights we can learn by walking with Hannah Arendt especially her
concept of “ A New Law on Earth.” This is then followed by Gideon Baker on
“Cosmopolitanism as Hospitality” which presents us Derrida’s approach to
cosmopolitanism as hospitality. This ethics and aesthetics of hospitality calls for an
ethics of sacrifice which is the crux of subsequent contribution of Scott Schaffer,
“Cosmopolitanism and an Ethics of Sacrifice.”
These essays in the first part are followed by the second part which deals with
complex histories and anthropologies of cosmopolitanism. In his essay, “Inclusion and
Exclusion in the Cosmopolis: Some Critical Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism,” Anil Jain
tells us how cosmopolitanism has to address the issues of inclusion and inequality in the
world order. In his essay, “Cosmopolitanism and Reconciliation in a Postcolonial World,”
Reinhardt Kossler discusses about the need to address the issues of colonial violence
and reconciliation in cosmopolitan practice today. For Kossler,
If cosmopolitanism is to rest on the mutual recognition of participants in the project (or eventually even on the rather utopian sounding adherence of all living members of humankind), the colonial heritage marks a definite burden and potentially, a deep cleavage. If we set out towards a credible perspective in cosmopolitanism, we cannot evade addressing this cleavage. What is at stake is not individual guilt on account of past wrongs, but historic responsibility as well as responsibility towards the present and the future. Such responsibility resides, in the first instance, in representative institutions and particularly in states. States also represent institutional continuity with colonialism [..] Again, it is incumbent on individuals and civil society actors to ensure that such responsibility is taken seriously. This applies in particular to serious and credible forms of reconciliation that go beyond mere formal and often token acts of state.
Kossler’s essay on cosmopolitanism and reconciliation is followed by the essay
on “Corporealizing Cosmopolitanism: The Right of Desire” by Anjana Raghavan and
Jyotirmaya Tripathi who challenge us to other domains of neglect in the present
discourse of cosmopolitanism, i.e body and desire. They develop further the concept of
critical cosmopolitanism.
These challenges of inadequate theories and complex violations in histories are
followed by two anthropologically engaged essays which tell us about alternative
trajectories of cosmopolitanism and new possibilities. In her essay, “Old and Emerging
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Cosmopolitan Traditions at the Malabar Coast of Kerala, South India,” Barbara Reidel
tells us: “Cosmopolitanism at work is and has been an ongoing process of circulation and
of entanglements of people, goods, knowledge and ideas. Cosmopolitanism at work is
not confined to global cities and global dimensions. It takes place also at ‘peripherical’
areas of this world like in Malabar or Kozhikode and in small scale everyday situations as
in Rafeeq’s and his friends’ lives and it is locally rooted.” In her subsequent essay on
vernacular cosmopolitanism, Pnina Werbner presents us critical and ethical dimensions
of this locally emerging cosmopolitanism what she calls vernacular cosmopolitanism and
how it is cultivated at the local level in myriad ways. She presents the work of a Sufi
saint from Pakistan and the strike in Bostwana as bearers of vernacular cosmopolitanism
struggling with ethics. For Werbner, “cosmopolitanism is not about travel but about
some ethical dispositions.” Appropriate ethical dispositions about others and the world
are created by music and social movements and in his subsequent essay on civil rights
movements of the last century, “Music, Civil Rights Movements and Cosmopolitanism,”
Christian Bartolf presents us a glimpse of the cosmopolitan sensibility created by music
especially inspiring singers such as Pete Seger and Joan Baez.
These essays then bring us to the third part of the book, “Cosmopolitanism and
the Calling Planetary Realizations.” It begins with the essay of Hauke Brunkhorst who
presents us a new genealogy of cosmopolitanism in modernity. This is then followed by
the essay by Vittorio Cotesta on “Human Rights, Universalism and Cosmopolitanism.”
Cotesta challenges us to broaden our foundational assumptions of human rights and
cosmopolitanism and he here presents us critiques and reconstructions from African
and Chinese perspectives. As to the African perspective, Cotesta writes: “The edifice of
western society is based on individuals and on individual rights. The African perspective,
on the contrary, places the system of family ties at the heart of society. The contrast
between a society of individuals and a society of groups becomes manifest in relation to
all sorts of vital problems.” As to the Chinese perspective and its potential for reordering
current global order, Costesta writes: “The alternative is to build global institutions
according to the Confucian model. In fact, the Western conception of society is centred
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on the principle of cooperation, yet this principle is necessary but not sufficient for the
government of the world. In fact, it is based on a live-and-let-live attitude. To the
principle of cooperation must be added that of improvement, which works along the
line of improve-oneself-and-let-oneself-be-improved, leading to a mutual improvement
of the Confucian model. In fact, the principle of rational dialogue among individuals, as
envisioned by Habermas’ theory of communicative action, can lead to understanding
but not to an acceptance.”
Cotesta talks about the need for acceptance in our cosmopolitan world which
calls for a new mode of mutual acceptance and co-legitimation. This calls for creation of
cosmopolitan public sphere and in his subsequent essay, “Constructing a Cosmopolitan
Public Sphere: Hermeneutic Capabilities and Universal Values,” Hans-Herbert Kogler
tells us how we can create this with cognitive openness and hermeneutic skills. Creating
a cosmopolitan world also calls for new modes of embodiment of responsibility,
intercultural communication, education and dialogues. In his essay on cosmopolitanism
after the financial crises, Jacob Dahl Rendetorff outlines for us some of the challenges of
responsibility. Gernot Saalman explores the challenges of intercultural communication
in his essay on “Intercultural Communication and Cosmopolitanism.” In their following
essay, “From Shahrukh Khan to Shakira: Reflections on Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism
among young French People,” Vincenzo Cichelli and Sylvie Octobre tell us about the
process of aesthetic cosmopolitanism among young French people in which they adopt
and assimilate cultural styles in food, music etc. from other cultures. Cichelli and
Octobre employ “the concept of aesthetic cosmopolitanism to analyse globalisation as a
transnational cultural process which does not erase local cultures and which transmutes
the sentiment of “national cultural uniqueness” through the emergence of an aesthetic
sentiment which, thanks to hybridisation and the métissage of cultural elements from
diverse horizons, has been emancipated from an earlier rigidly locally-oriented
framework.”
A new mode of understanding and education play a crucial role in transforming
existing discourse and practice of cosmopolitanism into planetary realization in which
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we strive to realize that we are children of Mother Earth. Two important concluding
essays in this volume help us in this journey of a new mode of cosmopolitanization.
In his essay, “Cosmopolitanism and Understanding in the Social Sciences,” Boike
Rehbein tells us the need to cultivate a new kind of understanding for realizing
cosmopolitanism what he calls “existential understanding.” For Rehbein, “The object of
existential understanding is an aspect of another human being’s life” and this “should
form the core of any cosmopolitanism.” Des Gasper and Shanti George also explore this
issue of existential understanding through task of cultivation of humanity through
cosmopolitan education. In his Afterword Marcus Bussey helps us reach further height
and depth in our journey of cosmopolitanism.
Thus our volume explores different uncharted trajectories, visions and paths of
comsopolitan realizations in this fragile and complex world of ours.
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