ABSTRACT
It makes no sense to reflect upon cosmopolitanism on the social, political or ethical level if we do not question the possibility of giving any content to the word “world” without taking into account the persistence of languages, their obstinacy or even their stubbornness. A worldwide “Grand Tour” of words is necessary if we hope to think beyond the classical figure of the cosmopolitan as a tolerant spirit capable of enjoying the indefinite diversity of the world. This is all the more the case when the representation of the world as a whole has changed radically. The fragile uncertainty of fundamental notions is not an obstacle for signification; it reveals that in our endeavor to understand the world, we have always at our disposal a “surplus of signification” (Derrida). The aim of this article is to confront the requirement for universality with this surplus, rethinking the place for a cosmopolitan discourse amid the difference of cultures and languages in a time when “there is no longer any world, no longer a mundus, a cosmos, a complete and remote order from within which one might find a place, a dwelling, and a sense of orientation” (Jean-Luc Nancy).
