This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton.

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Anthony Appia of Princeton University, half English, half Garnayon, is the quintessential

cosmopolitan. A cosmopolitan, by his definition, is one who recognizes that people across societies have much in common,

while also being tolerant of their differences.

Negotiating these differences can be tricky, not least when what's at stake are deeply held moral or

religious beliefs, such as those surrounding in the oft-cited case so-called

female circumcision. Appia is optimistic that talking, discussing, conversing, engaging in respectful dialogue about difference

is the most effective way of resolving differences, or at least the best way of learning to live with them.

Anthony Appier, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Great, very good to be here.

Now the topic we're going to focus on is cosmopolitanism.

Could you just begin by saying what you understand by that term?

It's one of these words that got into English from the Greek.

The Greek is cosmopolitan, which means citizen of the cosmos of the world.

So it's really a way of talking about global citizenship and it's a... the

of the world, so it's really a way of talking about global citizenship

and it's a particular tradition of talking about global citizenship

which has two strands I think which are worth identifying.

One is just the idea that we are all collectively responsible for one another,

the idea that we're a sort of single moral community.

...