Modern cosmopolitanism traces its routes back to the
Enlightenment. In its individual and collectivist strains, it has
become programatically pacifist by virtue of many of its central
defining features. Under such a regime of cosmopolitanism, one
might imagine the Kantian goal of perpetual peace. Kant’s
conception of cosmopolitanism was progressive and developmental,
but also fundamentally conflicted. Its motor was that famous
unsocial sociability, which compelled humans to seek peace even as
they experienced destructive forms of competition. The connection
between cosmopolitanism on one hand and peace on the other,
therefore, is neither essential or natural; it is contingent and
accidental despite the strong connection between modern
contemporary cosmopolitanism and peace. Only recently have scholars
acknowledged that cosmopolitanism might indeed have something to
say about war, or that war might shed light on its limits and
possibilities. Is contemporary cosmopolitanism theoretically robust
enough to face the challenges of unconventional warfare in the 21st
century? And if cosmopolitanism defines transnational borders as
morally arbitrary, what can it tell us about conflicts that occur
within such borders, that is to say about civil war? In this
lecture, David Armitage pursues these and other important
questions.
About the Podcast
Recordings from the popular public lecture series featuring new work on all aspects of intellectual history. Hosted by the Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St Andrews.