The debate about cosmopolitanism, patriotism and nationalism

A general introduction to the theme

Abstract

The debate about cosmopolitans, patriots and nationalists needs to be revisited also in its historical aspects in order to reach a broader and more conscious perspective of these ideas. Thus, at first I reconstruct, in general terms, the origin and main historical changes that these conceptions have undergone throughout time. Cosmopolitanism, with its origin in Ancient Greece with Diogenes of Sinope, was preserved within the Stoic doctrine and got mixed in the course of history with other familiar currents, namely universalism and internationalism. Such tendency survives today through trends more in tune with remote cosmopolitanism or even other more distant trends. In regards to nationalism and patriotism, I present Hobsbawm's analysis. The author, through a critical historical reconstruction of the use of the terms “nation” and “fatherland”, shows that nationalism and patriotism are phenomena originated after the 19th century. Moreover, I draw a general panorama of the debate about all the aforementioned tendencies, in which I emphasize the cosmopolitanism of Jürgen Habermas, Andrew Linklater, Seyla Benhabib, Martha Nussbaum and Amy Gutmann, as well as the patriotism of Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor, besides the quite peculiar position of Anthony Appiah.