ABSTRACT
The wave of contemporary concern with cosmopolitanism goes back most immediately to 1995. Preceded by the European Revolution of 1989, this was the year of the multiple anniversaries of Kant’s proposal for perpetual peace, the end of World War II and the establishment of the United Nations’ Charter. These anniversaries were organised, moreover, within the timeframe of the UN ‘decade of international law’ presided over by the International Law Commission (1997) which promoted the cosmopolitan prospects of the new millennium. Infused with renewed meaning and enthusiasm, it is against this background that cosmopolitanism obtained contemporary significance and became the burning issue it is today in the conflict over its practical realisation. The reference to these anniversaries is by no means fortuitous, however, since they invoke the unprecedented early modern cultural development to which cosmopolitanism can be traced, on the one hand, and later concerted attempts at least to begin to organise society in accordance with the principles established in the wake of that cultural advance, on the other. This implies that the homage to Kant is by no means simply a literary or philosophical reference. On the contrary, Kant stands out as the classic he is since he codified the emergence of the meta-rules which marked the arrival of modern culture. Indeed, he canonically formulated the formal properties which would henceforth cognitively delimit the autonomous intellectual, moral and aesthetic domains of modern culture.
