Rethinking Cosmopolitanism: Political and Metapolitical Identities

Abstract

The paper defends the notion that cosmopolitanism is an important starting point for addressing political identities, but one that needs to be rethought. The paper starts by exposing some political situations both in Europe and in North America where the debate on national identity is faced with the need for a renewed idea of cosmopolitanism, an idea that must be differentiated from similar notions such as cultural diversity or multiculturalism, but also from the idea of globalization. It shows in this sense that there is an important and often forgotten difference between cosmopolitanism and politics, an essential difference when thinking about the real situation in Europe. The paper explains how contemporary cosmopolitanism has its roots in the Stoic and Kantian ideals, ideals that are no longer serviceable and that need to be renewed to confront the new demands of the complexity of the world. The paper concludes defending a new cosmopolitanism (tending towards the line of Hans Jonas or Yves Charles Zarka) that should be respectful to politics (but without forgetting that cosmopolitanism should be prioritised over politics) and also with different national or supranational identities, since it in fact provides a meta-identity for man as a citizen of the world. Received: 02 July 2018 Accepted: 16 July 2018 Published online: 27 February 2019