Divided time

notes on cosmopolitanism and the theory of second modernity

Andreas Langenohl

pp. 64-85

in: Roland Robertson, Anne S. Krossa (eds), European cosmopolitanism in question, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

This chapter deals with a social-scientific variety of cosmopolitanism — deriving not from political theory or philosophy, but from sociological theory. Although recent years have witnessed a surge in works dedicated to the study of cosmopolitanism, the presence of a sociological idiom in this context is far from self-evident. For the discipline of sociology has traditionally tended to claim for itself an empirical-analytical gesture, often directed towards an analysis of the contemporary, that distinguished it from both political theory and philosophy. So, while allusions to cosmopolitanism have not been completely absent from sociological discourse (see Berger, 1963: 52–3), they used to be framed as normative rather than analytical or even empirical references. Against this background, the new analytic turn towards cosmopolitanism in sociological theory regards itself as forging new paths both for sociological theory and for the conceptualization of cosmopolitanism — to address the concept not as a utopia but as a reality.