Can Philosophy Unite a Divided World?
Through the Language of Ideas, We Can Understand and Embrace New Morals and Concepts
As a scholar of the history of ideas, I’m interested in the debates pitting cosmopolitanism against nationalism. Roughly speaking, cosmopolitans believe that we can create spaces where people of different backgrounds and religions and nations can mingle and respect one another as individuals. Nationalists believe that a person’s identity is bound to and by the society, culture, political system, values and crucially language to which he or she belongs. Other is other. While these ideas might seem somewhat abstract, we are seeing them play out in the departure of the …
