Situated cosmopolitanism, and the conditions of its possibility: transformative dialogue as a response to the challenge of difference

The challenge of accommodating difference has traditionally proved highly problematic for cosmopolitanism proposals, given their inherently universalistic thrust. Today, however, we are acutely aware that in failing to give difference its due, we stand to perpetrate a significant injustice through negating precisely what differentiates diverse groupings and confers on them their identity. Moreover, in an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural world it has become clear that doing justice to difference is an essential prerequisite for the internal flourishing as well as peaceable coexistence of diverse cultural and other groupings. Accordingly, as a corrective for the homogenising presuppositions of highly a universalistic and decontextualised template like the Habermasian, the present paper defends the need for a situated, dialogical approach which can not only accommodate difference but also treat it as a resource for promoting mutual understanding and potentially transformative learning. In thus defending the merits of a situated, dialogical template, the present paper also seeks to shed light on the conditions of its possibility with a view to facilitating its practical implementation along with enhancing its theoretical cogency. To this end, I argue the need to overcome significant structural limitations of the Habermasian discourse model, while aspiring to preserve and enhance its distinctive strengths. Specifically, I highlight the need for a thoroughgoing reassessment of such core tenets as the symmetry requirement, the insistence on consensus as outcome, and argumentative deliberation as the means of achieving this. Proceeding thus, I defend the merits of situated cosmopolitanism grounded in plurivocal transformative dialogue as a counterbalance to an unqualified universalism. On this basis, I defend openness to otherness under appropriately structured dialogical conditions as the primary prerequisite for a viable cosmopolitanism that can meet the needs of an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural world.