Cosmopolitanism and Place

Description

Addressing perspectives about who "we" are, the importance of place and home, and the many differences that still separate individuals, this volume reimagines cosmopolitanism in light of our differences, including the different places we all inhabit and the many places where we do not feel at home. Beginning with the two-part recognition that the world is a smaller place and that it is indeed many worlds, Cosmopolitanism and Place critically explores what it means to assert that all people are citizens of the world, everywhere in the world, as well as persons bounded by a universal and shared morality.

Introduction

Section I: Reconstructing Cosmopolitan Ideals
Introduction / Jessica Wahman
1. Déjà Vu All Over Again?: The Challenge of Cosmopolitanism / John Lysaker
2. Home, Hospitality, and the Cosmopolitan Address / Noëlle McAfee
3. Cultural Heritages and Universal Principles / Juan Carlos Pereda Failache
4. Not Black or White but Chocolate Brown: Reframing Issues / Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley
5. Pragmatism and the Challenge of a Cosmopolitan Aesthetics: Framing the Issues / Robert E. Innis

Section II: Taking Place Seriously
Introduction / José Medina
6. Toward a Politics of Co-Habitation: "Dwelling" in the Manner of Wayfarers / Vincent Colapietro
7. Cosmopolitan Ignorance and "Not Knowing Your Place" / José Medina
8. America and Cosmopolitan Responsibility: Some Thoughts on an Itinerant Duty / Jeff Edmonds
9. Loss of Place / Megan Craig
10. The Loss of Confidence in the World / Josep E. Corbí
11. Climate Change and Place: Delimiting Cosmopolitanism / Nancy Tuana

Section III: Reimaging Home and World
Introduction / John J. Stuhr
12. Citizen or Guest?: Cosmopolitanism as Homelessness / Jessica Wahman
13. Cosmopolitan Hope / Jennifer L. Hansen
14. Hospitality or Generosity?: Cosmopolitan Transactions / Cynthia Gayman
15. On Cosmopolitan Publics and Online Communities / Erin C. Tarver
16. A New "International of Decent Feelings"?: Cosmopolitanism and the Erasure of Class / William S. Lewis
17. Somewhere, Dreaming of Cosmopolitanism / John J. Stuhr

Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Éthique et morale
• Moral Philosophy
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Ethics

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 28 août 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253030337
• Langue: English

Extrait

COSMOPOLITANISM AND PLACE
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY
John J. Stuhr, editor
Editorial Board
Susan Bordo
Vincent Colapietro
John Lachs
No lle McAfee
Jos Medina
Cheyney Ryan
Richard Shusterman
COSMOPOLITANISM AND PLACE
Edited by Jessica Wahman, Jos M. Medina, and John J. Stuhr
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2017 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02939-3 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-03032-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-03033-7 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
Contents
Introduction
Part I. Reconstructing Cosmopolitan Ideals
Introduction / Jessica Wahman
1 D j Vu All Over Again?: The Challenge of Cosmopolitanism / John Lysaker
2 Home, Hospitality, and the Cosmopolitan Address / No lle McAfee
3 Cultural Heritages and Universal Principles / Juan Carlos Pereda Failache
4 Not Black or White but Chocolate Brown: Reframing Issues / Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley
5 Pragmatism and the Challenge of a Cosmopolitan Aesthetics: Framing the Issues / Robert E. Innis
Part II. Taking Place Seriously
Introduction / Jos Medina
6 Toward a Politics of Cohabitation: Dwelling in the Manner of Wayfarers / Vincent Colapietro
7 Cosmopolitan Ignorance and Not Knowing Your Place / Jos Medina
8 America and Cosmopolitan Responsibility: Some Thoughts on an Itinerant Duty / Jeff Edmonds
9 Loss of Place / Megan Craig
10 The Loss of Confidence in the World / Josep E. Corb
11 Climate Change and Place: Delimiting Cosmopolitanism / Nancy Tuana
Part III. Reimagining Home and World
Introduction / John J. Stuhr
12 Citizen or Guest?: Cosmopolitanism as Homelessness / Jessica Wahman
13 Cosmopolitan Hope / Jennifer L. Hansen
14 Hospitality or Generosity?: Cosmopolitan Transactions / Cynthia Gayman
15 On Cosmopolitan Publics and Online Communities / Erin C. Tarver
16 A New International of Decent Feelings ?: Cosmopolitanism and the Erasure of Class / William S. Lewis
17 Somewhere, Dreaming of Cosmopolitanism / John J. Stuhr
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
W E LIVE in an increasingly interconnected world. It is a world of global manufacturing and trade, international travel and almost instant communication, shared climate change and epidemics, and far-flung wars and campaigns of terror. And it is a world of different languages, different narratives, different standards of living. Nations and their borders and boundaries mark us differently as citizens or tourists or immigrants or refugees or homeless.
What is the place of a cosmopolitan morality or politics or culture in this world? What is required of us, and what is possible for us, if we adopt a cosmopolitan worldview that holds that human beings are citizens of the cosmos, equally everywhere citizens, and that there is a universal morality that binds us collectively to care for and respect one another? Should we be cosmopolitans in our feeling and thinking? Should we be cosmopolitans in our actions and institutions? If so, why and how?
Moreover, what is the place of cosmopolitanism in a world of different places-a world of different neighborhoods, different tribes, different nations, and different languages, lineages, and cultures? What can be the status of cosmopolitanism in a world of plural places-most of which, for any particular person, are not home? How might it be possible to articulate and adopt a cosmopolitanism that begins with the reality of place, of multiple places?
The chapters in this volume take up these questions. They address and reconstruct the meaning and value of cosmopolitanism and its moral, political, economic, and cultural challenges to us-both individually and collectively. In doing so, they provide critical perspectives on who we are. They also address the importance of place and of differences that cannot be universalized, including the experience of home and community, ignorance of one s own place, and threats to and loss of place. Finally, the chapters here strive to reimagine cosmopolitanism in terms of homelessness rather than home, hope rather than knowledge, pluralism rather than universalism, multiple differences and contestations rather than commonalities, and an agenda for practice rather than an antecedent truth.
It is not possible to avoid these questions of cosmopolitanism and place. Even their evasion will not make them vanish. It also is not possible to answer these questions finally and for all. This volume makes no pretense of doing so. It aims simply to critically clarify thinking and its traditions, to expand our imaginations and present new possibilities for understanding ourselves and our societies, and to provide resources for the creation of more intelligent practice and the realization of more expansive ideals. We invite all readers of this volume to join in and improve this endeavor.
Jessica Wahman, Jos Medina, and John J. Stuhr
COSMOPOLITANISM AND PLACE
PART I
R ECONSTRUCTING C OSMOPOLITAN I DEALS
Introduction
Jessica Wahman
T HE CHAPTERS in this first part confront key topics to be addressed by a contemporary cosmopolitanism. All suggest that cosmopolitanism is an orientation worth considering, and some argue explicitly in favor of the position. Many of the authors draw our attention to an increasingly globalized world and suggest this is a prominent reason for taking cosmopolitanism seriously. Our growing access to and consistent impact on one another, they argue, increase our awareness of human connectedness, rendering the possibility of entirely localized commitments both rationally untenable and ethically irresponsible. At the same time, each author claims that a feasible cosmopolitanism, despite its broad vision and aspirations, must nonetheless be rooted in specific places and emanate from situated orientations. Each assumes that a straightforward universalism trivializes the broad multiplicity of ways of life and fails to heed the lessons of traditional cosmopolitanism s refusal to address them. As a result, the arguments affirm a placed cosmopolitanism as a pluralistic alternative that can, at the same time, account for our ability to dialogue across cultures and empathize with different others.
To support the claim that cosmopolitanism is worth our consideration, the chapters call our attention to two important observable and likely related aspects of human life: (a) the ability for people to build shared understanding from different points of view, and (b) the possibility of and demand for empathy with human suffering. In the first case, many of the authors focus on possibilities for communication based on reasons and on overlapping experiences. John Lysaker, for example, introduces the classical Greek concept of logos to pose a basic challenge to contemporary cosmopolitanism: how are we to affirm and explain the communicative power of rational speech without grounding it in divine cosmic law? Carlos Pereda, in effect, takes up this challenge by suggesting that existing human practices of justification through reasons contain basic assumptions about the possibility of universally shared understanding. This possibility is not merely theoretical: it is grounded in our observed ability to consider arguments from another person s point of view. And Robert Innis, in considering the possibilities of a cosmopolitan aesthetics, argues that the production of a work of art, at least insofar as the artist aims to be appreciated and understood by others, implies an intelligibility that extends beyond the personal and particular.
In the second case, where the appeal of cosmopolitanism is explained in terms of ethical demands, Lysaker, No lle McAfee, and Jacquelyn Kegley each make their cases by relying on the intuition that we should not be indifferent to the well-being of others or to their suffering. As Lysaker notes, the cosmopolitan belief that nothing human is alien to me articulates a possible moral virtue as much as it does an assumption about the powers of rational communication. McAfee, for her part, addresses the ways in which political demonstrations and acts of resistance around the world make demands on our attention, and she asserts that to turn away from such demands, no matter how distant, is ethically problematic. And, finally, Kegley shows that the communities we belong to are more porous, shifting, and interwoven than nationalist theories would acknowledge, and that therefore our ethical commitments are better understood as operating on a global scale, albeit to varying degrees.
While the authors affirm the importance of concerning ourselves, in some way, with all humanity and believe in the possibility of shared understanding (even among people coming from very different cultural standpoints and environments), they recognize problems with the classic, rationalist and foundational, cosmopolitanism and its traditional notion of the world citizen. As a result, these chapters take epistemological positions that are empiricist, provisional, and contextualized and thus promote cosmopolitanism as a fallibilistic worldly orientation that aims to preserve a sense of place. Against theoretical attempts to identify the essential characteristics of human nature or to ground all reality in a set of rationally derived laws, a