The Agora, the dog, the sage and the friend: Tracing cosmopolitan ancestries in the hellenistic regimes

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism looks at the possibility of engaging in an interactive worldview where the local boundaries cater to the need for a spatial location for human inhabitation but never function as a limit to the possibilities of the mind. The importance of the agora and open philosophical discourses among common people stems from the cosmopolitan connection to the world that Socrates builds within his polis. Local allegiance to the polis is also as significant as the necessity of creating associations with the world. The four major schools of the ancient Hellenistic thought, which we touched upon in this paper, press forward the different facets of cosmopolitan thoughts still relevant in the present times. These thoughts might possibly be realizable in everyday life through a quest for knowledge, principles of local governance, an individual, and the necessity to expose oneself to the fluidity of boundaries.