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: cotesta@libero.it

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: p.strydom@ucc.ie]

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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