Abstract

I take the central problem faced by the contemporary self to be one of enclosure and rigid categorical containment. That is, the contemporary self is quagmired to a large extent within racial/ethnic and nationalistic paradigms which define it with almost metaphysical authority. ;I present a portrait of the ways in which a self committed to principles of becoming and radical inter-subjectivity can actually escape such oppressive paradigms and the bloated ontology on which they are founded. In the process a new moral identity that seeks affinity with those outside its immediate ascribed affiliation is created. The identity developed I will describe as a cosmopolitan identity. As rejecters of old static categories, I argue that cosmopolitans are not morally restricted to any racial, ethnic or national loyalty, field of activity or sphere of thought. ;Drawing on the works of philosophers such as Rawls, Sandel, Dewey, Dennett and existentialists and phenomenologists such as Sartre, Marcel, and Husserl, I examine various conceptions of the self in search of autonomy competency and moral maturity in a life trajectory engaged by a life of becoming. ;I argue that the self as I have described it--re-socialized and free from the weight of radical situatedness--stands poised to inherit and practice a cosmopolitan ethos. ;I develop this portrait of the ethical cosmopolite by tracing its historical development beginning in ancient Greece up to the Enlightenment and the present. ;I argue that not only does cosmopolitanism constitute a robust fin-de-siecle moral identity but also as a cultural option it represents a heroic and exalted way of existing in the world and of engaging with one's fellow humans. Cosmopolitanism stands as one among several feasible moral and cultural antidotes to tribalism, parochialism, racism, irrational patriotism and nationalism.