In this article, the historical roots and philosophical premises of post-communist transitology, that rose to prominence during the 1990s, are critically contextualized and analyzed from the point of view of intellectual history and political philosophy, paying attention to the development of the concept of time, and also of history, development, evolution, progress, revolution, and acceleration. The idea about regime change is accordingly reconstructed and traced through the political philosophy of Greek antiquity, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, as well as in biological thought and debate of the 19th century, in the modernization theories of the 1950s and in 1970s and 80s “transitology” dealing with Southern Europe and Latin-America. The analysis takes it point of departure in a comparison between post-communist transitology and cold war sovietology and critically assesses implications of teleology, chronocentrism and ethnocentrism.

Since the Enlightenment, the definition of terms such as humanity, citizenship and rights has fluctuated and these ideas continue to haverelevance for contemporary discussions of globalization from a «cosmopolitan» perspective. This volume goes back to the conception ofcosmopolitanism in Greek antiquity in order to trace it through history, resulting in an unmasking of its many myths. The concept is reconstructedwith reference not only to well-known (and some lesser known) historical thinkers of cosmopolitanism, but also to noted «anti-cosmopolitans».The first aim of the book is to display historical perspectives on a discourse which has been dominated by ahistorical presumptions. Thesecond is to critically explore alternative paths beyond the Western imagination, redefining the Enlightenment legacy and the centre-peripherydichotomy. Most notably, Eastern Europe and the Arab world are integrated within the analysis of cosmopolitanism. Within a framework ofconceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte), cosmopolitan reason is criticized from the viewpoints of comparative literature, psychoanalysis,phenomenology, postcolonialism and moral philosophy.The book’s critical approach is an attempt to come to terms with the anachronism, essentialism, ethnocentrism and anthropocentrism thatsometimes underlie contemporary theoretical and methodological uses of the term «cosmopolitanism». By adding historical and contextualdepth to the problem of cosmopolitanism, a reflexive corrective is presented to enhance ongoing discussions of this topic within as well asoutside academia.

The postcommunist concept of transition, as it was in use during the 1990s and early 2000s, is analyzed from the viewpoint of its intellectual prehistory. The concept is partly contrasted with alternative notions, partly relocated to its antithesis of communist ideology, where “transition” actually was an established concept. Via Hegel and Lenin, the concept’s logic of asymmetry and negativity is theoretically demonstrated. One thesis is that radical versions of teleological postcommunist transitology have unconsciously reproduced an essentially communist conceptualization of change that may generate new ideological biases and misconceptions. The reconstruction of the dialectics between communist and postcommunist transitology indicates and responds to a need for historical reflexivity.