Double Boundary and Cosmopolitan Experience in Europe

This contribution aims to open up the debate about national, European and cosmopolitan identity through an interpretation of Simmel’s double boundary dialectic: human beings are boundaries and only those who stand outside their boundaries can see them as such. One difficulty with defining oneself as European stems from what could be called the “double Other” (intra- and extra-European) diachronic recognition process. Exploring the possible/impossible cosmopolitan meta-synthesis can identify certain traits of the cosmopolitan experience in Europe.Peer reviewe