Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

In part as a response to the current resurgence of nationalist sentiment in many parts of the world, several authors have recently sought to revive the legacy of cosmopolitanism. ' They frequently appeal to eighteenth-century cosmopolitans, especially Immanuel Kant, and to their notions of the moral equality of all human beings, the existence of a set of human rights, and the urgency of establishing the political institution of a league of nations. But the full complexity of eighteenth-century cosmopolitanism has not yet been explored. Defenders and critics of cosmopolitanism agree that it is a form of universalism. It is the view that all human beings share certain essential features that unite or should unite them in a global order that transcends national borders and warrants their designation as "citizens of the world." But few scholars have examined the precise content of the various cosmopolitan theories of the time to determine just what these features are and what form this global order takes. While typologies and histories of nationalism abound, cosmopolitanism has so far remained largely unexplored territory.2 At most, one finds a distinction drawn between moral 1 Martha Nussbaum defends a moral version of cosmopolitanism in her "Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,"

Cosmopolitanism as Utopia

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The European Union in Crisis

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Crippin’ the Flâneur: Cosmopolitanism, and Landscapes of Tolerance

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