ABSTRACT
The idea of a cosmopolitan public sphere may seem both self-evident and paradoxical, depending which layers of the concept are tapped into first. If an idealized conception of rational discourse is made the core of the people understanding of public social communication, the boundaries must indeed seem endless. However, participants would nonetheless remain thoroughly grounded in specific cultural, national, and historical contexts. The approach will be hermeneutic-yet not solely understood as a method, but rather as a socialontological approach to human agency whose intentionality, cultural and social embeddedness, and linguistically mediated normative orientation toward issues and objects is emphasized as defining human identity. Far from guaranteeing the establishment of a global public sphere, the basic hermeneutic capabilities represent but resources for its possible normative horizon.
