Kwame Anthony Appiah the 57 year old Ghanaian born UK-American philosopher and cultural theorist has been awarded the National Humanities Award by Barack Obama, for advocating a school of thought he describes as ‘cosmopolitanism’. Appiah’s cosmopolitanism is an idea and way of being, the way we view ourselves in the world at large. Appiah describes the concept as, “A tradition of thought that tries to develop the metaphor of the idea that we are all citizens of the world.” The cosmopolitanist philosophical tradition has its beginnings with German philosophers such as Hegel through to Du Bois and others, Appiah defines his conception of cosmopolitanism as “universality plus difference”. Appiah states that different cultures are respected “not because cultures matter in themselves, but because people matter, and culture matters to people.” According to Appiah’s take on this ideology, cultural differences are to be respected in so far as they are not harmful to people and in no way conflict with our universal concern for every human’s life and well-being. Appiah argues there are two ideas that “intertwine in the notion of cosmopolitanism”. The first is the idea that we have obligations to others that are bigger than just sharing citizenship. The second idea is that we should never take for granted the value of life, and we become informed of the practices and beliefs of others.

 

Inspired by Aljazeera http://ow.ly/9mb7r image source David Shankbone http://ow.ly/9mbfd