Grounding Cosmopolitanism in Betweenness

Michael Murphy

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract

How should we approach the problem of cosmopolitanism? Cosmopolitanism offers the opportunity to draw on growing global interconnectivity to frame new forms of experience and sociability. However, many complain that the cosmopolitan ethic relies on the dominant Euro-American understanding of progress, self and completeness which then justifies the imposition of these on those understood not to meet these standards. This criticism continues that the cosmopolitan sets aside the consequences of colonialism and what has been described as the underside of ‘modernity’ in which the Other was a imagined in the house of epistemology. This paper is divided into two parts. The first briefly assesses cosmopolitanism in terms of the dialectic of self and other through the work of Delanty and Mignolo. It does so not through their differences but by examining their similarities in terms of epistemological and ontological assumptions. What emerges from this analysis is that despite Delanty and Mignolo claiming to have moved beyond Eurocentric ideas both, at a fundamental level, are tied to the Western intellectual tradition. The effect of this is that both totalise society through an illusion of singularity through which difference is understood only in absolute terms. The second part sets out an argument for grounding cosmopolitanism which draws on insights from anthropology, neuroscience and other paradigms of being human. These suggest an understanding of social cognition which, at a fundamental level, cognition, body and social interaction are functionally intertwined and experienced. This constitutive relationality is both a limit that distinguishes one self from another and, simultaneously and recursively, a connection that binds them together. This suggests that rather than approaching theory on the basis of an absolute self or other, in stressing the potentiality of the ‘betweenness’ of individuality and relationality, space for multi-level analysis, a movable site of ideas, is provided.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusUnpublished - 2013
EventGSA annual conference 2013 call for papers The Cosmopolitan Ideal: Challenges and Opportunities Roehampton University, Wed 10th –Fri 12th July 2013 - , United Kingdom
Duration: 10 Jul 201312 Jul 2013

Conference

ConferenceGSA annual conference 2013 call for papers The Cosmopolitan Ideal: Challenges and Opportunities Roehampton University, Wed 10th –Fri 12th July 2013
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
Period10/07/1312/07/13

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