The document summarizes a 2004 thesis by Dr. M. Mukhtar Alam from the University of Delhi exploring cognitive representations related to the concept of world citizen. The thesis was conceived in the context of concerns over nuclear war and ecological disaster in the late 1980s. It examines philosophical antecedents of world citizenship from thinkers like Kant and Radhakrishnan. The methodology included discourse analysis and questionnaires. Key findings included a recommendation to establish a just world order based on monotheistic principles. The limitations included some subjective findings due to mixed methods.

1. Cognitive Representations
related to the Concept of World
Citizen
A presentation for a thesis awarded in 2004
by University of Delhi to Dr.M.Mukhtar Alam
from Kishandaspur-Mathurapur based in
Delhi,India

2. The Context
• It is an outcome of inter-disciplinary work and an
exploratory study conceived in the background of cold
war with projections of nuclear war and ecological
disaster most notably reflected in the writings of Mikhail
Gorbachev
• The appearance of the concept in the Congress I
manifesto in 1989 was the immediate stimulus for the
choice of the topic of the research as Prof.Ganguli
described then that work on peace was very much in
vogue.
• Dr.Miriam Ittyerah then agreed that it is worthwhile to
study the cognitive styles related to the concept of world
citizen.

3. Introduction
• Visits to mental asylum made the researcher conclude
that there are sociological factors that are also
responsible for the incidence of sociopathy and
psychopathy and therefore , it was imperative that root
causes were addressed.
• The concept of world citizenship then was considered an
important concept that was thought to be contributing to
the generation of cooperative and compassionate
behavior for the fellow human beings across the
identities.
• The concept of world citizen was then viewed as an
important part of the constellation of identities that are
part of words defining the personal identity/

4. …Introduction
• It was conceived as an exploratory study as nothing was
found through the initial literature review in the journals
of social, clinical ,experimental and industrial psychology
adopting the participant mode of research
• Reference was found in just world order model project
led by Richard Falk of USA after the submission of initial
application when term papers were to be submitted/
• Two term papers were submitted for the thesis. First was
on the cognitive representation and the second was for
locating the concept of world citizen in just world order
inquiries

5. The intellectual and political stance
of the researcher
• The researcher examined the cognitive representations
primarily propositions related to the concept of world
citizen in order to have a normative definition for the
model of global governance.
• It was a huge task and indeed very challenging.
• How could a researcher take up such a task that would
have implications for definition of personal identity and
social orders/ world order
• The conclusions are too challenging but they are
nonetheless conclusions after years of engagement on
the questions related to the building blocks of structures
and processes of peace building.

6. Background Situation of the World
in 1989
• Researchers intentions, religious /ideological
background and reasons for choosing the
concept of world citizen explained.
• Reasons for choosing the research topic and
ideological standpoint.
• Intuitive conclusion regarding the operational
organization of different identities at International
Students House ,Delhi University in early 90s
and then explained in the dissertation relating to
the work of Nimmi Hutnik.

7. References for promotion of the
concept of world citizen
• The portion of the thesis refers to the promotion of the
concept of world citizenship as an attitude. Malaysian
government is referred to be the one referring all to be
world citizens.
• Youth groups in Bhutan are referring to be promoting
global citizenship.
• Save the Children UK is referred to be promoting global
citizenship education
• The holy Qur’aan refers all to be part of one Ummah
from Adam and Even and then all are referred to be
posterity of those saved in the Arc of Noah that was
constructed by prophet Noah for the people of house
who believed in him and those among his people who
believed along with one pair of all the animals.

8. Mental/Cognitive Representations:
Definition and meta- theoretical
issues
• Mental/Cognitive representations deals with the
forms and functions of individual knowledge. It
attempts to answer as to how information is
represented mentally and how information is
used to interact with the world in adaptive ways.
• Brief discussion on the Meta-theoretical issues
and perspectives with reference to Rationalism
vs. Empiricism, formal vs. informal approaches,
observational vs. theoretical terms and the
terminal postulate.

9. Anderson and Bower’s division of
three postulates
• Sensationalistic statements (S.R)
• Connectionist Statements implying
potentially observable elements if occuring
contiguously.
• Mechanistic statements

10. Dictionary Definition of mental
representations, its nature
• Representations as something exhibited to mind:
Likeness, portrait, image or description, a sign or
symbol, picture, plastic art or statue and type or
example.
• Representations can be physical or mental.
• Some are picture like ,others are language like.
• Representations can be described varying in
concreteness- Abstractness.

11. Levels of the usage of
representation concepts
• Mental representations that are
psychologically ‘real’ in that they are
directly expressed as publicly or privately
observable events (language ,imagery
etc.), structures and processes assumed
to underlie the observable
representations.
• Representations that are used to ‘describe
the structure and function of the
observable representations.

12. Representation vs. Process
• Representation refers to a structure
entirely on which processes and
procedures operate whereas process
refers to the activities involved in making
functional use of the structural information.
• Biological vs. cultural sources of
representations

13. Representational concepts
• Mental image
• Memory trace
• Non-verbal mediators (Osgood)
• Verbal mediators and logogens
• Cell assembly (Hebb)
• Template (Neisser,1967)
• Prototype (Posner and Keele,1968)
• Schema (Mead,1920,Piaget,1926 and Bartlette 1932)
• Features( Hubel and Weisel,1962)
• Propositions

14. Propositions
• Out of the above, propositions were chosen to be
examined with reference to the concept of world citizen
in just world order inquiries while keeping in view the
other concepts in active consideration.
• Proposition is considered as the most theoretical and
abstract concept of all the most widely used in the
computational models of cognition.
• At one level, it serves as lingua franca that can be used
to characterize psychological phenomena or redefine
other theoretical constructs. For example, it is
considered popular today to describe mental images and
to recast feature representations, structural descriptions
and schema in propositional terms.

15. ….Propositions
• At another level, it is treated as a real
representational unit that serves as the
basic building block of general knowledge
structures.
• Propositions are basically truth
statements.
• Now we examine the antecedents of the
concept of world citizen.

16. Just World Order Values derived from
world order model projects
Traditional • Just World Order
1. Geopolitical focus is natural 1. Geopolitical focus is the global
state system community
2. Problems are seen as 2. Problems are seen as
interrelated, structural or
discreet issues systematic issues
3. Analysis is seen as value free 3. Analysis is presumed value
4. Priority time dimension is past oriented
and present 4. Priority time dimension is future
5. Ultimate analytical objective is with past and present instructive
description and prediction to it
5. Ultimate analytical objective is
6. Large-scale violence is prediction and prescription
ordinarily deemed acceptable 6. Large-scale violence is
means to implement policy considered unacceptable for
7. Human survival is assessed implementing policy
problematic 7. Human survival is assessed
problematic

17. Concept of World Citizen in Just World Order
Inquiries- Philosophical antecedents
• Robert Muller reports how the education on the identity
for children has to start through the global to local,
through cosmic to terrestrial.He cited the example of this
in auroville, Puducherry.
• Immanuel Kant’s essay of perpetual peace is an
important reference point on reflection on world
citizenship in the nation state system granting all have
the right to hospitality in a free state bound through
federation.
• “The greatest problem for the human race to a solution
of which nature drives men is the achievement of
universal civil society which administers law among men.
The problem is the last and the last to be solved by
man.” ( KANT, 1963)

18. …Philosophical antecedents
Definitive articles forming the second important component
of Kant’s essay on perpetual peace
• The civil constitution of every state should
be republican.
• The laws of nation shall be founded on a
federation of free states.
• The law of world citizenship shall be
subjected to universal hospitality.

19. ….Philosophical antecedents
• In India, Dr.S Radhakrishnan was universalistic
and held passionate plea for a human society
where all human being world citizens
• For this to happen, he called for spiritual unity
• Treatment of the concept of world citizen in post-
modernism viewed from European experience of
modernism. This implies that the concept of
world citizen could be one truth claim that could
be subjected to democratic deliberation without
using force.

20. Theological antecedents
• In the Islamic narrative , all are world citizens subject to
endeavors for temporal and eternal wellbeing.
• In the Indian textual traditions specially in the polytheistic
narrative following the theory of reincarnation, all are
subject to salvation through attainting a karmic record in
the varnas to which people are born.
• In the monotheistic Indian narration, all irrespective of
identities and family background are subjects for eternal
wellbeing following the best ideals and role models
• In general, universal religions seeking adherents globally
treat all as potential adherents and thus there are
fraternities and sisterhoods in faith that bind all.

21. Readings in Diagnosis and
Prognosis of the World Orders
• Mahbubul Haque
• Frederick Henrique Cardoso, Carl Sagan, Stephen
Hawking, Robert Penrose, Any Rand, Karl Marx
• Rajni Kothari, Ashish Nandi, Meera Nanda, Rosi Braidotti
• Frank Feather, AL Basham, RS Sharma, Sumit
Chakravarty
• Joseph Nye, Richard B Norgaard,Amartya Sen
• Ali Mazrui
• Ali Shariati ,David Harvey, Zygmunt Bauman etc.and
plenty of journals ,newspapers, magazines available in
the libraries of Delhi.

22. Important events initiated /co-
organized by the researcher
• Taking up the concept of world citizen for research as a Ph.D was
done for addressing the critical issues and responding to critical
questions related to identity.
• This made the researcher participate in the campus activities and
initiate some critical activities for generating a better understanding
of the issues.
• In pursuance of the decision of the general body meeting of
International Students House, Delhi University in 1989, the
researcher as vice-president /acting president of International
Students House Union organized Youth March for Humanity Against
Nuclear Weapons and Arms Race on September 5,1989 from
International Students House to University Stadium where the
marchers were addressed by Margret Alva.
• A call for United Nations was read by the researcher with
Zhoponeyi Zuo addressing the gathering as Convener of the March.

23. …contd
• A seminar on Ethnicity, Self Determination and
Xenophobia organized in 1992 in the
background of the most heinous crimes against
muslims in Bosnia Herzgovina (formerly part of
Ugoslavia) in the post-cold war era .
• Leading a delegation of international scholars
and student to Eternal Voyage, An International
Meet of Tribal and Analogous Peoples on the
eve of international year of indigenous people in
1992.
• Mosaic of cultures at Hansraj College 1993

24. … contd
• Publication of letters in Asian Age bemoaning
the thesis of Samuel P Huntington from the
perspective of ecological safety.
• Denouncing the bare-breasted cartoon of Queen
Noor Jehan, the wife of Emperor Jehangeer
assuming that the cartoon was inspired by post-
modernist ethos of denunciation of all truth
claims with liberty for all forms of expressions.
• Critique of the letter by Juliet Reynolds
• Defense of arch-conservatism considering the
respect of the institution of family across the faith
narratives.

25. Researcher’s responses to the ongoing major
political, cultural and thought processes
• Conceptual organisation formed for defining the terms of
artistic and cultural criticism
• Eternity Index proposed in the international meet for
analyzing the habitats, consumption and production
patterns making a sharp distinction between renewable
and non-renewable resources.
• With value ranging between 1 and 0 considering the
dependence on non-renewable resource based services
and commodities, the indigenous people living in pristine
agriculture and pastoral based habitats with ecologically
sustainable livelihood were declared to have the value of
1 while the rest in skyscraper based habitats were
declared to have 0 value on the Eternity Index.

26. …contd. Interests of the children of
40th century invoked
• Recognizing the critical need to transition to an
age when non-renewable resources would not
be there, the interests of children of 40 th century
are invoked.
• This was done for shaping the consumption,
production and habitats now preventing the
expansion of non-renewable resource based
urban habitats
• It was realised that concept of world citizen
enables this transition in the best way.

27. Methodology
• Discourse analysis through defining framework for global
governance following the just order values accepted as
the defining values for analyzing propositions as
cognitive representation for the concept of world citizen.
• Administering questionnaires among the students,
diplomats, university teachers, journalists and embassies
for examining the understanding of nation state,
implication of the adoption world citizenship,
identification of the names considered world citizens
among the respondents
• Administering the questionnaire on the attributes of a
world citizen

28. Findings
• There are two levels of findings- first is the
finding from the overall engagement with the
issues as a participant observer and the second
level of findings are derived from administering
the questionnaires.
• Somehow the finding from engagements
dominated the findings from the questionnaires
as these showed prescription for the
establishment of just world order in monotheistic
framework.

29. Recommendations
• Global adoption of monotheistic framework for
addressing the significant global challenges.
• Denunciation of atheistic hegemony both in neo-
liberal and communist perspective.
• Suggestion for reviewing the classification
related to homosexuality revised in 1969 through
the vote of psychiatrists in USA.
• Monotheistic framework recommended for
addressing ecological, political, economic and
cultural issues.

30. ..contd
• Revisiting anti-church literature in Europe from
the purist Islamic perspective and discussing the
implication afresh for best relations with muslim
world.
• All are de-facto world citizens with family
background and roots .The challenge is to
establish world government with justice and
abundant peace and cooperation across the
nations and within the social groups.
• More in the dissertation

31. Limitations
• Mixture of methods rendering the research
findings getting closer to more subjectivity.
• Theoretical denunciations need more
analytical rigor with detailed description.
However, this would have made the
dissertation more bulky.
• Full-bodied prescription for just world
order was beyond the remit of the thesis.

32. Electronic discussions where the
finding of the thesis were shared
• World Bank supported discussion on business ethics
www2.worldbank.org/hm/hmethics
• Takingitglobal http://muhammad_mukhtar_alam.tigweb.org
• UNDP discussion on Capacity Building http://capacity.org/undp-forum
• Global Knowledge for Development e-discussion on globalisation
• GKD discussion on global development gateway for the foundational
principles
• Global Justice Movement www.globaljusticemovement.net
• International Simultaneous Policy Discussion www.simpol.org
• Open Politics www.openpolitics.ca
• Cybernetica www.cybernetica.org exploring evolution, cognitive change and
future world order
• Millennium Forum on the eve of new millennium with participation of Jame N
Rose, Dennis Oku, Craig Hubley, Robkey E George, Wesley E Burt,
Jennifer Courioro, Michell Bird etc. Craig Hubley , an anarchist Green
supported the researchers call for making a distinction between who
advocated the culture of prayer and those who did not.