I found the introduction to be somewhat redundant to my everyday life. It was like reading a manual on how to play an xbox after having played for 7 years. It was just setting the reader up for what was to come in the reading which, to be honest, sounded very obvious. Obvious being that as students and children of the 21st century we are accustomed to the everyday life of a cosmopolitan. The introduction eventually settled into history and how it affected the growth of cosmopolitanism. As a college student in this modern age, I feel that all of us should have some sort of understanding on how the cosmopolitan age came about. Cosmopolitanism has grown drastically over the past 100 years, however, and i don’t think many people realize how different it was in the early 1900′s versus the new millennium. Appiah does well to describe the growth, even though I feel it was bland and textbookish in nature.
Chapter one was actually semi-interesting. It began with the description of a man who I can only describe as being a renaissance man. Sir Burton really was exceptional. with several languages under his belt, he instantly became a man I want to be one day. Also, he just so happened to be a master swordsman. I thought it was amusing when he challenged a student to a duel because he made fun of Sir Burton’s walrus mustache. It then got into a bit of Arabic culture and words related to said culture. It started to confuse me, and thus the reading once again became bland.
I feel like you’ll grow as an individual throughout this course. Appiah provides insight into several new cultures and makes us think about the way other behanve.
I agree that some of what Appiah discusses in the opening chapter appears self-evident. It is the occupational habit of philosophers to explore the familiar and surprise the reader with a twist in an argument just when the reader is convinced that there’s nothing new to learn about philosophy generally and ethics. Soon enough, Appiah will surprise, confound and enlighten.