Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen
Element of an
Archaeology of
Cosmopolitanism in
Western Political
Thought
A Return to the French Enlightenment (1713-1795)
Frank Ejby Poulsen
Master’s thesis submitted: August 2008
Academic advisor: Professor Jens Bartelson
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
ABSTRACT
3
INTRODUCTION: ON THE NEED FOR A HISTORY OF COSMOPOLITANISM
4
PART I: THEORY
11
CHAPTER 1: METHOD
12
Issues in method for the history of cosmopolitanism
Issues inherent to the history of ideas
Past and present
The object of the history of ideas
Language and meaning
Issues inherent to the history of cosmopolitanism
What is cosmopolitanism? The problem of definition
Continuity of ‘cosmopolitanism’ through time
13
13
14
16
19
20
20
21
Archaeology of cosmopolitanism
Foucault’s archaeology at a glance
Applying archaeology to cosmopolitanism
23
23
25
Conclusion
26
CHAPTER 2: THE DISCOURSE OF WESTERN COSMOPOLITANISM
27
The primary core of cosmopolitanism: the trinity god-humanity-individual
The individual
Humanity
God or the methaphysical conception of the individual and humanity
29
29
32
33
The secondary core of cosmopolitanism: community
The bond of community
Institutional community
34
35
35
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Moral community
36
Problematisation and énoncés
Problematisation: the local/general axis
The énoncés of cosmopolitanism
37
38
39
Conclusion
40
PART II: EMPIRY
42
CHAPTER 3: THINKING MAN
44
Man as an object of study and a speaking subject
Humankind as object: unity and diversity
Humankind as subject: the ‘cosmopolitan self’
46
46
50
Metaphysical vs. physical conceptions of humankind
Deism or theism: God’s religion of universal reason
Atheism: nature’s science of universal reason
Universal moral duty and universal truth
52
53
54
56
Conclusion
58
CHAPTER 4: THINKING MAN IN SOCIETY
59
From nature to society: humankind and the sovereign
Metaphysical natural law: the community of reason under a sovereign God
Atheist natural law theory: the human sovereign in a civil society
Conclusion
60
61
63
66
Cosmopolitanism meant in a ‘nationalist’ language
A new political vocabulary
Nation: from people to civitas
Patrie: from country to polis
Cosmopolitanism: debating the boundaries of sovereignty
66
67
67
69
71
Conclusion
75
CONCLUSION: TOWARDS A COSMOPOLITAN COSMOPOLITANISM?
76
BIBLIOGRAPHY
79
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ABSTRACT
Cosmopolitanism is not a well-known entity in political theory. Therefore, a history of this
political doctrine is needed. However, such epistemological enquiry faces an ontological
conundrum. Not only is it difficult to identify cosmopolitanism, but doing so might prove to be
an ‘uncosmopolitan thing to do.’ This thesis employs a contextualist archaeology  marrying
Foucault with the ‘Cambridge school’  in order to conciliate an epistemological approach with
a fairly ontologically neutral status. Cosmopolitanism is thus envisaged as a located discourse in
the West, problematising the local and the general, and squeezed in between (inter)nationalism
and universalism. How did cosmopolitanism enter political thought alongside these two other
doctrines? To contemporary cosmopolitanism, eighteenth-century French political thought
constitutes a ‘return’ to the humanist foundations on which our modern political vocabulary got
formed. Its study reveals that a hitherto-considered nationalist vocabulary  the nation, the
patrie  was indeed formulated in cosmopolitan terms. It also reveals that the conception of
humanity structured located contractualist theories despite the universality of human rights.
This thesis shows the common archive of these three discourses around a rediscovered and yet
unanswered question in political thought: the proper sovereign authority to govern universally
free and equal humankind.
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INTRODUCTION
ON THE NEED FOR A HISTORY OF
COSMOPOLITANISM
T HE P RE S E N T , T HE P A S T A N D T H E CO N T I N U I T Y O F A P O L I TI C A L DO CT R I N E
… [C]osmopolitanism is not some known entity existing in the
world, with a clear genealogy from the Stoics to Immanuel Kant,
that simply awaits more detailed description at the hands of
scholarship. We are not exactly certain what it is, and figuring out
why this is so and what cosmopolitanism may be raises difficult
conceptual issues (Pollock, et al. 2002, 1).
Cosmopolitanism has for the past decade regained considerable amounts of interest in Western
political thought. This comes as no surprise: the ‘material conditions’ for its regeneration are
multiple  e.g. globalisation with increased interdependence and common issues; worldwide
instant communication; the end of the cold war dichotomous ideologies; new political
communities such as the European Union; the coming age of ‘a-polarity.’ However, we still live
all these evolutions in the nation-state paradigm. This paradigm is showing its limits: global
challenges require global means of decision-making beyond particular interests;
interdependency requires other models of democratic participation; the renewed extreme
nationalism draws attention to the identity crisis that globalisation ensues; to name but a few.
Thus cosmopolitanism appears as a potentially ‘think outside the box’ alternative to the nationstate paradigm. However, in order to do so, cosmopolitanism would have to be a clearly
identifiable set of theories with corresponding normative imperatives in the moral and political
realms. This is far from being the case; visions of cosmopolitanism differ widely. Some argue
that it is a view opposed to the narrow mindedness and chauvinism of nationalism and
patriotism. Others argue that it is compatible with them, or even that it is necessarily rooted in
a culture. Some would base its universal principles on reason, others on communication. Some
would argue for a world-wide political organisation or a global state, others for a more
heterogeneous network of governance centres. Some would look for a global common identity,
others for multiple layers of freely chosen ones. All in all, many of the proposed solutions boil
down to either a global nation-state or more empowerment and democratisation of currently
existing international organisations. Either way, the solutions are provided within the nationstate paradigm: a global nation-state encompassing all the others, or democratic institutions for
better international discussions  in other words, universalism or internationalism. Thus,
cosmopolitanism does not seem able yet to open any box, beside Pandora’s.
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So what is cosmopolitanism then? It is largely unknown, and this is why its epistemological and
ontological constructions are needed. It is however possible to sketch some basic facts. For one,
it is not the dominant discourse of political theory. The reason for this ‘unbearable lightness of
being’ on the part of cosmopolitanism is due to the fact that it remained at an underdeveloped
level because of its overshadowing competitive theories  nationalism/patriotism and
universalism. Therefore, if one assumes with Foucault that political ideas, or any sort of
knowledge, are the result of wars for the imposition of a dominant one, then one must assume
that actually existing cosmopolitanism is the product of nationalism.1 Thus, what we
understand by ‘cosmopolitanism’ is in fact a ‘national-cosmopolitanism’ (as opposed to a
‘cosmopolitan-cosmopolitanism’).
Taking this into consideration, and looking closer at what cosmopolitanism could be, one must
admit that cosmopolitanism contains a few oxymoronic assertions: e.g. on the one hand it
claims a universal commonality, on the other the respect for cultural differences; or as Appiah
(1998) noted, citizens of the world enjoying the plurality of cultures could not enjoy them
anymore if everyone was a citizen of the world. But what if these tensions were just the raison
d’être of cosmopolitanism? This is what some argue and what this thesis takes as a starting
point for understanding cosmopolitanism:
Cosmopolitanism may instead be a project whose conceptual content and
pragmatic character are not only as yet unspecified but also must always
escape positive and definite specification, precisely because specifying
cosmopolitanism positively and definitely is an uncosmopolitan thing to do
(Pollock, et al. 2002, 1).
Here, the philosopher is speaking. What’s history got to do with it? The work of the historian
and the philosopher are separated for academic and practical reasons, but in the field of the
history of ideas, they are necessarily connected — the philosopher needs giants’ shoulders to
stand on, while the historian of ideas depends on philosophical ontologies to sketch the history
of these ideas. Notwithstanding the critiques addressed by the ‘Cambridge school’ to
philosophical histories of ideas, one must accept that there is, before any history of ideas, the
need to define the idea that one makes the history of. This is the work of the philosopher.
Indeed, Bartelson (2007) argues that philosophy and history, instead of being considered
opposite or identical endeavours, ought to be regarded as mutually constitutive. Bartelson sees
three implications to this statement. One of them is based on the Nietzschean view that only
that which can be defined has a history and vice versa. One must add that this only applies to
language theory of meanings. A well defined meaning has a clear history, and a clear history has
a well defined meaning. However, according to this view, cosmopolitanism would then have no
history since it has no clear defined meaning, and inversely it cannot have a defined meaning
since it has no history. Notwithstanding, cosmopolitanism does exist since we can all somehow
sketch some gross historical series of connections between the dots of cosmopolitanism left in
time. It is nonetheless an unclear concept, and as such its history is unclear. The whole problem
is then to develop a methodological apparatus capable of providing a clear history for an
unclear concept, whilst leaving the ontology of the concept relatively open.
1
Consequently, cosmopolitan thinkers are trying to escape this dominant paradigm of ‘methodological nationalism’ and to replace it
with a ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ (Beck 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006).
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Another implication that Bartelson sees is that the study of political thought ought to pay closer
attention to the role of historiography in the constitution of its problems and solutions. This
thesis on cosmopolitanism is aiming to do just that. In order to contribute to solutions and
answers to the urgent and important question ‘what is cosmopolitanism?’ it aims at paying
close attention to the historiography of this concept. In doing so, the research question of this
thesis is thus ‘how did cosmopolitanism enter modern political thought in the Western
discourse between the discourses of the local and the general?’ As argued, the answer to this
research question entails as much a philosophical clearing of the concept, as a historical
analysis of its origins.
In order to answer to this question, one must first find a sufficiently workable basis for the
history of cosmopolitanism. For that, one must separate cosmopolitanism into different pieces.
First of all, one must put cosmopolitanism in cultural perspective. Since ‘worlds too are
“imagined”’ (Robbins 1998, 2), then there are also different versions of cosmopolitanism
(Vertovec and Cohen 2002) to envisage — many ‘cosmopolitanisms’ (Pollock, et al. 2002).
However, since cosmopolitanism claims some universal commonalities, one must recognise
that there is a universal cosmopolitanism that is an all-encompassing meta-cosmopolitanism.
This thesis is based on an optimistic and normative assumption. It assumes that this metacosmopolitanism is not only possible but also desirable. As such, it considers the discourse of
Western cosmopolitanism as aiming for a universal theory of moral and politics, and that it is
both possible and desirable. It does not negate the fact that universalism has in the past been
the mask of ethnocentrism and provoked the looting of colonial countries under the guise of
‘bringing civilisation.’ However, it envisages that this should be taken into account in order to
prevent its recurrence. As such, the method must be recognised to being biased in assuming
these facts. Concretely this means, that the thesis is choosing (while remaining ‘objective’ in
describing the discourse of cosmopolitanism) to study cosmopolitanism accepting the
possibility of reaching some form of universalism. It also assumes that there is a fairly united
Western discourses, and that studying French eighteenth-century political thought is relevant
for understanding the contemporary Anglo-American one.
However, an epistemology of cosmopolitanism must avoid altering the ontology (assuming that
the ontology is achievable, although not yet achieved). This epistemology aims at enlightening a
future ontology towards this potential universal promise. In order to do so, there must be no
definition of this ontology beforehand. However, there is a need for a minimal understanding of
what cosmopolitanism is, in order to make its history. The problem is then how and on what
the epistemology can be based? Knowing where one comes from helps knowing who one is.
But, how then is it possible to find a way to know where one comes from, when we do not really
know who that ‘one’ is? This could explain why so few general histories of cosmopolitanism
exist.2 Even for the period that is supposedly the ‘golden age’ of cosmopolitanism, one of the
‘cosmopolitan moments’ (Cohen and Fine 2002),  the Enlightenment  there are very few
studies: some focusing on Europe using a few ‘representative’ authors (Dédéyan 1976, O'Brien
2
In a literature overview of cosmopolitanism (Beck and Sznaider 2006), only six entries are noted, three of which concentrating on
the Greek period, one on the Enlightenment (Schlereth 1977) and two on its general history (Heater 1996, Toulmin 1990); to
which one may add Coulmas (1990) as a general history of the citizens of the world, Scrivener (2007) for the study of
cosmopolitans as a sociological group with a ‘supranational’ identity during the Enlightenment, and also Jacob (2006) for the
study of cosmopolitans during the Enlightenment.
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1997, Schlereth 1977), on Germany (Kleingeld 1999), and on the country of reference, France
(Bélissa 1998).
The above mentioned authors all start with a certain definition of cosmopolitanism. For
instance Schlereth’s eighteenth-century cosmopolitanism is delineated as possessing the
following characteristics: ‘an attitude of mind that attempted to transcend chauvinistic national
loyalties or parochial prejudices in its intellectual interests and pursuits’ (1977, xi); ‘… an
aspiration of the elite intellectual class that Voltaire called the world’s petite [sic: petit]
troupeau des philosophes’ (1977, xii); ‘… more symbolic and theoretical than actual and
practical’ (1977, xii); ‘… a psychological construct that prompted many philosophes to replace or
to modify their attachment to their geographical region or sphere of activity with a more
expansive, albeit abstract, attitude toward the whole world’ (1977, xiii). This definition assumes
and defines cosmopolitanism as elitist, beyond the national, and abstract. The problem is that
the historian must then look for the national at a period when it did not yet exist, and oppose
normatively a supposedly ‘abstract’ and ‘elitist’ cosmopolitanism to what seems to be a
‘concrete’ and ‘popular’ nationalism. What is wrong in this picture is that, not only did the
‘national’ not yet exist, but that, in eighteenth-century political thought, what is today identified
as ‘national’ was just as abstract and elitist as cosmopolitanism is imagined to be. Not only that,
it also referred to a unifying political community  beyond the local  under the natural law
conception of freedom and equality among men. This sounds almost identical to the very same
working definition provided of cosmopolitanism. However, based on this contemporary
conception of cosmopolitanism as opposed to nationalism, one must assume that the latter was
different from the former. Why is that so? Moreover, important actors of the French revolution
actually argued and acted in very cosmopolitan terms; and chiefly the 1789 Declaration of the
rights of man and the citizen represents an important piece of practical cosmopolitics in
recognising the freedom and equality of the whole humankind. This is far from a ‘more
symbolic and theoretical than actual and practical’ conception.
Behind all this lies a need for a re-conceptualisation of the relationship between
cosmopolitanism and nationalism, especially in regard to the French revolution. This method of
ontological definition is problematic for both the historian and the philosopher. For the
historian, there is a risk of applying an anachronistic vision of cosmopolitanism, based on a
contemporary approach of what it is  a vision biased by nationalism as argued supra  and
ignoring what it has been. For the philosopher, it is ruining future ontological constructions by
reproducing again and again the same ‘knowledge’ of what cosmopolitanism is and has been.
A possible way out of this ontology/epistemology conundrum is to make a Foucaultian ‘history
of the present’ by means of a genealogy of this battle between discourses. However, here again
the same ontological issue arises. Genealogy presupposes a fully-fledged discourse in order to
be effective, and one that is dominant.3 Cosmopolitanism is not the dominant discourse. The
genealogy can only be the one of Western political thought in which nationalism is set in
relation to cosmopolitanism and universalism. But such a study would not focus exclusively on
cosmopolitanism. Therefore another of Foucault’s ‘tools’ would prove more useful  namely
archaeology. Archaeology escapes the ontology/epistemology dilemma by avoiding an ultimate
definition of the ontology of cosmopolitanism  in order to study its epistemology  and
3
For instance the genealogy of the concept of sovereignty, which is dominant and well representative of the knowledge/power
nexus (Bartelson 1996).
~7~
instead taking a position on what can be defined as the discourse of cosmopolitanism. That way,
cosmopolitanism is seen as a located discourse, the Western discourse of cosmopolitanism, and
composed of several compounds, which can be defined and studied through time. Archaeology
is, however, not a widely used ‘tool’ of research in the history of ideas, and is not fully accepted
by historians. I will however argue in this thesis that it can prove a successful bridge between a
contextualist analysis of history  providing high-defined snap-shots of history but not an
overall film  and a philosophical analysis of history  providing long telos on ‘unit ideas’ but
criticised for its anachronism and teleological narrative.
One of the possibilities of researching the discourse of cosmopolitanism is to adopt Foucault’s
favourite method of providing a definition: by defining what it is not. It can prove very
successful in refining the delimitation of the research area while not precluding too much of the
ontological status of cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is not nationalism, that is certain, but
this does not mean that it is opposed or unrelated to it. Cosmopolitanism is not patriotism,
another certainty, but then again, it does not mean that it is opposed or unrelated to it.
Allegedly, cosmopolitanism should be related to the ‘citizen of the world,’ but again, it is not
necessarily the case. At the global level, cosmopolitanism is a discourse placed in between two
extremities, with which it shares some features but is also opposed to. On the one hand,
universalism claims the commonality of many values and principles. Cosmopolitanism while
aspiring to some universal commonality  united humankind under a moral or political
community  also takes pride in respecting and nurturing differences and not suppressing
them in an imperialist and/or colonialist or simply difference-erasing universalism. On the
other, nationalism and its subsumed internationalism claim to maintain differences through the
principles of self-determination and national sovereignty, while advocating a certain unity at
the world level through international cooperation for peace and world order. Cosmopolitanism,
while aspiring to respect peoples’ will and independence, aims at a more integrated system for
maintaining peace and world order, rather than mere international cooperation based on free
will and a random spread of democracy.
If cosmopolitanism is a discourse situated in the West and inside a dominating discourse of
nationalism, then the most interesting period to study is a pre-nationalist one. But which one?
Today, cosmopolitanism is re-emerging in the context of globalisation. Contemporary Western
cosmopolitanism is answering to certain preoccupations of social equality, global issues, and
democratic accountability of decisions that have transnational consequences. Political thinkers
are ‘returning’ to cosmopolitanism, and especially to its ‘golden age,’ the Enlightenment4 
particularly its supposed beacon, Kant. Of course, Kant is an important figure of
cosmopolitanism, but he is not the only one, and not necessarily the most representative one.
His notoriety, as far as cosmopolitanism is concerned, is probably due to his use of the word
‘cosmopolitan’ in a clear system of government for international relations — defining a jus
cosmopoliticum next to the jus civile and jus gentium. But he was influenced by French political
thought, which is worth studying for what it can bring in understanding cosmopolitanism as a
discourse between nationalism/internationalism and universalism. One can thus speak of a
4
I understand the Enlightenment as a culturally specific period, which has been considered to have started at different times in
different countries (Israel 2006). In France it is conventionally considered to have started with the death of Louis XIV in 1715. I
choose to start this study in 1713, however, in order to include Saint-Pierre’s perpetual peace project. I stop this study with the
date of 1795 because it marked the formation of the Directoire and the last cosmopolitan speech given by Scipione de Piatolli
(1795).
~8~
‘return’ to the Enlightenment.5 Probably this ‘return’ is justified because of the golden age that
cosmopolitanism then knew. However, it is not fully understood since no comprehensive
historiography of cosmopolitanism as a political thought exists, as above mentioned.
The French Enlightenment, culminating with the revolution, offers a vast array of possibilities
for political thought. The end of the Ancien Régime gave the possibility of imagining purely
philosophical principles on the tabula rasa of political organisation. Since there was no
precedent, and since everything had to be organised anew according to the principles of natural
law, and the declaration of human rights, everything was possible. This bubble of complete
intellectual freedom was unprecedented in intellectual history, and the possibilities it provided
is most interesting for a political philosophy in search for a new vocabulary. The absolute
freedom can be epitomised by Diderot’s novel Jacques le fataliste (2004 [1796]), in which
nobody seems to know where the story is going since nothing is written after all on God’s big
universal scroll, not even the characters telling a story, not even the character in the character’s
story, and not even the novelist himself, as his imagination runs freely: ‘mes pensées ce sont
mes catins’6, writes Diderot in the opening of Le neveu de Rameau (2004 [1891]).
However, eighteenth-century ‘cosmopolitanism’ was understood in different terms, and was
answering to different preoccupations; therefore, the contemporary ‘return’ is not fully taking
into account what is merely its own re-appropriation of past cosmopolitanism. This is, again,
due to the lack of studies on its historiography. At that time, cosmopolitanism was envisaged as
a way to avoid wars between nations, as well as sometimes a ‘natural’ and ‘rational’
consequence of the French Revolution: since all men are free and equal, other nations must be
liberated against tyrants and oppression, and integrated into a single nation. It is ‘rational’ to
think this course of events since it is deduced from ‘nature’ itself. Of course, the langue at the
time was different, and the term nation had in itself a cosmopolitan meaning. But if the langue is
different, the parole is not always foreign, and the same problematic is used to justify
cosmopolitan orderings of the world: it is hoped to provide a means to end wars between
nations. This is why the study of eighteenth-century cosmopolitanism is so interesting and
primordial to the precision of what this doctrine actually means and entails. The same
problematic was set at that time, in political term, and one of the answers to it was
cosmopolitanism — although it was not yet explicitly formulated under this signifiant.
In order to understand the ‘return’ in question and the oxymoronic assertions of
cosmopolitanism, it is necessary to understand how cosmopolitanism became a political signifié
in modern Western political thought? The thesis I develop here is that different concepts and
different discourses politicised at that time, and it is the object of this study to single out which
ones are important in the context of cosmopolitanism  between ‘nationalism’ (also, as a
signifié without signifiant) and universalism. Mainly the concepts of nation and patrie7 are
5
Foucault (1971) evoked a necessary ‘return to’ the founding figure of a discipline inside a discourse (e.g. a return to Freud in
psychoanalysis or Marx in political economy). Of course, political theory is not psychoanalysis, nor is cosmopolitanism. There is
no founding figure of cosmopolitanism or political philosophy. However, both have a founding period, or at least a very
distinctive period, in direct relation to our contemporary time: the Enlightenment as the beginning of modernity. A ‘return to’ the
Enlightenment is thus happening within the discourse of cosmopolitanism, looking for the roots of this set of ideas. I propose in
this study to make historical links between the contemporary discourse of cosmopolitanism and the Enlightenment.
6
‘My thoughts they are my trollops.’
7
In this thesis I use the French word patrie as it is because the English translations are problematic. Indeed the French patrie has been
translated with the words ‘country,’ ‘fatherland,’ or ‘motherland.’ Clearly these translations are showing on which side of the
~9~
relevant because they became political concepts, replacing the Ancien Régime, and carrying a
universal content. This thesis will show that these concepts, considered the propriety of
nationalism, appeared in what may be called cosmopolitan terms. Posing the research question
in these terms is thus re-questioning the foundations of modern political philosophy under a
new gaze.
Three main objects of philosophical investigations in eighteenth-century France are examined
here in relation to the discourse of cosmopolitanism: the conception of humankind, the
conception of society and societies (or communities), and the conception of government for
humankind in society(ies). Using this order for the thesis is implicitly stating a hypothesis: that
conceptions of man and humankind influenced conceptions of society, and hereby political
theories of social contract, and that these influenced the conceptions of the laws governing
humankind in society.
In order to answer to the question of how cosmopolitanism became a political doctrine, this
thesis needs to state first how it intends to answer the question, and what is understood by
cosmopolitanism. These two matters are in truth one, and will be dealt with in part one.
Chapter One will investigate a number of conceptual and methodological issues that
cosmopolitanism sets for the historian of ideas and political theory. It will argue that Foucault’s
archaeology combined with a contextualist approach is the best way to solve these identified
issues. This means that cosmopolitanism will be understood as a discourse  not an
ontological definition  and what this discourse is composed of is the subject of Chapter Two.
The second part then, deals with the identification of the discourse of cosmopolitanism thus
conceived in eighteenth-century French political thought. Chapter Three investigates the ways
humanity has been conceived, and the tension in its conception of a united while divided
mankind. Chapter Four investigates how this conception was translated into political terms
through the theories of natural law and social contract, and the conceptions of political
communities such as the nation and the patrie. It closes on an elaboration of what a ‘discipline’8
of ‘cosmopolitanism’ looked like in the early revolutionary years.
concept patrie one understood it. As the thesis shows in chapter four, the patrie designated originally the place of birth, and was
extended to a universally inclusive abstract political space. Its borders where thus subject to discussion.
8
A ‘discipline’ is, in Foucaultian terms, referring to the beginning of a discourse, not yet fully-fledged (see infra).
~ 10 ~
PART I
THEORY
The first part explains the methodological approach of this historical/philosophical enquiry of
cosmopolitanism. The first chapter expounds several problems that the history of
cosmopolitanism in political thought is posing. It argues that Foucault’s archaeology is the best
‘tool’ to study cosmopolitanism, when combined with Pocock’s and Skinner’s attention to
context and language. Foucault provides the possibility of a history of the present thanks to the
use of a ‘problematisation.’ Because of the nature of the chosen method, the history of the
present discourse of cosmopolitanism must be based on an analysis thereof. Chapter two
exposes the compounds of the contemporary discourse of Western cosmopolitanism and the
problematisation that this thesis is based on.
~ 11 ~
CHAPTER 1
METHOD
S T U DY I N G A N – I S M T H R O UG H TI M E
Most discussions of cosmopolitanism as a historical concept and
activity largely predetermine the outcome by their very choice of
materials. If it is already clear that cosmopolitanism begins with
the Stoics, who invented the term, or with Kant, who reinvented it,
then philosophical reflection on these moments is going to enable
us always to find what we are looking for. Yet what if we were to
try to be archivally cosmopolitan and to say, ‘Let’s simply look at
the world across time and space and see how people have thought
and acted beyond the local.’ We would then encounter an
extravagant array of possibilities (Pollock, et al. 2002, 10).
How to write the history of cosmopolitanism? This question essentially boils down to whether
is it possible to write the history of an idea without fiddling too much with its content? In other
words, how is it possible to provide an epistemological account of an idea without altering its
ontology? Furthermore, how is it possible to assume the continuity of this idea, especially when
the word designating this idea did not yet appear in the language of the country studied at the
time studied? Finally, how does one account for the continuity of an idea across cultural spaces?
This chapter aims at providing a methodological solution to these questions that the study of
cosmopolitanism asks of the historian. Foucault’s ‘tools’ when combined with other
considerations such as Lovejoy’s and Skinner’s can prove a successful approach in dodging the
foundationalist conundrum and breaking the idea-atom into various compounds traceable in
their continuities and discontinuities through time and space.
In the study of the history of ideas, there are two histories that can be formulated: histories of
the present and histories of the past. Some controversies in the method have raged between the
two types of history making, and I will not take sides here as to who is right or wrong  I will
not answer the question whether the past is dead or not and whether it is anachronistic to
make histories of the present. I will merely assume that a history of the present is possible, and
that exploring the past is meant to explain the present. I also assume that this shall not entail an
anachronistic view of the past or a prejudiced starting point. Here, I will take from each side’s
arguments without taking part, for the sole sake of determining which arguments and
methodological tools are best suited for the purpose of this study.
~ 12 ~
The research question of this thesis is how cosmopolitanism entered political thought.
Cosmopolitanism is a doctrine, or an idea, and this involves methodological consequences: a
holistic historical study rather than an individualistic one. There are two general sets of
methodological prerequisites to take into account when answering these questions. The first
set of methodological considerations deals with the general issue of writing the history of an
idea. The second set of methodological considerations deals with the particular issue of writing
the history of cosmopolitanism.
ISSUES IN METHOD FOR THE HISTORY OF COSMOPOLITANISM
The history of ideas is not exactly like history. Perhaps it is for that very reason that a divide
appeared in the history of ideas between a philosophical approach and a more historical one.
Traditionally it was involved as a part of the history of philosophy, and developed by
philosophers themselves. Historians reacted by denouncing some severe drifts towards
historical inaccuracy, and reclaimed the territory  a school of thought called ‘historicism.’
Sketchily, one could divide between an American version of history of ideas around the concept
of ‘unit-ideas,’ with a philosophical approach of history (e.g. Lovejoy and Strauss), and a British
version marked by contextualism, an absence of philosophical pre-judgements (Collingwood
and the ‘Cambridge school,’ e.g. Skinner, Pocock, and Dunn). So the history of ideas is not
exactly like traditional history.
Because it is studying immaterial ‘facts,’ the history of ideas cannot be equated to the general
field of history that is concerned with the study of material ‘facts.’ Of course, some issues raised
about methods in history find an echo in the ones of the history of ideas, but this is because they
are issues in the historical process, issues concerning the historical account of ‘facts.’ Attacks on
the objectivity of the historian in collecting ‘hard evidence’ with no judgement as to the choice
of collection and the interpretation and/or explanation of them, is common to both fields. The
general question as to whether the past is dead or not, and whether philosophy and morals
should guide the revival of the past in the present are also common issues to both fields of
history.
Nevertheless, other issues are specific to the history of ideas. Precisely because it is concerned
with intellectual productions, with words, with concepts and theories, a wide range of new
issues arises; e.g., language, the meanings of words and their consistency through time, the
possibility to isolate concrete units from non-concrete material, or complex relations involved
in the formation of doctrines from a word to a word-ism. In the particular case of
cosmopolitanism, an issue nobody has ever raised is whether the word cosmopolite is an alltime compound of cosmopolitanism. It is not necessarily the case, and there should be sceptical
questioning within the method, especially if one takes seriously the warnings about eschewing
preconceived judgements about historical material that will follow later in this chapter.
Starting from this, it is possible to identify and answer the already existing debates on general
issues in the history of ideas and more specifically the history of political theory. The history of
cosmopolitanism raises, on the other hand, other specific issues.
ISSUES INHERENT TO THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
~ 13 ~
In order to study a doctrine such as cosmopolitanism in history, which method should be more
appropriate? Several methods have created debates in the history of ideas, and these are
relevant to the choice of method for cosmopolitanism: how are the past and the present of
cosmopolitanism to be considered? What should be studied, what unit should be singled out in
cosmopolitanism, and how?
PAST AND PRESENT
Should the past be considered as distinctive from the present? Is the past a dead, objective thing
or is it alive and necessarily subjected to present considerations? Historians of ideas have
debated these questions. For the present study, it is necessary to consider the past as a living
thing and not as a dead period. As Collingwood (1983 [1939]) puts it, it would not otherwise be
possible to study the past if it did not exist in the present world. For Strauss (1949) too, the past
is not dead, and, moreover, it is necessary to look into past thoughts for solutions to actual
problems; philosophy and history are inevitably related: the history of ideas is political
philosophy. Without going as far as Strauss and considering that we must judge past
philosophies as true or false, it is however necessary to accept the reflectivist point that making
a history of political philosophy entails making political philosophy. In the present study, it is
very important to mind the present, first because the present provides us with a definition of
cosmopolitanism9, and second, because it is necessary to refrain from swaying any
contemporary definition of cosmopolitanism.10
It is difficult to assume the past as a dead entity remote from the present for another reason.
Studying past political philosophers shows one thing: they themselves all make reference to
past political philosophers when stating their theories. Of course, this does not mean that a
history of political philosophy shall perpetuate this re-interpretation of past thinkers, but it
shows that political philosophy is in itself a field of constant re-interpretations. In this sense,
there is no past and no present at all, as the present is but a re-interpretation or re-framing of
the past and the past is a constant present. As Strauss argues (1949), ‘historicism’ itself is a
product of a philosophy of history; i.e., methods in the history of political thought are also
products of political thoughts. It is thus very difficult to argue convincingly that the past is dead
and remote from the present if this very consideration about the past is a product of that past.
So, all ideas come from somewhere and cosmopolitanism also has ‘roots’ or ‘origins’ in the past.
There is also an actual necessity to study cosmopolitanism and the past can be enlightening in
the philosophical task of determining what cosmopolitanism is. However, one should be careful
with questions of ‘origins’ and how they ought to be studied. Seeing the past with present eyes
should not lead the historian to search solely for what has ‘practical’ consequences in the
present. This would impose on the past an ‘arbitrary teleological structure’ (Oakeshott 1983
[1955]). The solution for Oakeshott is to remain sceptical towards reaching ‘practical’
conclusions from history; i.e. the historian must collect past evidences regardless of current
happenings, instead of being guided by them in her/his research.
The consequence of this for the study of cosmopolitanism is that, in searching the definition of
cosmopolitanism (a necessary prolegomena for the historical study of an idea) we need to be
9
Or rather a definition of the discourse of cosmopolitanism, see infra.
10
Again, see infra.
~ 14 ~
looking into the present somehow. There is no definition of cosmopolitanism to be found in the
past simply because all our conceptions are present.11 We need to start with a contemporary
definition of cosmopolitanism, but this does not mean that we shall apply an ‘arbitrary
teleological structure’ on the past with this definition: we are not looking for past ideas that
‘look like’ the contemporary definition, but we are looking for past conceptions that are part of
what is a contemporary definition of cosmopolitanism.
Furthermore, it has also been debated  still in line with the living past and the relation
between history and philosophy  whether the history of ideas should be dealing with the
diachronic analysis of ‘perennial problems’ in political philosophy. For Collingwood and the
‘Cambridge school,’ this is gravely mistaking what past authors really said or are meant to have
said. There is indeed a danger to force other problems  the ‘perennial problems’  on past
political problems, when they were actually tackled completely differently, and to compare
them anachronistically with thoughts of other authors or periods. According to Collingwood
(1983 [1939]), one should instead realise that every author, or at least every ‘historical period,’
addressed a particular problem to which a specific answer was given. Therefore, comparing
solutions across time does not make sense as they were in fact answering different questions.
Now, cosmopolitanism does not stand on the list of ‘perennial problems’ of philosophy.
However, it is a revival of past thoughts and as such it has a history, even if it is linked to the
emergence of the question: ‘What is globalisation?’ If we must remain historically accurate we
must accept that philosophers of past times  in this case the Enlightenment  were
answering other questions through cosmopolitanism. As such, cosmopolitanism during the
Enlightenment was not, as nowadays, a critique of the nation-state in a globalised world. The
Enlightenment was preoccupied with other questions; the most important of which being the
legitimate type of government and the famous answer to ‘Was ist Aufklärung?’ (Kant 1784). This
does not mean, however, that the history of ideas has no philosophical value. It can teach us
something about the variety of moral assumptions and political positions, but our time should
make its own thought rather than looking for so-called past ‘lessons’ in ‘timeless truths’
(Skinner 2002, 88-89).
Notwithstanding, cosmopolitanism could stand on the ‘perennial problems’ list. Has humankind
throughout time thought about the unity of humankind and the possible universal moral values
that cosmopolitanism entails? Skinner rejects the possibility of ‘perennial problems’ adopting a
Nietzschean and Weberian view on history that our concepts alter through time (Skinner 2002,
176). Conceptual changes continually take place, and it is not possible to ‘halt the flux of politics
by trying definitively to fix the analysis of key moral terms’ (Skinner 2002, 177). But what may
be perennial, or at least provide continuity, may not be problems, but ‘problematisations.’
Foucault (1971) is also adopting a Nietzschean perception of history. He also clearly sets
political problems in the context of their time, and considers history as a task (in line with Kant,
Nietzsche and Weber) of critique of ‘ourselves’  an ‘ontology of the present’ (Foucault 1994
[1984], 687-688). He himself entitled his project as ‘history of the present’12: all his historical
11
Also, cosmopolitanism did not exist as a word and as an explicit concept in the eighteenth century, but this is another
methodological problem that will be dealt with infra.
12
Merquior (1985, 161 note 2) assesses where Foucault made reference to it: Foucault, The Order of Things, 1970: ch. VI, 7, in fine;
Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1977: 30-31; Interview with Bernard-Henri Lévy in Le Nouvel Observateur, 644, March 1977, trans. in
Telos, 32, summer 1977.
~ 15 ~
studies are histories of present problems, how the present happened to be the way it is. In an
interview, Foucault (1994 [1977]) explained that since the nineteenth century the philosopher
has been asking himself the same question, which is in fact the one of a historian: ‘what is
happening today?’ The idea with such a ‘history of the present’ is also to give the means of
altering the present, but this is not our concern in this present study which focuses solely on the
historical account of the formation of cosmopolitanism as a political theory. Historian of the
discontinuities, he holds, however, the possibility of the continuity of discourses through time.
What makes past conceptions relevant to the present is Foucault’s way of thinking in terms of
‘problematisation’13 rather than a historical period, since history ‘does not stop’ (Kendall and
Wickham 1999, 21-24). A problematisation is therefore what holds the continuity and
relevance of the past in the history of a present idea. He gave a definition of what he meant with
‘problematisation’ in an interview:14
The ensemble of discursive and nondiscursive practices that makes something
enter into the play of the true and the false and constitutes it an object of
thought (whether in the form of moral reflection, scientific knowledge,
political analysis or the like) (Flynn 2005, 38).
The object of study is to define the conditions under which human beings ‘problematise’ who
he/she is and what he/she does in the world:
… [C]’est bien cela la tâche d’une histoire de la pensée… : définir les conditions
dans lesquelles l’être humain « problématise » ce qu’il est, ce qu’il fait et le
monde dans lequel il vit (Foucault 1984, 18)15
By applying this way of approaching the problem of a political theory, such as cosmopolitanism,
one can identify how human beings problematise their world in different epochs. This provides
a certain thread of understanding: present problematisations of cosmopolitanism may be due
to past ones. It also provides a link between cultural spaces, when a present problematisation
has roots in a culturally specific past problematisation. It avoids, however, considering
‘perennial problems.’
Foucault thus reconciles different views on the history of ideas and solves some methodological
conundrums: taking Strauss’ view that philosophy and history are two sides of a same coin and
imagining the possibility of drawing lessons from the past by making a history of the present,
while accepting the contextually and historically situated nature of philosophical problems.
THE OBJECT OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
Another important question in the history of ideas, and a necessary step to making an
intellectual history, is what type of unit the historian shall study. Cosmopolitanism is a political
theory or doctrine. How should a political doctrine be studied through time? Is it in itself a
sufficient unit, or is it composed of smaller units to study? Lovejoy (1936) famously suggested
13
The term ‘problematisation’ is the one Foucault uses to denote the last part of his genealogies with the History of Sexuality in The
Use of Pleasures (1984).
14 Interview
with François Ewald, ‘Le souci de la vérité,’ Le Magazine Littéraire, 207, May 1984 : 18.
15 ‘This
is indeed the task of the history of thought…: defining the conditions under which human beings “problematise” what they
are, what they do and the world they live in.’ My translation.
~ 16 ~
studying ‘unit ideas’ rather than doctrines in –ism form, which are ‘merely the initial material,’
but not the unit of history. These doctrines are composed of other units and it is the task of the
historian of ideas to identify them and study them. However, Lovejoy’s account of what these
‘unit ideas’ actually are is not satisfying. These are expressed in psychologising terms as some
kind of deep structure of thinking that influences a writer’s arguments, reasoning, and
intellectual tendencies.16 However, if stripped off these psychologising foci, Lovejoy’s
conception of ‘unit ideas’ is going in the right direction as far as the study of the continuity of an
idea is concerned. Nonetheless, in order to study doctrines, taking a ‘doctrine’ as a historical
given is too large and vague; there is a need for smaller irreducible cores that are sufficiently
constant through time to support a historical study. The question is what these units should be.
One may add another critique to the concept of the history of a ‘unit idea.’ The problem is that it
provides a history of one idea without necessarily considering the very dynamic on which
thinking is based. An idea rarely comes alone. And when ideas are grouped into doctrines, the
history of a doctrine in isolation from any other makes little sense. Just like the study of a nation
without its surroundings would make little sense, the story of a doctrine without its alternative
or rival ones would not make a comprehensive study. Here, Foucault’s archaeological angle
provides a way to study a doctrine  better renamed as ‘discourse’  in relation to other
discourses. That way, the history of a discourse is more comprehensive because it provides a
more accurate description of the complexity of the development of ideas. Discourses are
enmeshed and interconnected, and it would not be possible to understand how one doctrine
formed without understanding how another was.
However, Skinner (2002, 57-89), among others, has criticised this view for its possible drift
towards misinterpretations in three types of ‘mythology.’17 Skinner’s critique is right in
denouncing the possible misinterpretations that a holistic account of history entails. However,
Skinner’s method is problematic because it can only account for the study of authors as the sole
unit in history. Furthermore, putting individual authors next to each others, even when each
has been studied in his/her own right, does not equate to a holistic account of ideas. It does not
produce an overall history and does not make connections between authors, other than the
meticulous evidence that B is known to have studied A’s works, could not have found the
relevant doctrines in any other writer than A, and could not have arrived at the relevant
doctrine independently (Skinner 2002, 75-76).
So the problem is to find a way out of the author/text unit analysis in order to find some overall
structure; i.e. keeping Lovejoy’s concept of ‘unit ideas’ stripped out of the psychologising
elements while refraining from imposing any ‘mythology’ to these authors and remaining true
to their intentionality. Foucault provides an interesting solution in this direction. He criticised
what he saw as the psychologising elements of the history of ideas and intended to provide an
objectivist account. In order to avoid these, he suggests the ‘historical a priori,’ which studies a
discourse in its ‘positivity’. Foucault considers that describing a discursive formation is
describing the type of ‘positivity’ of the discourse (Foucault 1969, 166). In this sense, Foucault
considers his approach ‘positivist’ because it does not pursue any interpretation of so-called
16
One should then look for ‘esprits simplistes,’ ‘Hamlet-like natures,’ ‘dialectical motives,’ ‘metaphysical pathos,’ ‘philosophical
semantics,’ and ‘single principles.’ This view involves a psychological judgement on the part of the historian about how classic
authors wrote, which is problematic.
17
‘Mythology of doctrines,’ ‘mythology of coherence,’ and ‘mythology of prolepsis.’
~ 17 ~
‘hidden meanings,’ it does not describe an ‘énoncé’18 in relation to the inside of a thought, and it
does not accept a teleological view of history with a beginning that one should identify. The
positivity of a discourse gives its unity through time. This unity defines a ‘limited space of
communication,’ the historical a priori, of which Foucault gives this following definition based
on the objectivity of the study of the past rather than a Straussian judgement of value:
… j’entends désigner par là un a priori qui serait non pas condition de validité
pour des jugements, mais condition de réalité pour des énoncés (Foucault
1969, 167).19
Archaeology is a method of historical investigation that is descriptive, i.e. non-interpretative.
Foucault uses this characteristic to dissociate archaeology from other methods, stating that
archaeology is concerned with the discourse as ‘monument’ and not as ‘document’ (Foucault
1969, 182). Instead of trying to interpret what past authors meant, archaeology is ‘the
systematic description of the discourse-object’ (Foucault 1969, 183). Foucault invites us to
observe exactly what is said in this discourse by means of a ‘submerged grammar’ (Veyne 1978,
398-39). Archaeology is also non-anthropological, i.e. it does not consider an author by trying to
analyse what he or she meant or intended to mean (Foucault 1969, 41). The author is
‘marginalised’ because of the function it represents. The name of an author is not purely
‘designating’ (a person) but also ‘describing’ (the author of something), and this has a
‘classificatory function’ in that it delimitates and excludes texts. Moreover, the very fact that a
discourse has an author characterises the ‘mode of being’ of the discourse: a discourse with an
author is not just any banal discourse, it is thereby given a status (Foucault 1994 [1969-1970],
796-798).
Nevertheless, the archaeological method is very close to Lovejoy’s. The question is still around
which core-units one should study larger ones  a science, a doctrine, a body of knowledge 
that are in fact historically predetermined (e.g. medicine, grammar, political economy, natural
sciences). Foucault would only accept momentarily these units given by history, but only as a
starting point and with extreme caution. Rather than units given by history or any –isms,
Foucault sees discourses, and these discourses are composed of some undividable units called
‘énoncés’ that glue together their other compounds, which are ‘objects,’ ‘concepts,’ and
‘strategies.’ However, the ‘historical a priori’ takes into consideration the critique addressed by
Skinner: the historian cannot misuse his/her vantage-point in describing the past because the
past is considered in itself a ‘positivity,’ condition for the reality of the ‘unit-idea’ that is the
énoncé. However, the method does not venture into authorship considerations, the subject
being ‘marginalised’  since the author has died  because archaeology focuses on what the
overall system in which authors wrote was, rather than on what these authors meant (Gutting
2005, 33).
18
The English translation for what Foucault calls ‘énoncé’ is ‘statement.’ However, I choose to maintain in this thesis the French term
‘énoncé’ because of its etymology: from Latin enunciare, derived from et nunciare, to announce, and also related to the French ‘nonce,’
from Latin nuncius, messenger. Although I have not found a study on Foucault’s concept of ‘énoncé,’ I assume that his French
education at the École Normale Supérieure has taught him the importance of words and their Latin etymology, and therefore I
assume that the choice of the term ‘énoncé’ had something to do with this etymology in the same manner as the choice for the
term ‘archive’ and ‘archaeology’ was made (cf. supra). This meaning is lost with the English word ‘statement,’ and not completely
recovered with the word ‘announcement.’
19
‘... I intend hereby to designate an a priori that would not be a condition of validity for judgements, but condition of reality for
énoncés.’
~ 18 ~
LANGUAGE AND MEANING
One last methodological question in studying past ideas is the question whether language is
objective or not in carrying ideas, and the problem of meaning in general. Skinner made
persuasive remarks on the question of language in the history of ideas. In discussing what kind
of knowledge we can hope to get from the study of keywords, Skinner argues that one should
not take for granted that a concept is necessarily based on a word, and vice versa. Possessing a
concept is not a necessary prerequisite for understanding the correct application of a
corresponding term (Skinner 2002, 159).
This is particularly important in the study of cosmopolitanism. It has been assumed in all
previous historical studies of cosmopolitanism (e.g. Coulmas 1990, Heater 1996) that the
concept of cosmopolitanism is related to the word cosmopolitan itself. Equally, it has been
assumed that the concept of nationalism is related to the word nation itself, and the same goes
with patriotism. When studying a word, Skinner argues that one should look for three things:
first, ‘the nature and range of the criteria in virtue of which the word or expression is
standardly applied’; second, its ‘range of reference’; and third, what ‘range of attitudes’ the term
can be used to express. (Skinner 2002, 161-162). As such, the only hope for the history of ideas
is to acknowledge the historical contingency of moral and political vocabularies (Skinner 2002,
175).
By the same token, Pocock argues that one should look for the political language of these texts,
understood as ‘idioms, rhetorics, specialised vocabularies and grammars’ found in ‘a single
though multiplex community of discourse’ (Pocock 1987). So for him, in order to understand a
text, it is necessary to look at its language, its langue, which would then actually constitute its
parole. This entails looking at the vocabulary, the languages of political thought at the time, to
put a context on a text.
Now, recognising that there is no continuity in the political and moral vocabularies makes a
valid point on what cosmopolitanism was, but it does not help for giving an account of what
cosmopolitanism is. It is enlightening to understand past conceptions of morals and politics. But
how does it relate to the present if the present is but a disruption of political and moral
vocabulary? It seems that Skinner’s vision of the history of ideas is essentially a succession of
contingencies. Even if a word and a concept had different meanings in the past, giving the
account of these different meanings does not provide a good explanation as to why this word
and concept still exist today. In other words, it does not acknowledge the continuity of words
and concepts in order to explain present meanings and understandings of these words and
concepts.
So there are two problems. The first one is that a concept should not be necessarily attached to
a word, but this word should be analysed in its context, and a text in a community of discourse.
For cosmopolitanism, this entails decoupling cosmopolitanism from the ‘citizen of the world,’
the cosmopolitan,20 and also accepting that nation and patrie may be related to it in the
20
In this thesis, I will therefore not study the word ‘cosmopolite’ in eighteenth-century France. My study of this word based on the
careful referencing by Hazard (1930) shows that it had diverse meanings (traveller, philosopher, bad citizen), which are not
directly related to the discourse of cosmopolitanism at that time. It is much later  during the nineteenth century and the
apparition of the words nationalism and cosmopolitanism as we know them  that the connection between ‘cosmopolitan’ and
cosmopolitanism occur. In a study of the French enlightenment, the word is therefore not primordial and I do not include it in
order to make available space to other foci directly related to the research question.
~ 19 ~
conception of community. The second issue is that this method situates the discourse in a
particular period. Foucault is here again helpful with his ‘history of the present.’ This way of
making history accepts such positions of historical context of vocabularies argued by Skinner
and Pocock. But it also integrates through the notion of problematisation, a historical relevance
for the present.21
ISSUES INHERENT TO THE HISTORY OF COSMOPOLITANISM
There are chiefly two issues in attempting a history of cosmopolitanism. The first one is to
define cosmopolitanism. The second one is the problem of assuming the continuity of
cosmopolitanism.
WHAT IS COSMOPOLITANISM? THE PROBLEM OF DEFINITION
Just like the study of any –ism, the study of cosmopolitanism raises the conceptual issue of
defining what it is in order to make its history. There are two issues involved in finding the
definition of cosmopolitanism. First, it is the general issue of any –ism: does one start with a
contemporary definition risking anachronism? It is a paradox that has to be methodologically
addressed that, when one wants to make the history of something present, one must remain
sufficiently open to understand the past of this present doctrine as historically accurate as
possible. Risks are high to start with a contemporary definition and try to force the past to
answer to this definition in order to claim that a historical account has been undertaken. This
task would equate to nothing more than a philosophical selection in history of what ‘resembled’
the doctrine studied. Therefore, it is primordial to remain as true as possible to past texts, and
study them in their context in order to ‘see things their way’ (Skinner 2002, 1-7).
Second, and an issue specific to cosmopolitanism, it is not a well defined body of doctrines in
the first place. Granted, any –ism is difficult to define, but cosmopolitanism is disinclined to
definition on at least two grounds. First, and most obviously, it is not clear what
cosmopolitanism stands for and there is no ‘clear genealogy from the stoics to Kant’ (Pollock, et
al. 2002, 3). Second, cosmopolitanism is a generic word that is in fact masking the diversity of
conceptions that lies behind it  as Derrida would put it; one should instead speak of
cosmopolitanisms (Pollock, et al. 2002). One may add that cosmopolitanism is a paradox, a
philosophical conundrum in that it aims, on the one side, at developing a certain universal ideal,
a vision of a united world, but that, on the other side, this vision of the world is necessarily
discursively situated and may become an imperial ideology if imposed on others. For instance,
Appiah (2006, 137 ff.) provocatively gives the example of Islamic and Christian fundamentalists
as also fighting for a ‘universal truth’; the difference with cosmopolitans being that the latter
accept diversity as well as non believers.
This leads to two considerations as to the method of study. The first one is that it is not possible
to study ‘cosmopolitanism.’ ‘Cosmopolitanism’ does not exist yet and it is the philosophers’ task
to conceptualise a ‘universal truth’ that is acceptable and including anybody without ideological
colonialism. The only study possible is thus the study of a situated discourse of
cosmopolitanism. In this case it is the one that one may call ‘Western cosmopolitanism.’ The
21
Cf. argumentation supra.
~ 20 ~
second one is that even when inside a situated discourse, one has to remain true to the
fundamental core of cosmopolitanism which is the ‘universal truth’ it proclaims. This means
that providing a definition of cosmopolitanism  inside a discursively situated
cosmopolitanism  is again situating cosmopolitanism, and this turns into an ‘uncosmopolitan
thing to do’ (Pollock, et al. 2002). Even if we situate cosmopolitanism as a Western discourse
for the sake of our study, we need to keep in mind that Western cosmopolitanism still aims at
uncovering a ‘universal truth.’ In other words, even a work of history is socially reflective and
making the history of a political philosophy is involving a political commitment to what exactly
this political doctrine is. If we take Strauss’ assertion regarding history and philosophy
seriously, then we must find a way to avoid defining cosmopolitanism while making its history.
Providing a definition of what Western cosmopolitanism actually is certainly means excluding
possibilities, and imposing some views on others. We are thus in a conundrum.
One way of avoiding this conceptual issue  up to a certain degree  is to provide a definition
of the Western discourse of cosmopolitanism instead of a definition of Western
cosmopolitanism. Here, Foucault’s method becomes handy as the archaeology defines a
discourse as a set of ‘objects,’ ‘concepts,’ and ‘strategies’ rhetorically bond together around a
couple of ‘énoncés.’ If we can just define what the contemporary Western discourse of
cosmopolitanism is, then we have enough material to make its history, while avoiding a political
definition of cosmopolitanism. The archaeology of cosmopolitanism is then an analysis of the
compounds that form the archive of modern Western cosmopolitanism. In order to do this, it is
necessary to analyse the contemporary discourse of cosmopolitanism, in order to get a
description of its compounds: what ‘objects,’ what ‘concepts,’ and what ‘strategies,’ and most
importantly what ‘énoncés’ it is possible to identify. Only then can the historical study start,
based on this primary material. However, one has to keep in mind that this contemporary
discourse is not a ‘teleological structure’ to apply in the past, but has to be put in brackets: it
assumes no teleological continuities of its elements, only a description of an ‘array of questions’
(Barry, Osborne and Rose 1996, 5), to which resonates another one set in the past. I will not
assume a continuity of the objects, concepts and strategies of contemporary cosmopolitanism,
but I will critically problematise why they are so today, by looking at how this was in the past.
CONTINUITY OF ‘COSMOPOLITANISM’ THROUGH TIME
King (1983) sums up the central issue in the history of ideas in terms of how it can be said that
we can know the past: there is a tension or paradox haunting the history of ideas between two
positions according to which all knowledge is of the present, or inversely all knowledge is of the
past. As knowledge of the past, our present ideas are assumed to have evolved, and that they
are formulated in language through social convention, which ensures duration through time.
The problem is that this assumes that a doctrine exists only in so far as it is associated with a
word to define it. Skinner (2002) criticised Williams (1983) on his contention that a word and a
concept are necessarily related. It is for instance perfectly possible, Skinner (2002, 159) argues,
for an author to use a concept although the word designating it never actually appears in the
work.22
22
Skinner gives the example of Mill’s Paradise Lost with the word/concept ‘originality.’
~ 21 ~
The word ‘cosmopolitanism’ did not appear in the French language before 1863 (Dédéyan
1976, 3). However, the eighteenth century is paradoxically referred to as the ‘golden age of
cosmopolitanism.’ Why this paradox? Simply, an ‘idea’ cannot be materialised by a single word.
Or perhaps it only becomes a material object of language when there is a clear reflected
conscience of its existence. So, the problem with the history of cosmopolitanism is not only the
general problem of the history of ideas  as to whether it can be said that we can know the
past  but also it is a problem of how to write the history of something in the past that did not
yet exist in the vocabulary? Or in more objectivist terms: how to prove that an idea existed or
did not exist beyond the existence of the word designing it? The solution may be to break down
the present doctrine into various other units, which in their turn are present at the time of the
study. Another solution, and complementary, may also be to reject such a view that ‘doctrines’
only exist through words expressing them. After all, meanings vary through time and taking as
a start a contemporary word in language in order to study its past may risk anachronistic
outcomes.
This is Skinner’s view, to which one could add Foucault’s according to which there exist some
‘niveaux énonciatifs’23 in a discourse, which are not necessarily ‘visible’ although they are ‘not
hidden’ either (Foucault 1969, 143-144). So here again, Foucault provides a methodological
‘gadget’24 (Foucault 1980) that is useful to the study of cosmopolitanism. By studying the level
of the énoncé in the discourse of cosmopolitanism, it is possible to identify forms of emerging
cosmopolitanism encountering neither the word nor the theory explicitly. It is then possible to
envisage that cosmopolitanism in the form of its composing ‘énoncés’ did exist in the eighteenth
century  although the word did not , and that some words like ‘cosmopolite’ did exist 
although they did not necessarily refer to the concept of cosmopolitanism.
Another problem with studying cosmopolitanism through time, and related to Skinner’s
assertion of the historically situated contingency of political and moral vocabularies, is that
cosmopolitanism may also be subjected to other discourses. Here again, Skinner’s contingency
argument is right, but he does not provide a solution as to how to analyse a minoritarian view
in politics. Admittedly, Skinner’s programme of research is to make conceptual change at its
centre, and he reckons the influence of Foucault with his assertion that our ideas are the
product of wars in history (Skinner 2002, 177). However, the method is individualistic, and
focused on ‘the applications of the terms by which our concepts are expressed’ (Skinner 2002,
179). In other words, it only takes into consideration the dominant concepts. But what if
minoritarian concepts were defined by dominant concepts? How would it then be possible at all
to analyse them in their own right, if they are analysed by dominant concepts? What if
cosmopolitanism was essentially a product of nationalism? Is it merely a coincidence that the
word ‘cosmopolitanism’ appeared at the same time nationalism as an ideology became socially
embedded? Could the opposition between nationalism and cosmopolitanism not be a mere
product of nineteenth-century nationalism? Skinner’s view on social change is ill-equipped to
answer these questions because his method will be based on the dominant ‘methodological
nationalism’ (Beck 2000, 2003, 2005).
Indeed, Beck (1999) argues that our view for grasping social reality has shifted from modernity
to late/second modernity, and that the ‘methodological nationalism’ of modernity shall be
23
‘Enunciative levels.’
24
‘Tool.’
~ 22 ~
replaced by ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ of late/second modernity. In other words, there
is a need for a paradigm shift. This raises the question of whether cosmopolitanism can be
studied inside the dominant conceptual paradigm of nationalism. If our views are based inside
the nationalist paradigm, then our understanding of cosmopolitanism must be a nationalist one.
This severely impedes any study on cosmopolitanism outside the sphere of nationalism. If this
is the case (that cosmopolitanism is the product of nationalism), it also means that the
opposition between cosmopolitanism and nationalism should be a matter of suspicion and
historical research. Indeed, a social change occurred at the end of the eighteenth/beginning of
the nineteenth century that gave rise to nationalism, whereas cosmopolitanism used to be the
dominant conception in political theory (albeit without the name of it). How to account for this
change in its own right, outside the dominating nationalist paradigm?
Here again Foucault’s archaeology provides an interesting solution. According to Foucault,
archaeology is neither a theory nor a method (Merquior and Rouanet 1994 [1971]). It is not a
theory because the relations between discursive formations and economic and social
formations are not systematised. It is not a method because Foucault specifies nowhere how to
use the tools he describes and how to analyse these discursive formations. Archaeology is a
positioning towards the object of study: it is the level at which the analyst places him/herself in
order to make visible the existence of the (scientific) discourse and the way it functions in
society. It differs from epistemology in that it is not merely concerned with the episteme but
also with disciplines (as non-scientific discourses) and non-discursive elements such as
institutions and, albeit later and under the name ‘genealogy,’ power. This is the only possibility,
as far as methods in the history of ideas go, to study cosmopolitanism outside the realm of the
dominant discourse  nationalism.
ARCHAEOLOGY OF COSMOPOLITANISM
So far I have only been arguing why Foucault’s method should be used for the present historical
study of cosmopolitanism. I have expressed what concepts Foucault’s archaeology entails
without necessarily defining or explaining them in length. It is now turn to present a brief
description of Foucault’s archaeology.
FOUCAULT’S ARCHAEOLOGY AT A GLANCE
I do not intent to provide an in-depth exegesis of The Archaeology of Knowledge (Foucault
1969) here, but only a summary of the main elements that are useful to the study of
cosmopolitanism.
First of all, it is called ‘archaeology’ because it deals with the study of the ‘archive’ of
‘knowledge.’ The archive25 is the word that Foucault uses to designate a whole system of
25
According to Derrida (1995, 11), the Greek root of the word, arkhē, designates both the beginning and the commandment. The Latin
archivum or archium gave the meaning of archive we understand today, based on the Greek arkheîon designating first a house,
inhabited by the ‘archontes,’ those who commanded, the political power for citizens, those who in this place decided and
interpreted the archives (Derrida 1995, 12-13). However, if the idea of ‘commandment’ is part of the concept of archaeology,
Foucault refuses the theme of beginning: he is not concerned with the prime origin of meanings (Brochier 1994 [1969], 772).
Indeed, the archive is a double ‘commandment’ as it designates the system of ‘énonçabilité’ of the ‘énoncé-event,’ and the system of
the functioning of the ‘énoncé-thing.’
~ 23 ~
discursivity or system of all the énoncés, being events (with conditions and domains of
apparition) and things (with their possibility and field of use) (Foucault 1969, 170). The archive
is ‘the general system of formation and transformation’ of the énoncés (Foucault 1969, 171). It
is the ‘laws’ or rules of this system (archive) that archaeology wants to describe  the rules
governing the énoncés. It is not only the sum of the énoncés, but a system with rules upon the
énoncés. As such, archaeology is necessarily a comparative analysis because it analyses
discourses in their diversity by including other discourses (Foucault 1969, 208-209). For the
study of cosmopolitanism, this means replacing cosmopolitanism in the context of patriotism,
nationalism and universalism.
The énoncé is thus the core unit on which the archaeological study relies. It replaces the
inconvenient units suggested by tradition such as ‘medicine’ or ‘political economy.’ Instead
those are loosely referred to as ‘discursive formations,’ or shortly ‘discourses.’ A discourse or
discursive formation is composed of several énoncés. The énoncé is a function of existence of
signs from which the analyst has to decide, according to intuition or the analysis itself, if they
‘make sense’ or not, and according to what rule they follow each other’s or are next to each
other, and what sort of acts are affected by their formulation (oral or written) (Foucault 1969,
115). An énoncé is:
… la modalité d’existence propre à cet ensemble de signes : modalité qui lui
permet d’être autre chose qu’une série de traces… ; modalité qui lui permet
d’être en rapport avec un domaine d’objets, de prescrire une position définie â
tout sujet possible, d’être situé parmi d’autres performances verbales, d’être
doté enfin d’une matérialité répétable26 (Foucault 1969, 140-141).
So an énoncé is in fact the short name for a ‘fonction énonciative.’ This ‘function’ has a certain
number of elements in it. A formulation, i.e. a group of signs, is not in itself an énoncé. Four
elements, or conditions, have to occur. First, a series of signs is an énoncé if it is referring to
‘something else’ (Foucault 1969, 117): the series of signs is conditioning ‘laws of possibilities’
or ‘rules of existence’ for objects named by it. This is the ‘niveau énonciatif’27, as opposed to a
grammatical level. In this ‘enunciative level,’ objects or individuals are emerging and are
delimitated  this is what Foucault calls the ‘differentiation field’ (Foucault 1969, 120-121).
The second condition for a group of signs, or formulation, to be an énoncé is that there is a
relation with a subject (Foucault 1969, 121). However, the subject in question is not the
grammatical subject of the sentence analysed or the individual who enunciated it. The subject is
any possible person who could one day state the same énoncé. Third, the formulation must also
be put in relation to a ‘collateral space’ in order to be qualified as an énoncé (Foucault 1969,
128). This is not the context in which the énoncé has emerged, but an ‘associated domain’
(grouping of formulations the énoncé is part of, making reference to, or making possible in the
future). The last element of the énoncé concerns, what one could playfully paraphrase the
‘material conditions’ of its existence. This element conditions what can be qualified as a new or
old énoncé. ‘Institution,’ ‘stabilisation field,’ and ‘repetition’ are the three elements to take into
consideration (Foucault 1969, 136-138).
26
‘… the modality of existence proper to this ensemble of signs: mode that enables it to be something else than a series of traces…;
modality that enables it to be in relation with a domain of objects, to prescribe a defined position to every subject possible, to be
situated among other verbal performances, and finally to be given a repeatable materiality.’ My translation.
27
‘Enunciative’ level.
~ 24 ~
A discourse is constituted by the ensemble of sequences of signs that are identified as forming
énoncés, according to the definition given above. The ensemble of énoncés that are under the
same system of formation forms a discourse (Foucault 1969, 141)
On appellera discours un ensemble d’énoncés en tant qu’ils relèvent de la
même formation rhétorique ou formelle, indéfiniment répétable et dont on
pourrait signaler (et expliquer le cas échéant) l’apparition ou l’utilisation dans
l’histoire ; il est constitué d’un nombre limité d’énoncés pour lesquels on peut
définir un ensemble de conditions d’existence28 (Foucault 1969, 153).
A ‘discursive formation’ is the law of such a series. Foucault’s choice to call a discourse the
object of study rather than accepting the ready-made ‘units’ given by tradition, such as
‘medicine,’ ‘psychiatry’ or ‘criminology,’ was made precisely because he wanted to avoid these
units as taken for granted. Instead, he chose to put these ensembles temporarily in brackets,
and to accept only one unit of study: the énoncé. This is so because when we look more carefully
at these wide ‘units’ in question, more dispersion than coherence appears  but dispersion
that is nonetheless organised in some kind of ‘system.’ This is the reason why Foucault wants to
study these ‘systems of dispersion’ (Foucault 1969, 52-53). So when engaging in the study of,
say psychiatry, one first put the historically given unit ‘psychiatry’ in brackets. Instead, it is requalified as a ‘discursive formation.’ By the same token, cosmopolitanism will be re-qualified as
a ‘discursive formation,’ without any pre-given conception of what it is composed of.
A discourse is composed of three elements according to Foucault: ‘objects,’ ‘concepts,’ and
‘strategies’ (or theories). Objects are the foci that a discourse is taking, for instance madness as
the object of psychopathology. The analysis of the objects must be oriented towards three
things: the primary surfaces of their emergence (in which community of people the objects
emerge); the instances of delimitation (authorities that define the objects); and the tables of
specification (the systems in which the different objects are classified, grouped, opposed
and/or separated) (Foucault 1969, 56-58). There is also a ‘law’ that the analyst must define
concerning the successive or simultaneous apparition of concepts. A ‘system of conceptual
formation’ must be identified in order to identify the discursive formation (as far as concepts
are concerned). This ‘system of conceptual formation’ is the group of concepts that are in
relation with each other, despite the fact that they are disparate (Foucault 1969, 80). Strategies
are themes and theories: organizations of concepts, groupings of objects, and certain types of
enunciation formed with a certain type of coherence in the discourse (Foucault 1969, 85). The
task of the analyst is to describe how these strategies are distributed throughout history. As far
as strategies are concerned, a discursive formation is identified when it is possible to define the
system of formation of the different strategies, i.e. when it is possible to show how the
strategies all derive from the same game of relations (Foucault 1969, 91).
APPLYING ARCHAEOLOGY TO COSMOPOLITANISM
Archaeology is thus the method chosen for the present study, while taking into consideration
the arguments provided by Skinner and Pocock, which are not incompatible at all with
28
‘We will call discourse an ensemble of énoncés such as they belong to the same rhetorical or formal formation, indefinitely
repeatable, and which one could signal (and explain when possible) the apparition or the use in history; it is constituted by an
unlimited number of énoncés for which one can define an ensemble of conditions of existence.’
~ 25 ~
Foucault’s. The first objection that may arise is whether archaeology may apply well to the
study of political thought. After all, archaeology was developed to study whole branches of
knowledge, of ‘sciences,’ in order to describe their ‘archive,’ i.e. what ordered their discourse
internally, as far as words and things are concerned. The realm of political theories and moral
principles seems somewhat remote from ‘science.’ However, Foucault himself suggested the
possibility of using archaeology to uncover the ‘regularity of a knowledge’ that would not be
oriented towards the epistemological figure of sciences (Foucault 1969, 251). He suggests,
instead of orienting the archaeology towards the ‘épistémè,’ to orient it towards ethics (Foucault
1969, 253).
A point on Foucaultian vocabulary: in the case of cosmopolitanism  and indeed of political
thought in general  it is not so obvious to find such clear-cut categories as objects and
concepts. A concept reifies itself into an object, which in turn is conceptualised in a dialectical
manner. For instance, let us consider the nation: one could not deny the possibility today to
analyse it as an object of study; yet, it must have been a concept at a time, but then again, in
order to be a concept, there must have been some kind of entity existing. It is therefore easier to
consider objects and concepts as one unity of analysis called object/concept.
Finally, it is necessary to assume that there is such a thing as a discourse of cosmopolitanism,
even if not full-fledged. For that, one must identify what the contemporary discourse of
Western cosmopolitanism is composed of. This is not to apply a teleological structure on the
past, but to identify sufficiently what units form this discourse, in order to identify how it
happened to be that way (history of the present) in the past along the same problematisation,
albeit in a different context. However, since it is assumed that énoncés are constant through
time, the énoncés identified in the contemporary discourse of cosmopolitanism will be
researched in eighteenth-century political thought. This will all be the object of the following
chapter.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter I have expounded a few methodological issues central to the history of
cosmopolitanism. I have argued that Foucault’s archaeological method is providing solutions
between opposite positions on method in the history of ideas. First, it provides a bridge
between conceptions of present and past histories with the conception of a ‘history of the
present.’ Second, it enables us to identify some units that are traceable throughout history,
while remaining contextualist. Third, it adds to Skinner’s rightful criticisms of such conceptions
leading to teleological anachronisms by ignoring meaning and language a dimension of
continuity through time. Fourth, it enables us to avoid the conundrum of defining
cosmopolitanism and thereby interfering (too much) with its ontology. Fifth, it enables the
connection of discourses across time and space. Finally, it gives the possibility of situating more
clearly the discourse from other dominating discourses.
The project with which we started of making the history of cosmopolitanism is now altered into
an archaeology of the Western discourse of cosmopolitanism. In order to do so, the next chapter
expounds on what elements constitute this discourse and around what problematisation;
elements which will then be studied in their historical dimension in the second part of this
thesis
on
the
same
problematisation.
~ 26 ~
CHAPTER 2
THE CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSE OF
WESTERN COSMOPOLITANISM
O B J E C T S , C O N CE P T S , É N O N C É S A N D P R O B L EM A TI S A T I O N
"I am willing," he said, "to serve my country; but my worship I
reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship
my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it." (Tagore 2005
[1915]).
This chapter answers two questions that are necessary to the historical study of
cosmopolitanism. First, what is cosmopolitanism? In the previous chapter it has been argued
that a definition is not an adequate method for the study of a political doctrine through history.
It has been argued that the study of a political doctrine as a discourse was a more satisfying
start point. This chapter identifies therefore the contemporary discourse of Western
cosmopolitanism. Second, the history of present political doctrines, it has also been argued,
must be inspired by a problematisation. This chapter identifies in the discourse what
problematisation is central to its discursive field.
But, first, let us go back to the methodological discussion about the problem of starting the
historical study of cosmopolitanism with a definition. A practical example provides a convincing
argument to do so. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives the following definition of
cosmopolitanism:
The nebulous core shared by all cosmopolitan views is the idea that all human
beings, regardless of their political affiliation, do (or at least can) belong to a
single community, and that this community should be cultivated. Different
versions of cosmopolitanism envision this community in different ways, some
focusing on political institutions, others on moral norms or relationships, and
still others focusing on shared markets or forms of cultural expression. The
philosophical interest in cosmopolitanism lies in its challenge to commonly
recognized attachments to fellow-citizens, the local state, parochially shared
cultures, and the like (Kleingeld and Brown 2002).
One must understand that this definition of cosmopolitanism  just like any other definition 
is a product of the ‘wars’ (as Foucault would put it) in the history of ideas. If we accept the
contention that we live in a nationalist paradigm, then the definition is given inside this
paradigm. It assumes that the natural community is the nation and its political affiliation the
~ 27 ~
state. It assumes also that any other view is challenging; hence cosmopolitanism is a challenge
to such a view. In this sense, the history of cosmopolitanism is the history of challenging views
of nation-state-like communities by any thought contending a greater type of community in the
united humankind.
The problem with this view is that it will reject looking at the concept of the nation-state, as it is
the challenged opposition to cosmopolitanism. It is not the core of the study, which would be
the ‘citizen of the world’ i.e. the cosmopolitan. However, looking at these concepts in
eighteenth-century French thought provokes some confusion in the mind of the historian. On
the one hand, the patrie was, at that time, a larger community than the dominant local and
parochial one (reminiscent of feudalism), and some opposed it because of its alleged
impracticality due to its all-too abstract nature. The country where one was born, and the
prince who gave the food, the job, and the honours were all there was to feel indebted to. In
other words, they were the parochial and local state of the time. On the other hand, the concept
of the nation was an abstract universal idea uniting a divided France under a single political
authority. In other words, it is puzzling to discard the concepts of nation and patrie in a study of
cosmopolitanism if by these one understands an ideal of belonging to a single moral and
political community beyond the local.
This is why a good understanding of what cosmopolitanism entails is essential to a historical
account of this idea. However, as the understanding of the ontology of cosmopolitanism is as
much the outcome of the study as it is the necessary condition to its beginning, there is thus a
conundrum. The issue is purely due to the linear nature of writing a report on a study. There
has to be first a definition of the object of study, and then the historical study. However, the
definition is as much the product of the study as the starting point of the study. So for the sake
of clarity, this chapter will provide a sufficiently open definition of the discourse of
cosmopolitanism, being understood that it is informed by the coming historical study, but not
revealing any of it yet. One must add that the discourse of cosmopolitanism hereby exposed is
only focusing on some elements that are necessary for the present study: what is
cosmopolitanism i.e. how and why is the discourse of cosmopolitanism related to the ones of
nationalism/patriotism and universalism?
So the first goal of this chapter is to identify what the contemporary discourse of Western
cosmopolitanism is, in order to provide us guidelines as to a historical study of the discourse. A
discourse is in Foucault’s understanding a set of rhetorically linked elements such as objects,
concepts, strategies, and énoncés that bind them together. So the most important element is
indeed the énoncé because it is the glue for a discourse, but also because it is the core element
of the discourse as it stays stabile through time. The énoncé as explained in the previous
chapter is not a sentence to be found in a discourse, but a function that is ordering the elements
 the words and the things  in the discourse. It is neither invisible nor visible, but is to be
found through intuition and personal judgement.
The contemporary discourse of Western cosmopolitanism is composed of many elements, and I
want here to focus only on some of them that are relevant to the problematisation that will
follow, and thus will be the main object of focus for this study.
Delving into the contemporary cosmopolitan literature, a vast array of definitions of
cosmopolitanism appears. It is possible to identify a primary concern that forms the core
compounds of cosmopolitanism. From these core compounds, secondary elements are being
~ 28 ~
considered in various theories. What connects the primary and the secondary elements is a
certain problematisation that cosmopolitanism entails. The primary compounds of
cosmopolitanism form a ‘Trinity’: humanity, the individual and God (in no particular order).
These three compounds are so dialectically and rhetorically bound together that they truly
form a unity in the form of a trinity: God created humanity and the individual was subsumed
from its God-like image. Secondary concerns of cosmopolitanism are the question of community
and identity. What are the forms of community and identity for the individual and humanity?
These questions are informed by a third level of consideration, a paradigmatic framework: the
local/general axis. This local/general axis forms our Foucaultian ‘problematisation’ for
cosmopolitanism.
THE PRIMARY CORE OF COSMOPOLITANISM: THE TRINITY GODHUMANITY-INDIVIDUAL
My contention that the primary core of the discourse of cosmopolitanism is composed of a
trinity God-humanity-individuality is based on reading contemporary cosmopolitan theory.
Several examples illustrate this claim. For Pogge (2002, 169), ‘[t]hree elements are shared by
all cosmopolitan positions’: individuality, universality and generality. Caney (2005, 4) writes
similarly that ‘[c]osmopolitans… affirm three principles: the worth of individuals, equality, and
the existence of obligations binding on all.’ This trinity can be understood as individuality, God,
and humanity since God is originally the element claiming universality, and equality being a
consequence of a general and common humanity. In the glossary of the international relations
textbook The Globalization of World Politics, one can read under cosmopolitanism:
The ultimate source of meaning and value in human life resides with the
individual (or perhaps with God). Cosmopolitans are disposed to favour very
extensive accounts of universal human rights (Baylis, Smith and Owens 2008,
579).
In this definition of cosmopolitanism the emphasis is put on the individual, human life, and God
(and consequently human rights). This definition is very interesting since all three are
historically bound together in the history of ideas: Christianity developed individualism (man
being made at the image of God, everyone is of divine character), and hence human rights are
the rights given by God enshrined in the ‘homo sacer’. One could say that they are so much bond
together that they form some discursive entity  one could call it quite à propos ‘trinity.’ This
definition is backed up by an extensive reading of the existing cosmopolitan literature: indeed
the individual and humanity are the very central core object/concepts of cosmopolitanism. God
is however downplayed, but this is so because of the secularisation of politics in Western
political thought. The object/concepts of the individual and humanity are however directly
related in Western philosophy to Christianity. Interestingly, how the mention of God became
downplayed is a result  at least in French philosophy  of the debates during the eighteenth
century between deists and atheists versions of human rights, or natural law and society-based
versions of human rights.
THE INDIVIDUAL
~ 29 ~
The individual is the core reference of cosmopolitanism, without which cosmopolitanism would
cease to be discursively. There would not be any principle of ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ (Held
1995, 1999, Archibugi 2003, Archibugi, Held and Köhler 1998) without the recognition of
individuals on the international scene along with states. Even if cosmopolitanism is considered
a standpoint for opening a global dialogue about what is universal, the one thing that is not
opened for dialogue is the individual (Appiah 2006). Each and every single person matters in
cosmopolitan thought, and as such is entitled to a certain number of rights, and shall receive a
certain number of services in order to foster his/her personal development. Human rights and
ideas of justice are thus based on the notion of the individual, and cosmopolitanism is opposed
to any proposition against them.
The real question for cosmopolitanism is to figure out where the individual stands between
existing communities and humanity. Here the cosmopolitan answer is balanced with other sets
of strategies from liberalism, nationalism, patriotism, and humanism. Some versions of
cosmopolitanism would emphasise humanism and downplay patriotism and nationalism by
reviving the stoic conception of ‘concentric circles’ from the family to humanity  the latter
being primordial over the others (Nussbaum 1994). Other versions would accommodate
existing communities with cosmopolitanism affirming the ‘rooted’ character of the later while
emphasising the freedom of the individual to choose his/her identity(ies) (Appiah 1998). In
different versions of justice some cosmopolitans would argue for a ‘cosmopolitan respect’
rather than cosmopolitan justice because even if one considers two persons of equal worth, one
does not share the same concerns for a foreigner and a national, just as one does not have
similar concerns towards one’s own daughter and another’s (Miller 2005).
This emphasis on the individual is strongly related to the various strategies labelled under the
discourse of liberalism. Appiah (1998) argues that cosmopolitanism is not opposed to
liberalism, and that, indeed, liberal values should prevail on cosmopolitan ones. In this sense, if
cosmopolitanism is about diversity, diversity should not be at the cost of personal autonomy: ‘it
is the autonomy that variety enables that is the fundamental argument for cosmopolitanism’
(Appiah 1998, 108). Indeed, the fundamental thought of liberalism is the freedom to create
oneself, an idea at the heart of cosmopolitanism: individual freedom to choose one’s identity
among many.
However, for Hall, liberal universalism may not be the ‘only and best shell for cosmopolitan
modernity’ (Hall 2002, 27). He criticises the liberal notion of political belonging. There is thus a
minor tension in the discourse of cosmopolitanism between liberals and anti-liberals. For some,
the problem lies in Western individualism, which is too Eurocentric and not enough truly
cosmopolitan, taking into account universal norms:
But this revenant late liberalism reveals, in a more exaggerated form, a
struggle at the heart of liberal theory, where a genuine desire for equality as a
universal norm is tethered to a tenacious ethnocentric provincialism in
matters of cultural judgement and recognition… (Pollock, et al. 2002, 5).
This allegation lies in cosmopolitanism’s deep liberal root: a rights culture is essential, but
‘[n]one of this should hide the fact that the fetishization of liberal individualism has, in the past
few years, created a cosmopolitan imaginary signified by the icons of singular personhood’;
world citizenship is personalised by Bill Gates, Mother Theresa and George Soros. (Pollock, et
al. 2002, 5).
~ 30 ~
This tension between the individual and humanity as a community is not only on a cultural
level, but also on an economic one, with the problem of social redistribution of wealth. For
Calhoun ‘[c]osmopolitanism… is now largely the project of capitalism’ (Calhoun 2002, 106).
This allegation lies in cosmopolitanism’s deep liberal roots. In this sense, Calhoun notes that
cosmopolitanism is not integrating notions of equality, and above all the problem of property
relations on the global scale. Without this, cosmopolitan democracy will ‘be adopted by and
become a support for neo-liberal visions of global capitalism’ (Calhoun 2002, 106). In the same
understanding of cosmopolitanism as transnational capitalism, Thomas Pogge’s (2002)
argument starts with Human rights and defines an institutional cosmopolitanism based on
them. Cosmopolitanism should compel the wealthy states to honour their responsibilities
towards the world. ‘The West’ is imposing a world economic order. World poverty is
perpetuating because the west, which heavily dominates the world, does not find its eradication
morally compelling (Pogge 2002, 3, 2003). Thus, the West feels guilty only for not giving
sufficient aid when needed, but not for actually creating the situation of poverty in the world.
Thus a tension exists in contemporary cosmopolitanism in the existing core of the individual
and the rejection of an extreme individualism due to the need to find universal norms of
equality. There is a tension between the individual and humanity as forming a community and
how this individual is the object of politics in this human community. In the versions of
cosmopolitanism emphasising humanity as a bond and thus a moral community, universal
justice is thought to regulate the problems caused by neo-liberalism.
This tension inside cosmopolitanism is however not typically cosmopolitan, and as such is
extrinsic to the discourse. It is rather related to tensions between right and left perceptions of
politics, between needs to emphasis property or equality. The problem is just set back in terms
of global justice and global capitalism that cosmopolitanism is seen as having to deal with. Nor
is the other tension between the individual and community, a classical theme of political theory.
Again, the problem is reset in terms of cosmopolitanism: the individual and the global polity.
What is typically cosmopolitan is the emphasis on the individual, and the sense of self-identity.
Cosmopolitanism is classically related to this individual called ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘citizen of the
world.’ He/she is defined as a frequent traveller, fluent in various cultures, but what is
differentiating him/her from a simple tourist or a businessman/woman is the passion for peace
and right, as well as a will to understand these cultures in depth and not simply for their
superficial exotic value (Coulmas 1990). So it seems that cosmopolitanism is bond to be related
to the concept of the cosmopolitan, the citizen of the world. This assumption must be taken
with great care once again. What if it just was a product of the history of ideas? After all, the
first citizens of the world, Diogenes of Sinope and Socrates spent most of their lives in Athens
and were not travelling the known world around in search of culture. One must therefore
assume that the equation between being a cosmopolitan and travelling the world is a product of
history. One must equally assume that the equation between cosmopolitanism and
cosmopolitan is another one, or at least that the two are not necessarily related. As chapter four
will show, the ‘cosmopolite’ appeared during the eighteenth century, and it was related to
political theory by thinkers later associated with patriotism and nationalism since they were
defining the cosmopolite as bad patriots. The thought of these thinkers could however be
described as providing elements of cosmopolitanism.
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HUMANITY
According to Hollinger, what is common to all the versions of contemporary cosmopolitanism is
the attempt ‘to connect the notion of a species-wide community to actual politics’ (2002, 230).
For Robbins (1998, 1) too, cosmopolitanism is ‘[u]nderstood as a fundamental devotion to the
interests of humanity as a whole…’ This ‘species-consciousness’ rather than a national one is
thus what is typical about cosmopolitanism. Humanity is the community of cosmopolitanism,
and this has a consequence in terms of what type of community it is: a world community. This
sounds like common-sense; after all only humans inhabit this world. But is humanity not a
product of the human mind? The notion of humanity and how and why it became the centre of
political thought, and in particular cosmopolitanism must be included in the history of this
doctrine.
Conceptions of a world community in cosmopolitanism usually stem from the etymology of
kosmopolitês: a politês involves the existence of a polis at the level of the kosmos, i.e. the ‘world.’
One has to note however, that this common understanding in cosmopolitan theory is
mistranslating the Greek etymology. Kosmos referred more to ‘universe’ than ‘world,’ and it also
meant ‘order’ in Ancient Greek. This is no trivia of erudition: cosmopolitanism understood in
this way is limited to the understanding of the ‘world,’ and thus of the human species that
populates the world. It makes an object at the limit of the discourse limiting it and giving it the
means of repetition. But be it ‘universe’ or ‘world,’ Stoics and Cynic cosmopolitanisms did not
equate this kosmos solely with humankind. Hence one must assume that at some point in
history this equation has been made.
This discourse is thus to be situated in relation to the one of humanism. Humanism is a sphere
of thought analysed for its French part by e.g. Todorov (1989)  and also at the centre of
Foucault’s preoccupations  according to which man is at the centre of everything. Excluded
from the kosmos are thus, non-humans (animals of course, and  why not?  E.T.s), and other
categories excluded from humanity (‘non-believers,’ ‘slaves,’ ‘Untermenschen,’ ‘disabled,’ etc.).
Of course, contemporary cosmopolitanism is not excluding these above mentioned types from
humanity, but this does not mean that it did not or could not. In other words, the cosmopolitan
understanding of humanity must be studied. The best reason to do so is just to consider this
theoretical example: if ETs were to come on earth, cosmopolitanism would not be better
equipped than nationalism to adapt political and legal thought to this new ‘species.’ This is so
because they both rely on the discourse of humanism. How that happened to be is a subject for
the history of cosmopolitanism.
The event of humanism entering the discourse of cosmopolitanism has had dramatic discursive
consequences. One of these consequences is that cosmopolitan community is based on
humanity at the global level, e.g.:
A cosmopolitan perspective needs not only a conception of global identities
and global governance, but also of forms of political community beyond state
borders (Bauböck 2002, 110).
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‘Our time’ is characterised by an acute consciousness of our common humanity that creates the
basis for a political community. In this sense, Shaw (2000, 11-12) argues that we currently
experience a ‘global revolution’  the grand narrative of our time  characterised by ‘a
common consciousness of human society on a world scale.’ This common consciousness
manifests itself not through the concept of ‘world community’ but through the concept of
‘globality,’ which is understood as a shift from modern social organisation to a new structure
and concept of social relations.
However, some cosmopolitan theorists actually build the idea of a world community on the
model of national community. Robbins, for instance, does not attack the object nation, but
opposes the ideal of cosmopolitanism of a ‘worldwide community’ (Robbins 1998). Robbins
uses the paradigm derived from the idea of a national community to the determination of a
cosmopolitan community: the common humanity is too weak a force to generate solidarity, but
why would the age of digital capitalism not be able to generate emotional binds? According to
him, larger loyalties must be built inside history. In this account of cosmopolitanism, humanity
and nation are merged together in the need for an emotional bond.
Furthermore, what is this humanity in question, and why does it only involve the humanspecies? In her reflection on the frontiers of justice, Nussbaum (2006) wishes to expand
currently existing ones to include not only foreigners, but also animals to a certain degree, and
handicapped, who are excluded from these theoretical conceptions.
These are again interesting conceptual research questions for the historian. How and why did
humanity become the centre of cosmopolitanism, and how and why was it related to the need of
a community defined by emotional bonds? And also, what conception of humanity is this? The
human-species excluding others? Based on divine creation (i.e. metaphysical) or DNA (i.e.
nature)?
GOD OR THE METHAPHYSICAL CONCEPTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND
HUMANITY
God may not be an obvious visible element in the contemporary discourse of Western
cosmopolitanism, and this comes as no surprise given the secularisation of this society and its
tradition to separate the Church from the state. However God is openly present in some forms
of cosmopolitanism, as for instance a catholic account of cosmopolitanism with Bavarian writer
Oskar Maria Graf, or a Jewish one with German-Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger (Beck 2006,
12-13). The narrow view of a nationalistic fatherland is criticised in favour of a view
considering the whole humanity as the child of God the father, and – for the Jewish account –
praising a nomadic life as a way to avoid the scourges of nationalistic extremisms.
The presence of God in the conception of cosmopolitanism is still felt in a certain metaphysical
understanding of the person. For instance, Nussbaum (1994) states: ‘One is born by accident in
one nation.’ Or Bertram (2005): ‘Of all the unlucky things that can happen to a person, being
born into the wrong state has to be the worst.’ Behind these utterances is the idea that we are
some kind of souls, played in a cosmic roulette, and ascribed a body somewhere on earth
according to chance. Many conclusions stems from that original consideration: mainly that we
all are equal creatures of God, and thus we all are enshrined with the same rights, and that we
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all belong to the same metaphysical community of God’s creation, and as such the same moral
community of equals to justice and rights.
This understanding stems from the conception of human rights: everyone is born free and
equal  i.e. everywhere and not just inside a liberal democratic nation-state. This conception is
traceable  as will be shown in the following chapters  to natural law, and the deism of the
Enlightenment, embodied in the reference to the ‘Supreme Being’ in the French declaration of
human rights. We are creatures of God, all made equal and free no matter where. We could have
been born anywhere. This metaphysics is common to nationalism as well, for which a person’s
fate inside the nation should not be given by birth. The republic shall redistribute wealth and
provide equal opportunities for all, albeit inside the nation. Outside the nation-state there is a
state of anarchy, and according to the principle of self-determination every state has to take
care of its own nationals; therefore one nation-state does not intervene outside its borders to
care for other nationals. How this notion has been at the centre of Enlightenment philosophy
and how it became limited to particular societies will be explained in the second part of this
thesis.
THE SECONDARY CORE OF COSMOPOLITANISM: COMMUNITY
Hall (2002) sees two strands within cosmopolitanism: a possible global democracy and world
citizenship on the one side, and a non-communitarian, post identity politics of overlapping
interest and hybrid publics  i.e. a ‘cosmopolitan self’ made of multiple choice identities  on
the other. In brief: the global community and the cosmopolitan identity.
There are other object/concepts in cosmopolitan theories, but these two seem to be the central
ones in the contemporary literature. The discursive importance stands rather on community
than identity. But, since identity is assumed in contemporary political theory to be enmeshed
with community, any theory focusing on community is equally focusing on identity. Identity is
however not the main focus of this study since it has to concentrate on some aspects only of
cosmopolitanism, and, furthermore, since cosmopolitanism in its post-modern or critical
version is contesting the connection between identity and community. Therefore, this section
only presents the cosmopolitan discourse of community.
As was shown in the above section on humanity, it is this conception of united humankind that
provides the basis for thinking of a common bond for the whole humanity. Very clearly,
Shapcott provides the following definition in an introductory textbook on international
relations:
Cosmopolitanism refers to the idea that humanity is to be treated as a single
moral community that has moral priority over our national (or subnational)
communities (Shapcott 2008, 196).
This entails, first, not ruling any person out of ethical considerations, and, second, an attempt to
define precisely what obligations and rules ought to govern the universal community. The focus
is set on the idea of community, here being moral, and the priority of the human one over the
national (and a fortiori sub-national) ones. There is therefore an idea of existing communities,
moral ones, being like concentric circles where the ones inside the bigger one are submitted to
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it. No individual should be ruled out. The reason for that is that there is a tight bond between
the individual and humanity, as well as God.
THE BOND OF COMMUNITY
Humanity is the basis to consider community in cosmopolitanism at the ‘general’ level. But in
order to have a community, there has to be something common; etymology requires it. What is
then the common ground, the universal quality that bounds humanity into a community?
Answers have evolved through time. In pre-modern times, for the Cynics, it was the adhesion to
the Cynic way of life, making it de facto a small community. For the Stoics it was reason, again
leading to a small community of exceptional human beings (Euben 2001, 266-270). The
Enlightenment took up reason as the universal faculty binding humanity, developing it in
combination with individualism and liberalism. Recently however, reason has been criticised in
post-modernists cosmopolitan works.
As a reaction, a ‘new cosmopolitanism’ is developing on Habermas’ turn to language and
communication in Western philosophy instead of reason (Dallmayr 2001). A community based
on communication rather than reason allows forming permanent dialogic conversations, and
makes world community one of constant discussion about its boundaries. For instance,
Linklater (1998) is universalising Habermas’ theory of dialogic community. A dialogic
community is characterised by a membership based on common allegiances but where
practices command the consent of internal subaltern groups. ‘Particular social bonds remain,
but they are reconstituted in the light of a normative commitment to engage the systematically
excluded in open dialogue’ (Linklater 1998, 107). As another example, Shapcott (2001) also
develops the idea of a ‘universal human community’ based on dialogue that could achieve
justice to difference.
The search for the universal commonality of humanity is thus at the heart of the cosmopolitan
project. The variations of what are deemed to be universals form one of the foci of an analysis of
cosmopolitanism. Of course, this search, on its historical side, is more revealing the nature of
the civilisation or culture considering what is common than the commonness in itself. One
should not forget the rooted nature of cosmopolitanism, and the imaginariness of the world
projected (Robbins 1998, Delanty 2000, 142, Pollock, et al. 2002). In our case then, the history
of our thoughts on commonness reveals our perceptions of the world and humanity.
This community can take two forms: either institutional or moral (or both). Institutional
cosmopolitanism is best exemplified by attempts to theorise the ‘citizen of the world’
mentioned by Diogenes of Sinope and Socrates. Moral cosmopolitanism is best exemplified by
attempts to extend issues of justice to the whole humankind on a global level.
INSTITUTIONAL COMMUNITY
Cosmopolitanism in its institutional form attempts to protect the individual in the world
community by developing the concept of world citizenship. Cosmopolitanism stresses the fact
that state citizenship was, at the origins of our modern thought and even in Ancient Greek
thought, a concept including world citizenship, and nationhood, and that they were compatible;
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it is only between 1800 and 2000 that nationalism absorbed citizenship and effaced world
citizenship (Heater 2002, 37-38). Cosmopolitanism is thus merely reclaiming a denationalised
conception of citizenship. From this point on, different versions of cosmopolitan citizenship
exist (e.g. Delanty 2000, Faulks 2000, Heater 2002, Hutchings and Dannreuther 1999), but they
remain very vague as to the precise content and functioning of a world citizenship. Mostly, all
versions agree on a liberal conception of citizenship that should be applied to the whole world
and not remaining at the level of the nation-state. This implies setting institutions of some sort
at a supranational level for empowering principles of world citizenship. The bonds of national
citizenship should however not be underestimated, and therefore it does not disappear:
citizenship becomes multiple; one is a citizen of several polities, different centres of political
decision (local, national, global).
For Linklater (1999, 35-59), Kant’s analysis of cosmopolitanism is very promising but not
sufficient as it does not state an active citizenship participation in an Aristotelian sense. The
creation of cosmopolitan communities should enable an international order based on dialogue
and consent. Faulks does not really praise a cosmopolitan citizenship, but he recognises the
possibility and need for a post-national citizenship due to the challenges and tensions that
globalisation poses on citizenship. He argues that liberalism should not be criticised as most
postmodernists do, but should be extended to the full with regard to citizenship: a universal
citizenship (2000, 170). Other authors argue for recognition by existing polities of the
multiplicity of communities that the individual may swear allegiance to. The cosmopolitan
public sphere is located for Delanty (2000) in national and sub-national public spheres. Only
then can a political and legal cosmopolitan sphere appear. It is not a ‘thick’ cosmopolitanism,
but an argument for a ‘pluralist world of political communities.’ For Held, cosmopolitanism is
the basis for living in a global world. As a consequence of Held’s conception of cosmopolitan
democracy (1995), citizenship is multiple (1999, 2005). Different polities enable the individual
to express their political preferences. Derrida (1997, Derrida and Dufourmantelle 1997) argues
for the recognition of the Kantian jus cosmopoliticum protecting the individual internationally,
and the hospitality principle with Cities of Refuge.
In all these versions, there is a tension to recognise the individual that is recognised in existing
communities, outside these communities, from the local to the general community. This tension
is also fed by the fact that these existing communities are based on the universal recognition of
the individual as a right bearer, whilst its institutionalisation in practice is non-existent. It is
this particular issue, this problematisation between the local and the general that is worth
noticing for our purpose.
MORAL COMMUNITY
The cosmopolitan claim that justice ought to be global, and ought to be applied also to
foreigners relies on the conception of human bonds. These human bonds form a moral
community. The conception of justice, and therefore of injustice, is related to the conception of
being related together, being connected. For instance, Copp (2005, 40) considers that
international injustices would not exist ‘if the different countries of the world were isolated
from one another on different planets in the cosmos.’ Thus it is because these different
countries are on the same planet  bonded together  that inequalities among them can be
qualified as injustices. There is a duty of justice to others than the ones in our (national)
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community because we all belong to a same community on the globe. Not only is there a
connection by space, there is also a connection by species. Justice is owed to humans who are
connected in this world. As Waldron explains (2000, 242), the word ‘cosmopolitan’ entails
‘one’s willingness to do what is required by the general principle of sharing this limited world
with others.’ Furthermore, justice is due also because of the equality of human beings, of their
equal individuality. Thus justice and the idea of a moral community are connected to the
primary core, the trinity individual-humanity-God.
Contemporary theories of cosmopolitan justice can be grouped into two categories for this
study. Most of them are based on contractualism on the one side; on the other, some are
developing a different approach. The reference to a social contract is clearly making the case for
a community.
The revival of contractualism for theories of justice is due to Rawls’ Theory of Justice (1999
[1971]), adapting eighteenth century theories preoccupied with obligations and duties in
tackling problems of legitimacy (Dunn 1996). Cosmopolitans have criticised Rawls’ Original
Position for not taking into consideration the Kantian cosmopolitan side, issues of international
justice. In order to overcome the shortcomings of Rawls’ theory as far as global justice is
concerned, Beitz (1979) and Pogge (1989) have argued for a direct assembly of all individuals
in the world: the Rawlsian ‘Veil of Ignorance’ becomes a ‘Global Veil of Ignorance.’ For Copp
(2005), only a global state is in a position to act so as to provide justice, as we live in a global
society because communities are not isolated from one another.
Representative of other approaches, Nussbaum (2006, 274) suggests a ‘capabilities approach’:
‘The capabilities approach is an outcome-oriented approach that supplies a partial account of
basic social justice.’ Nussbaum bases her theory on the stoic conception of social cooperation of
individuals, being entitled to human dignity before agreeing to live together. This conception is
therefore closer to the tradition of natural law than communitarianism, guaranteeing human
dignity. The idea of a world state is rejected for ‘obvious reasons’ of impracticality (Nussbaum
2006, 313-314). Instead, she proposes ten principles for the ‘Global Structure’ (Nussbaum
2006, 315-324). Equally, Caney rejects the idea of a global state, and argues for a ‘system of
multi-governance’ with ‘supra-state authorities to monitor the conduct of states’ (Caney 2005,
182). Finally, if for Scheffler (1999) there are two versions of cosmopolitanism in terms of
culture and in terms of moral, for Sypnowich (2005) these two are linked: moral too is
culturally rooted. Hence, a ‘need to identify the universal constituents of human flourishing’ for
a better understanding of what obligations global justice entails (Sypnowich 2005, 63).
Thus moral community does not enjoy the same degree of institutionalisation according to
theories, depending on whether contractualism is involved or not. Contractualism and the
connection between the individual, humanity and the proper community  even outside any
consideration of theories of justice  is what is interesting in the above mentioned
conceptions. Furthermore, the community considered is the supposedly ‘cosmopolitan’ one.
What is to be understood by a ‘cosmopolitan’ community has to be along the line of the
local/general axis mentioned below.
PROBLEMATISATION AND ÉNONCÉS
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The problematisation and énoncés form the core compound for the analysis of
cosmopolitanism. The problematisation offers relevance to study the past in its consequences
for the present. The énoncés form the constant variable in cosmopolitanism that makes it
possible to study it in the past from the present.
PROBLEMATISATION: THE LOCAL/GENERAL AXIS
For Pollock et al. (2002, 10) cosmopolitanism is yet to be defined, but in this quest for a
definition, one shall look for how people have ‘thought and acted beyond the local.’ There is
therefore an understanding here that cosmopolitanism is a way to transcend the local. Indeed,
from all the above mentioned conceptions of cosmopolitanism, a certain problematisation of
the place of the individual from a local to a beyond type of community transpired.
But what is the local and what is beyond this then? One can identify in this thought a sort of
dialectics between a local, (‘localis,’ ‘locus,’ place), and a general (‘generalis,’ ‘genus,’ class, race,
kind). Today the local is the nation-state that cosmopolitanism is either opposing or
transforming by adapting it to the needs of a beyond, a general. ‘Traditionally,’ cosmopolitanism
is conceived of in the form of an opposition to the nation-state, and equally traditionally, the
nation-state is identified with nationalism.
Many cosmopolitan thinkers oppose cosmopolitanism to nationalism (Brock and Brighouse
2005). As in Tagore’s (2005 [1915]) novel  quoted in the epigraph to this chapter  the two
main characters represent cosmopolitanism and patriotism (or nationalism) and are opposed
in the fight for the love of the same woman (symbolising the country). For Delanty (2000, 143)
‘… cosmopolitanism is necessary in order to combat ethnonationalism and state nationalism, to
mention two most common forms that nationalism takes.’ Rée (1998) considers nationality and
its extension, internationality, as illusions. Buchanan (2005) criticises the conception of
national interest: it is neither common sense nor natural because it is opposed to the
acknowledgement of human rights. Cheah (1998) adopts a structuralist Marxist analysis of the
feasibility of cosmopolitanism as an alternative to nationalism. Beck (2006) envisions a
paradigmatic change from methodological nationalism to methodological cosmopolitanism.
Many cosmopolitan thinkers oppose also cosmopolitanism to patriotism, like Nussbaum
(1994). However, some have contested this frontal opposition, on the basis that liberal
nationalism is close to cosmopolitanism (Kymlicka 2001, Tan 2004, 2005).
So it seems that cosmopolitanism is opposed to nationalism and also patriotism; and so it
would also seem that the concepts of the nation and patrie are opposed to cosmopolitanism
because they are necessarily related to nationalism and patriotism, which are opposed to
cosmopolitanism. However, one has to stop and notice that cosmopolitanism, in the sense of the
idea of the cosmopolite, is a much older idea than the ones of patriotism and nationalism. One
can only but assume then, that the opposition between nationalism and cosmopolitanism is a
product of history. Furthermore, were the idea of nation and patrie at one time not this
‘general,’ uniting under a common sovereign several community scattered loci in the form of
post-feudal authorities?
In this thesis, I want to use the problematisation of cosmopolitanism in terms of a questioning
along the local/general axis to expound the contention that the nation-state and nationalism
are related to cosmopolitanism. Indeed, cosmopolitanism needs to refer to a certain
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preservation of the local against sheer universalist absorption, otherwise there would be no
local to be opposed to, and hence no cosmopolitanism possible. There has to be however a
certain general level encompassing the local, otherwise it is sheer localism. Cosmopolitanism is
thus a discourse squeezed in between the local and the universal, and as such it is subjected to
changes in the conceptions of what is the local and what is the universal.
How did eighteenth-century French political thought consider the local and on what community
did it put emphasis? What reminiscences are left from these conceptions in contemporary
discourses of cosmopolitanism and nationalism? In this search nonetheless, one must remain
fairly aware that cosmopolitanism and nationalism, as we know them, did not yet exist, and that
conceptions of the local/general were not yet fixed on the nation against the world. Moreover,
the nationalist assumption that politics and culture go hand in hand did not exist yet either, and
therefore arguments for universal political organisations could not yet be opposed to
accusations of imperialism in disguise. Also, identity was a concept left outside the sphere of
political thought to individual choice.
THE ÉNONCÉS OF COSMOPOLITANISM
Many versions of cosmopolitanism take the word in its literal understanding: that we are all
members of the same polis that is the world/universe. It is important to note here  although it
will not be the main object of focus in this study  that most of the cosmopolitan works
understand kosmos as meaning ‘world’ and not ‘universe,’ or tend to confuse both terms. There
is however a difference in that the Greek word kosmos used to mean ‘universe’ in the sense of
the entire universe, and also in the sense of ‘order.’ The second meaning has thus disappeared,
and the first meaning has become limited to the earth. Of course, no extra-terrestrial life has yet
been found, but it is possible to assume that the limitation to the world is not foreign to the
development of humanism: as Man is at the centre of philosophy and all paradigms or episteme,
and as Man lives on the earth, there is therefore nothing else. This has the consequence of not
only excluding other animals living on the earth  an exclusion that some cosmopolitan
thinkers have included in their theory of cosmopolitan justice (Nussbaum 2006)  but also
that it carries with it the potential exclusion for any future encounter with extra-terrestrial
forms of life. Now the important point in this is not to argue for a political philosophy that
would include an imaginary E.T. in its protection of ‘human rights,’ but to show by this very
example how much énoncés structure the internal discourse of cosmopolitanism.
As described in the previous chapter, the énoncé is a function that orders rhetorically things
and words into what can be said and not said. In the case of cosmopolitanism, the way the word
is coined gives a clue: the kosmos and the polis. The kosmos can refer to the world and to order.
The polis refers to community (moral and/or political). As an example of the ‘ordering’ side of
cosmopolitanism (the second Greek meaning of kosmos), one can consider cosmopolitan
attempts to develop a normative theory of international relations that would replace the
governmental void left by realism  aka ‘international anarchy.’ Several theories suggest some
order in the international realm. For instance, Held (2005) pushes forward eight principles for
a ‘cosmopolitan order’ in world politics. These principles are laying a framework for the pursuit
of argument, discussion and negotiation, in the line of ‘better talk, talk, talk, than war, war, war.’
In the same manner, the order is for Shaw (2000, 190) provided by a ‘global state,’ if by state
one understands the traditional definition by Mann plus ‘a significant degree inclusive and
~ 39 ~
constitutive of other forms or layers of state power (i.e. of state power in general in a particular
time and space).’ In this sense there is a global-Western state exercising power and thereby
ordering the kosmos  an ordered world-polis. This énoncé of order is a political one, and is to
be linked with the local/general axis énoncé. If cosmopolitanism is a set of ideas about a
political ordering, it is especially cosmopolitan because it is placed on the axis local/general.
Thus the second type of énoncé ordering the discourse of cosmopolitanism is one of
local/general considerations.
In the same understanding of a kosmopolis, a world polis, different versions and interpretations
of this polis uniting the world exist. Some would argue for a future world organisation, on the
model of the modern nation-state. Some would argue for a global state, but where state is
understood more loosely than a formal organisation, more as an institution, a more elaborated
form of society. Some would argue for a world society. Some would argue for a world
community. The scale of the world is thus understood as the appropriate one in the
cosmopolitan discourse for normative or positive social and political theory.
From the previously reviewed discourse of cosmopolitanism, it is possible to identify the
following énoncés that order this discourse:
•
•
•
•
Humankind is one united species and as such is the only relevant reference, or the most
important one, for organising moral and political principles, the latter being
subordinated to the former.
Inside humankind, the individual, or the person, is sacred and his/her birth is a matter
of fate. As such, institutions should be organised such as to contribute to his/her
personal development and freedom, no matter where he/she comes from.
Cosmopolitanism is a universal theory that should include any speaking subject without
imposing ethno-centric universal principles on anyone. Cosmopolitanism aspires to be
an all-embracing theory, discursively opened.
A well ordered world-polis.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter I have not defined cosmopolitanism because of the methodological
complications it would have entailed (e.g. risks of anachronism, mythologizing, drawing
hazardous connections) for a historical study in political thought. Instead I have chosen to
identify the discourse of cosmopolitanism. This discourse revolves around a core of
object/concepts, the individual and humanity, which are related to God forming a kind of
‘trinity.’ This core is attached to another set of dual object/concepts, namely community and
identity (since Western contemporary political theory assumes that identity and community
are necessarily related). These two ‘cores’ are connected by the énoncés of the unity of mankind
as an ordering moral principle, around the problematisation of the local/general axis.
The understanding of present cosmopolitanism is important for the study of eighteenth-century
‘cosmopolitanism.’ As argued before, the word cosmopolitanism did not exist at that time, but
that does not mean that the concept did not exist. What I understand as ‘cosmopolitanism’ in
this study is a discourse, i.e. a general movement of ideas rhetorically linked by a few core
énoncés. This general movement is to consider a way to go beyond a ‘local’ to a ‘general’ based
on discursively ordering principles such as the unity of humankind, the sacredness of human
~ 40 ~
beings, and the alleged universality of these principles. ‘Cosmopolitanism’ thus identified is not
a ‘unit idea,’ but a discourse, a general movement of ideas. The ‘unit ideas’ are some compounds
of this discourse such as objects and concepts that form it, but these are subject to change.
Assuming this, one has to accept that some objects/concepts that seem obvious are not
necessarily part of ‘cosmopolitanism’ thus defined, such as the eighteenth-century conception
of the ‘cosmopolite.’ Other objects can fall into the category of cosmopolitanism, such as the
objects/concepts ‘nation’ and ‘patrie.’ The following part is tracing the history of these
compounds of the discourse of cosmopolitanism thus defined, and how they were formed this
way.
~ 41 ~
PART II
EMPIRY
How is part two related to part one? This thesis considers the history of ideas as the history of
discourses. As such, discourses are formed by compounds which must be analysed in their
historical dimensions in order to understand present discourses. These compounds are not
irrevocably linked to one specific discourse. Also a discourse could have had other compounds
at different times, or different understandings of continuous ones. Part II undertakes the
historical research of how eighteenth-century political thought conceived of the local and the
general, how the trinity humanity-individual-God was conceived, how the community was
thought of, and finally what a proto-cosmopolitanism was. To formulate this in a question: how
did cosmopolitanism  defined as a discourse between the local and the general, and between
(inter)nationalism and universalism  develop in eighteenth-century French political thought?
How did it become a discourse?
What choice of works and authors should be made to study these defined elements? And first of
all, what type of sources? The main sources of this study are theories, treatises, and pamphlets
dealing with politics. However, one has to add two more types of sources because of the
character of eighteenth-century French political thought, and because ‘knowledge’ is not only
invested in demonstrations but also in e.g. fictions or tales (Foucault 1969, 239); so one must
add a second one with novels. For instance, the political thought of Voltaire is not only to be
found in ‘philosophical’ books. At a latter stage of his career he wrote ‘philosophical novels’
where the reader could find under his pen critiques and political positions on numerous
subjects of interest for the study of cosmopolitanism. Darnton (1996) noted that censorship
equally considered under the tag ‘philosophical literature,’ what we would now call philosophy
together with all sorts of other ‘illegal’ writings. Even libidinous ones, such as Thérèse
philosophe (Anonymous 2000 [1748]), carried a philosophical signification, e.g. an
understanding of how society should be. It would therefore be misleading to avoid such
categories simply because they do not fit contemporary ones. If a genuine archaeology should
consider all the literature available, this present study is limited and will only consider some
works of literature that seem directly relevant to the study of political theory.
In the political and philosophical works, what should one then look for? First of all, what we
now call ‘Utopian theories’ must not be discarded in the search. A large number of political
theories were imagining ‘perpetual peace’ or ideal societies in the future, in imaginary places,
~ 42 ~
the future (Mercier 1774), or even on the moon (Beffroy de Reigny 1793). Discarding these
‘utopias’ for not being serious political theory in a contemporary understanding would again be
seriously misleading. As Bélissa (1998, 13) notes, Utopia was not only a common form of
critique of the existing order, but it was also an ethical limit or a goal to be approached that
philosophers seriously discussed. Apart from utopian ideas, one should look for all the elements
of cosmopolitanism defined in chapter two, and organise the research around the general
problematisation of the local/general. Concretely, this leads us to consider mainly works under
the label ‘natural law,’ because of the continuation of the humanist tradition and the concern for
humanity in general. Also works dealing with ‘the law of nations’ are interesting for the same
reason. Finally, works considering the three Roman law categories of jus naturale, jus gentium
and jus civile in a single theory are interesting because of the ordering of the discourse in terms
of community, identity, the local/general axis, and the humanity/individual divide.
Finally, there must be some kind of choice made in terms of authors. Ideally, archaeology does
not give preference to any author and should encompass all sources written at a given time
(Foucault 1994 [1969-1970]). Practically, this is impossible in such a tight study framework.
Therefore, the most influential authors and theories will be favoured. However, in order to
remain true to the archaeological spirit, the study will also include ‘minor’ authors and ideas
that are related to cosmopolitanism as defined in chapter two. Concretely, this leads to
considering the referring figure of the ‘Republic of letter’ i.e. Voltaire; other influential ones
such as Buffon, Diderot, Montesquieu and Holbach; law theorists translating foreign ideas into
French or foreigners translated into French such as Barbeyrac, Burlamaqui, and Vattel; authors
of peace projects, well known or less known such as Saint-Pierre and Pierre-André Gargaz;
‘utopian’ works of unknown authors such André Guillaume Resnier de Goué; political theorists
ordering the community/humanity such as Rousseau; the revolutionary works of Cloots,
Piatolli, and Robespierre for their focus on political theory based on humankind; and finally, the
French Constitutions and Declarations of human rights for their value as evidence of the
evolution of the dominating discourse.
Considering all these works with a bird’s eye view one finds that eighteenth-century French
political thought, as far as cosmopolitanism is concerned, is organised on a three-step logical
development. The first step is to conceive man or humankind. The second step is then to
conceive of this man in society. The third step, included in the second one, is to develop theories
of government for this man living in society. It is along this line that this part is constructed,
each chapter dealing with one of the steps. This order is loosely chronological, and also
discursively logic. Early eighteenth-century philosophy was based more on the nature of
humankind, and the opposition between the state of nature and the entering into society. Later
conceptions integrated these debates into political theories, especially during the revolutionary
period. Discursively, the third step on the government for man in society is directly related to
the results of the debates concerning humankind and society.
~ 43 ~
CHAPTER 3
THINKING MAN
T H E B I R T H O F M O D E R N PO L I TI C A L T H O U G H T I N T HE D I S CO U R S E O F H UM A N I S M
… l’homme devenait ce à partir de quoi toute connaissance pouvait
être constituée en son évidence immédiate et non problématisée ; il
devenait, a fortiori, ce qui autorise la mise en question de toute
connaissance de l’homme (Foucault 1966, 356).29
… Et Dieu nous pesa tous dans la même balance (Voltaire 1961
[1745], 215). 30
L'homme est l'ouvrage de la nature, il existe dans la nature, il est
soumis à ses loix, il ne peut s'en affranchir, il ne peut même par la
pensée en sortir (Holbach 1771, 1).31
Of course, using Foucault’s methods in the history of ideas32 is not without connections to
Foucault’s own findings. In a way, this thesis starts where he left off: on the ‘invention of man’
(Foucault 1966). The last chapter identified a core trinity in the contemporary discourse of
cosmopolitanism  individual-humanity-God. This chapter aims to identify the eighteenthcentury’s problematisation of humanity on the local/general axis, and where the individual and
God stand in this.
Eighteenth century’s political thought is indebted to the previous humanist discourse. John
Locke is surely one of the greatest references with his theory of a social contract embedded in
natural law, which put man at the centre of political thought. Other figures of natural law are
also commented upon. Thus, man becomes the centre of attention in political theory: man’s
happiness and development. ‘Good’ governments must guaranty them; therefore war is to be
29
‘Man was becoming that, from which all knowledge could be constituted in its immediate and non-problematised obviousness; he
was becoming, a fortiori, that, which authorises the questioning of all knowledge of Man.’ My translation.
30 ‘…
31
And God weighed us all on the same balance.’ My translation.
‘Man is the work of Nature: he exists in Nature: he is submitted to her laws: he cannot deliver himself from them; nor can he step
beyond them even in thought.' H. D. Robinson, trans., The System of Nature or Laws of the Physical and Moral World (Kitchener:
Batoche Books, 2001 [1868]), 10.
32 Or
history of the ‘systems of thoughts’ as he named his chair at the Collège de France.
~ 44 ~
banned: peace plans abound33 (Souleyman 1941), starting with the most commented upon
Abbé de Saint Pierre’s Perpetual Peace (1713), to Piatolli’s (1795); a topic delved into even by
unknown commoners such as Gargaz (1973 [1782]) or military Resnier (1788). Man is
characterised by his natural freedom and equality; therefore a legitimate form of government
must be found: social contracts are thought anew.
One could question the relevance of studying past conceptions of mankind in a history of
political thought. But conceiving mankind as united or divided is political. Excluding ‘races’
from ‘mankind’ is political. Classifying mankind is political. It is therefore far from being a moot
object of study, and not only because of the inclusion/exclusion effect that these conceptions of
mankind have, but also because political theories stemmed directly from these views about
humankind. Furthermore, the contemporary discourse of Western cosmopolitanism revealed a
metaphysical conception of humankind, of human life. There are two elements in this
metaphysics. First, the idea that we all are equal, therefore none is entitled to domination.
Second, the idea that a person born here could have been born there, therefore we have a duty
towards each other. From a certain understanding of Man, of humankind, Western political
philosophy is building conceptions of human rights, and justice, as well as theories of political
organisation  the social contract.
Throughout the eighteenth century, political theory was concerned with finding primarily the
legitimate form of government. Before any conceptions of nation or patrie, Western political
theory turned to man as an individual  and by extension, humankind as the species  as the
basis for building the proper political organisation. However, between the individual man and
the general humanity, the ‘people’  a particular grouping of individuals forming a society 
also becomes an object of investigation. Taking man as the basis to found a political theory
enables us to think in terms of universal truth: based on ‘man’ as a universal concept, one can
build a universal theory of political organisation for this ‘man.’ Therefore, it appeared at that
time necessary to think of an imaginary state of nature, and the entrance into ‘society,’ to
explain the variety of humankind and human organisations. The state of nature is a universal
one, whereas the state of society is particular as there are many different societies, even if the
term ‘society’ is universal. This strategy avoids thinking about the particularities of existing
societies, of what will be the future ‘nations.’ The ‘social contract’ or ‘social pact’ is thus a
concept embedded in this discourse of universally true political theory.
How is humanity considered in the Enlightenment? Three elements in eighteenth-century
conceptions of humankind are important for the discourse of cosmopolitanism: first, the
possibility to talk about humankind, on the behalf of the entire humanity as a cosmopolitan
subject (section 1.1.); second, the tension between unity and diversity in these conceptions of
humankind (section 1.2.); and third, the opposition between a theist and an atheist or
metaphysical vs. physical conceptions of humankind (section 2). These are important positions
because they condition future reasonings on the conception of man in society, as will be
explored in the next chapter.
33
One must however note that they are mainly European in nature. Moreover, if they are called ‘universal and perpetual’ peace
plans, that only refers to their application between the parties’ subjects wherever they are, and the unfixed durability of their timeframe (Bélissa 1998, 42-43).
~ 45 ~
MAN AS AN OBJECT OF STUDY AND A SPEAKING SUBJECT
As Foucault showed, man became an object of study during the eighteenth century. This section
analyses how that was  in a relevant way for political theory and for the later development
on cosmopolitanism. It must be added to Foucault’s analysis that humankind was not only an
object of study, but also became a speaking subject, and as such a central discursive element for
a positivist universalism. The two are discursively related: since a conscience of humankind
appears, it becomes an object of study and reinforces the conscience of belonging to
humankind; belonging to humankind entitles us to speak on the behalf of humankind and this is
a necessary rhetorical device to claim the universalism of (moral) principles applicable to
humankind.
HUMANKIND AS OBJECT: UNITY AND DIVERSITY
During the eighteenth century, humankind becomes an object of study through the study of
‘man.’ Voltaire’s Essai sur les mœurs (1990 [1775]) is an example of such a study in history.
Instead of the already existing histories of kings and appendix on their queens, Voltaire is
interested in writing the history of peoples’ different customs and habits. He intends no less
than a universal history  a history of humankind.34 Voltaire (1961 [1775]) is moreover
criticising ‘… those who lie to humankind’ because they are ‘often animated by the foolishness
of national rivalry.’ Not only is man in its total humanity a subject of study, but he must be
studied without a nationalistic bias. However, if humankind becomes an entity as an object of
study, and is conceived of as a unity, it is also defined by what seems to be an incommensurable
diversity  Voltaire distinguishes some ‘obvious’ differences between human ‘races.’
This man, this human species, is distinguished from other animals; this is a widely accepted
way of defining humanity, together with possessing certain qualities, chiefly reason. This unity
of humankind as a species opposed to animal is to be found in many authors from Voltaire to
Holbach, and especially in the work of naturalists such as Buffon:
Il y a une distance infinie entre les facultés de l’homme et celles du plus parfait
animal, preuve évidente que l’homme est d’une différente nature, que seul il
fait une classe à part… (Buffon 2007 [1749], 47).35
However, this monogenesis does not prevent thinkers from classifying and differentiating
inside humanity, different sorts of ‘varieties’  for monogenesis  or ‘races’  for polygenesis
 opening the way to what Todorov (1989, 133 ff.) calls ‘racialism.’36 What is interesting here
is not the racist doctrine and its consequences on colonialism and slavery, but the assumption
that societies are different and differentiated, that the world is composed of these diverse
societies because they are composed of diverse ‘races’ or ‘varieties’ of men. In other words, the
idea according to which varieties of men determines varieties of societies and vice versa.
34
Such histories already existed in England in several heavy volumes; see Pomeau’s introduction in Voltaire 1990 [1775], xix.
35
‘Between the faculties of man and those of the most minute animal, the distance is infinite. This is a clear proof, that the nature of
man is different from that of the brute creation; that he himself constitutes a separate class…’ (Slotkin 2004 [1965], 183).
36
The doctrine according to which there exist different races, as opposed to the more vulgar racism of the common man.
~ 46 ~
On the polygenesis’ side, Voltaire affirms that there are distinctions among men as between
trees:
… les blancs barbus, les nègres portant laine, les jaunes portant crins, et les
hommes sans barbes, ne viennent pas du même homme (Voltaire 1961 [17341738], 161). 37
This Traité de métaphysique, however, was not intended for publication, but is, according to
historians of Voltaire, revealing the true nature of his thought. It is in sharp contrast anyway
with his Discours en vers sur l’homme, which was intended for publication; there all men are
equal because of their divine nature:
On dit qu’avant la boîte de Pandore
Nous étions tous égaux : nous le sommes encore ;
Avoir les mêmes droits à la félicité,
C’est pour nous la parfaite et seule égalité (Voltaire 1961 [1740-45], 212).38
However, again in his ambitious Universal history, Voltaire starts his general introduction on the
‘different races of men’:
Il n’est permis qu’à un aveugle de douter que les Blancs, les Nègres, les
Albinos, les Hottentots, les Lapons, les Chinois, les Américains, soient des races
entièrement différentes (Voltaire 1990 [1775], 6).39
This means that above the individual level of authors, there had to be a structural idea at the
time to think in the humanist tradition about humanity as a unity  all men are equal before
God  but very diverse. And in this sense, the peoples were unequal in development. These
differences of races are followed by differences in terms of culture, and the incommensurability
to reach universal standards of values: ‘… the peoples of Europe have humanity principles that
are not to be found in other parts of the world…’ (Voltaire 1961 [1745]). Europeans form a
community of culture, and Voltaire compares them even to the ancient Greeks who fought
among themselves even though they kept politeness and civility among them. There is no doubt
that, in Voltaire’s conception, mankind was singled out in a unique humanity, where all are
equal before God, but that it was divided into unequal races.
This shows that, at that time, a metaphysical conception of humankind  despite the fact that it
considered men as creatures of God, and as such, equal  did not necessarily entail an
understanding that men were all the same everywhere. Racial differences existed, and also
cultural and social ones. The interesting point to explore then is whether this conception of
different races, in ‘natural’ sciences, did in fact lead to an understanding of different peoples,
leading to different societies in theories of the transition from the ‘state of nature’ to the ‘state
of society.’ In other words, did contractualists not think of the contract with the idea that from
the beginning ‘races’ formed societies for themselves?
37
‘… bearded whites, negroes wearing wool, yellows wearing horsehair, and men without beards, do not come from the same man.’
38
‘One says that before Pandora’s box we were all equal: we still are; to have the same rights to felicity, this is for us the perfect and
only equality.’
39
‘Only the blind can doubt that Whites, Negers, Albinos, Hottentots, Lapons, Chinese, Americans, are entirely different races.’
~ 47 ~
The theist conception of mankind is connected to the atheist one by the scientific study of
‘natural man’ from the newly discovered worlds. Here too, the unity of humankind is conceived
of with a degree of diversity within it. De Pauw wrote a ‘history of natural man’  a domain,
which, according to him, has been neglected. His study spawns on Americans, a ‘human race,’
and one must study ‘the variety of the human species in America’ (De Pauw 1768, 131). In his
study, De Pauw criticises the heavy prejudices of travellers’ descriptions, and he deplores the
fact that Spaniards were more curious in collecting information about Americans, and
destroyed them before any ‘naturalist’ could do his work. Still, he classifies the human species
into races.
The most influential figure on the atheist side is Buffon with his huge work on natural history in
general and the ‘natural history of man’ in particular. His argument on the unity of humankind
 monogenesis  is not of a religious nature, but is based on the naturalist observation that
e.g. whites and blacks can procreate together:
Tout concourt donc à prouver que le genre humain n’est pas composé
d’espèces essentiellement différentes entres elles, qu’au contraire il n’y a eu
originairement qu’une seule espèce d’hommes, qui s’étant multipliée et
répandue sur toute la surface de la terre, a subi différents changements par
l’influence du climat, par la différence de la nourriture, par celle de la manière
de vivre, par les maladies épidémiques, et aussi par le mélange varié à l’infini
des individus plus ou moins ressemblants… (Buffon 2007 [1749], 406-407).40
Hence, the unity of humankind, further confirmed by its opposition to animals because man
possesses reason (Buffon 2007 [1749], 188-190)  while animals allegedly do not.
However, there are some hierarchies, classifications inside this unity between different
‘varieties.’ While the unity of humankind is founded on reason, its diversity is founded on
another human quality, namely ‘sociability’: ‘… l’homme… n’est homme que parce qu’il a su se
réunir à l’homme’41 (Buffon 2007 [1753], 487). The universal quality of sociability pushed men
to gather into societies; societies forming then different ‘varieties’ of men. From this thought,
Buffon introduces a value hierarchy among these ‘varieties’ according to the degree of
civilisation, and hence the advancement of the quality of a nation, achieved:
… toute nation où il n’y a ni régle, ni loi, ni maître, ni société habituelle, est
moins une nation qu’un assemblage tumultueux d’hommes barbares &
indépendans, qui n’obéissent qu’à leurs passions particulières, & qui ne
pouvant avoir un intérêt commun, sont incapables de se diriger vers un même
but & de se soûmettre à des usages constans, qui tous supposent une suite de
40
‘From every circumstance may we obtain a proof, that mankind are not composed of species essentially different from each other;
that, on the contrary, there was originally but one species, which, after being multiplied and diffused over the whole surface of the
earth, underwent divers changes from the influence of the climate, food, mode of living, epidemical distempers, and the
intermixture of individuals, more or less resembling each other…’ "Of the Varieties in the Human Species," Barr's Buffon,
transcribed by Dr. Meijer, p. 351, retrieved 22 July 2008 from <http://www.geocities.com/paris/chateau/6110/buffon/
8varieties.htm >.
41
‘… man… is man because he managed to bond himself to man.’ My translation.
~ 48 ~
desseins raisonnez & approuvez par le plus grand nombre. (Buffon 2007
[1749], 382).42
The concept of sociability is widely shared, also in the theist discourse on the polygenesis side.
Voltaire (1961 [1734-1738], 192), for example, also considers sociability as a ‘natural instinct’
intended by the ‘author of nature’ in order to preserve each individual and perpetuate his/her
species.
What is interesting in this concept is less the obvious bias of normative judgement based on
euro-centrism than the not so obvious énoncé according to which humanity is ordered naturally
or divinely into different groups of human beings, defined by the way they differ from one
another. This element is essential to note in relation to the theories of the social pact or contract
developed in the next chapter. One can see here that if reason is universally uniting humankind,
sociability is dividing it, but nonetheless, sociability is universal. This universal quality of
sociability is downplayed however in favour of the idea that it is somehow ‘culturally relative’:
to each society its ‘variety’ of men, and vice versa. This fact is easily seen in Buffon’s analysis of
the ‘varieties’ of men: they are separated by civilisational, technological and linguistic marks,
eating habits, occupations, customs, climate, and physical traits. All these marks are used to
specify a certain ‘variety.’ In Buffon’s ‘scientific’ account, there is a direct relation between the
variety, the environment, and the customs (2007 [1749], 270). As was shown with Voltaire,
this way of thinking is not only peculiar to Buffon. It is thus possible to affirm that it was a
general thought of that period, a general discourse on humankind based on the énoncés
according to which varieties are determined and fixed, and they are so by factors such as the
locus (geography, climate), customs (food, way of life) and these are also inversely determined
by varieties.
Society and humanity are connected in that humanity, despite its unity, is divided into varieties,
each ascribed to a certain society. Here lye all the future assumptions on the fixed nature of
nations and national identities that ‘methodological nationalism’ (Beck 2000) will later adopt.
Of course the idea that the climate and customs determine the ‘variety’ of man, the physical
determinants of man, disappears in some discourses, and is reinforced in racists ones. What is
interesting to note for the study of cosmopolitanism  on the local/general axis  is that the
general (humanity) is thought of as being divided into different societies (local), each being
ascribed to a certain differentiating character, intermingling the sub-species (variety/race) and
the cultural (customs, idiom, etc.). Driven by a positivist discourse, and a claim of science, this
leads to very rigid conceptions of human groupings, societies, and thereby nations. Is this
observed once and for all? Is change allowed? What happens in case of mix? The ‘cosmopolitan
century’ is not asking cosmopolitan questions about the possible ‘transfusions’ among
‘varieties’ of humankind.
What is interesting in the conception of the diversity of humankind is the confusion between
the term ‘nation’ and the peoples inhabiting foreign lands with foreign cultures etc. As the next
chapter will show, the term ‘nation’ was originally used in the sense of designating a
population. In this sense it is pretty close to what we now understand as ethno-nationalism.
The political dimension did not yet exist, and this political dimension will appear later in
political theory when imagining sources of political authority other than the king. Then a more
42
‘… any nation where there is neither rule, nor law, nor master, nor regular society is less a nation than a tumultuous assembly of
independent barbarians, each obeying only their own particular passions…’ (Hudson 1996, 257).
~ 49 ~
encompassing notion, unifying under a single moral community scattered peoples, emerged 
a kind of cosmopolitan concept of the nation.
The unity of humankind transpires in the conceptions of the speaking subject on humankind;
and the paradox of the expected relativism due to the variety of humankind disappears totally,
whilst a positivist discourse exudes from the position of universal reason as the condition for
speaking on the behalf of humankind.
HUMANKIND AS SUBJECT: THE ‘COSMOPOLITAN SELF’
Humankind as an object of studies is reinforcing the conscience of belonging to humankind. As
such, it becomes not only possible, but necessary to speak for humankind, in order to claim the
truth of universal principles applicable to humankind. Discursively, this makes sense: in order
to theorise political and moral ideas from the equality of man, one must speak in place of this
man. Without this conscience of species-membership and the conception that it is possible as a
member of this species to talk for the whole humankind, there would not be any universalism.
This sub-section intends to analyse how eighteenth-century’s thought introduced this sense of
human identity in political thought  a cosmopolitan self. Despite the paradox in considering
humankind as divided into ‘races’ or ‘varieties’  which should have been the basis for a
culturally relativistic view in the discourse  the unity of humankind prevails in the subject
position.
Many authors wrote on humankind, as being a part of humankind. For instance, Holbach writes
on humankind and on the behalf of humankind:
Toute erreur est nuisible ; c'est pour s'être trompé que le genre humain s'est
rendu malheureux. Faute de connoître la nature, il se forma des dieux, qui sont
devenus les seuls objets de ses espérances et de ses craintes (Holbach 1771,
6).43
Holbach’s conception is representative of the positivism in moral or ethics. There is only one
humankind (the one present in the Enlightenment’s discourse) subjected to the same laws of
nature. So everyone can study this humankind and deduce the laws of moral from nature. There
are no particularities of cultures, countries, civilisations, class, or anything. Suffice being a
human being and ponder for a while the ‘laws’ of nature by means of ‘experience,’ to find what
political systems should be. Therefore, anyone is representative of humankind and can speak
and its behalf about the laws governing it. Even Voltaire, who considers humankind despite its
unity as being divided into ‘races,’ considers it possible to speak on its behalf. Voltaire (1961
[1734-1738], 158) intends to write on man without any ‘prejudice’ such as education or origins,
patriotic feelings, by imagining himself to be an extra-terrestrial from Mars or Pluto, possessing
the sole faculty of thinking  reason, the only necessary condition to be able to develop a
universally valid rhetoric.
43
‘Error is always prejudicial to man: it is by deceiving himself, the human race is plunged into misery. He neglected Nature; he did
not comprehend her laws; he formed gods of the most preposterous and ridiculous kinds: these became the sole objects of his
hope, and the creatures of his fear…’ Translation by Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Project Gutenberg. Retrieved from
<http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8son110.txt > 22 July 2008.
~ 50 ~
Other authors did not only write on humankind and on the behalf of humankind, but also added
a moniker to their name representing this very act. Of course, one of the reasons to do so was to
remain anonymous and thus avoid censorship. Policy-making and discussing politics were a
privilege of kings and their chief advisers  especially so with foreign policy. However, this
argument alone would not explain why a position of speaker for humankind was adopted; any
fake name would have done the trick. Indeed, most of the pseudonyms are not used with the
sole intention of avoiding the censorship and the social pressure intrinsic to the act of
publication. These authors made no secret of their real identity. These monikers are e.g. ‘Dr.
Man’s lover,’ ‘Orator of the humankind,’ ‘a friend of mankind,’ etc. All are referring to the term
‘man’ or ‘human.’ Thus, not only is the political theory based on a universal truth based on
human nature, oriented towards the universal humankind, it is also written by authors who
claim to represent humankind.
The most interesting case is Jean-Baptiste von Klootz, aka Anacharsis Cloots. It is an isolated
example, but it shows how the discursive logic of eighteenth-century French discourse of
politics can be pushed to extremes. Of noble origins, Baron von Kloots decided to reject his
nobility by dropping the title of baron and refusing the ‘von’ in his name. Of Prussian origins, he
Frenchified his name into Cloots  France being the country of his education and representing
the model for everyone to follow. Furthermore, he decided to reject as well his Christian
heritage by unbaptising himself and changing his first name, Jean-Baptiste, into Anacharsis, a
pre-Christian name of an ancient Scythian philosopher who left his native land to travel
civilized countries in search of broader knowledge. Finally, he introduced himself as the ‘orator
of humankind.’ This gesture is a concentrate of eighteenth-century philosophy. It shows the
rejection of nobility and religion as causes of human suffering, and instead the identification
with the ‘Third state,’ which represents the ‘nation’ according to Sieyès (1989 [1789]). It shows
the ideal of universality through reason and the unity of humankind as one species. Cloots
(1979 [1792], 244) explains what an ‘orator of humankind’ is: representing humankind,
burning with a mission to fight against the ‘foes of humankind,’ voluntarily exiling himself from
his native home and renouncing all honours or stipend to defend his mission.
Explaining this general phenomenon of cosmopolitan monikers, Rosenfeld argues that the
Republic of Letters enabled the existence of some ‘transnational space’ for expression, in which
authors deliberately placed themselves in an unrooted position:
… the idea of political engagement was not yet necessarily dependent on one’s
sense of belonging to a distinctive subgroup of humanity. Rather… public
action often depended upon the opposite: deliberate deracination and
namelessness on the part of the individual subject (Rosenfeld 2002, 27).
The rhetorical stance of presenting oneself both in one’s singularity as an individual and one’s
representativeness as a member of a boundaryless community of humanity served several
purposes. It ‘opened up a space for a new kind of non-nationally-specific political identity and
engagement,’ and it ‘rendered feasible a new type of secular political vision outside the related
frameworks of both the nation-state and the locality’ (Rosenfeld 2002, 32).
In other words, this position of the speaking subject created a sense of cosmopolitan identity
because of its reference to universal values and characteristics  be it metaphysical
conceptions of human rights or physical conceptions of the true laws of moral for man. As the
following section will show, the conceptions of humanity clearly demonstrated a sense of
~ 51 ~
belonging to a distinctive subgroup of humanity. The question is thus why this was not
reflected in the subject position? My contention here is that the subject took the position of the
unity of humankind as a ‘scientific’ position to base a ‘true’ discourse of universally valid claims
on moral and politics. Without a strategy for claiming ‘truth’ in political theory, there would be
no position as ‘cosmopolitan’ orator for humankind, and vice versa.
Many of the uses of the monikers were associated not only with a sense of cosmopolitan
identity and a-national positioning on political affairs, but also a certain claim of truth. As will
be introduced in the following chapter, political theory was based on highly positivist
assumptions, based on nature and humankind. Moral is seen as a ‘science’ along natural science
that can be deduced by reason from nature and man.44 Humans obey rules of nature, be they
physical or moral. By claiming the status of a universal speaker, it is possible to assert an
alleged universal truth. However, one has to note that the greatest thinkers of moral as a
science did not use a pseudonym (e.g. Holbach, Mably or Rousseau). Those who did use the
moniker ‘cosmopolite’ or any other claim to speak for humankind did so with a claim to
philosophical wisdom and truth. This is related to the fact that the word ‘cosmopolite’ at the
time had a dual meaning grammatically, and philosophically. Proof of its success, some abused
this anonymous authorship, in order to exploit the potential of ‘objectivity’ of the term
‘cosmopolitan.’ For instance, Le caffé politique d’Amsterdam (Pellissery 1778, 211) is a political
pseudo-discussion between a Frenchman, an Englishman, a Dutchman and a ‘Cosmopolite’; in
reality Pellissery’s own views, as former French minister, were developed into long selfgratifying soliloquies on the state of affairs in these countries.
This claim of truth was thus based on the fact that one was using ‘reason,’ which is a universal
quality of humankind. ‘Anyone’ could thus use reason, and ‘anyone’ using reason would
allegedly come up with the same arguments and ‘truths’ on humankind and the right way to
think about it. Obviously, none was aware of the ethnocentric bias in considering this. Reason
was considered an objective and universally shared quality, which anyone made use of,
supposedly in the same way, leading to the same conclusions. This was true for natural science,
and equally for moral science. This énoncé transcends the two discourses of metaphysical and
physical conceptions of humankind. Humankind as an object of study, and subject position, is
nonetheless conceived in two different discourses, which impact on later positions of moral
stance. It is therefore important to identify them here before analysing their impact on natural
law theory and contract theory in the next chapter.
METAPHYSICAL VS. PHYSICAL CONCEPTIONS OF HUMANKIND
The study of contemporary cosmopolitanism revealed the metaphysical dimension of
cosmopolitanism in its conception of humankind. It is therefore interesting to investigate its
historical roots. A small hypothesis can be introduced. The metaphysical and the physical
conceptions of humankind differ in their substantial conception of man. In the next chapter I
will note the impact of this original position on theories of man in society. A metaphysical
source privileges natural society with a divine sovereignty, whereas a physical source privileges
a human sovereignty in a social context. One can note that the reference to metaphysical
sources in the Declaration of human rights disappears between 1789 and 1795 and is replaced
44
Significantly, these enlightened ideas led to the creation in 1795 of the still existing French Académie des sciences morales et politiques.
~ 52 ~
by society (Gauthier 1992). The secularisation of political thought engaged the disappearance
of natural law theory and the idea of a universal society.
Eighteenth-century French philosophy is marked by a rejection of religion in general. Two
discourses are formed however, one being radically atheist and looking for an alternative
‘scientific’ and purely physical conception of humankind and nature, and another one, still
keeping metaphysical links, but revolting against the claim of domination of all religions.
Political conceptions may vary from such a conception of nature and God. An atheist as Holbach
(1771) develops the principle of a blindly moved materialism. If everything is matter then there
is no sense in searching for natural law principles in God, but in nature with scientific
techniques that reason permits  a moral science next to natural science. If, on the contrary,
one believes in a Supreme Being, common to all, the universal law is in God’s will, which anyone
can find through reason. Both positions  theist and atheist  lead to the same result: the
moral duty that men have towards one another, based on reason, and universally true.
DEISM OR THEISM: GOD’S RELIGION OF UNIVERSAL REASON
In Christianity, it is possible to think of equality between men, since God created man to His
image.45 Jesus Christ interpreted this in this sense: ‘inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’46 Deeply rooted in Western civilisation, is
therefore this understanding of equality between men and the unity of humankind. However,
religious beliefs were also used to declare other men non equal because they did not adore the
same God  the distinction being between believers and non-believers. Thus, there is a need to
find some universal principle that would reconcile all religions. This is what Enlightenment
philosophers did under the name of deism and theism.
Enlightenment deism took its influences from Renaissance humanism, experimental science,
discoveries of new worlds, and disgust with sixteenth-century religious conflicts (Lund 2002).
From this, eighteenth-century philosophers developed a certain scepticism towards established
religions, and a desire for unshakable and reasonable foundations of truth that could inspire
universal consent. Deism developed as a religion of reason. As Lund points out, deists are
however heterodox and idiosyncratic, thus not forming a consistent body of thought. Voltaire
believes in God as a first mover, while Rousseau and Marmontel believe that God is in the
urgings of conscience (Lund 2002). ‘For the deists, the law of reason and the law of God were
essentially the same’ however, it is reason and reason alone that is the authority (Lund 2002,
338).
Because of censorship, the condemnation of what dominant Catholicism did to minoritarian
Protestantism in France took the form of writings set in the Middle East where ‘Mahometans’ or
Muslims persecuted the Guèbres.47 In the chapter entitled ‘The Supper’ in Zadig, Voltaire (1954
45
Book of Genesis 1:26, 1:27; Book of Wisdom, 2:23.
46
Matthew 25:40.
47
Guebers i.e. Zoroastrians or ‘Ghebers [Fire-Worshippers]. Followers of the ancient Persian religion, reformed by Zoroaster.
Called in Persian gabr, in the Talmud Cheber, and by Origen Kabir, a corruption of the Arabic Kafir (a non-Mahometan or infidel), a
term bestowed upon them by their Arabian conquerors.’ Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1898. Retrieved
3 August 2008 from <http://www.bartleby.com/81/7713.html>.
~ 53 ~
[1747], 35-38) stages a society of international guests. As expected in such a society, differences
in their culture and practices become the subject of conversation, and some explain why their
conception and practice of religion are the best and other’s incomprehensible. Wine flows and
voices rise louder as the atmosphere becomes tenser. On this, the character Zadig, an ‘idealtype’ of a philosophe according to Voltaire (well thought and tempered), intervenes and
convinces everyone that they in fact agree on the same thing. They all, despite their particular
way of doing it, believe and revere a higher spirit, the ‘supreme Being’ or ‘superior Being.’ On
this everyone agrees and praise his wisdom. One can see in this example the ideal that there is
something common to everyone in the world. And this commonality that binds us all, despite
our cultural differences, is based on reason: we can all think about our differences together and
be convinced of the commonality that in fact lies behind. This commonality is expressed
elsewhere in Candide, in the theory of monogenesis, when a black slave is wondering why he is
beaten while white men take him to Sunday’s mass where he hears that all men, black or white,
stem from Adam, and are thus all cousins (Voltaire 1954 [1759], ch. 19).
This metaphysical dimension is the same in contemporary conceptions of cosmopolitanism
when it is considered that one could have been born anywhere in the world. Some are thus
‘lucky’ to be born in industrialised countries with a high life expectancy and quality of life. Some
are ‘unlucky’ to be born in less advanced countries, rampaged by conflicts, famine and diseases.
There is thus some kind of metaphysical element here of some kind of ‘celestial lottery’ before
birth, which enables the conception of equality and freedom of humankind. A conception
inherited from Christianity, in which Jesus proclaimed man made in the image of God. If we are
all on the image of God, we are therefore all sacred, free and equal.
Voltaire (Voltaire 1964 [1765]) defines theism in his Dictionnaire philosophique as follow: the
belief in the existence of a Supreme Being, good and almighty, who created all beings; this belief
is reconciling the believer with the rest of the universe because he/she adhere to none of the
sects that are all contradicting themselves; he/she does not believe in unintelligible religious
metaphysics, but only in justice; his/her cult is to do good and be submitted to God. Rousseau
(1964 [1754], 178) also believes in a ‘Supreme Being’ or ‘Sovereign Being’ (according to the
versions corrected) who created humankind. The reference to the ‘Supreme Being’ is again in
the Declaration of Human Rights (1789) and the constitution of 1791. However, this reference
evaporated in subsequent versions of the Declaration. Due to the fight with the clergy after the
revolution, the atheist version of humankind triumphed, together with the conception of
society-based diverse humanity that will be developed in the next chapter.
ATHEISM: NATURE’S SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL REASON
Representative of the atheist discourse, Holbach (1771, 2) suggest that man was created by
nature and all other supernatural beings are chimeras. However, this does not imply that there
is no sense in looking for common laws for humankind; that humankind being physical matter
cannot possess metaphysical elements that can be studied. Diderot (1951 [1772], 971) also
provides an example in the case against colonialism based on nature: ‘… le Taïtien est ton frère.
Vous êtes deux enfants de la nature ; quel droit as-tu sur lui qu’il n’ait pas sur toi ?’48 This
48
‘…the Tahitien, is thy brother. You are both children of nature. What right hast thou over him that he has not over thee?’
(translation: <http://courses.essex.ac.uk/cs/cs101/Boug.htm>, retrieved 11 April 2008).
~ 54 ~
equality before nature has moral implications. Moral can be a science and can be deduced
through reason from this physical world. It is through our senses, explains Holbach (1771, 5),
that we are connected to universal nature; through our senses we can experience and discover
its secrets. Men invented gods because they did not know the functioning of nature (Holbach
1771, 6). Holbach’s project is thus to replace gods with nature as the fundamental source of
knowledge, not only for natural science, but also for moral science.
Holbach defends his atheist vision of nature and humankind from which physical and moral
laws can be deduced. He justified in advance the objections and obstacles that the ‘atheist’ will
face: people are used to believe in old texts and traditions, and will refuse the light and treat the
‘atheist’ who brings it the same way as in the Socratic allegory of the cavern.
La morale de la nature est la seule religion que l’interprete de la nature offre à
ses concitoyens, aux nations, au genre humain, aux races futures, revenues des
préjugés qui ont si souvent troublé la félicité de leurs ancêtres (Holbach 1771,
453).49
In Holbach’s thought, the Christian tradition of moral thinking is however still omnipresent,
even if he claims otherwise. For instance, some of the capital sins are sanctioned, albeit by the
laws of nature and not of God. If a person is too voluptuous, nature shall punish him/her with
infirmities and diseases. Intemperance shall be punished by a short life.
C’est moi [la nature] qui suis la justice incréée, éternelle ; c’est moi qui sans
acception des personnes sçais proportionner le châtiment à la faute, le
malheur à la dépravation. Les loix de l’homme ne sont justes que quand elles
sont conformes aux miennes ; leurs jugemens ne sont raisonnables que quand
je les ai dictés ; mes loix seules sont immuables, universelles, réformables,
faites pour régler en tous lieux, en tout tems le sort de la race humaine
(Holbach 1771, 448-449).50
Nature, uncreated and eternal, sets the rules of justice for the whole human race. The interest in
respecting the laws of nature is therefore the physical and psychological well-being. Any vice is
sanctioned by a suffering of a kind. And these are universal laws, true for everyone.
Les motifs que la morale de la nature emploie sont l’intérêt évident de chaque
homme, de chaque société, de toute l’espece humaine dans tous les tems, dans
tous les pays, dans toutes les circonstances. Son culte est le sacrifice des vices
49
‘The MORALITY OF NATURE is the only creed which her interpreter offers to his fellow citizens; to nations; to the human
species; to future races, weaned from those prejudices which have so frequently disturbed the felicity of their ancestors.’
Translated by Samuel Wilkinson, Project Gutenberg, < http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8son210.txt >, retrieved 22 July
2008.
50
‘… it is I [nature] who, without distinction of persons, know how to make the balance even; to adjust the chastisement to the
fault; to make the misery bear its due proportion to the depravity; to inflict punishment commensurate with the crime. The laws
of man are just, only when they are in conformity with mine; his judgements are rational, only when I have dictated them: my
laws alone are immutable, universal, irrefragable; formed to regulate the condition of the human race, in all ages, in all places,
under all circumstances.’ Translated by Samuel Wilkinson, Project Gutenberg, retrieved 22 July 2008:
<http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8son210.txt>.
~ 55 ~
et la pratique des vertus réelles ; son objet est la conservation, le bien être et la
paix des hommes… (Holbach 1771, 451).51
Nations must therefore educate the people to this religion of nature, this moral in order to
thrive; otherwise they will suffer and march to their own ruin.
Holbach aims at destroying the accepted contention that religion is the obvious path to moral,
and that it is thereby of political usefulness. Instead of a supra-natural religion, it is a natural
religion that should serve this political utility. It is a duty towards mankind moreover, to fight
religion, this ‘superstition,’ this ‘imposture of morality,’ this ‘crime against truth,’ this ‘homicidal
mask’ that committed ‘hideous crimes,’ everywhere around the world (Holbach 1771, 452 ff.).
Only then can man be truly free, freed from the slavery of outrageous laws. And only then can
men love one another and do good for one another, thus rendering possible the unity of
humankind. There is however no difference in content with the theist version.
UNIVERSAL MORAL DUTY AND UNIVERSAL TRUTH
The reason why conceptions of humanity are worth studying is that they discursively dictate
moral principles and moral duties. Both approaches to humankind lead, however, to the same
conclusions. They both posit a universal morality applicable to all, with a duty attached to it,
and these moral principles are discovered through reason which is also universal. Theism
subsumes many duties to man, since other men are also fellow creatures of God. If societies are
all different, if men are all different, they all share however reason, which not only unite them
as opposed to animals, but also gives the possibility to find God’s universal laws of nature.
Atheism regards nature as man’s creator and just as the laws of nature are found by observing
it through reason, so can the laws of moral be found by observing man. Both positions,
moreover, posit the same moral principles, which are Christian ones.
This conception is observable in many of the works of that period that tell the tales of travellers
around the world, learning about the world and its different inhabitants, and developing moral
principles and duties. Common to all these novels is a conception of the world and a reflection
upon the good and the bad in this world that is not limited to one’s hometown, country, culture,
civilisation, or religion. The new religion of reason enables thought about the unity of the
world: unity of humankind sharing reason; unity of the world in which good and bad happen to
everyone. Voltaire’s Candide is a reflection on the world and the peoples inhabiting it. Not only
the Enlightenment developed this particular vision of the world as a unity, it also developed the
thought about the actions to change this world: moral duties.
In Candide, Voltaire famously mocks the Leibnizian axiom ‘tout est bien dans le meilleur des
mondes possible.’52 He adds however in the end ‘« Cela est bien dit », répondit Candide, « mais il
faut cultiver notre jardin »’53 (Voltaire 1954 [1759], 237). Different interpretations are possible,
51
‘The motive which the morality of nature employs, is the self-evident interest of each individual, of each community, of the whole
human species, in all times, in every country, under all circumstances. Its worship is the sacrifice of vice, the practise of real
virtues; its object is the conservation of the human race, the happiness of the individual, the peace of mankind…’ Translated by
Samuel Wilkinson, Project Gutenberg, < http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8son210.txt >, retrieved 22 July 2008.
52 ‘Everything
is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.’ My translation.
53‘“Excellently
observed,” answered Candide; “but let us cultivate our garden.”’ From wikisource, retrieved 12 July 2008,
<http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Candide/Chapter_30>.
~ 56 ~
but it is objectively possible to argue  in line with the whole book, and the view expressed in
his poem on the Lisbon Disaster (Voltaire 1961 [1756])  that one must act upon the world.
Like a garden; the world should be worked upon, in order to make it a better place to live. Away
from fatalism and determinism, deism suggests that man takes things in hand. This is the only
way to regain hope:
Un jour tout sera bien, voilà notre espérance;
Tout est bien aujourd’hui, voilà l’illusion (Voltaire 1961 [1756], 309).54
Thus, acting upon the world by spreading the good is also carrying a teleological idea of
progress: it is a moral duty to act for the good. From this, Voltaire develops a universal moral.
This moral is based on looking for God’s words for everyone through reason. Its principles
stand in few words:
D’un bout du monde à l’autre elle parle, elle crie :
« Adore un Dieu, sois juste, et chéris ta patrie » (Voltaire 1961 [1752-1756],
276).55
This moral duty is however an obvious Eurocentric universalism imposed on the whole world,
close to the colonial missionary evangelisation that Voltaire elsewhere denounced:
S’il a parlé à quelques peuples, c’est à l’univers entier qu’il a voulu parler…
La morale uniforme en tout temps, en tout lieu,
A des siècles sans fin parle au nom de Dieu (Voltaire 1961 [1752-1756],
276).56
This social instinct is God’s gift to humankind. As such it explains human diversity, but what
brings humanity together is the instinct of justice; the Supreme Being put in man’s heart the
instinct of sociability and as a result, human laws are everywhere different; but what matters
and brings everyone together is justice: ‘Qu’on soit juste, il suffit ; le reste est arbitraire’
(Voltaire 1961 [1752-1756], 278).57 God set in every man’s heart the universal moral, the
universal understanding of justice.
On the atheist side the same énoncé of universal moral exists, albeit in different terms. For
Holbach man is not a creature of God but of nature. All men are equal because they belong to
the same species  species as opposed to other animals. Man is a species apart from other
animals, because it is the only species that possesses reason. The human species is not
subdivided in subspecies in Holbach’s system of nature, but he distinguishes the principles of
Moral between an isolated man  a textbook case, unless being thrown onto a deserted island,
or voluntarily retiring for a brief period from the society of men  and man in society  the
natural condition, since man is a social creature and is born from a father and a mother, hence
54 ‘All
will be well one day—so runs our hope. All now is well, is but an idle dream.’ Joseph McCabe, trans., Toleration and Other Essays
by Voltaire (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912), 255.
55
‘From one end of the world to the other it speaks, it screams: “love one God, be just, and cherish your country.”’ My translation.
56
‘If He (God) spoke to some peoples, it is to the whole universe that He meant to speak… Uniform moral at all time, in all places,
in unending centuries, speaks in the name of God.’ My translation.
57
‘Let us be just, that is what matters; the rest is arbitrary.’ My translation.
~ 57 ~
born naturally in society. There are distinctions between societies based on this very fact as
there are different natural societies in which man is born.
Man has duties in society. Holbach distinguishes between two types of societies. The general
one is the one of the whole humankind. The particular societies are the ones composed of a
small portion of humankind. Holbach then identifies nations as some of those societies, which
are associated with a country of a particular name (Holbach 1790, 48). In the same manner, the
society ‘nation’ contains other societies in the form of ‘cities or towns’ inhabited by citizens,
who themselves form ‘families.’ Man’s universal duties are to participate in furthering the goals
of society: conservation and happiness of society itself and of every member. There is no
thinking further of what is paramount: general society or particular societies. And what if two
particular societies have contradicting interests? It is only implied from the ordering énoncé,
that the general society comes first.
However, this physical discourse of humankind is no different to the metaphysical one. It
merely secularises the existing conceptions of this discourse. If atheism is not the dominant
discourse when the revolution takes place, it becomes the norm with the following
constitutions and Declarations of the Rights of Man. As the next chapter will show, the
metaphysical reasoning is then lost in the conception of human rights, privileging the socialbased one, thereby losing the universality for a social particularity.
CONCLUSION
Man was the momentum of all thinking during the eighteenth century. Humankind became an
object of study. It was conceived as a unity, either through a theist conception or an atheist one.
This unity is based on the differentiation with animals, mainly because of the capacity to think
 reason. However, the other human quality distinguishing it from animals, also determined its
diversity. The capacity to develop by gathering in societies  sociability  explains the vast
human diversity of ‘races’ or ‘varieties,’ exacerbated by cultural, environmental and
geographical elements. Despite this emphasis on diversity, thinkers nevertheless took the place
of humanity as a subject of discourse by means of the human quality of reason. This enabled
them to claim a universally valid truth to develop principles of a common moral to humanity;
either based on God’s will or nature’s laws.
All these elements may seem abstract and remote to political theory and cosmopolitanism.
They are not: the metaphysical and the physical conceptions of humankind have a direct impact
on the conceptions of natural law and the hierarchy between natural law and social law; as
such, they also have an impact on the kind of moral duty man is to have; the diversity of
humankind explains contractualist theories based on distinctive societies; cosmopolitanism is
based on the metaphysical conception of humankind, and is also indebted to eighteenthcentury’s debate on the proper form of government to maintain and keep the metaphysical
conception of human rights. Now, the question is how man in this tension between unity and
diversity is thought of in society by the speaking subject humankind? Is there a unique society
or diverse societies for each ‘variety’/’race’?
~ 58 ~
CHAPTER 4
THINKING MAN IN SOCIETY
H UM A N K I N D A N D T HE L E G I T I M A T E S O V E R E I G N
L’autorité de l’Etre Suprême donnant force de Loix proprement
dites aux maximes de la Raison, ces maximes acquièrent par-là le
plus haut degré de force qu’elles puissent avoir pour lier &
assujettir notre Volonté, & pour nous mettre dans l’obligation la
plus étroite... (Burlamaqui 1756, 194)58
L’homme, fruit d’une Société contractée entre un mâle et une
femelle de son espèce, fut toujours en Société … (Holbach 1773, 5)59
Je défie de me montrer un seul article de notre Déclaration des
droits, qui ne soit pas applicable à tous les hommes, à tous les
climats (Cloots 1979 [1792], 258).60
La nature ne connaît qu’une seule nation… (Cloots 1979 [1792],
271)61
The description of the discourse of cosmopolitanism provided in chapter two revealed a
primary core composed of the ‘trinity’ individual-humanity-God, and a secondary core with a
conception of community. As the previous chapter showed, eighteenth-century thought was
shaped by the vision of a unity of humankind, based on Christian (theist or atheist) conceptions,
and an observation sustained by the natural history of the time that it is divided into ‘varieties’
or ‘races.’ The question62 that political theorists have to answer in this discourse is then: how to
cope with this tension in formulating theories of political organisation? In this chapter I will
connect the previously described discourse around the trinity humanity-God-individual with
conceptions of community. In a nutshell, it is the passage from the state of nature to the state of
58
‘The authority of the Supreme Being giving the force of Law so to speak to the maxims of Reason, these maxims acquire thereby
the highest degree of force they can have to bond and subjugate our Will and to put us into the tightest obligation.’ My
translation.
59
‘Man, result of a society contracted between a male and a female of the same kind, has always been in Society…’ My translation.
60
‘I dare anyone to show me a single article of our Declaration of rights, which is not applicable to all men, under all climates.’ My
translation.
61
‘Nature knows but one nation…’ My translation.
62
I do not mean that any political philosopher has expressed this question explicitly, but rather that the question is implied in the
discourse of political theory at that time  an énoncé  and that it ought to be answered.
~ 59 ~
society. How is the archive of cosmopolitanism organised in passing from conceptions of
humankind to imagining community? What is the community, what are its boundaries (if any)
and whose community is this?
The first section expounds natural law theories, which are influenced by the previous
conceptions of humankind. The metaphysical and physical natural law theories diverge on the
question of the sovereign to rule community. The second section exposes in the first place the
new vocabulary of community with the concepts of nation and patrie, and expounds how two
authors conceived the first modern theoretisation of the ‘discipline’63 of cosmopolitanism.
FROM NATURE TO SOCIETY: HUMANKIND AND THE SOVEREIGN
Several authors stand out explicitly or implicitly as the influential figures from whom or against
whom eighteenth-century natural law theory is formed. Grotius is discussed in length as the
beacon for the coming ‘moral science.’ German theorists are also introduced into French.64
Puffendorf, already influential, is translated by Barbeyrac, who will himself become influential
through his footnotes that improved and transformed Puffendorf’s system. Wolff is translated
by Formey, who introduces him as a great figure next to these two above-mentioned authors.
Inherited from the previous humanists, the idea of natural law serves the purpose of ending
human sufferings, endless wars and other woes of the Princes’ territorial ambitions. During the
eighteenth century, however, natural law transforms itself to include as well the concept of
nature as an initial state which dialectical purpose is to establish the foundations of authority
and power in society. It rejects power politics epitomised by Machiavelli and Hobbes, and
replaces it with morale inspired by Greek and Roman Stoic figures such as Aristotle, Cicero and
Seneca.65 Behind natural law lies the idea that the goal of any society is the happiness of its
members. Therefore the sovereign ought to respect these principles. Natural law not only
serves as the foundation of moral in politics, but it is also the basis for declaring human rights
that society is to observe.
The purpose of this section is to expound different representative conceptions of natural law
theories, and the contractualist approach from nature to society, in what they have to tell about
the theories and conceptions of society or community. Since all theories are based on the
‘rational’ observation of ‘Nature,’ and since ‘Nature’ showed that humankind is united and
divided at the same time and according to two different views  a theist and an atheist one 
how is the theory of human organisation likely to follow? There is here, again, a tension
between two dimensions of natural law and nature, a metaphysical and a physical one. From
these, two different positions can be defended: internationalism or universalism. Gauthier
(1992) argues that the product of natural law theory, the Declaration of human rights (1789),
eventually looses its natural law foundation for a socially based one in the Declarations and
Constitution of 1789 to 1793. However, I argue here that natural law theory is not what is lost
in the foundation of human rights. It is the metaphysical dimension of natural law that is lost, as
63
In the Foucaultian sense a ‘discipline’ is the pre-scientific ‘knowledge’ (again in a Foucaultian sense), of a discourse.
64
For the historiography of these natural law theories in the early Enlightenment see Hochstrasser (2000).
65
For instance, Holbach’s Éthocratie (1776) is the answer to the Prince, stating moral principles for politics. Burlamaqui (1756, 74-76)
rejects Hobbes’ system based on sheer force leading to despotic consequences against enlightened ideals.
~ 60 ~
well as the triumph of the local society-based conception of natural law over the general
society-based one.
METAPHYSICAL NATURAL LAW: THE COMMUNITY OF REASON UNDER A
SOVEREIGN GOD
Behind the 1789 Declaration of human rights lies a whole metaphysical system inherited from
German philosophy  especially Leibnitz and Wolff  that has been forgotten in the
Encyclopédie and the following mainstream discourse of natural law (Cassirer 1932). This is
due to Voltaire’s influence in ridiculing these ‘absurdités… que les Allemands étudient parce
qu’ils sont Allemands’66 (Renault and Tavoillot 1999, 72). This is a shame since behind this
metaphysical reasoning lies a potential of different systems of political organisation. Indeed, the
metaphysical reasoning behind natural law is establishing an alternate and superior sovereign
to the social one.
Wolff, as translated by Formey, has had arguably a great influence on French natural law
theories and the Déclaration des droits de l’homme (Renault and Tavoillot 1999, 71). Wolff
posits the universality of humankind since the essence or nature of man is the same
everywhere. Man is determined by his freedom that gives him will. This free will entails moral
obligations. The individual will is to look for happiness, which forms the basic moral obligation
of man, or law of nature since it applies to every man. From this Wolff deduces universal
obligations and rights that all men are subjected to: human rights are deduced from the natural
law that man seeks happiness through his individual will; hence the natural right to have the
means to fulfil happiness  natural equality, natural freedom, right of security, property, etc.
(Renault and Tavoillot 1999, 73-75).
This reasoning is introduced in France by Barbeyrac’s refutation of Leibnitz, to whom he must
admit that God necessarily has to be the power that establishes natural law.67 The problem that
Leibnitz sees and Barbeyrac tries to contest is the role that God plays in natural law theory.
Unsuccessfully trying to refute Leibnitz in order to provide a natural law theory that would be
sympathetic to Huguenots protestant aspiration to practice their own religion, Barbeyrac
concedes that if man is taken as the starting point, natural law must be derived from the will of
a superior in general, and the will of God in particular (Hochstrasser 1993). This issue is, as a
matter of fact, the one of founding the proper sovereign power  the ‘nomos basileus’
(Agamben 1998).
The whole discourse of natural law is an attempt to fix the ‘game of truth’ of morality. Reason is
what makes humans free and equal individuals, and freedom leads man to seek happiness,
which forms the Laws of Nature. Hence some moral obligations or duties: mainly to preserve
66
‘Absurdities… that Germans study because they are Germans’ (my translation).
67
Barbeyrac’s natural law theory is found in the collection of footnotes and appendixes he made to his translations of Pufendorf’s
works, as well as other minor books he published himself. Hochstrasser (1993) has conveniently gathered all his thoughts on
natural law scattered in footnotes and other works in a single study, which will form the basis for my analysis here.
~ 61 ~
oneself and seek happiness. Barbeyrac introduces the concept of a moral community in French
natural law theory, which is the ‘communauté de Droite Raison’:68
… la prémiére [sic] Société que les Hommes ont, est avec DIEU, à cause de cette
communauté de Droite Raison, d’où naît une Loi, qui leur est commune ; de
sorte que l’Univers est comme un grand Corps d’Etat, composé des Dieux et
des Hommes (Hochstrasser 1993, 298).69
Reason is a gift from God to mankind, and hence the first society of mankind is with God. Thus,
mankind is in a community, similar to a state, with God as the power governing this community.
Barbeyrac then adds the individualist component that Protestantism added to natural law: the
laws set by God to this community of humankind are in everyone’s grasp by the use of reason.
Reason is thus the individualist and universalist component for this community of humankind.
God is necessarily present in this community because all men being free and equal share the
same power. The discursive question is thus: how to account for a morally acceptable
foundation of power to free and equal rational men?
Burlamaqui develops even more systematically on Barbeyrac, and provides an answer to this:
God. Natural law is God’s law, superior in that to civil law (Burlamaqui 1756, 1). God placed us
in a universal primitive state on this earth, hence society is God’s will; and this natural society is
thus a society of equality and liberty (Burlamaqui 1756, 34). Here, Burlamaqui builds on
Barbeyrac in defining law (droit) in this natural state as ‘… tout ce que la Raison reconnoît
certainement comme un moyen sûr & abrégé de parvenir au bonheur, & qu’elle approuve comme
tel’70 (Burlamaqui 1756, 46). He adds that this is why it is called ‘Droite Raison.’
The problem for Burlamaqui is that between a sovereign and his subjects there is necessarily a
society of inequality since one is governing the others (Burlamaqui 1756, 72). And men in the
state of nature are essentially equal. So if man is the basis for political theory, how is it possible
to justify power among them? Burlamaqui’s reasoning is that there must be a superior and an
inferior. Rejecting Hobbes and Pufendorf he argues that ‘… le droit de Souveraineté dérive d’une
Puissance Supérieure, accompagnée de Sagesse & de Bonté’ (Burlamaqui 1756, 81). 71 Since God
is a superior power and is wise and kind, Burlamaqui states that God is the universal sovereign
of mankind ruling through natural laws:
… Loi Naturelle, une Loi que Dieu impose à tous les hommes, & qu’ils peuvent
découvrir & connoître par les seules lumières de leur Raison, en considérant avec
attention leur nature & leur état (Burlamaqui 1756, 111).72
68
This ‘community of Right Reason,’ is also an alteration of Leibnitz’s community of justice, with the same idea of moral
community (Hochstrasser 1993).
69
‘The first society that men experience is with God, because of this community of Right Reason, from which a Law came to
existence, which is common to them; with the result that the Universe is like a vast Body-State, composed of Gods and Men.’ My
translation.
70
‘… everything that Reason recognises certainly as a sure and abridged means to achieve happiness, and that it approves as such.’
My translation.
71
‘… the Right of Sovereignty stems from a Superior Power endowed with Wisdom and Goodness.’ My translation.
72
‘… Natural Law, a Law that God imposes on every man, and that they can discover and know by the sole lights of their Reason, by considering with
care their nature and state.’ My translation.
~ 62 ~
God is thus the sovereign of this vast community of humankind since otherwise man would
follow freely his Reason in an unordered world of primal instincts. This order is provided by the
principle that God gives us which is ‘Sociability.’ From this principle derive all the laws of
society and our duties: the union that God put among us is the ‘Common Good’; the spirit of
sociability is universal; we are obligated to consider ourselves naturally equal and treat each
other as such, except when just defence in invoked (Burlamaqui 1756, 149-150).
There are thus two societies, since sociability is universal: civil society and natural society. Civil
societies must respect natural laws within, and also between each other’s societies. This is the
law of nation. God is the only sovereign in natural society and there is a hierarchical
predominance of natural laws over any other as such. However, the only sanction of these laws
for Burlamaqui lies in the after-world, since men have a soul (Burlamaqui 1756, 246ff.). This is
the issue that is at stake in all conceptions of natural law: the proper sovereign authority to
enforce natural law. The same problem lies in atheist versions of natural law. God is replaced
with Nature, and any breach of the natural laws, lead to moral sufferings: guilty conscience and
sleepless nights, and other psychological traumas.
For Vattel (1773) too, there was a natural society from which individuals exited when they
entered society. Nations (i.e. states) are like individuals in the state of nature, but since they are
not exactly like humans, it is not exactly natural law that applies but the law of nations, which
slightly differs from it. Nations are equals, but they must maintain this natural society. The laws
of this natural society are of the outmost importance, so much so that if any nation were to
breach them there would be no society. Therefore, nations have the right of intervention in the
name of the laws of natural society, even if limited by the natural freedom of a nation (Vattel
1773, 12-13). There is however no sovereign and the origin of these laws is again confused.
ATHEIST NATURAL LAW THEORY: THE HUMAN SOVEREIGN IN A CIVIL
SOCIETY
Holbach wants to replace the religious metaphysics behind natural law with a science of the
laws of nature, both physical and moral. The very basis of his system is that man is the work of
nature and cannot escape this fact; nature is the only foundation for any knowledge on man
(Holbach 1771, 2). Nature is a superior power to anything else, since no one can escape its
sanctions: the voluptuous will be sanctioned by infirmities; indulging in food and wine will
shorten one’s life etc  these laws are universal (Holbach 1771, 448ff.).
From this System of nature one can induce the principles of Natural politics (Holbach 1773). The
‘induction’ of nature leads  contrary to the ‘deduction’ of metaphysical natural law theory 
to the acceptation of the world as it is. In this sense, man is placed in society, because he finds
himself better off than staying in a state of nature that ‘only exists in philosophers’ minds’
(Holbach 1773, 4-6). ‘Nature’ is organised into nations, and these nations were formed with a
‘social pact.’ This ‘social pact’ is, for Holbach, a constant judgement on man’s part of the good
and the bad that society brings to him (Holbach 1773, 13).
In this atheist account of natural laws, sovereignty is based on a human source: one man was
stronger than others and took a certain influence; influence only since one man cannot be
stronger than all the others. However, the only foundation of the constitutive sovereign power
is the faculty to protect and do good:
~ 63 ~
Telle est l’origine de tout pouvoir. Il est fondé lui-même sur la faculté de faire
du bien, de protéger, de guider, de procurer le bonheur : ainsi l’autorité se
fonde sur la nature des hommes, sur leur inégalité, sur leurs besoins, sur leur
désir qu’ils ont de les satisfaire, enfin sur l’amour de leur être (Holbach 1773,
20).73
In this system therefore, there is no place for a general society of mankind; there are only as
many societies as nations. But again, in between these nations, the ‘law of nations’ must apply,
which is no other than ‘… les Loix naturelles appliquées aux différentes sociétés dans lesquelles
le genre humain s’est partagé’ (Holbach 1773, 30). 74 Nations are submitted to natural laws and
they must apply to each other the same duties of ‘justice, good faith, humanity and help’
(Holbach 1773, 31). Holbach concedes that there is a ‘supreme Law’ that applies to all nations,
and hence justice, but this law is not expressed and its sole existence is to be ‘felt by all nations.’
There is no superior power applying this ‘supreme Law,’ but the ‘balance of power’ between
nations, and the ‘general will’ that ‘obliges them to observe the laws of fairness’ (Holbach 1773,
30).
In the atheist versions of natural law, the ‘general will’ is what constitutes the sovereign power
imposing natural law on humans. It is reminiscent of the ‘individual will’ that is present in the
metaphysical side of natural law. It makes sense only in a state of society where the sum of
individual wills would create this general one. God is thus ‘replaced’ with the ‘general will’ as
the source of sovereign power constituting natural law and human rights. In his article on
natural law in the Encyclopédie, Diderot considers that the individual must look at the ‘general
will’ to find the limits of natural rights, and this limit is to do only what is not contested by the
rest of humankind (Diderot 1755, 33). Where do we find this ‘general will’? Everywhere in
nature, from the law of nations to the social actions of ‘savage and barbarous peoples’ (Diderot
1755, 33-34). The description is vague, but what is certain, is that the man who only listens to
his own particular will is the ‘enemy to humankind.’ General will is deduced from the pure act
of reason of any individual stifling his passions. Since only the general will is always right, and
individual will can be wrong, legislative power must belong to the general will. The general will
also exists between individual societies for Diderot, but he does not stress explicitly the
existence of a legislative power above the nations.
Rousseau answered in the first version of his Social Contract to Diderot’s conception of ‘general
will.’ 75 Like Holbach, Rousseau (1964 [1887], 283) rejects the idea of a ‘golden age’ of the state
of nature. There is no social contract dictated by nature that establishes such a society as
humankind for Rousseau. He observes that any other conception is necessarily basing on God
the need for an external sovereign; and this is what he rejects since moral should be established
for political societies out of religion’s reach because there will always be senseless gods
73
‘That is the origin of all power. It is based itself on the faculty to do good, to protect, to guide, to bring happiness: thus authority is
based on the nature of men, their inequalities, their needs, their desire for satisfying them, finally on the love for their being.’ My
translation.
74
‘… Natural laws applied to different societies in which humankind has been divided.’ My translation.
75
The work was only published posthumously because in the final version Rousseau abandoned his chapter on the ‘general society
of humankind,’ which was a direct answer to Diderot’s article on natural law. According to historians of the social contract,
Rousseau wanted to write an a-temporal work solely discussing great figures such as Plato or Hobbes. Moreover, Rousseau felt he
already treated the subject in his Discours sur l’économie politique (1964 [1755]).
~ 64 ~
(Rousseau 1964 [1887], 285-286). For Rousseau then the philosophes’ reasoning is inverted;
instead of being a man entering society, man is first a man after being a citizen in society:
Nous concevons la societé générale d’après nos sociétés particuliéres,
l’établissement des petites Republiques nous fait songer à la grande, et nous
ne commençons proprement à devenir hommes qu’après avoir été Citoyens.
Par où l’on voit ce qu’il faut penser de ces prétendus Cosmopolites, qui
justifiant leur amour pour la patrie par leur amour pour le genre humain, se
vantent d’aimer tout le monde pour avoir droit de n’aimer
personne (Rousseau 1964 [1887], 287).76
If there is no natural society, if there is no natural state of freedom, equality and peace, and if
man actually turns sad and wicked by being social, there is however still the possibility to take
him out of moral depravation by correcting this social association with a new one: this is the
object of the social contract. By means of a fundamental pact, a social contract, every
individual’s will create a public moral person with a common will. There is an original
convention for Rousseau that we need to unveil, according to which a people is a people. The
sovereign can only be the general will since it is the only force that can govern a state for the
benefit of the ‘common good’ (Rousseau 1964 [1762], 295). This makes sovereignty inalienable
and indivisible. From this, Rousseau departs from natural law theory to state his own
contribution to the theory of the social contract, which founds an absolute sovereignty  the
state  without anything above it (Cassirer 1929).
However, Rousseau’s system of particular society defined by a social contract is not
unsympathetic to the idea of a more general society. Rousseau (1964 [1782]) defended SaintPierre’s (1713) project. He believed in the existence of a ‘European society,’ established by a
common history and culture since the Greek and Roman time, making all European nations
mutually dependant (Rousseau 1964 [1761]). A ‘coercive force’ must then be set in place to
complete this state of unfledged society. This can only be done through a union between the
most important sovereigns in the form of a Diète or Senate. However Voltaire (1961 [1761])
would sarcastically notice that the Chinese emperor was not invited to this ‘universal’ assembly.
Humankind however, is separated into societies. Through the concept of ‘general will,’
Rousseau introduces the fact that a society forms a ‘political body’  i.e. a moral person with a
will of its own  which always aims at the conservation of its members. This principle stops for
other ‘political bodies’ because for them, this general will is then a particular will. However,
justice is still applied because it finds its source in natural law:
… car alors la grande ville du monde devient le corps politique dont la loi de
nature est toûjours la volonté générale, et dont les états et peuples divers ne
sont que des membres individuels (Rousseau 1964 [1755], 245).77
76
‘We conceive of the general society on the basis of our particular societies; the establishment of small Republics makes us consider
the large one; and we only begin properly to become men after having been Citizens. This should tell us what we ought to think
of those so-called Cosmopolitans, who justify their love for the patrie on the basis of their love for the world, and vaunt
themselves as loving everyone so that they can have the right to love no-one.’ My translation.
77
‘For in such a case, the great city of the world becomes the body politic, whose general will is always the law of nature, and of
which the different States and peoples are individual members.’ From <http://www.constitution.org/jjr/polecon.htm>, retrieved
11 July 2008.
~ 65 ~
CONCLUSION
The political and legal philosophy behind natural law and human rights leaves therefore two
alternatives. On the one hand, a metaphysical conception of man who lived in a universal state
of nature necessarily ruled by a sovereign Superior Being (God or nature itself). On the other, a
physical conception that ‘observes’ the human condition in diverse societies, each ruled by the
only sovereign possible  man  under the condition that the original fundamental pact
guaranteeing man’s natural rights is respected. In terms of international relations theory the
two alternatives offer radically different perspectives. Metaphysical natural law posits a general
society that the particular ones are a member of, where the law of nations equals the law of
nature and has a superior authority since God or any other Superior Being is the ultimate
sovereign. All particular societies are included in this general society. In the second alternative,
there are only particular societies, each sovereign on their territory and people (as long as they
respect the fundamental social contract), guided by the ‘general will’; and between them there
is only a duty of humanity and good relations, similar to the one between individuals, but
without a constraining superior authority.
This tension materialised in the political products of these debates. The 1789 Déclaration des
droits de l’homme mentions explicitly that human rights are ‘declared’ under the ‘auspices of the
Supreme Being’  a direct reference to the natural law theories above mentioned. As Gauthier
(1992) notes, the subsequent declarations marked the fade-out of natural law theory. The 1793
Déclaration still makes reference to the Supreme Being, but introduces a society whose goal is
to deliver ‘common happiness’ to its members (Godechot 1995, 73-74). In 1795 the Déclaration
is proclaimed ‘under the presence of the Supreme Being,’ but the rights of man and the citizen
are provided in society: ‘ARTICLE PREMIER.  Les droits de l’homme en société sont la liberté,
l’égalité, la sûreté, la propriété’ (Godechot 1995, 101). This tension between a universal ideal of
human rights  and its consequent cosmopolitanism with a community of mankind politically
and socially free and equal  and its particular application in a sovereign society is here
explicitly apparent.
Some authors, notably Cloots and Robespierre, seemed to have provided attempts to cope with
the issue of particular sovereign societies and universal human rights and moral science. They
did so, however, using the new political vocabulary of their time, especially the concept of
‘nation,’ ‘patrie,’ albeit not in the meaning we usually ascribe to these words.
COSMOPOLITANISM MEANT IN A ‘NATIONALIST’ LANGUAGE
In the method chapter it was explained that a word and its meaning need not be connected, and
neither a doctrine and a word. As such I disconnected the study of cosmopolitanism from the
study of the cosmopolitan and the citizen of the world.78 I also disconnected the words nation
and patrie from nationalism and patriotism.79 In this section I analyse the transformation of
78
The actual study of this word during the eighteenth century led me to this conclusion, which for reasons of space I cut from this
thesis.
79
The critique of our traditional concepts in the historiography of the French Enlightenment of the opposition between patriotism
and cosmopolitanism is quite recent as Bélissa (2005, 8) notes: this interrogation of our contemporary classifications of
internationalism and patriotism to understand eighteenth-century political thought started already in the seventies with Jacques
Godechot, but was reactivated only recently.
~ 66 ~
their meaning forming a new vocabulary of their time for political philosophy, in connection
with natural law theories. I then analyse how Robespierre and Cloots, using the vocabulary of
their time, developed an archival discipline of cosmopolitanism, answering the discursive issue
of the sovereign in natural law theories.
A NEW POLITICAL VOCABULARY
The concepts of nation and patrie were conceived in cosmopolitan terms during the eighteenth
century. It is during this century that they evolved from designating a form of locality  Volk
for nation, place of birth for patrie  to embody a form of generality  ‘civitas’ of free and
equal men for nation, boundaryless political space of freedom and equality for patrie. This
evolution occurred through several discourses that impacted on these concepts.
NATION: FROM PEOPLE TO CIVITAS
It is my contention here that the object/concept ‘nation’80 entered the discourse of political
theory during the Enlightenment under the influence of several discourses. This resulted in an
oxymoronic political concept torn asunder between a local and a universal dimension. The
concept of the nation evolved throughout the century from designating solely peoples living on
a single territory, to a civitas of free and equal men. The universal dimension is formed by the
idea of the nation being the universal civitas of free and equal men notwithstanding any
question of origins (ethnic, social, cultural, etc.). As such the nation united all the French, who
were hitherto separated into different regions, and also included foreigners.81
At first the concept of nation was understood, as in other countries, in the feudal context:
several nations, identified as peoples, inside a territory. The concept was equal to the German
understanding of Volk. During the eighteenth century however, this understanding changed for
revolving around a cultural (language) and political (state) centre. A seventeenth-century
dictionary defines a nation as ‘ un grand peuple habitant une même étendue de terre renfermée
en certaines limites ou même sous une certaine domination’82 (Delon 1987, 127). The
Dictionnaire de l’Académie (1694), adds a cultural dimension: ‘La nation est constituée par tous
les habitants d’un même État, d’un même pays, qui vivent sous les mêmes lois et usent le même
langage ’83 (Dann 1997, 762). A nation was thus not a political concept but a word describing a
certain population defined by its common language and occupying a certain territory.
As the Dictionnaire Trévoux (2nd ed., 1721) shows, the term kept this signification in the early
eighteenth century: ‘un nom collectif, qui se dit d’un grand peuple habitant une certaine étende
de terre, renfermée en certaines limites sous une même domination.’ Nation thus designates the
inhabitants of a territorially delimited land under a certain jurisdiction or ‘domination.’
However in 1767: ‘Ce mot, dans sa signification primitive, veut dire un nombre de familles
80
In this section I am using Dann’s (1997) and Delon’s (1987) historiographies of the use of the word nation into my own
framework of analysis.
81
On the inclusion of foreigners during the revolution, see Mathiez (1918).
82
‘A great people inhabiting the same area of land enclosed within particular limits or under a particular domination.’ My translation.
83
‘The nation is constituted by all the inhabitants of the same state, the same country, who live under the same laws and use the
same language.’ My translation
~ 67 ~
sorties d’une même tige, ou nées en un même pays’84 (Dann 1997, 761). This could look like a
conception of the nation as ethno-nation, but he also adds: ‘Plusieurs peuples font une seule
nation (civitas) […] les Picards, les Normands, les Bretons, etc., sont autant de peuples qui font
partie de la nation française ’85 (Dann 1997, 762). The conception that the nation is a ‘civitas’
has entered the meaning of the word. The ‘nation’ has started its career in political theory.
Thus, the word nation becomes associated with the idea of a political community defined by its
physical members. The unity provided by the concept of the nation is not antithetic to the
ethnic or cultural diversity of its members. However, this unity is, among other things, based on
a single common language. Furthermore, not every political community territorially and legally
bonded is a nation. Something else is needed since the ‘French nation’ is composed of regional
parts, and these regional parts do not constitute several small nations. The concept of nation is
attached to the idea of sovereignty over the land that only an absolute sovereignty could claim
 the king. This is why the French nation equals the French kingdom; nationals are royal
subjects to the king.
The relation between the concept of the nation and monarchism comes to an end during the
second half of the eighteenth century. Absolutists argued that the nation was represented by
the king, who acted on her behalf. Against absolutism, philosophers of the Enlightenment
developed the idea of a nation detached from the king. So the idea of nation became detached
from the idea of people: ‘La nation est le corps des citoyens, le peuple est l’ensemble des
regnicoles’86 (Dann 1997, 763). The nation became associated with ideas stemming from
natural law: free and equal men. It became a political concept that served the purpose of
detaching the king from absolute power. As such despotism is against the idea of nation as the
article ‘Représentant’ in the Encyclopédie, XIV (1765) puts it: ‘Dans un état despotique, le chef
de la nation est tout, la nation n'est rien ; la volonté d'un seul fait la loi, la société n'est point
représentée.’87
Even though the new concept of the nation was opposed to absolutism, the regions and their
inhabitants did not become nations. The conception of the sovereignty of the prince as the
unifying and centrifugal core for defining what the nation is remained. This inheritance of the
monarchist discourse was nonetheless mixed with the universalistic conception of natural law.
Not only natural law, but also the natural right of revolution, as bourgeois societies became
frustrated with the blocking of social promotion. Representative of this conception, Sieyès
claims that the nation is composed of citizens, equal in rights.88
If the nation is detached from the king and its royal subjects, what constitutes it then? Sieyès
theorised the concept of the ‘civil society nation’ with the idea of the ‘Third estate.’ ‘… [L]e Tiers
84
Aubert de La Chesnaye-des-Bois’ Dictionnaire historique, III (1767): ‘This word, in its primitive signification, means a number of
families coming from same roots or born in a same country.’ My translation.
85
‘Several peoples form one and only nation (civitas)… the Picard, the Normand, the Bretons, etc. are as many peoples that form
part of the French nation.’ My translation.
86
‘The nation is the ensemble of citizens, the people is the ensemble of royal subjects,’ Roubaud in Nouveaux synonymes (1785).
87
‘In a despotic state, the head of the nation is everything, the nation is nothing; one person’s will is law, society is not represented.’
My translation.
88
According to Dann (1997, 764), Sieyès is inspired by Rousseau’s idea of a ‘revolutionary natural right,’ and defines the nation as a
‘society of free and equal men who organise themselves in an autonomous way.’
~ 68 ~
a en lui tout ce qu’il faut pour former une nation complète… Il est l’homme fort et robuste dont
un bras est encore enchaîné’89 (Sieyès 1989 [1789]). The nation is the people that compose the
third state, the commoners, as opposed to the nobles and the clergy. After the revolution, article
3 of the Declaration of human rights could state that ‘le principe de toute souveraineté réside
essentiellement dans la Nation. Nul corps, nul individu ne peut exercer d’autorité qui n’en
émane expressément.’90 The nation took power and became the sovereign. In the early years of
the revolution, the nation was this civitas, this abstract political community of free and equal
men.
PATRIE: FROM COUNTRY TO POLIS
On the local/general problematic, the concept of patrie91 reveals the same duality as nation.
Whereas today the fatherland/motherland seems to be ‘more concrete’ than a ‘remote
cosmopolis,’ this was not the case in the early eighteenth century where the local was more
regional than national. Delon (1987, 127-128) cites the example of Valentin Jamerey-Duval,
former peasant from Yonne92 who became a librarian and historian for Marie-Thérèse during
the first half of the eighteenth century. In his memoirs he evokes his sentimental attachment to
the landscape of his childhood. The simple thought of leaving his native village makes him burst
in tears. His love is attached to a very local territory: the land of the prince who made it possible
for him to study and to achieve the position he held. The patrie, on the other hand, was for him
too remote to evoke any feeling of love and attachment. This can be explained by the fact that
the term patrie from designating the native locality, politicised at that time embracing abstract
ideas such as liberty, equality, and fraternity; so much so that the boundaries of this concept
became a subject of debate.
At the end of the sixteenth century, the Dictionnaire by Furetière states that Patrie is ’le pays où
l’on est né.’93 The patrie is thus a geographical concept. In the Dictionnaire de Trévoux (1771,
598), it is added: ‘Le pays où l’on est né et il se dit, tant d’un lieu particulier que de la Province
ou de l’Empire ou l’État où l’on a pris naissance.’94 The concept of patrie is developed inside the
discourse of monarchism. As such it refers to the ‘place’ where the prince’s interests meet the
people’s.95 The word is slowly connected to the idea of the common good. This idea of common
good is related to feelings of humanity/fraternity. The cardinal de Bernis96 wrote in 1766:
89
‘… The Third Estate has… within itself all that is necessary for the formation of a complete nation… It is the strong and robust
man who has one arm still shackled.’ Translation Paul Halsall August 1997, retrieved on 24 July 2008 from <
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sieyes.html >.
90
‘The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does
not proceed directly from the nation.’
91
On the concept of patrie I am basing my own analysis on the historiography of the word by Delon (1987) and Lestocquoy (1968).
92
A départment  county, shire  of Burgundy.
93
‘The country where one is born.’
94
‘The country where one is born and it is used to designate as well a particular place as the province or the empire of the state
where one hath taken birth.’
95
As shows Lord Bolingbroke’s book The King Patriot, translated into French as Lettres sur l’esprit de patriotisme, sur l’idée d’un roi patriote
(Delon 1987, 129).
96
Ambassador of the French king in Rome.
~ 69 ~
Ah, si l’humanité, si le patriotisme cessent de parler à nos cœurs, du moins, ne
soyons pas sourds à la voix de notre intérêt… obéir et représenter avec
respect, voilà le devoir d’un sujet fidèle et la ressource d’un citoyen libre et
patriotique (Lestocquoy 1968, 83-84).97
Slowly, the conception of a republic was introduced. In a monarchy, the individuals are subjects,
whereas they are citizens in a republic. Montesquieu famously developed the conception of
patrie as the virtue of democratic republics: ‘… la vertu dans la république est l’amour de la
patrie, c’est-à-dire de l’égalité’98 (Montesquieu 1951 [1748], IV, 5, 266-267). Only in
democracies are the citizens in charge of the government, and to keep the government in place
one must love it. The ‘common good’ of the patrie develops against individual abuses. Voltaire
(1964 [1765]) sees not only a geographical meaning in the word patrie, but also a feeling of
ownership of its members; in other words, natural rights protected by a just political regime:
Qu’est-ce donc que la patrie ? Ne serait-ce pas par hasard un bon champ, dont
le possesseur, logé commodément dans une maison bien tenue, pourrait dire :
ce champ que je cultive, cette maison que j’ai bâtie sont à moi… je suis une
partie du tout, une de la communauté, une partie de la souveraineté, voilà ma
patrie… On a une patrie sous un bon roi, on n’en a point sous un méchant
(Voltaire 1964 [1765]).99
The concept of patrie can be detached from the discourse of absolutism when the king is a
tyrant, and it is here associated with the concept of ownership  sovereignty. Robespierre
expresses later this idea:100 ‘Et qu’est-ce que la patrie, si ce n’est le pays où l’on est citoyen et
membre du souverain ?’101 (Robespierre 1965, 215). In other words, the patrie is the political
space, territorially demarcated, where people can exercise their natural rights, and are
protected by a political regime that guarantees them.
There is the same problematic inside the concept of patrie as the one inside the nation; this
tension between a universalistic content and a limited space. Voltaire explained in the article
« patrie » that:
Une patrie est un composé de plusieurs familles ; et comme on soutient
communément sa famille par amour-propre, lorsqu’on n’a pas un intérêt
contraire, on soutient par le même amour-propre sa ville ou son village qu’on
97
‘Alas, if humanity, if patriotism cease to speak to our hearts, at least, let us not be deaf to the voice of our interest… to obey and
to represent with respect, there is the duty of a faithful subject and the resource of a free and patriotic citizen.’ My translation.
98
‘… [V]irtue in a republic is love of one's homeland, that is, love of equality.’ My translation.
99
‘Where then is the fatherland? Is it not a good field, whose owner, lodged in a well-kept house, can say: “This field that I till, this
house that I have built, are mine; I live there protected by laws which no tyrant can infringe. When those who, like me, possess
fields and houses, meet in their common interest, I have my voice in the assembly; I am a part of everything, a part of the
community, a part of the dominion; there is my fatherland…”’ From: H. I. Woolf, ed., Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary (London,
1923), pp. 131-132. ‘… One has a fatherland under a good king, one has none under a wicked one.’ My translation.
100
Principes de morale politique qui doivent guider la convention nationale dans l’administration intérieure de la République 5 February 1794.
101
‘And what is the fatherland, if not the country where one is citizen and member of the sovereign?’ My translation.
~ 70 ~
appelle sa patrie. Plus sa patrie devient grande, moins on l’aime, car l’amour
partagé s’affaiblit (Voltaire 1964 [1765]).102
The patrie is thus necessarily limited in space for Voltaire; an idea also shared by Rousseau for
whom a functioning republic can only be limited in the number of citizens  the law
determining the number of citizens being essential (Rousseau 1964 [1762]). Not only this, but
there are necessarily several separated patries. Voltaire (1879 (1768)) states : ‘Je n’aime point
à voir des citoyens qui cessent de l’être, des sujets qui se font sujets d’un étranger, des patriotes
qui n’ont plus de patrie ; je veux que chaque État soit parfaitement indépendant.’103
For others, the territorial demarcation is not obvious: ‘M. Danton dit que le patriotisme ne
devait avoir d’autres bornes que l’univers ; il proposait de boire à la santé, à la liberté, au
bonheur de l’univers entier’104 (Lestocquoy 1968, 101-102). Freedom and equality are
inherited from natural law. They are thus not territorially bounded. In this way the local
particularity of any patrie disappears in the face of the universalist compound of its quality to
protect natural freedom and equality. Robespierre indeed is a zealous defender of natural law,
and his conception of patrie is not geographical at all, it is the love for liberty and equality: ‘La
famille des législateurs français, c’est la patrie ; c’est le genre humain tout entier moins les
tyrans et leurs complices’105 (Gauthier 1992, 142). And since there cannot be any other patrie
than the Republic, Cloots (1979 [1792]) promotes the idea of a universal republic.
This duality is apparent in Jaucourt’s article on ‘patrie’ in the Encyclopédie:
… le géographe qui ne s’occupe que de la position des lieux et le lexicographe
vulgaire prennent la patrie pour le lieu de naissance quel qu’il soit, mais le
philosophe sait que ce mot exprime le nom que nous attachons à celui de
famille, de société d’État libre, dont nous somme membres, et dont les lois
assurent notre liberté et notre bonheur (Jaucourt 1765, 178).106
COSMOPOLITANISM: DEBATING THE BOUNDARIES OF SOVEREIGNTY
In this last sub-section I elaborate on all the compounds that formed what could archivally be
called the discipline of cosmopolitanism in eighteenth-century political thought. Eighteenth-
102
‘A country is a composition of many families; and as a family is commonly supported on the principle of self-love, when, by an
opposing interest, the same self-love extends to our town, our province, or our nation, it is called love of country. The greater a
country becomes, the less we love it; for love is weakened by diffusion. It is impossible to love a family so numerous that all the
members can scarcely be known.’ From <http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/chapter138.html> Retrieved 9
July 2008.
103
‘I do not like to see citizens who cease to be so, subjects who become subjects of a foreigner, patriots who do not have a
homeland anymore; I want every state to be perfectly independent.’ My translation.
104
‘M. Danton says that patriotism should not have any other limits than the universe; he suggests to drink to health, to freedom, to
the happiness of the entire universe’ in Les Révolutions de Paris 20 June 1790. My translation.
105
Ibid. t. IX, 5 novembre 1792, p. 94: ‘The family of French legislators is the fatherland; it is the whole humankind minus the
tyrants and their accomplices.’ My translation.
106
‘… the geographer who only keeps himself busy with the position of places and the vulgar lexicographer take the patrie for a
place of birth whatever it might be, but the philosopher knows that this word expresses the name that we attach to the one of
family, society of free State, which we are members of, and whose laws assure our freedom and our happiness.’ My translation.
~ 71 ~
century cosmopolitanism is derived directly from conceptions of natural law and the problem
of sovereignty.
All the previous elements serve now as the context to illuminate elements of the archive of
cosmopolitanism. Two authors are here worth mentioning who took seriously the assertion of
the unity of humankind, and natural law theory. Using the political language of their time 
nation and patrie  they offer the first expressions of a fully-fledged theory of modern
cosmopolitanism. Robespierre is still in the tradition of metaphysical natural law, with a
Supreme Being as sovereign power over eternal laws of nature. Cloots combines an atheist view
of natural law theory with the political conception of Rousseau.107 They introduced the idea of
humankind as the sole sovereign in the world, but where Robespierre lacks the follow-up of
this idea in terms of institutional settings, Cloots imagines for the first time108 how a ‘universal
Republic’ would look like.
Ultimately, the universalism of the French declaration of human rights became ‘corrupted’
(Conversi 2000) as the human rights were to be recognised and protected only in the ‘nation.’
However, one could add that nationalism did not yet exist, and what existed was the concept of
the nation as the legitimate community to protect these rights. This made Cloots to declare that
there should only be one nation  humankind  sole sovereign and therefore the French
Republic should be a Universal Republic. This makes sense in the discourse of that time,
considering natural law theories and the concept of nation.
I left natural law theory in the first section of this chapter with the either/or alternative of the
sovereign God (or nature), or the human civil society. There were many debates leading to the
adoption of the 1793 Constitution and Declaration of the rights of man, out of the three hundred
or so propositions (Godechot 1995, 71), and Robespierre’s is noteworthy. In his view, the
‘French people’ gathered in a ‘national Convention’ to recognise that human laws, which do not
follow from ‘the eternal laws of justice and reason’ are attacks of ignorance against humanity
(Robespierre 1965, 122). Thus, these eternal laws are superior to human laws, and not only
must these human laws follow them, but any political association has the goal to maintain these
natural rights of man and develop all his faculties. In Robespierre’s view, man or humankind is
the sovereign of earth, and nature is the legislator of the universe (Robespierre 1965, 120-121).
But if Robespierre states that humankind is the sovereign of the earth, he does not elucidate the
possible conflict or elaborate on how to conciliate this with the affirmation that ‘the people is
sovereign’ in a state (Robespierre 1965, 124). The idea of a sovereign of the earth is more
serving as a justification to fight all the ‘tyrants’ the ‘monarchs’ who are oppressing humankind
and disrespecting natural law and human rights. Indeed, Robespierre’s vision looks like a form
of internationalism, but in which ‘men of all countries are brothers, and the different peoples
must help each other out, like citizens in the same state,’ and in which an attack against one
nation would be an attack against humanity (Robespierre 1965, 128). Robespierre is still
supporting a metaphysical conception of natural law, which is obvious in his 1794 project to
107
To comply with Skinner’s method, proof that Cloots has read Rousseau can be found in his mentioning him e.g. (Cloots 1979
[1792-1793], 381), where he ventures to state that Rousseau would not disapprove of the idea in which the whole humankind was
member of the same cité. I have however stated infra (cf. patrie) where Rousseau explicitly expressed the view that the polis must
be limited in space and membership for optimal effectiveness.
108
Other projects of a ‘universal Republic’ have been written like Resnier de Goué’s (1788), but this one as others are in fact peace
plans organising a Senate of united nations, in the line of Saint-Pierre’s.
~ 72 ~
establish national days to celebrate ‘the Supreme Being and Nature,’ since ‘the French people
recognise the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul’ (Robespierre
1965, 284). Thus, it is possible to argue that the sovereignty of humankind in Robespierre’s
account is more a moral ideal following metaphysical natural law theory than a real civitas with
political implications. It is directed against the ‘universal monarchy.’
Cloots developed an atheist account that takes into consideration the political consequences of
the idea of the sovereignty of humankind. Cloots rejects religion that caused so many errors and
sufferings, and instead bases on reason, and human rights, all his political system. The
replacement is concretely expressed: ‘… le genre humain est Dieu…,’ or again ‘… le genre
humain, l’Être suprême…’109 (Cloots 1979 [1793], 476). To the same problem of defining the
origin of sovereign power, Cloots suggests that humankind is the sovereign power and it forms
the one and only nation (i.e. civitas), each people being but a fraction of the ‘unique sovereign’
humankind (Cloots 1979 [25 May 1791]). Like Robespierre, his project is also directed against
the ‘universal monarchy,’ which is the cement for his unifying theory (Cloots 1979 [1791], 155).
Like many other projects of the century, it is an attempt to put an end to the ‘balance of power’
that provoked endless wars. The idea is based on his observation that nationals of a single
nation do not engage in wars among themselves (Cloots 1979 [1792-1793], 347); hence the
possibility of a unique and free nation, the nation of humankind. Unlike any of the previously
mentioned peace projects, it rejects the idea of a union or alliance, which is too ephemeral
(Cloots 1979 [1791], 158).
Cloots is in fact asking the question that has disturbed Western political philosophy since the
Declaration of the rights of man and the citizen: why are there several sovereign territories, and
what are the right philosophical justifications to base sovereignty on? Since men are born free
and equal, and property is a natural right confined  exactly as freedom is  by the respect of
others’, what entitles this or that sovereign to ‘own’ and rule a territory and a people? Since
humankind is one, and since principles of liberty, equality, and democracy are the sole true
fundaments of political organisation, why should there be several sovereigns? ‘Je prouverai que,
si nous sommes plusieurs souverains sur notre planète, rien n’empêche de subdiviser la
souveraineté jusqu’à l’individualité…’110 (Cloots 1979 [1792-1793], 433). Cloots in this sense
‘foresees’ the future conundrum of nationalism, the possible secessionism ad libitum:
L’existence de deux Nations implique contradiction ; elles auraient les mêmes
droits, les mêmes attributs. Comment seraient-elles indivisibles ? Je ne vois
pas pourquoi une commune n’aurait pas le privilège de s’ériger en troisième
souverain, ou au moins de changer de souverain. Tout s’explique, tout
s’éclaircit avec la souveraineté du genre humain (Cloots 1979 [1793], 489).111
The unifying principle in Cloots’ thought is the opposition of the peoples to the tyrants. Only the
tyrants have an interest in keeping their power and oppressing their peoples. His argument for
the feasibility is based on the interests that all peoples have. The somehow messianic tone with
109
‘… humankind is God…,’ ‘… humankind, the supreme Being…’ My translation.
110
‘I will prove that, if we are several sovereigns on our planet, nothing prevents from subdividing sovereignty until individuality…’
My translation.
111
‘The existence of two Nations implies contradiction; they would have the same rights, the same attributes. How could they be
indivisible? I do not see why a village would not have the same privilege to establish itself as third sovereign, or at least to change
the sovereign. Everything will become clear with the sovereignty of humankind.’ My translation.
~ 73 ~
which Cloots argues should not be mistaken with the one of an eccentric utopian. He is in the
spirit of his time, arguing within the field of the ‘moral science’ that Holbach and others set up
before him, using reason as an unbiased tool to forge an alleged true claim of what nature
guides us. Hence, his adamant faith in the universal republic: ‘as indubitable as the universal
ascension of the Montgolfier hot air balloon’ (Cloots 1979 [1792], 307). The issues of cultural
differences are not of his concern on several grounds. First of all, there was no practical
experience at the time of a democratic regime based on human rights, and so Cloots believed
that a universal republic would make the use of a government obsolete since many of its
functions would disappear, and since liberalism was believed to take care of everything.
Second, it is thus minimalistically based on human rights alone, and these are universally
applicable  ‘… la liberté… est une plante qui s’acclimate partout’112 (Cloots 1979 [1792], 249);
therefore Cloots does not see any disturbance for the social ties that different peoples have:
different customs, manners, cultures and cults, as long as taxes are collected (Cloots 1979
[1793], 478). Third, Cloots preaches a French imperialism, without being conscious of it,
because he truly believes that France is a model to export since it broke free, and managed to
unify in départements. Since French is the ‘universal language’  an idea developed elsewhere
by Rivarol (1784)113  everyone would just learn French ‘par esprit de démocratie’ after
having learnt it ‘par esprit d’aristocratie’ (Cloots 1979 [1792], 246). Fourth, it is in the interest
of all since dividing the world in ‘corporations’ ensues a climate of fear towards the neighbour,
a ‘universal feudality,’ whilst the ‘federation of masses,’ of individuals would end all this (Cloots
1979 [1792], 247-248).
Cloots is convinced of the absolute truth of his principle, and makes several references to
scientists, such as Newton, who gathered philosophers with his laws, and Cloots intends
likewise to gather men with his politics. This comes as no surprise in the spirit of the time when
reason is invoked as the absolute guarantee to extinguish all ills. Natural law theory already
provided the basis of all political theory to be based on the individual in a state of nature.
Therefore, Cloots cannot imagine that any other source of sovereignty can exist. Since every
individual possesses sovereignty, ultimately none other can claim this power. But since men
need each other in a state of society, the only society possible is the whole one. ‘Les droits de
l’homme s’étendent sur la totalité des hommes. Une corporation qui se dit souveraine blesse
grièvement l’humanité…’114 (Cloots 1979 [1793], 476). Cloots conception of sovereignty is that
it is ‘… indivisible, imprescriptible, immutable, inaliénable, impérissable, illimitée, absolue, sans
bornes et toute-puissante…’115 (Cloots 1979 [1793], 476). This ensues that no individual or
group of individuals can allot themselves a portion of sovereignty without refusing humankind
(Cloots 1979 [1793], 479). Humankind is the only ‘primitive contract’ that man can agree on
because sovereignty is consubstantial with despotism; as such, only humankind can be the
112
‘… liberty is a plant that becomes acclimatised everywhere.’ My translation.
113
Who won the Berlin academy prize in 1783 for his demonstration that French is the universal language par excellence, while all the
others are necessarily vernacular.
114
‘Human rights stretches to the totality of humans. A corporation that proclaims itself sovereign injures seriously humanity…’ My
translation.
115
‘…indivisible, imprescriptible, immutable, inalienable, imperishable, unlimited, absolute, without bollard and almighty…’ My
translation.
~ 74 ~
depositary of sovereignty: ‘le genre humain est essentiellement bon, car son égoïsme n’est en
opposition avec aucun égoïsme étranger’116 (Cloots 1979 [1793], 483).
Concretely the project is the form of a republic with only one chamber where the
representative of all the ‘mille départements’ debate. To people accusing him of French
imperialism, he answers that he knows no French political system, this system is universally
valid ‘L’Assemblée nationale de France est un résumé de la mappemonde des philanthropes’117
(Cloots 1979 [1793], 493). For a more historical view, the imperialism of Cloots must be set in
perspective with the moralists of his time. Inside the discourse of his time, the moral values of
his time, the belief of the universal applicability of ‘French’ principles made little sense in a prenationalist discourse for one, and also nobody perceived natural law theory and human rights
as specially French. Also in this pre-nationalist discourse, culture and politics were not yet
merged together, and therefore it was not as difficult as it is today to imagine a single political
system for all nations, since a political organisation did not have a culturally specific
connotation yet.
CONCLUSION
Natural law theory spoke for humankind about the universality of a few principles that
individuals are born free and equal, and that this condition should be guaranteed and preserved
in society. The question was then what power and whose authority would that be? Theist
accounts would presume that God created humanity as free and equal individual, and thus the
whole humanity should be place under the sovereign authority of God. Atheist accounts
assumed the humanness of man, and nature’s principles should only be respected in a human
society. Aspiring to new foundations of political organisation  refusing absolutism 
eighteenth-century political theory built a new vocabulary for the political conception of
community. The nation, once designating a population and a state, became the civitas of free
and equal men. The patrie, once designating the country of birth, became the political space of
freedom and equality. But in this new vocabulary the tension of the past remained between the
limited character of a population and a territory, and the universality of natural law principles
of freedom and equality. Based on this vocabulary, revolutionary authors like Robespierre and
Cloots answered to this tension by defining the whole humankind as the sole sovereign against
the universal tyranny of monarchism. Cloots even defined further humankind as the sole nation
possible, and the universal republic as the only logical consequence of the discourse of natural
law in a political system.
116
‘Humankind is essentially good, since its egoism is in opposition to no foreign egoism.’ My translation.
117
‘The national Assembly of France is a summary of the philanthropists’ globe.’ My translation
~ 75 ~
CONCLUSION
COSMOPOLITANISM IN WESTERN
POLITICAL THOUGHT
TO W A R DS A C O S M O PO LI T A N C O SM O P O L I T A N I SM ?
Where the history of political theory remains of decisive
significance … is in the clarification and assessment of political
goals and in the appraisal of political action (Dunn 1996, 13)
Of course, we all know how the story ended: Beethoven cancelled his dedication to Napoleon.
The beautiful ideal of ‘liberating’ countries by the trumpet and drum sound of human rights
turned awry in a clumsily disguised political imperialism over Europe,118 and the 1815
‘Congress of Vienna’ shipped these dangerous universalist ideas onto a tiny island in the
Atlantic. Wars against foreigners froze the cosmopolitan notions of nation and patrie. The more
particularistic understanding of the population under the term nation, albeit free and equal,
took over the universal one. The more particularistic understanding of the political space in
which this nation evolved equally took over the universal one. Frontiers and borders thus
closed the nation and the patrie. The particularistic dimension prevailed over pretensions to a
universalism that appeared more imperialistic than humanistic. Human rights were to remain
local for about a century and a half.
Nonetheless, even if this political history has overshadowed an intellectual history of these
concepts through the nationalist paradigm, it is now possible to realise that a modern
cosmopolitanism is a modern (liberal) nationalism is a modern universalism. The study of prenationalist political thought demonstrates how these three discourses that we separate today
appeared at the same time and constituted each other. Even today, it is still difficult to clearly
distinguish what cosmopolitanism truly is since nationalism is a universally shared concept,
since universalism is rejected as local imperialism, and since internationalism seems to fulfil
the promise of a global community based on the respect of human rights. On a discursive level,
this is mainly due, this thesis demonstrated, to the coming together of these discourses.
Nationalism is built on cosmopolitan premises and vice versa: the concepts of nation and of
patrie are cosmopolitan in intent as they tended to unify and gather various peoples around one
universal institution: the republic; debates ranged from local republic to universal republic.
118
On the history of the ‘sister-Republics’ see Bélissa (2005, 91-107).
~ 76 ~
In this thesis, I have refused to define cosmopolitanism in order to provide a nonfoundationalist account of its history. Instead, I suggested providing an account of the archive of
the discourse of Western cosmopolitanism in modern political thought. As such I put in
brackets what is understood today as cosmopolitanism, and provided a description of the
contemporary discourse of cosmopolitanism. I identified it as composed of a primary core, a
‘trinity’ God-humanity-individual, which composes its énoncés, and a secondary core, a
conception of community related to the primary one. I placed this discourse in a general
problematisation of the local/general axis in order to provide a ‘history of the present,’ thus
placing contemporary cosmopolitanism between nationalism and universalism.
This is how the discourse of cosmopolitanism appeared in modern Western political thought
together with universalism and nationalism. First, the renaissance discourse of humanism was
prolonged during the Enlightenment with the constitution of humanity as an object of study,
and in opening the discursive possibility to identify and speak as a subject on the behalf of
humankind. In this reification of humanity as a scientific enquiry, a metaphysical discourse
emphasised the divine equality of men as God’s creation, and a physical discourse emphasised
the equality of men as nature’s creation. Both would underline ‘reason’ and ‘sociability’ as the
compounds that unite humankind, but if reason provided a universal unity, sociability would
explain the diversity of the human ‘races’ or ‘varieties.’
Political thought based itself on this humanist discourse to develop ‘strategies’ of political
organisation, emphasising the leading role of morals over politics. This same duality between a
metaphysical and a physical discourse was recycled, both based, however, on the universally
true human compounds of ‘reason’ and ‘sociability.’ Both also emphasised man’s natural
condition of freedom and equality that society shall preserve, but, whereas metaphysical
natural law theory affirmed the existence of a natural society ruled by a sovereign God that
human societies ought to respect, physical natural law considered society itself as man’s natural
condition. Divergent conceptions of sovereignty ensued: the metaphysical account emphasised
a supra-societal natural society with God as the sovereign; the physical one assured a human
sovereign, thus placing either a particular society as sovereign or the society of societies 
humankind  as the sovereign.
Against absolutism and despotism, the Enlightenment invented or reinvented a political
vocabulary for founding the legitimate sovereign that would exercise power over free and equal
men. The object/concepts ‘nation’ and ‘patrie’ were re-actualised according to natural law
‘strategies.’ As such they also expressed the same duality between a united humankind in
diverse societies. From defining a particular population, the nation became the ‘civitas’ for free
and equal men. From designating the country of birth, the patrie became the polis governed by
and for free and equal citizens assembled in a Republic, all members of the sovereign. The 1789
Declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen opened a discursive duality by its act of
cosmopolitics. Man being declared universally free and equal, it made little sense to limit the
nation and the patrie to geographical and demographical limitations; for where shall it end and
who shall decide the repartition of sovereign authority?
Two revolutionaries, Robespierre and Cloots, declared thus humankind the sole sovereign
possible in accordance to the énoncé of universal human rights. But in Robespierre’s mind, this
theist conception implied that only the Supreme Being ruled through natural law the general
society of humankind. Humankind was still divided into diverse peoples, all sovereigns in their
~ 77 ~
territory against tyranny and brothers in arms as such. Cloots secularised natural law theory
with the political vocabulary of the time, declaring humankind the unique and indivisible
sovereign, and as such the sole and unique nation on earth. Consequently, there could only be a
single universal republic of mankind.
In the end of this activity of the history of thought, it is possible to reflect upon the fact that
inasmuch as the method has been to provide an epistemological account of a concept  or,
more rightly, the archive of this concept  without altering the ontology of the concept, a
number of findings necessarily lead to a strengthening of this ontology. The separation between
the word ‘cosmopolitan’ and the concept ‘cosmopolitanism’ leads to reflect upon the
presupposed elitist and individualist sides of cosmopolitanism, as much as on the presupposed
popular and mass-oriented sides of nationalism. Cosmopolitanism, in definitive, may just be a
constant interrogation on and practice of, at the one end, the extensibility of localism and, at the
other, the limits of universalism. In political theory this means a constant redefinition of
sovereignty. In cultural theory this means a constant redefinition of identity. Cosmopolitanism
embedded in the Western discourse of humanism is squeezed between this idea of a united
humankind and its observation as diversity. If the united humankind is epitomised by
universalism, and diversity by nationalism, then cosmopolitanism is the discourse contesting
both positions’ claim to truth.
The conditions in which man problematised the local/general during the Enlightenment in
France are not the same as the ones in which man is problematising them today. However, the
problematisation in itself is not so different and many debates of the eighteenth century are still
actual: e.g. the one between general and local societies, the existence of a European polity, the
extent of this European polity and its identity, the conditions for constructing polities beyond
the state, the search for a new political vocabulary, a reformulation of contractualism taking
into account natural law theory. There is a ‘return’ to the Enlightenment today inside the
discourse of cosmopolitanism, and this return is caused by the original discursive inconsistency
above describe. Today’s conditions are triggered by the question ‘what is globalisation?’
Globalisation and the growing interdependence of closed liberal societies based on
contractualist theories re-actualised a forgotten conundrum of political philosophy: the
question of the legitimate source of sovereign authority to be exercised on men, free and equal
by birth.
What is left to wonder in contemplating how cosmopolitanism became a political signifié in
eighteenth-century French thought — and especially because it was so successful in the early
hours of the revolution — is why it did not become the dominating discourse in Western
political thought. This is left to future studies in the historiography of this doctrine, focused on
the nineteenth century. Such study by the historian would reveal the construction of modern
cosmopolitanism in the nationalist paradigm. It would give the philosopher the possibility to
‘free’ cosmopolitanism from this paradigm and (re-)construct a new vocabulary from a
national-cosmopolitanism to a cosmopolitan-cosmopolitanism.
~ 78 ~
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