Cosmopolitics

Definition

Cosmopolitics is the attempt to think politics at the scale of the whole world — the cosmos rather than the polis. Two distinct versions circulate in this wiki. Kant's cosmopolitics (developed by Morgan) "attempts to think politics from a global perspective by taking into account the geographical fact that the earth is a sphere with limited land mass and natural resources" — an ethic of mutual dependence among responsible subjects, grounding sustainability and a "cosmopolitan spirit." Latour's cosmopolitics (developed by Yaneva) radicalizes this: it is not about a universal human polis but about composing a common world that includes nonhumans — the "parliament of things" in which humans, technologies, and other species are represented. For architecture, cosmopolitics reframes design as a planetary, ecological practice rather than a merely local or aesthetic one.

Key Thinkers

• Immanuel Kant — cosmopolitics as global, ethical interdependence; the sphere with limited resources.
• Bruno Latour — cosmopolitics as composing a common world including nonhumans; cosmopolitical design.
• Diane Morgan and Albena Yaneva — the two cosmopolitical framings for architecture.

Related Concepts

• Ecology — cosmopolitics' natural-scientific and planetary horizon.
• Sustainability — the practical demand cosmopolitics underwrites.
• Gaia — Latour's name for the new climatic regime demanding cosmopolitical response.
• Humanism — the Kantian basis of the cosmopolitan ethic.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Kant for Architects — Kant's cosmopolitics and the sphere with limited resources.
• Latour for Architects — cosmopolitical design and the parliament of things.