Being in the World: Dialogue and Cosmopolis

Introduction

1 Introduction By now it is a commonplace—a widely accepted commonplace—to say that we live in an age of globalization, that the world is steadily shrinking, and that people around the globe are increasingly pushed together. The saying has a ring of correctness or plausibility. What is correct is that financial markets are relentlessly expanding, that complex information networks are encircling the world, and that military weaponry is stretching around the globe (and capable of annihilating it many times over). What is not often noted is that the correctness of the saying conceals as much as it reveals. Underneath the readily noted surface phenomena, recessed or subterranean shifts are at work that transform the meaning of surface structures. Contrary to the widely held view that globalization is just a quantitative leap— that it is simply “more of the same”—the suspicion grows that the “same” is no longer really the same; that an unfamiliar “otherness” intrudes on all sides, making our time one of untapped horizons or open seas. Once attention is granted to these shifts, difficult questions surge to the fore, questions not amenable to quantitative tabulation —like “what is the meaning of ‘world’?” How can it be both a habitat and an open horizon? And who are we as human beings inhabiting this familiar/unfamiliar terrain? Despite the disappearance of open frontiers, does world or earth still remain basically terra incognita (perhaps terra nullius)? Questions like these throw into disarray or put pressure on traditional conceptions of self-hood, subjectivity, and individual identity —and also on the relation between self and other(s). Perhaps what is dawning now is a connectedness or overlapping of selves, maybe even an intercorporeality (which is more than “intersubjectivity”). Intimated in the latter notion is a strong pressure placed on traditional bifurcations, such as those between mind and body, cogito and nature . And what about collective identity, the identity of nation-states 2 Being in the World as well as that of ethnic, religious, or cultural collectivities? Can one really say that the so-called Westphalian system of states—the system that has dominated European politics since the religious wars—is today simply globalized and made the canonical model for all societies around the world? Are there not profound tremors affecting all states today, tremors produced by “deterritorialized” agents operating both below and above the state level—and that states seek to control with ever harsher “national security” measures? One prominent exemplar of (potentially) deterritorialized agency is “cosmopolitanism”—a term that has many meanings and raises the difficult issue of the relation between “cosmos” and “polis,” between general order and political practice. Other closely connected instances of such agency are transnational religions, cultures, or civilizations, as well as international movements (in such fields as labor, health, and ecology). No doubt, none of the cited tendencies are unambiguous or simply harbingers of “progress.” Intimately linked with such boons of “modernity” like human rights, legal equality, and democracy, the Westphalian tradition can be neither piously embalmed nor rashly abandoned. This means that whatever changes are afoot can only be cautiously and interactively pursued, not monologically legislated. The present volume explores the transition from Westphalia to cosmopolis from many different angles and in many different registers . The opening chapter delves into some of the recessed philosophical underpinnings of globalization and the ongoing turn toward “world” (or worldhood). The chapter takes its departure from a famous phrase used by the philosopher Martin Heidegger to capture the core of human life or existence: the phrase “being-in-the-world.” With this formulation, Heidegger radically distanced himself from a central feature of modern Western thought or philosophy: the yawning gulf separating humans from the world, the cogito from external nature, or subject from object. What was intimated by his hyphenated expression is the insight that human beings are not external to but constituted by “world”—including nature and fellow beings— seen as target(s) of intimate concern or “care” (Sorge). The chapter discusses this close relationality of humans and world in its different modalities, ranging from the practical “handling” of utensils to forms of ethical-existential “solicitude” (Fürsorge). Attention is also paid to Heidegger’s later reformulation of relationality under such Introduction 3 headings as “Ereignis” and “Geviert” (fourfold). In order to avoid the impression of a static structuralism, the chapter lifts up another crucial feature of Heidegger’s thought: his emphasis on temporality...