The Dialogue of Cultural Traditions: a global perspective

William SweetPresident, Canadian Philosophical Association

Professor of Philosophy

Director, Centre for Philosophy, Theology and Cultural Traditions

St Francis Xavier University, Canada

The Dialogue of Cultural Traditions: a global perspective

Lecture 1

1. General Introduction and Methodology

2. What does it mean to have a dialogue of cultural traditions?

3. What is a ‘global perspective’?

4. Definitions/descriptions of concepts

Introduction and Methodology

I. The theme/purpose of the course: what are the prospects for encounter and dialogue

on matters central to life together - i.e., on:

a) ways of living (ethics, values, and politics) b) ways of meaning (metaphysics, ideologies?, religion) c) ways of knowing (reasoning, experience, insight, intuition)


all are central aspects of culture practical issues; they concern doing, acting, etc. also theoretical issues

theories underlie, orient, and correct our practice these practices and theories have been challenged and

criticized


more specific aim:

focus on ways of living some recent issues in ethics and political

philosophy, in light of a number of recent criticisms discussion is difficult because of disagreement

incapable of proof diversity of approaches diversity of cultural, religious, historical, and philosophical traditions


3 questions: what are some of the major positions on issues of

ethics and political philosophy today? what are some of the challenges raised against

these positions? is there any way of responding to these challenges?


there is an answer involves dialogue also involves understanding the nature, place, and

function of culture and tradition ethics and political philosophy other areas as well, such as

the nature of the person, also epistemology, etc.


therefore, my conclusion

a dialogue about matters of ethics, values, and politics requires retaining a place for culture and traditions


Method: - primarily this course is an attempt to answer some

questions - combine analytical, phenomenological, and

hermeneutical approaches - lecturing method open

What does it mean to have a dialogue of cultural traditions?

T. S. Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, London: Faber and Faber, 1948.

Leslie Armour, “Culture and Philosophy” in Philosophy, Culture, and Pluralism, ed. William Sweet, Aylmer, QC: Editions du scribe, 2002.

Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/nonfiction_u/arnoldm_ca/ca_all.html

Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture (Blackwell, 2000)


“Culture and Pluralism in Philosophy,” in Philosophy, Culture, and Pluralism, ed. William Sweet, Aylmer, QC: Editions du scribe, 2002.

“Philosophy, Culture, and the Future of Tradition” in Dialogue between Christian Philosophy and Chinese Culture, (ed. Paschal Ting and George F. McLean), Washington, DC: Council for Research and Values in Philosophy, 2002

"Globalization, Philosophy and the Model of Ecumenism," in Philosophical Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization, (ed. Oliva Blanchette, Tomonobu Imamichi, George F. McLean), Washington, DC: Council for Research and Values in Philosophy, 2001.


not clear; simply raise some questions (in no particular order)

What are ‘cultural traditions’, culture, and traditions? What is such a dialogue? What assumptions / presuppositions are being

made, about - the role and value of dialogue, culture, and tradition - why we talk about this theme at all

What is a global perspective? Not a single perspective “above” all “local” perspecti

ves Not (just) a summary of how dialogue occurs aroun

d the world, using different perspectives Not (just) an approach in “the age of globalization”

Rather, how dialogue can be carried out at a global level

Some definitions/ descriptionsWhat is culture?

1. Background – conceptually what is the dialogue across cultures about, if it isn’t

culture? Is it just ‘what is there’?

Some definitions/ descriptionsWhat is culture?

1. Background – conceptually what is the dialogue across cultures about, if it isn’t

culture? Is it just ‘what is there’? No – if it is,

Why is this important? Why should anyone care? ‘everything’ does not tell us much

This does not mean ‘high culture’, but the ‘high water mark of culture’

What is culture?

Background – the philosophical study of culture diversity and richness of world cultures are better

known in the English-speaking world, few have written it compare with earlier centuries / other parts of the

world Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), On the Aesthetic Education of

Man: in a series of letters Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), Reflections on the

Philosophy of the History of Mankind Georg Simmel (1858-1918), Philosophische Kultur:

gesammelte Essais

What is culture?

Background – the philosophical study of culture Since 1950 in sociology, history, and literary theory Ernest Gellner, Culture, Identity, and Politics (1987), Nations

and Nationalism (1983); Fredric Jameson, The Cultural Turn: selected writings on the

postmodern (1998); Theory of Culture: lectures at Rikkyo (1994);

Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (1994); Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: selected essays

(1973); Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture (2000).

What is culture?

Background – the philosophical study of culture some signs of change in contemporary Anglo-

American philosophy particularly studies of pluralism and

multiculturalism. Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father’s House: Africa in the

Philosophy of Culture (1992) Morton White, A Philosophy of Culture: the case for holistic

pragmatism (2002).

Definitions of culture

some 164 different senses of the term Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions

(1952), Alfred L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn.

“Culture . . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” : Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive culture: researches into the

development of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom (1871).


Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) Poet, educator, literary critic, government official Culture and Anarchy, 1869

culture: "contact with the best which has been thought and said in the world"

Culture has “its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection” Chapter 1, 3


“the notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites 'the two noblest of things,' [… which Arnold calls, following Jonathan Swift] ‘sweetness and light.’

Thus, “culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light” (Ch. 1, 31)


T.S. Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948)

‘culture’ is “what the anthropologists mean: the way of life of a particular people living together in one place”,

but “culture cannot altogether be brought to consciousness; and the culture of which we are wholly conscious is never the whole of culture”

Therefore, an elite is necessary to “bring about a further development of the culture in organic complexity”


Max Weber (1864-1920) “the concept of culture is a value-concept. Empirical

reality becomes "culture" to us because and insofar as we relate it to value ideas.” “’Objectivity’ in Social Science and Social Policy”. [1904] in

The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 1949. Pp. 49-112 example of money – why do pieces of paper have

value?


Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) culture is that which is "taken for granted by a given

social group at a certain period of its historical existence" "TS Eliot's Theory of Culture"


Samuel P. Huntington (1927-) “[c]ivilization and culture both refer to the overall

way of life of a people, and a civilization is a culture writ large. They both involve the ‘values, norms, institutions, and modes of thinking to which successive generations in a given society have attached primary importance.’ The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

(London: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 41.


Gong Qun: “Culture is the living space and living field of human

beings” Contains objective (material) elements in it, such as

churches, temples and so on.” But also “institutions, rules, moralities, conventions

or customs”. What is fundamental is value


Gong Qun (continued)

“In H. Rickert’s eyes, value is the root of life; “without value, we are not alive. In other words, without value, we would no longer have desire and action because value gives us direction for our will and action.” H. Rickert, System der Philosophie I (Tubingen, 1921), p.

120.


Our definition ‘culture’ - ‘a collection of representations or ideas

shared by and pervasive through a group of individuals’

- a set of ‘dominant ideas.’ Bernard Bosanquet, “The Reality of the General Will,”

International Journal of Ethics, IV (1893–1894), p. 311

Presuppositions of culture

1. Is a culture something that we can isolate and observe at a precise point in time?

Or is ‘culture’ a ‘dynamic’ notion, that is characterised by a telos or purpose?

Some questions

2. Can we speak of cultures or traditions if everything is changing?

3. Can a culture have unity? 3a. What about multiculturalism, the plurality of

cultures, sub-cultures? what is meant by ‘truth’ and ‘objectivity’? John Searle on multiculturalism Richard Rorty

Some questions

4. Is ‘culture’ a ‘dynamic’ notion, characterised by a telos? Jean Ladrière: culture as a dynamic, processional unity – a

convergence of different perspectives – towards an eschaton

5. Does it make sense to talk of ‘culture’ in a more general way – of ‘culture’ as such – in the contemporary world? Is there a grand narrative? Can there be any principles at all? is the alternative relativism? is there any possibility of cross-cultural norms?

Some questions

6. Is culture just a ‘social construction’?

7. Is individual (personal) identity possible without culture?

The place and value of culture

What does culture provide? - culture gives us a language and values.

i) a general conception of the good, ii) a notion of public reason (usually exhibited in liberal

societies in the notion of the rule of law) iii) a context for political and ethical choice

- culture influences the material environment in which such questions are raised economic production permits the creation of goods and the

opportunities for leisure


culture gives us a notion of meaningful order.

cultures give us a discourse; set limits to what we can express, how we can express it, etc.

cultural belonging is a basic value


Will Kymlicka and John Rawls: cultures have value but not fundamentally morally valuable (cultures are of value simply as part of an individual’s plan of life,

and all are equally valuable) (the ‘externalist’ view)

others say: a culture is “a mode of mutual recognition and is a

context in which individuals pursue their own long-term projects”

a culture can impose obligations on its members some cultures may be superior to others

(e.g., based on the extent to which it allows individuals to be social agents, to show solidarity, to show loyalty towards the community, and so on)


Culture also provides for the possibility of philosophy provides – or imposes – a discourse culture sets up the problems that philosophers

pursue. influences the material environment and the

opportunities for leisure (in which philosophy is done) tells us what counts as philosophy (as distinct from

history and religion) no reason to believe that the same culture will give

birth to similar philosophies. (e.g., Heideggerian phenomenology, the Christian existentialism of Karl Jaspers, and Moritz Schlick’s logical empiricism)


influences in what ‘language’ philosophical questions are expressed and answered

Examples: political philosophy in the United States cultures in another philosophical contexts (e.g., western

culture in relation to Indian philosophy, or in relation to African thought).

cultures may lead philosophers to ignore other cultures.

philosophy is not the prisoner of culture

What are traditions?

definition:

- ambiguous; various kinds

- political (e.g., liberal), ethical, religious


Alasdair MacIntyre (1929- ), After Virtue (1981; 1984), ch 3 A living tradition ... is an historically extended, socially

embodied argument, and an argument precisely in part about the goods which constitute that tradition. Within a tradition the pursuit of goods extends through generations, sometimes through many generations.

... the history of a practice in our time is generally and characteristically embedded in and made intelligible in terms of the larger and longer history of the tradition through which the practice in its present form was conveyed to us; the history of each of our own lives is generally and characteristically embedded in and made intelligible in terms of the larger and longer histories of a number of traditions (AV, 222).


“an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)” that has a “continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions.” I.e., practices (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

TRADITION is something present in, but also ‘greater than,’ individuals that, arguably, both transcends and has a claim on them. tradition is normative.

Role of tradition

1. tradition determines our moral practices at the root of our morals; our morals and moral norms were originally determined by

‘tradition’ (e.g., religious or cultural tradition). For example:

Christianity - Jesus of Nazareth / Matthew (5:17-18). Jesus says:

(17) “Think not that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. (18) For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

Role of tradition

For example: Karl Marx “turned Hegel on his head”

taken Hegel’s dialectical idealism, and turned it into a dialectical materialism

in place of the Hegelian notion of Mind or Spirit, Marx substituted ‘the material world’--specifically, the economic relations of human beings.

Role of tradition

2. necessary for knowledge to be possible. to understand, we need to relate it with our past

experience --vocabularies, stories, patterns of thought or ways

of thinking, self-understanding, understanding of others

legal, philosophical, and religious practices, are either traditions or are embedded in traditions.

Role of tradition

3. Linguistic, cultural, religious, and other traditions, are valuable put the present in a context

4. gives the unity to (a) human life. an individual is not just “a part of different narratives and

engages in different practices,” but “is also a part of traditions.”

Provides a “definition of the good life for man”

5. tradition is inescapable.

Tradition and other issues

6. Is tradition dynamic?

7. A clear relation of tradition to culture Cultures and communities--be they political,

cultural, or religious--are defined by their normative character, that is, by their values

Tradition and other issues

Problems - the restriction of individuality and the exercise of

autonomy or freedom. - traditional morals and morality are backward

looking and conventional - tradition (e.g., religious or cultural tradition) is

conservative, unimaginative, monolithic, inward looking, overly reluctant to and intolerant of change, ethnocentric or parochial, unworkable, and sometimes simply wrong.

What is dialogue?

Greek διά (diá,through) + λόγος (logos,word,speech)

A reciprocal exchange or conversation between 2 or more persons

What is dialogue?

philosophy as dialogue - Plato & Socratic dialectic - Rigveda dialogue hymns and the Indian epic

Mahabharata, - Augustine and Boethius - middle ages and the practice of disputatio - Arabic philosophers - Malbranche - Berkeley - Hume - Buber - Mikhail Bakhtin

What is dialogue?

various models of dialogue there is communication 1. foundationalist/essentialist (Plato, Aquinas) 2. wide reflective equilibrium (Rawls, Daniels) 3. ecumenism; interreligious dialogue 4. ‘fusion of horizons’ (Gadamer, Habermas,

Taylor)

What is dialogue?

presuppositions of dialogue

interests, values, and ideas are shared mutual recognition dominant ideas (also make culture and tradition

possible)

What is dialogue?

the aim, purpose, and value of dialogue Truth – aysymptotic - expressing the infinite Action and cooperation with others Understanding oneself

What is dialogue?

the place and value of dialogue in general today

Documents

The Dialogue of Cultural Traditions: a global perspective