ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a two-fold classification of the different meanings attached to the term 'cosmopolitan': One interpretation uses the term as an analytical category whereas another deploys it as a substantive category. It argues that both of these categories can provide the means for empirical research and reviews claims that the cosmopolitan imagination requires developing new methodological tools for the social sciences. The chapter presents different avenues of qualitative and quantitative social research into cosmopolitan and explores the issue of the relationship between socio-historical research and cosmopolitanism. Social research is bound to relativize theoretical claims, leading to the reformulation of theories–while simultaneously the interdisciplinary intellectual conversation on cosmopolitanism will inevitably continue. The chapter illustrates the necessity for historical sociology to inquire into conditions under which different cultures or worldviews of cosmopolitanism have emerged. This is the second line of inquiry into the relationship between cosmopolitanism and world history.
