ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the formidable obstacles facing global conversation, especially obstacles arising in the field of politics and political thought. It discusses a prominent model of cosmopolitan discourse, advanced by a leading neo- or post-Kantian thinker. The chapter sketches a different kind of cosmopolitan interaction, returning at this point to Michael Oakeshott's association of conversation with interpersonal friendship. From time immemorial, philosophy has favored a spectatorial or bird's-eye view. Western philosophy, in particular, has tended to privilege universal maxims over contingent phenomena, generally valid insights over local-vernacular experiences. Although endemic primarily to "Orientalist" schools in Western academia, the same practice has tended to pervade other academic fields, including the discipline of political science and political theory of philosophy. Since the time of Thomas Hobbes, international politics has been governed basically by the friend–enemy paradigm. As can be seen, Oakeshottian conversation faces obstacles and roadblocks on many sides.
