Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T15:29:51.751Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2011

Pauline Kleingeld
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

The country of world citizens

According to Immanuel Kant, Germans are model cosmopolitans. In his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View of 1798 he writes that they are hospitable toward foreigners, they easily recognize the merits of other peoples, they are modest in their dealings with others, and they readily learn foreign languages. Finally, “as cosmopolitans,” they are not passionately bound to their fatherland (ApH 7:317–18). Germany “is the country of world citizens” where strangers feel at home (R 15:590).

This description is remarkable not just for its evocation of an intellectual world that was about to be swept away, in the early nineteenth century, by a wave of nationalism. It also paints a picture of the cosmopolitan that is quite different from the image of the rootless traveler often associated with the term. The cosmopolitans Kant describes here do not fit the stereotype of the individualistic citizens of nowhere, who relish their unattached and unencumbered existence, are self-satisfied with their self-styled identity, pick and choose cultural tidbits from many parts of the world, and regard the more rooted mortals around them with unmistakable condescension.

Type
Chapter
Information
Kant and Cosmopolitanism
The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship
, pp. 1 - 12
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Pauline Kleingeld, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Kant and Cosmopolitanism
  • Online publication: 05 November 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139015486.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Pauline Kleingeld, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Kant and Cosmopolitanism
  • Online publication: 05 November 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139015486.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Pauline Kleingeld, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Kant and Cosmopolitanism
  • Online publication: 05 November 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139015486.002
Available formats
×