Cosmopolitanism

If the borders of cities are only nomos, convention without grounding in nature, then none can command the allegiance of a rational being: a city has no more natural claim on me than the accident of my birth. Hence the word kosmopolitēs that Diogenes coins, the first to call himself a citizen of the world: not love of an enlarged homeland, but the refusal to acknowledge any, all of humanity taken as the only horizon. The provocation strikes at Greek civic pride, which counted the exile as fallen: the Cynic makes that his claimed condition.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, VI, 63

The Stoics articulated ancient cosmopolitanism: every human being, as a rational creature, is a citizen of the world before being a citizen of any particular city. Marcus Aurelius calls himself a citizen of Rome as Antoninus, but a citizen of the world as a man.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VI, 44 · Epictetus, Discourses, I, 9

A citizen of the world before being a citizen of his city, the man of the Enlightenment claims a belonging that overflows borders and confessions. Reason and humanity being common to all, national and religious particularisms weigh less than what unites the human race. Kant draws from this a project of cosmopolitan right and « perpetual peace » among nations; the Republic of Letters already offers its lived figure, a learned community without a homeland. This cosmopolitanism nourishes the critique of war, slavery and fanaticism.

Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace · Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, art. "Fatherland"

If the borders of cities are only nomos, convention without grounding in nature, none can command the allegiance of a rational being: a city has no more natural claim on me than the accident of my birth. Hence the word kosmopolitēs that Diogenes is the first to take for himself, a citizen of the world: not love of an enlarged homeland, but the refusal to acknowledge any, all of humanity taken as the only horizon. The provocation strikes at Greek civic pride, which counted the exile as fallen: the banished man of Sinope turns his condition into a claim. The Stoics would inherit the word, but back it with a cosmic city ordered by the logos; in Diogenes it stays first of all a gesture of refusal, with no cosmology.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 63

Seneca distinguishes two commonwealths: the narrow one of our birth, and the great city common to gods and men, measured by the course of the sun. Every human is our fellow citizen by virtue of shared reason, nature having made us kin: a cosmopolitanism grounded in Stoic appropriation.

On the Tranquillity of the Mind, IV (the two commonwealths) · Letters to Lucilius, XCV, 52-53 (nature made us kin)

Kant defends cosmopolitan right and the idea of a federation of free states as the horizon of history: every human being has a right of universal hospitality as a citizen of the earth. The nation state remains a necessary mediation, which qualifies the score.

Perpetual Peace · Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

From the reason common to all men, Marcus concludes to a single city of the world of which each is a citizen before belonging to his homeland. The formula is his own: a citizen of Rome as Antoninus, but a citizen of the world as a man, the first belonging subordinate to the second.

Meditations, VI, 44 · Meditations, III, 11 · Meditations, IV, 4

Taking up Cynic and Stoic cosmopolitanism, Epictetus invites us to call ourselves citizens of the world and sons of Zeus rather than citizens of a particular city. Local attachments remain as roles to honor, hence a strong but not extreme position.

Discourses, I.9 · Discourses, II.10

For Marx the decisive solidarity is not national but of class: the workers have no country, and the proletarian watchword calls for transcending borders in the name of a proletarian internationalism. The relevant community is neither the nation nor abstract humanity, but the world proletariat, which leans strongly toward a class cosmopolitanism.

Manifesto of the Communist Party, ch. 2 and conclusion (the workers have no country; workers of all countries)

He mocks national pride without mercy, 'the cheapest' of prides, that of the man who, having nothing personal to be proud of, falls back on the nation he shares with millions of others. A cosmopolitan and polyglot mind, nourished by East and West, he holds truth to have no homeland.

Parerga and Paralipomena, 'Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life', ch. IV