While supporting the cosmopolitan pursuit of a world that respects all rights and interests, James D. Ingram believes political theorists have, in their approach to this project, compromised its egalitarian and emancipatory principles. Focusing on recent debates without losing sight of cosmopolitanism's ancient and Enlightenment roots, Ingram confronts the philosophical difficulties of defending universal ideals and the implications for ethics and political theory. In morality as in politics, theorists have generally focused first on discovering universal values and second on their implementation. Ingram argues that only by prioritizing the development and articulation of universal values through political action in the fight for freedom and equality can theorists do justice to these efforts and cosmopolitanism's universal vocation. Only by proceeding from the local to the global, from the bottom up rather than from the top down, on the basis of political practice rather than moral ideals, can we salvage moral and political universalism. In this book, Ingram provides the clearest, most systematic account yet of this schematic reversal and its radical possibilities.

A brilliant work of normative political philosophy, Radical Cosmopolitics is at once relentless and flawless in its argumentation. It masterfully introduces and superbly narrates while skillfully drawing upon, reframing, and advancing the contributions that have been made to cosmopolitan political thought. It is a most compelling claim for truly global, democratic equality-indeed for postcolonial politics, a committed demand for a truer cosmopolitics. -- Gil Anidjar, Columbia University

About the Author
James D. Ingram teaches political theory at McMaster University.

Reviews
James D. Ingram's argument in defense of a 'cosmopolitanism from below' is not only admirably articulated and grounded in the history of ideas and a careful assessment of contemporary debates. It is also extremely courageous intellectually: being fully aware of the past and present mystifications that affect them, he gives up neither on implementing universalistic values nor on combining the ethical and the political. His 'realism of possibility' begins with prudence and leads to endeavor. -- Etienne Balibar, author of We, the People of Europe?: Reflections on Transnational Citizenship This is an impressive work of scholarship that provides an important warning about the dangers of thinking on behalf of others. Political Studies Review James D. Ingram's book is a treat... It accomplishes the rare feat of opening a dialogue between various philosophical traditions that seldom bother to respond to each other. Books and Ideas



Book Information
ISBN 9780231161107
Author James D. Ingram
Format Hardback
Page Count 352
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press