Abstract

Arthur O. Lovejoy famously referred to thirteen pragmatisms. If he were called on to enumerate postmodernisms, no doubt he would increase this number tenfold.1 Fortunately I need not follow his lead for the task at hand, namely, to discuss whether the pragmatic tradition can narrow the divide between modernism and postmodernism on the topic of cosmopolitanism. To do so I will focus on specific sets of ideas that have been associated with these terms. So, for example, modernists have been viewed as defenders of some form of universality, ethical or conceptual, and of a responsible, self-actuating, authentic subject. Postmodernists look toward particularity and alterity, and stress that notions of a unitary subject ..