SOCRATIC COSMOPOLITANISM - CICEROS CRITIQUE AND TRANSFORMATION OF THESTOIC IDEAL

The post-Cold War era has provoked a revival of various implicit as we ll as explicit returns to Stoic cosmopolitan theory as a possible sour ce of a normative conceptual framework for international relations and global community. This article confronts this revival of interest in Stoicism with an analysis of Cicero's constructive critique of origina l Stoic conceptions of the world community. Particular attention is pa id to the arguments by which Cicero identifies major flaws in the Stoi c outlook and establishes the validity of his alternative notion of th e ''law of nations.'' It is argued that Cicero's transformation of Sto icism issues in a more modest but more solid, as well as more civic-sp irited, cosmopolitan theory. At the same time, the implications of Cic ero's arguments for our understanding of justice altogether are clarif ied.