Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 2016

Vol. 60, No. 1, 32–47, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2014.996592

Cosmopolitanism as Communication? On Conditions for Educational

Conversations in a Globalized Society
Ninni Wahlström
Linnaeus University

In this article, I explore the question of how a cosmopolitan perspective on education could
be understood from curriculum-based activities in classrooms. Assuming that there is a
cosmopolitan potential in curriculum content as such, I draw on David Hansen, Anthony
Kwame Appiah and Donald Davidson to argue that cosmopolitanism at the classroom
level needs to be understood from both a moral and a communicative perspective. In this
article, the focus is on the latter. A communicative understanding of cosmopolitanism
emphasizes the relational stance to the other and to the social and physical world. The
conditions for cosmopolitan dialogues are understood in the curriculum as shared
environment, cosmopolitan curiosity and reciprocal communicative respect based on the
recognition of responsibilities towards others in a shared world. The characteristic of
cosmopolitan conversation is its potentiality.
Keywords: cosmopolitanism, communication, curriculum, education

At present, the main research discourse on curriculum and education is a problematiza-

tion of a technical-instrumental view of education, characterized by questions of accountabil-
ity (e.g., Young, 2008, Wahlström, 2009), standards, tests, and results (e.g. Sundberg &
Wahlström, 2012). In this article, my intention is instead to understand curriculum from
its moral perspective, rather than from a perspective of what counts as measurable “knowl-
edge requirements.” The focus is thus more on how we can understand teaching and learning
in the digital, mobile, and increasingly interconnected social, environmental, and economic
worlds as we inhabit them in the twenty-first century. According to Hull and Stornaiuolo
(2010), the twenty-first century requires education that supports “capacities for dialogue
and the respectful imagining of others across aesthetic, cultural, historical, and ideological
difference” (p. 86). How, then, can we think of curriculum content as a source for moral
and communicative reflections, and not just as result-oriented “knowledge requirements”
to attain?
The capacities for dialogue and a respectful imagining of others across difference in a
vastly interconnected, yet deeply divided, world are increasingly thought of in relation to
cosmopolitanism. This, which is sometimes called a “cosmopolitan turn,” is viewed as a
re-imagined strategy for paying attention to, and also going beyond, tensions in a time
of globalization (Hull & Stornaiuolo, 2010, p. 86). Drawing on Hansen (2011), who dis-
cusses teaching and education from a moral cosmopolitan perspective, I explore the ques-
tion of how a cosmopolitan perspective on education could be understood from the ground,

Ninni Wahlström, Department of Education, Linnaeus University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ninni Wahlström, Department of
Education, Linnaeus University, Box 451, 351 06 Växjö, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]
© 2015 Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research
 COSMOPOLITANISM AS COMMUNICATION? 33

that is, from curriculum-based activities in classrooms. My assumption is that there is a cos-
mopolitan potential in curriculum content as such, but that this potential is not always in
focus when investigating teaching and learning. Instead, the focus is on individual learning
achievements and assessment in line with current policy discourse. Teaching as a moral
aspiration has to do with the integrity of teaching; an integrity that is threatened when teach-
ing is merely perceived as a means to an end shaped outside the practice. With the term
“moral sensibility,” Hansen (2001, p. 33) brings together reason and emotion in a moral
approach to teaching that can be captured in terms like trust, care, support, and involve-
ment. The moral dimension is also part of a cosmopolitan orientation of teaching, although
this latter orientation is more focused on exploring the meaning of teaching as a reflecting
balance between being critically loyal to one’s belonging and being critically open to the
new (cf. Hansen, 2011).
By adopting a cosmopolitan perspective on curriculum content, I argue that there is a
need to understand cosmopolitanism at the classroom level, not only as a moral stance to
the world but also as an active, mutual, communicative action in actual teaching and learning
activities. It is mainly through conversations with others that new and extended meanings of
different ways of living in the world can be developed; a world that is represented both as a
curriculum content and as the students’ and teacher’s experiences. In this article, the term
communication is based on John Dewey’s (1925/1981) claim that things and events
acquire meaning “where communication exists,” and it is through communication that “[l]
earning and teaching come into being” (p. 133). Language is a mode of interaction
between a speaker and a listener that “presupposes an organized group” of belonging from
whom “they have acquired their habits of speech” (p. 145). Communication always includes
a common intersection between people and an object, and this “community of partaking” is
the prerequisite for making meaning (p. 146). Language is therefore “a relationship, not a par-
ticularity” (p. 145). Thus, in this article the purpose is to explore what understanding cosmo-
politanism means both from a moral and communicative perspective on “the ground,” with
the communicative dimension placed at the center.
In the following part of this section, I develop a cosmopolitan perspective on curriculum
content based on a more general understanding of communication1 as inevitably associated
with teaching and, at the same time, as a constant challenge. In the next section, I relate the
communicative perspective more directly to cosmopolitanism by adopting Kwame Anthony
Appiah’s ethical view of cosmopolitanism and his communicative understanding of a cosmo-
politan approach towards the Other and the world. In order to deepen the understanding of
Appiah’s view of cosmopolitanism as communication and conversation, and to understand
how cosmopolitanism can be apprehended in this communicative way, I turn to Donald
Davidson and his understanding of meaning as a triangulation between at least two individ-
uals and a common object. However, as neither Appiah nor Davidson are educational
researchers, I have developed the analysis further by relating the results so far to educational
research on cosmopolitanism, mainly undertaken by David Hansen and Fazal Rizvi, in order
to understand what a communicative perspective on cosmopolitanism means in educational
settings. In the third and final section, I argue that cosmopolitanism “on the ground” cannot
be viewed as a “model” for teaching, and that classroom dialogues cannot be thought of as a
teaching method because we do not know beforehand whether a genuine cosmopolitan

1
In the article I use the three terms communication, conversation and dialogue interchangeably.
34 WAHLSTRÖM

communication will really happen. Instead, cosmopolitanism in actual classroom milieus can
best be understood as a potential communicative and ethical approach to a curriculum content
that is constantly in development and constantly in the making. Even so, it is an approach that
is characterized by certain features.

Relational Cosmopolitanism in the Classroom

Although there is increasing interest in trying to understand actual conversations across
cultural and geographical borders through the lens of cosmopolitanism, these conversations
are usually digitally based activities (cf. Hull & Stornaiuolo, 2012; Vasudevan, 2012).
However, as yet, very little research has been conducted into what cosmopolitanism might
mean or might contribute to in actual classroom settings. In this respect, Damico and
Baildon (2011; Baildon & Damico, 2011) make an interesting contribution to the field
with their concept of “relational cosmopolitanism in the classroom.” They take their starting
point in the content of social studies and define the term “content” as contingent and dynamic,
“perhaps best characterized as a living and breathing body of knowledge” (Damico &
Baildon, 2011, p. 233). Understanding subject matter in this way implies that content consti-
tutes a resource for students to act in the world and address social, economic, and political
problems; problems that are interconnected and shared across borders.
In a classroom study of climate change, Damico and Baildon (2011, p. 239) use the term
relational cosmopolitanism to signify the interconnectedness of contexts, peoples, and pol-
icies and recognize the challenges of human conditions in a global society. They list six
dimensions2 in their “model of relational cosmopolitanism in the classroom,” but for the
purpose of this article, the following two dimensions are of most interest: dialogic,
problem-solving pedagogies, and transformative goals and outcomes. The dialogic
problem-solving dimension expresses a commitment to “reason,” namely to question, chal-
lenge, and debate the different perspectives on and alternative views of, in this case, climate
change. The transformative goals and outcomes express efforts to make the overarching goals
for education, which constitute its moral base, its focal point.
I think that Baildon and Damico (2011) are right to place the subject content at the center
of a cosmopolitan understanding of education. However, I argue that a relational cosmopo-
litanism cannot be viewed as a “complete model,” with its six dimensions that, so to speak,
can be used as an external grid applied to teaching in order to make teaching more cosmo-
politan oriented. For example, according to Baildon and Damico, working out such standards
and criteria for collaborative intellectual work with young people “requires commitments and
capacities in which all participants in a community listen to each other and deliberate the con-
sequences of ideas and undertakings in order to build perspective and choose optimal courses
of action” (p. 172). Rather than working out standards, the purpose in this article is to explore
how cosmopolitanism can be understood as a relational and communicative approach to
teaching that is characterized by its potentiality, that is, without the possibility of determining
in advance whether a conversation will stimulate cosmopolitan interest or not. Further, I

2
The model consists of six dimensions for developing what (Damico & Baildon, 2011) call a “model
of relational cosmopolitanism in the classroom” (p. 239): resources of participants, relational knowing,
rigorous content and curricula, facility with key tools and resources, dialogic, problem-solving peda-
gogies, and transformative goals and outcomes.
 COSMOPOLITANISM AS COMMUNICATION? 35

argue that the concept of dialogue needs to be interpreted as a complex concept, problema-
tized from its basic conditions on communication across differences, instead of being taken
for granted as one of several pedagogical models.
In what follows, I explore the conditions for a communicative perspective on a cosmopo-
litan approach to educational activities, based on curriculum content. What is it that sets such
conversations in motion? How might classroom conversations continue and be developed
into educational dialogues? As a first step in my argument, I relate the idea of education
as a communicative activity to John Dewey’s philosophy of education and communication
and point to some of the challenges that this communicative stance implies.

A Communicative Understanding of Education

John Dewey formulated a criterion with two elements for a democratic social life in edu-
cation as well as in society: the extent to which the interests are shared by all its members and
the extent to which there are free and full interactions with other groups and associations
(Dewey, 1916/1980, cf. Englund, 1999). For Dewey (Dewey, 1916/1980), communication
constitutes the basis of all social life, since social life is “identical with communication”
and all communication is educative in the sense that communication enlarges and changes
the participants’ experiences: “One shares in what another has thought and felt and in so
far, meagerly or amply, has its own attitude modified” (p. 8).
When communication is addressed in close relation to classroom practices, it is often
thought of in terms of classroom conversations (e.g., Applebee, 1996) and dialogic teaching
(e.g., Alexander, 2001). However, dialogues do not only evolve because people are gathered
in the same room. Instead, dialogues represent a conscious interaction between the speaker
and the listener: “Language exists only when it is listened to as well as spoken” (Dewey,
1934/1980, p. 106). In his article on listening, inspired by Dewey and Hans-Georg
Gadamer, Garrison (1996) notes that the literature on listening has surprisingly little to say
about the problems of interpretation and understanding and that instead the listener seems
to be regarded as a passive participant. Garrison argues that in order to listen openly to
others, we have to put our “prejudices at risk” (p. 436) and that such prejudices “constitute
our very identity” (p. 438) and are the reason why “active listening requires personal vulner-
ability” (p. 449). The term “prejudice” should here be interpreted as historical and social
habits that constitute our self-identity. These habits are unconscious until something chal-
lenges them. Dialogues across differences may very well challenge our deep embedded
beliefs and habits, which is why it might be hard to listen to someone, even though we
know that we are expected to do just that. When our habits of action are disrupted, as in dia-
loguing across differences, we feel uncomfortable or even threatened, or as Garrison puts it,
“[w]hen listening actively we are at risk” (p. 441). According to Garrison, one reason for
taking such a risk is that we are always vulnerable and at risk because we are all members
of different cultures and groups, and are already in dialogue with others, even if we are
not always fully aware of it. As I understand Garrison (1996), there is a potentiality in all
dialogues and conversations. One cannot know beforehand whether participants in conversa-
tions will be willing to put themselves at risk by being active listeners in a dialogue that could
affect their way of thinking and acting, or whether they will remain passive and not be
seriously engaged. The only thing that is known is that there is a potential in all dialogues
for being listened to and listening. This constitutes the prerequisite for “communication”
as an activity “where there are partners, and in which the activity of each is modified and
36 WAHLSTRÖM

regulated by partnership” (Dewey, 1925/1981, p. 141). By basing a cosmopolitan interest or

orientation on communication, I argue that cosmopolitanism itself is a potential; that is, there
is a potential, but no guarantee, that an encounter with what is unfamiliar or unknown will
arouse your interest because, at the same time, it places you at risk in terms of your own
self-identity and habits.
While Dewey emphasized the communicative base for education, Garrison (1996), as
noted above, has pointed to some of the challenges embedded in communication. Communi-
cation requires a willingness to listen and a willingness to participate in a conversation in a
thoughtful and respectful way. These challenges are not only relevant for actual dialogues,
but also for a broader approach of taking an interest in what is new and unknown, for
example, other people’s ways of living and for common global affairs and threats such as
climate change, war, and global economic implications (cf. Beck, 2006).
It was the Stoics in ancient Greece who developed the concept of the kosmopolitēs, or
world citizen, to include two communities: the local community in which you are born
and raised and “the community of human argument and aspiration” that encompasses all
human beings (Nussbaum, 1997, p. 52). The Stoics suggested that we should view ourselves
as surrounded by concentric circles. The first is drawn around the self, the second around the
family, and so on, until we come to the largest circle, around humanity as a whole. In order to
be a citizen of the world, you must be willing to critically scrutinize what you, in an unreflect-
ing way, might perceive as good and relevant in the way you think about ethical and political
choices. At the same time, you also have to be willing to learn from other people’s ways of
thinking about such issues. Nussbaum argues for an education for “world citizenship” (p. 67).
Although Nussbaum’s way of thinking about teaching is very thought provoking, it still
includes a universal model for teaching for world citizenship. Nussbaum’s ideas are
mainly focused on the teaching of liberal arts at university level, whereas in this article it
is rather the compulsory and upper-secondary school that is at the center.
Cosmopolitanism thus rests on the ancient Stoic idea that we have obligations and respon-
sibilities to other people. There are also as many different and contested interpretations of
what cosmopolitanism might mean in today’s society3 as there are arguments against
using the concept, at least in an uncritical way, in an educational context.4 Since my interest
lies in analyzing how cosmopolitanism can be understood as a relational and communicative
concept, I find Kwame Anthony Appiah’s ethical and communicative view of cosmopolitan-
ism a fruitful starting point, followed up by Donald Davidson’s theory of externalism in terms
of triangulation for making meaning (Glüer & Pagin, 2004).

Cosmopolitanism as Communication?
According to Kwame Anthony Appiah (2007, p. xv) in his book Cosmopolitanism, cos-
mopolitanism is more of a challenge than the solution. He observes the tension between two

3
For an overview of cosmopolitanism, its history, and different emphases, see, for example, Klein-
geld and Brown (2006). For a discussion about Kant’s understanding of cosmopolitanism in terms of
universalism, see, for example, Bohman and Lutz-Bachmann (1997). For an introduction to edu-
cational cosmopolitanism, see, for example, Hansen (2008b).
4
See, for example, Popkewitz (2008), Strand (2009), and Todd (2007) for a critical stance towards a
cosmopolitan perspective.
 COSMOPOLITANISM AS COMMUNICATION? 37

ideals in the understanding of cosmopolitanism. One strand is the universal concern, namely that
we have obligations to others that stretch beyond our own family, community, or nation. The
other strand is respect for legitimate difference, that is, respect for and an interest in human
lives, practices, and beliefs from a local perspective. Appiah argues that it is not necessary to
choose one strand or the other, but instead takes a position that he calls a “partial cosmopolitan-
ism” (p. xvii). There are some values that should be universal and some values (which may be
lots of values) that must be local. Further, cosmopolitanism is not something to attain, like “pos-
sessions,” an aim or end in itself.5 Instead, it is about a need to “ … develop habits of coex-
istence: conversation in the sense of living together, or association,” as well as
conversation in the more modern sense of conversations across boundaries (p. xix). The
model for coexistence is conversation, and particularly conversations between people who
live, in some aspects, different ways of life. So, cosmopolitanism can be viewed both as
the recognition of living together with others and as a partaking in conversations with “stran-
gers.” This insight is also captured in the term “cosmopolitan orientation,” which is an orien-
tation towards what is unknown and unfamiliar in the world (Hansen, 2008b).
Appiah (2007) argues that cultures are “made of continuities and changes” (p. 107,
emphasis in original) and that we do not need a “settled community, a homogenous
system of values, in order to have a home” (p. 113).6 According to Appiah, culturally speak-
ing most people probably already “live a cosmopolitan life enriched by literature, art, and film
that come from many places, and that contains influences from many more” (p. 113). From
Appiah’s standpoint, cultural purity is a contradiction in terms—all cultures are influenced by
other cultures and are also of interest for other people. He therefore opposes narrow nation-
alism by saying that “no local loyalty can ever justify forgetting that each human being has
responsibilities to every other” (p. xvi). When the dynamic nature of cultures and identities is
changing more rapidly than ever before, due to interactions and networks crossing borders all
over the world, “situatedness” is no longer only associated with a local place within a limited
community, but rather to a local place with connections to social relations, political insti-
tutions, and markets around the world (Rizvi, 2009). Global connectivity constitutes the
basis of a cosmopolitan view of education. In other words, education is understood as a rela-
tional and communicative activity in which different forms of knowledge and different views
and values are made known and reflected on, and where many local situations and questions
connect with global ones.
In short, cosmopolitanism understood as a variety of global connections, global threats
(Beck, 2006), and widespread networks of communication (Appiah, 2007; Rizvi, 2009) is
characterized by two main features. One commitment is to pluralism—that is, the thought
that “there are many values worth living by.” Another feature is fallibilism, the notion that
knowledge and truth are imperfect, hard to find, and must continually be subject to revision
(Appiah, 2007, p. 144).

5
However, since Appiah also uses expressions like “we cosmopolitans” (e.g., Appiah, 2007, p. 144;
Appiah, 2008, p. 97), he can nevertheless be interpreted as treating cosmopolitanism as something that
can be attained.
6
Scheffler (2001) makes a distinction between two strands of cosmopolitanism: the first strand is
about justice, and the second strand is about culture and the self. With reference to Scheffler, propo-
nents of the cosmopolitanism of culture argue that cultures are constantly changing and constantly
being modified. In this sense, Appiah belongs to the second strand – a version of cosmopolitanism
that leans towards culture.
38 WAHLSTRÖM

The Role of Language and Conversations in a Cosmopolitan Approach

Appiah (2007) argues that one of the central ways of coordinating our lives with others is
through language, “[a]nd the key insight of modern philosophical reflection on language is
that language is, first and foremost, a public thing, something we share” (p. 28). When
people meet, they share their responses to events in their daily lives, novels they have
read, and films or TV programs they have watched and so on. As I understand Appiah,
this language of values, used for commenting on and expressing opinions in everyday life,
is something that characterizes a human way of acting in the world and therefore also con-
nects people in a shared human habit. A vocabulary of values and evaluations makes it poss-
ible for people to act together, and this sharing helps to understand why we agree and
disagree. Values do not start with a single person and his or her beliefs and desires, but as
guiding principles for people who are struggling to share their lives. According to Appiah,
conversation is a form of learning. If we cannot be influenced by what another person
says, conversation between us will be pointless.
There is an ongoing discussion about what is meant by a shared language and to what
extent a language needs to be shared by people to make conversations possible. From a cos-
mopolitan point of view, Appiah (2007, p. 57) suggests that there is already enough overlap
between the vocabulary of values in different cultures, that is, people’s responses to their
everyday lives, to begin a conversation. Likewise, Rönnström (2011) claims that language
has to be publicly accessible if the members of a language community are to be understood.
However, this does not imply that people must talk exactly the same language linguistically
and grammatically, but rather that they must be able to perceive how they act and interact
with others in a shared environment and understand each other enough to be able to act intel-
ligibly in terms of person- and context-sensitive interpretation processes.
Even if conversations about values in different cultures and local settings overlap suffi-
ciently for a conversation to begin, it does not mean that the conversation will necessarily
lead to agreement. Instead, it means that we can establish which values we share and
which we do not. Values are always contestable, and this is often the case within one’s
“own” culture and family, and even within oneself, and are not necessarily to do with differ-
ent cultural traditions. Argumentation shapes our acts, thoughts, and feelings and, in sum, the
understanding of our moral language. Thus, conversation means being engaged with others
and their ideas, rather than coming to a common agreement. What is characteristic for “cos-
mopolitan curiosity” is not universal human interests per se, but rather that the entry to con-
versations is often facilitated by the little things that are shared by those who are in
conversation (Appiah, 2007, p. 97). As cosmopolitanism is characterized by fallibilism, cos-
mopolitan conversation across cultural, religious, and political boundaries “ … is not about
wholesale conversion; it’s about learning as well as teaching; it’s about listening as well
as talking” (Appiah, 2008, p. 93).
The basic assumption is that people do not need to share values or theoretical moral prin-
ciples to start talking to each other, but that they more often respond to judgments about par-
ticular cases. This observation is not unique to intercultural meetings, but is probably just as
valid for dialogues within societies. People respond to situations they are actually in, or to
situations that they encounter through reading or other narratives. What makes cosmopolitan-
ism possible, according to Appiah (2005), is not a human capacity to share values or reason-
ing as a whole, but, rather, a human capacity to imagine different ways of living and different
perspectives through narratives, and to respond to particularities, that is, certain cases or
 COSMOPOLITANISM AS COMMUNICATION? 39

questions. The basic point of departure is that all human beings struggle to understand a
single world:

… if there is one world only, then it is also possible that they might be right. We can learn
from each other’s stories only if we share both human capacities and a single world: rela-
tivism about either is a reason not to converse but to fall silent. (p. 257)

By referring to everyday life, Appiah believes that taking an interest in other people and
ways of living represents a basic human capacity, which implies that we can learn from each
other. But what would this understanding of “learning” mean in a school context? In order to
answer that question, I need to turn to Biesta (2006), who makes a useful distinction between
the concepts “learning as acquisition” and “learning as responding” (p. 28). While the
former term expresses learning in terms of the transmission of knowledge, skills, and
values in school, which might be relevant in some situations, I suggest that the latter
concept, learning as responding, is the most relevant in the context of a communicative
understanding of cosmopolitanism. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’ concept of “responsi-
bility,” Biesta (2006) emphasizes the need to provide situations in school where students
are both invited to and allowed to respond to curriculum content “in their own, unique
ways” (p. 28) by expressing their thoughts and feelings and listening to those of others.
Learning as responding is a way of understanding learning that also implies that students
need to learn to take responsibility for their reactions and responses. Responding to curricu-
lum content in a classroom is not about self-expression, but about taking part in a relational
social world. It is, in Biesta’s terms, “about responding to and therefore also being respon-
sible for what and who is other” (p. 28). Learning as responding to what is “new” or who
“other” implies a risk as well as a promise (cf. Garrison’s notion on listening, above).
Although Biesta (2006) and Appiah (2007) use the term responsibility in different ways,
I understand “learning as responding” as a term that addresses the cosmopolitan thought
of learning from “each other’s stories.”
In this section I have argued, with references to Appiah (2007) and to Rönnström
(2011), that it is a shared environment and the recognition of a shared world and not a
grammatically common language that is important for an understanding of a cosmopolitan
orientation in terms of communication. To elaborate on the conditions for communication
in more detail, I start from Appiah’s notion on the one world that makes listening and
learning meaningful and Dewey’s notion that things and events acquire meaning from
communication and it is through communication that teaching and learning become poss-
ible. From these points of departure, in the next section I will explore how a common
object like a curriculum content can, at least theoretically, be understood as a common
point of reference that can form “strangers” (or individuals) into what Dewey calls a
“community of partaking.”

A Shared World as a Basis for Communication

For Dewey (1916/1980), environment denotes something more than just surroundings.
The environment leads an individual to a certain system of behavior and to a certain disposi-
tion of actions by living and participating in certain environments. I will leave the question
open as to how far the environment extends today in a world accustomed to digitalization and
traveling, where more than one place can often be called “home,” and where others might not
40 WAHLSTRÖM

live in the place they consider as their home. From a cosmopolitan view, I think it is fruitful to
think of environment as a shared world without trying to draw any limits in advance. School,
however, is a special form of environment, which constitutes the means for making meaning:
“We never educate directly, but indirectly by means of the environment” (Dewey, 1916/
1980, p. 23). For Dewey (1925/1981), “[m]eanings are objective because they are modes
of natural interaction; such an interaction, although primarily between organic beings, as
includes things and energies external to living creatures” (p. 149). Donald Davidson has
explored this understanding of meaning in more theoretical detail than Dewey.7
When teaching somebody a language, for example, there is a basic relation between the
“teacher,” the learner, and the observed object. Expressed differently, the learner finds regu-
larities in the verbal behavior of the informant, which is correlated in relation to objects and
events in the environment. The establishment of such a communicative baseline between two
individuals makes it possible to note each other’s reactions and to correlate these observed
reactions with the stimuli from the world. With reference to Davidson (2001), it is possible
to think of this relation in terms of triangulation, where two individuals react differently to a
certain event or incentive. This triangulation connects the knowledge of our own mind to that
of another person’s mind. The only reason why someone can connect with the knowledge of
another person’s mind is because he or she has knowledge of the world. In other words,
knowledge of other minds and knowledge of the world are reciprocally dependent. It is
not possible to have knowledge of one’s own mind without knowledge of the minds of
others and knowledge of the world, “ … since there is no propositional thought without com-
munication” (p. 213).
According to Davidson (2001), the nature of interpretation guarantees that people’s sim-
plest perceptual beliefs are true and that they are known to others.8 This holistic view, in turn,
implicates that people’s general picture of the world and their own place in it is true, and
thereby gives content and beliefs to the rest. Knowledge of one’s own mind is direct, but
often trivial, because there is no ground for interpretation. Knowledge of another mind
must be indirect and is dependent on the holistic view that humans have a generally
correct and shared view of the world. Generally speaking, this shared view of the world orig-
inates from observed correlations between people’s verbal and other behavior and that of
objects and events in a common environment:

The fundamental difference between my knowledge of another mind and of the shared
physical world has another source. Communication, and the knowledge of other minds
that it presupposes, is the basis of our concept of objectivity, our recognition of a distinc-
tion between true and false belief. There is no going outside this standard to check
whether we have things right … (p. 217)

7
For an extended discussion about what Dewey and Davidson might agree or not agree on, see
Wahlström (2010).
8
Davidson’s suggestion about the principle of charity has been much debated. Lepore and Ludwig
(2005) argue that “there appears to be a consistent misunderstanding of Davidson’s project on this
point” (p. 166, footnote 136), that is, it has not been Davidson’s purpose to provide a strong theory
of “truth conditions.” Instead, the aim is to formulate a truth theory that facilitates interpretation
rather than an analysis of meaning.
 COSMOPOLITANISM AS COMMUNICATION? 41

So, the knowledge of the world as physical is dependent on a “community of minds”

(Davidson, 2001, p. 218). Consequently, objectivity is placed in the intersection between
one’s own reactions to the world and others’ reactions to the same world. The three forms
of knowledge—knowledge of my own mind, knowledge of another mind, and knowledge
of the world—are mutually dependent, and one variety of knowledge cannot be prioritized
above another or be reduced in relation to others.
As Davidson demonstrates, this way of reasoning about the subjective, the intersubjective,
and the objective is a contribution to the long-standing philosophical debate on “subjectivity”
and the difference between the meaning of the thought and the meaning of external realities. As
Davidson (2001, p. 219) puts it, it is the difference between “my” world and the world as it
seems to others. Davidson claims that the subjective does not precede the objective, and that
the objective and inter-subjective are essential “to anything we can call subjectivity”
(p. 219), which is the knowledge that is characterized by our direct access to it and with a
content that is dependent on communication with others. However, from this dependence on
sharing a general view of the world, it does not necessarily follow that people’s different
views of the world will disappear. The basis for understanding another is a certain degree of
community, and the quality of understanding itself is also a matter of degree:

… I do not want to suggest that we cannot understand those with whom we differ on vast
tracts of physical and moral opinion. It is also the case that understanding is a matter of
degree: others may know things we do not, or even perhaps cannot. What is certain is that
the clarity and effectiveness of our concepts grows with the growth of our understanding
of others. There are no definite limits to how far dialogue can or will take us. (p. 219)

It is at this point that it is possible to find a fruitful connection between Appiah’s assump-
tion that communication and understanding might be more difficult in theory than in practice,
and Davidson’s principle of interpretation, based on an understanding that communication is
successful when the interpreter understands what the speaker intends to do with his/her utter-
ance. There might simply be “enough” common experiences from the shared world and
enough human capacity to listen to each other’s narratives to make communication
between people living in different conditions or with different outlooks on the world possible.
In this section, I have explored the role of the environment for communication and
meaning-making in some detail. From a cosmopolitan perspective, I would suggest that it
is always possible to initiate communication with others because we are always in some
sense parts of the same external environment or world as others, and that objects or events
in the environment represent the incentive for communication. Secondly, there are always
opportunities to learn from one other by taking the risk to reflect on the differences
between one’s own reaction to and meaning of the world and those of others. Thirdly, no
specific region or culture (such as “Western culture” or “Western cosmopolitanism”) can
acclaim superiority of their own meaning. Meaning and knowledge are shaped in interaction
with others in an environment of objects; thus, they might take different forms in different
environments without losing their “objectivity.”

Cosmopolitanism “as” Education

Cosmopolitanism differs from internationalism (and nationalism) in that it does not envi-
sage nations or states as natural units for understanding the world, even if this does not mean
42 WAHLSTRÖM

that a cosmopolitan approach denies the significance of nations from other points of view
(Hansen, 2008b, p. 294). It also differs from multiculturalism and pluralism, since cosmopo-
litanism does not assume already formed communities. Instead, cosmopolitanism:

seeks to defend emerging spaces for new cultural and social configurations reflective of
the intensifying intermingling of people, ideas, and activities the world over. (p. 294)

Hansen (2008b) discusses how curriculum and subject matters express the human quest
for meaning as a cosmopolitan inheritance, and suggests the concept of “educational cosmo-
politanism” (p. 296). From this view, a curriculum is conceived as the “communicative
other.” This makes it possible for students to be open to the world and to consider where
they stand. As Hansen points out, the idea of a cosmopolitan education recognizes the neces-
sity of socialization and also “ … has to do with new forms of understanding, undergoing, and
moving in the world” (p. 298). Consequently, a cosmopolitan orientation on education is
neither universal nor local. Rather, the cosmopolitan perspective facilitates a creative and
dynamic space between the individual, the local, and the universal.
While Hansen discusses cosmopolitanism in terms of curriculum and what “ordinary”
education can offer in relation to a cosmopolitan sensibility, Rizvi (2009) is more interested
in “transcultural collaborations” (p. 265). Thus, Hansen examines curriculum as a “cosmopo-
litan inheritance” and pays attention to which issues the world puts forth to students today,
and how they can be made visible in an educational cosmopolitanism. Rizvi, on the other
hand, inquires into cosmopolitan learning and focuses on the student’s own social identity,
but with an emphasis on today’s connectivity with the rest of the world. Whereas in
Hansen’s version educational cosmopolitanism stresses a historical and contemporary
world inheritance, expressed by the school curricula, Rizvi’s concept of cosmopolitan learn-
ing stresses networks, connectivity, and continually changing contexts in a flow of global
influence. As I see it, these two perspectives are not about either/or, but about both. Students
today attend schools that are characterized by diversity, study specified curriculum content in
a (traditional) school environment and so on, and live their lives with digital connections.
They maintain contact with different places in the world and learn through these interactions,
sometimes in school but probably more often outside it.
A cosmopolitan perspective on education takes its point of departure from situated stu-
dents’ encounters with the world, and understands cosmopolitanism as a moral and ethical
attitude towards the world’s diversity and connectedness. It might be thought of as new
alternatives and options being presented, as inspiration, without necessarily approving every-
thing or holding something up as an example of one’s own way of living. Instead, it is
people’s sense of values that is central: a human creativity that presupposes “the value of
valuing” (Hansen, Burdick-Shepherd, Cammarano, & Obelleiro, 2009, p. 591). As Hansen
et al. (2009) observe, a cosmopolitan orientation towards values does not imply an accep-
tance of all values and their expressions, but rather implies an interest in values that matter
to people, and a readiness to be aware of the way in which values influence people’s lives,
as well as the ability to stand back and reflect on these values.

A Relational Understanding of Communication and Cosmopolitanism

Hansen (2008b) makes a connection between cosmopolitanism and Dewey’s view of a
moral interest as an “[i]nterest in learning from all the contacts of life … ” (p. 305).
 COSMOPOLITANISM AS COMMUNICATION? 43

However, a moral sensibility, as well as a cosmopolitan outlook, also implies a sense of when
to raise questions about what is moral—or what is cosmopolitan. It is not possible, or even
desirable, to be open to everything that is new or other all the time and everywhere (Hansen,
2008a). In this article, the term relational is understood as a relational connection between the
individual and his or her environment in terms of communication and experience. Experience
is not something “inner” and “subjective,” but rather results from a transaction with a “gen-
uinely objective world,” characterized by its connections, inferences, and reflections (Dewey,
1917/1985, p. 6). As Festenstein (1997) notes, experience is not “apprehended by a single
knowing subject”, but is “forged by collective practices of communication and inquiry”
(p. 147).
In understanding cosmopolitanism as relational, students’ reflective experiences of
encounters with curriculum content and concrete others become central. Following
Dewey (1925/1981), communication is about participating in a shared situation, where
actions and thoughts are regulated and modified as a consequence of the communication.
Communication is thus a form of action with a latent possibility for opening new perspec-
tives of the world. The notions of “cosmopolitanism” and “the local” are symbiotic more
than they are separated by an insurmountable gap. Appiah (2005) uses the term “rooted cos-
mopolitanism” and Hansen (2008a) expresses it as “cosmopolitanism on the ground.” The
term cosmopolitanism is thus used in a descriptive and empirical way. They have both
given examples (Appiah has given lots of examples) of cosmopolitan orientation or curios-
ity that actually occurs in the encounter with other people across differences. Cosmopolitan-
ism is thus “situated,” in that it finds its expression in meanings and in places where people
meet and interact.
I have argued that cosmopolitanism finds its expression in classrooms in which stu-
dents are invited to respond to curriculum content by reflecting over different, and
often contradictory, values and different forms of lives. In other words, they are invited
to share the joys and difficulties, agreements, and disagreements in the situations in
which they find themselves, and in the curriculum content they encounter through texts,
images, films, or listening to others’ narratives. These conversations are educational in
that you listen as well as talk, learn as well as teach (Appiah, 2008, p. 93). These con-
versations are basically ethical conversations, about values and different views of the
“good life”: “this is how I live, what I think, believe in, enjoy and hope for—and what
about you?” Understanding a cosmopolitan orientation in this way also implies that the
conversation can be both enjoyable and challenging, and may also lead to feelings of dis-
comfort on certain occasions. This dilemma raises the question of the responsibility of the
teacher for how the class conversation takes shape. In the next section, I use the terms
“moderate” and “strong” deliberation to discuss how different curriculum content and
age groups can be adapted to different kinds of conversations with different requirements
for justified arguments.

Conversations as Educational Dialogues

The two philosophers of communication—John Dewey as a classical pragmatist and
Jürgen Habermas as a pragmatist of late-modernity—have especially inspired a pragmatist
understanding of deliberative communication within education (Englund, 2011). The differ-
ences between Dewey and Habermas can be expressed in terms of Habermas’ understanding
of the ethical and political role of communication being more influenced by Kantianism than
44 WAHLSTRÖM

Dewey’s, that is, trying to outline a framework of “the right” rather than “the good” and dis-
tinguishing between ethics and morality. Ethics relates to a person’s particular concept of
what is good or valuable, while morality concerns the relations between those with differing
concepts of good, leaving the question of the good life outside. Dewey instead emphasized
the interdependence of personal growth, morality, and democracy (Festenstein, 1997, p. 149).
Løvlie (2008) makes a distinction between moderate deliberation and strong deliberation, and
relates the distinction to “the good” and “the true.” Løvlie places the moderate version of
deliberation in local settings and assigns this kind of deliberation more to John Dewey
than Jűrgen Habermas. The moderate versions of discussion and negotiation require skills,
such as paying attention to your use of language, waiting for your turn, and so on, but
also showing a willingness to participate in the discussion.
In order to challenge ingrained opinions and argue for the rational justification of moral
and political claims, the emphasis is instead placed on a strong deliberation. Consequently,
strong deliberation focuses on the aspects that are assumed in the moderate version,
namely rights and norms. Strong deliberation also highlights the normative rules for com-
munication, which include respect for others, the right for all to speak, focus on the facts
of the case, and the need for justification (Løvlie, 2008). Moderate and strong versions of
deliberations have different purposes in education and can be related to different situations,
the age of the students, and to different aims. Sometimes the purpose is just to listen to other
people’s experiences and opinions; in other teaching situations, however, the demands for
argumentation and justification become more prominent. Moderate and strong deliberation
can thus be viewed as a continuum for different educational situations. As Englund (2011)
points out, deliberative communication incorporates both a search for common frames of
reference and the right to have different views. A cosmopolitan approach in education
needs to include both these aspects in order to establish the conditions for engagement in
communication and to develop a sense of responsibility to the concrete other.

On Conditions for Cosmopolitanism as Educational Dialogues

In this article, I have examined what it might mean to understand cosmopolitanism in the
classroom from a moral and communicative perspective, with the focus on the latter.
Throughout the article, I have tried to show that a relational view of cosmopolitanism in
the classroom should not be understood as an educational model, but instead needs to be
viewed as a communicative approach to cosmopolitanism in educational settings, based on
a shared attention to and interest in the educational content at hand. I have argued that
such a communicative approach is possible, because the conditions for communication
request neither a totally shared language nor a totally shared system of values. The assump-
tion is instead that there is an overlapping language of values that is sufficient for the listener
to interpret the intentions of the speaker’s meaning. What makes interpretation possible is a
shared world or, to use in Dewey’s terms, a shared environment. In the perspective of the
classroom practice, the shared environment is represented by the potential in the curriculum
content as a starting point for conversations and deliberations with cosmopolitan dimensions
and implications (cf. Hansen, 2008b). What the teacher and students are able to do is to con-
verge on meaning as a result of the communication that takes place on these particular
occasions (cf. Rönnström, 2011) without necessarily agreeing on standpoints or values.
Also, I have argued that dialogue in a cosmopolitan perspective should not be understood
as a mode of teaching or as an individual capacity to take part in common conversations.
 COSMOPOLITANISM AS COMMUNICATION? 45

Instead, a communicative understanding of cosmopolitanism emphasizes a relational stance

to the other and the world as a potentiality. It is not possible to determine in advance whether
the curriculum content will give rise to cosmopolitan oriented conversations—reflecting on
one’s own habits, values, and way of living by taking an interest in other people’s opportu-
nities, choices, knowledge, and experiences that have shaped their way of life. From a com-
municative point of view, curriculum content represents an object in a shared environment on
a particular occasion (cf. Davidson, 2001). Curriculum content offers a way of getting to
know the world by means of communication, where different perspectives come together
and are discussed and clarified. Communication should here be understood in all its different
forms of art, novels, teaching material, digital media, classroom discussions, and so on (cf.
Appiah, 2007). For students, a cosmopolitan orientation towards curriculum offers a
shared world for participation in meaning-making, in relation to other people’s ways of
making meaning and their perspectives. Curriculum can in this sense become a shared
environment to “act upon” as a source for reflexive dialogue.
Further, dialogues begin with some kind of “imaginative engagement” when encountering
other ways of living and believing that differ from your own (Appiah, 2007, p. 85). Understand-
ing each other in depth might be hard, but this is not necessarily the purpose of conversations.
Instead, a communicative way of understanding cosmopolitanism stresses cosmopolitan curi-
osity as a way of engaging with other people. However, such conversations do not aim towards
a total sharing of others’ ways of thinking or agreeing about values (cf. Appiah, 2007, p. 97).
Conversations start from the details that are common. As Appiah explains, through these every-
day conversations or encounters, people “get used” to one another (p. 78), which is an impor-
tant prerequisite for listening to and learning from each other. This applies to the classroom
situation and to everyday encounters in other forms of communities.
Finally, a cosmopolitan approach to curriculum encourages a sense of hospitality in its
orientation to shape creative spaces between the individual, the local, and the universal
(cf. Hansen, 2008b). This hospitality requires a sense of “reciprocal communicative
respect” that can be attributed to moral conversations within the discourse theory of
ethics, with an obligation to treat all persons as potential participants in moral conversations
on the justification of my actions: “[w]e are all potential participants in such conversations of
justification” (Benhabib, 2006, p. 18). Cosmopolitanism can thus be thought of as mediating
norms that can conduct humans in a global civil society.
To sum up, the meaning of cosmopolitan dialogue is constituted by an openness to reflect
on one’s own habits, values, and way of living by taking an interest in and learning from the
opportunities, choices, knowledge, and experiences that have shaped other people’s way of
life. In this article, the conditions for such dialogue are understood as: (1) a curriculum
content and classroom conversations as shared environment, (2) a cosmopolitan curiosity
that is oriented towards other people and other ways of living, and (3) reciprocal communi-
cative respect based on the recognition of having responsibilities to every other person in a
shared world. The characteristic of cosmopolitan dialogue is its potentiality. The encounter
with what is unknown places you at risk concerning your self-identity and your own habits.
Also, a teacher cannot know beforehand the extent to which students, or even the teacher her/
himself, are willing to take such risks in an actual communicative situation.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
46 WAHLSTRÖM

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