¿Qué subyace al ideal cosmopolita? Entre la perspectiva ilustrada y la globalización contemporánea

Abstract

Recent bellicose conflicts, like the Gulf War and the agression against Irak, demonstrate a process of unipolar rearrangement of world’s globalizing order. This demands a critical philosophical revision of the national, republican, federalist and cosmopolite ideals. This article carries out a revision of the illustrated cosmopolite ideal, which has in Kant’s thought one of its more consistent formulations. The thinker of Königsberg assumes, as an indisputable premise, the existence and necessary preservation of sovereignty of the nations. Their coexistence is based on a federal relationship and their decissions are taken in an horizontal and concurrent manner. By contrast with the former, we can observe how international organisms, like the United Nations, show accurately the real correlation of interests and forces that have an impact on the world’s order, by means of vertical decissions taken by majority. This can be used as a reference to understand the significance and implications of cosmopolitism. Finally, is cosmopolitism the way to procure peace and democratization of the international relations?