Page - 15 - in Reflective Cosmopolitanism - Educating towards inclusive communities through Philosophical Enquiry

INTRODUCTION TO THE PEACE CURRICULUM 15 Both these universal and contemporary strains of cosmopolitan understanding find their home in philosophical inquiry within the context of a community of inquiry, and they contribute to the kind of cosmopolitan orientation this project seeks to develop. On the one hand, the community of inquiry nurtures an engagement with the Other that attends to the unique par- ticularity of the Other, and recognizes the moral obligation to engage across this difference in ways that are critical, creative, and caring. This is for the sake of both developing an enlarged sense of human possibilities and to create (as per the Stoics) a new political social order (one based on democratic principles and moral virtues). On the other hand, the community of inquiry also nurtures a critical re-assessment of the self, one in which our encounter with the Other places on us a moral requiredness to critique and challenge ourselves concerning our own commitments and understanding, as we search for truth and engage in the task of constructing our identities in relation to the Other (as individuals and as a community). This notion of self-correction, a concept which is central to Philosophical Inquiry with children, is a necessary condition for a vision of cosmopolitanism that seeks to engender “reflective loyalty to the known and reflective openness to the new”.5 This reflexive dimension of self-critique transforms the community of inquiry from a process of cultural encounter (understanding the Other as Other), to one in which new emergent possibilities of growth and self-transformation emerge through the encounter. Foundational interests within different approaches to cosmopolitanism: Gerard Delanty outlines four main areas of interest within the field of cosmopolitan thought that define different forms of cosmopolitanism.6 1) Cosmopolitanism as a political philosophy concerned with normative principles relating to world citizenship and global governance. Global conceptions of rights and justice come together with a political commitment to democracy as a vehicle for moving be- yond the nation-state. 2) Cosmopolitanism as a liberal multiculturalism, with an emphasis on plurality, hermeneu- tic understanding of the Other, and the embracing of difference in a post-national politi- cal community. 3) Cosmopolitanism as trans-nationality, with an emphasis on mixed identities (diaspora, hybridity). This emphasizes new modes of global culture and transnational processes (for instance played out in global patterns of consumption and lifestyles). 4) Cosmopolitanism as a method by which to address the reality of contemporary soci- ety. Here the emphasis is not on description but characterizes a method of response to living in a world that is both local and global. It can be characterized as “a method by which to theorize the transformation of subjectivity in terms of relations of self, Other and world”. This involves “cosmopolitan dimensions of ways of thinking, cognition and feeling that derive neither from the native culture nor from the culture of the Other, but from the interaction of both”.7 This is to view subjectivity as essentially relational, and the social realm is a sphere of social relations and inter-subjective activity rather than an object (‘society’). 5 David Hansen, The Teacher and the World: A Study of Cosmopolitanism as Education. New York, Routled- ge, 2011. Also see: “Introduction: Rethinking Globalization, Education and Citizenship”, Teachers College Record, 113 (10), 2011, pp. 1135-1153. 6 The following four characterizations are summaries of conceptions of cosmopolitanism in Delanty, The Cosmopolitan Imagination. 7 Ibid, p. 11.