Cosmopolitanism in modernity
Subtitle: human dignity in a global age
By: Anand Bertrand Commissiong
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Lanham, Md
Language: eng
Number of pages: 236
ISBN-13: 9780739165393
Subjects: Cosmopolitanism; Philosophy; History
Description: "At the close of the twentieth century, cosmopolitanism emerged as an important source of ideas for approaching the current challenges and opportunities of the intensifying global interconnections and socioeconomic disparities within and across borders. Anand Bertrand Commissiong analyzes the contributions of theorists seeking cosmopolitan solutions to struggles for human happiness and dignity. He focuses on the ways in which the ideal has been forced to adapt, by accepting its limitations, as it maintains its fundamental insistence on the potential of universal human community that simultaneously and constitutively encompasses difference. He examines a combination of strategies specifically addressing individual, communal, and intercommunal levels of human interaction, which he argues are the most productive ways forward. Commissiong recommends nonimperialist, accountable, coalitional strategies that set the stage for a different understanding of human beings in our contemporary globalizing world by offering a broad approach that can form coalitions with ideals beyond Western traditions, such as satyagraha, in order to conceive of dynamic human individuality and community that stretches beyond local boundaries. Commissiong makes a powerful argument for a new type of cosmopolitanism that is vital to the establishment of a truly just human existence at institutional, communal, and individual levels."--Page 4 of cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Ancient and modern cosmopolitanisms; title: The rise of economic individualism and the development of the commercial community; title: Martha Nussbaum and the individual at the center: liberties and capabilities, theory and practice; title: Jürgen Habermas and the individual in community: freedom and responsibility in the nation-state; title: David Held: freedom and accountability beyond the nation-state; title: Cosmopolitan virtues for a modern world; title: Cosmopolitanism law; title: Conclusion: our futures, together.