Cosmopolitanism and the Negotiation of Borders

Cosmopolitanism is one of the most resistant debates in the history of thought and civil society. However, little attention has been focused on the meaning that borders have in the definition of this normative construct over time. Namely, cosmopolitanism is always a matter of negotiation and overcoming of delineated borders in the crisis of given political entities. On the basis of this argument, the paper will be structured as follows: 1. Reconstruction of some philosophical debates on cosmopolitanism in antiquity in order to show the changing meaning of this dialectic concept; 2. The meaning of cosmopolitanism in relation to the birth of the nation-State and the rise of the human rights discourse, stressing the paradigm shift in sociological terms; 3. The concept of a cosmopolitan democracy in the crisis of the nation-State and in the new geo-political scenario; 4. A cross-border idea of human dignity in form of ‘immanent universalism’ and counter-factual cosmopolitanism, intrinsic to the context of daily life and; 5. Challenges to the limits of cosmopolitanism, as shown by the condition of asylum seekers and refugees nowadays, where the tension between ‘borders’ – i.e. universal principles, international norms and domestic legislations - becomes evident