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Raúl Fornet-Betancourt

Philosophical Presuppositions of Intercultural Dialogue

 
Summary

This paper has three main purposes. Firstly, the paper shows from a Latin-American point of view that the Western civilization is ambiguous because at the same time it is generating a new barbarity in our world. Secondly, the paper presents the intercultural dialogue as a perspective to criticize the globalization of the Western civilization and as an alternative to come up to a reorganization of the relationship between cultures. Thirdly, the paper intends to point out some philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue: the condition of human being as a "singular universal", critical reflection, freedom, etc.


Content

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I.
   The Scandal of the Continuation of Barbarism
   Interculturality as a Corrective to Barbarism
   Culture of Origin as a "Point of Support" for Dialogue
   Culture as a "Situation" and Biographical Character:
The Dialectic of Determination and Freedom

   The Dialectic of Oppression and Liberation in Cultures
   The Complementarity of the Two Dialectics and Their Methods
II.
   Intercultural Dialogue as a Historical Alternative
   The Challenge of Globalization
   Meaning and Dimensions of Intercultural Dialogue
III.
   The (Universalizable?) Philosophical Presuppositions
of Intercultural Dialogue

   The Concept of the Human Being as a "Singular Universal"
   The Principle of Reflection
   Human Freedom
   Contextual and Critical Rationality


 I.


 The Scandal of the Continuation of Barbarism

 

1

  »Civilization and Barbarism«  1  is Domingo F. Sarmiento's polemical formulation of what he viewed as the decisive contradiction of the historical situation of (Latin)American countries in his time. Sarmiento considered "Civilization" – specifically in its then dominant Anglo-Saxon form – as the social and cultural alternative to whose effective realization the American nations should commit themselves in order to overcome the state of "Barbarism" in which they were submerged due to the stubborn persistence of indigenous peoples and the regressive legacy of Iberian colonialism.

»What remains for this America to follow the prosperous and free destiny of the other America? To put itself on the level of others; and it is already doing this with the other European races, correcting indigenous blood with modern ideas, finishing the middle ages.«

Domingo F. Sarmiento
(Note 3)

2

  Two citations illustrate this eminent Argentinean's position: »In our times of homogeneous and universal, American and European civilization, of steam liners, roads, and submarine courier cables, patriotism as a souvenir is simply a sickness called nostalgia  2  »What remains for this America to follow the prosperous and free destiny of the other America? To put itself on the level of others; and it is already doing this with the other European races, correcting indigenous blood with modern ideas, finishing the middle ages.«  3 

3

  Although I cannot here embark upon the consideration or criticism of Sarmiento's conception, I want to signal an aspect of his framing of the issue that seems to provide a background for situating the theme of my contribution: Sarmiento operates with a philosophy of history in which it is supposed that the epoch of "Civilization" is superior to the epoch of "Barbarism," which is to say that with the consolidation of "Civilization," "Barbarism" should be left behind like a past of prehistory. According to his diagnosis, "Barbarism" is always prior to "Civilization," because it is precisely what the latter overcomes. I will use Sarmiento's diagnosis as a background for asking the question that situates the topic of my reflections.

4

  Can we not speak of our own epoch in terms of a time whose basic contradiction is also "Civilization and Barbarism," yet, in contrast to Sarmiento, understand this formulation not as a disjunctive marking the bifurcation of human history, but rather as the expression manifesting the ambivalence of our epoch as an epoch that produces and reproduces "Civilization" and "Barbarism" simultaneously?

»Hurricane of globalization:
a destructive force that suffocates cultural differences and attacks the substance of life itself.«

5

  Seen in this manner, our epoch, for us, its producers, would not be an epoch that refers us to "Barbarism" as to a previous chapter or level superseded by its civilizing dynamic. Rather, it would confront us with a present of "Barbarism," with "Barbarism" as one of the dimensions or faces that make it visible and functional. From this perspective, our epoch would be generating "Barbarism." We would be living in an "epoch of Barbarism," an "epoch of Barbarism" which, I emphasize, is not previous to but rather contemporary with our epoch of "Civilization." In contrast to Sarmiento, then, we should not see the solution to humanity's problems in the alternative of "Civilization" but see the option for "Civilization" as one of our central problems.

6

  Thus, it is precisely the dynamic that began with the wager for "Civilization" which has produced what Franz Hinkelammert calls the »hurricane of globalization«  4  and which we perceive today as a destructive force that suffocates cultural differences and attacks the substance of life itself in its most diverse realms, from the personal psychological to the ecological.

7

  Consequently, my diagnosis would be as follows: We have today our own "Barbarism"  5 : a post-civilizing "Barbarism" that is evident in the destruction of cultures, social exclusion, ecological destruction, racism, the reductionism of our vision of creation, the cosmic disequilibrium that generates a model of life propagated by our media, hunger and malnutrition, and so forth.

8

  For this reason, it is necessary to oppose Sarmiento with the vision anticipated by José Martí when he told us of an America of ours that would not be saved from, but rather »with its Indians«  6  and that »neither the European book, nor the Yankee book provided the key to the Hispano-American enigma«.  7  Martí speaks to us here of the need to correct the course of a historical process that imitates "Civilization," one which has been opted for naively, and instead to appeal to precisely the living forces that "Civilization" wishes to marginalize and silence yet which constitute the alternative horizon against which this unilateral option for "Civilization" is revealed as suicide.



 Interculturality as a Corrective to Barbarism

José Martí
(1853-95)

9

  In pointed contrast to Sarmiento, Martí proposes the route of protest against the civilizing model that insists on making the planet uniform. What is decisive with regard to the present reflections is that Martí links his discourse of protest to the "reality" and "naturalness" of the indigenous peoples of America. This is decisive here because it constitutes the strategy that allows me to complement the characterization of our epoch as an epoch engendering "Barbarism" with a proposal for response: Following the path offered by Martí, I would say that the possibility of responding alternatively to the "civilized" organization of the planet is rooted today, fundamentally, in recourse to cultural diversity as a plurality of visions of the world. It must be clear that this concerns a resource that – to locate it precisely with respect to alternative responses to the "Barbarism" resulting from our "Civilization" – is animated by the regulative idea of achieving the intercultural articulation of those possible alternative responses in a universalizable strategy of a life of dignity for all of humanity.

10

  From this it follows that this strategy presupposes that recourse to cultures is inevitable if we hope to find and organize viable alternatives to expanding "Barbarism," yet does not thereby presuppose that cultures already are, in themselves, the solution. Without taking cultures seriously in their respective visions of the world, it will not be possible to articulate an effective alternative. Thus arises the necessity of appealing to the latter in the face of the challenge of a "Barbarism" of planetary reach. This does not, however, signify a romantic return to cultures. Cultures in themselves, I emphasize, are not the solution, since all culture is ambivalent in its historical process, and its development is permeated by contradictions and conflicts of interest – in a word, because all culture produces its own "Barbarism."

»For in the last analysis the protection of forms of life and traditions in which identities are formed is supposed to serve the recognition of their members; it does not represent a kind of preservation of species by administrative means. The ecological perspective on species conservation cannot be transferred to cultures.«

Jürgen Habermas
(Note 9)

11

  It concerns, then, an intercultural, critical recourse to cultural diversity that sees in cultures – that is, in the real recognition of each culture as a vision of the world that has something to say to everyone – the most appropriate path for seeking a common strategy of life for all. Cultures are not the solution but the path toward viable and universalizable solutions. For this reason I introduce recourse to cultural diversity as a proposed response to the planetary challenge of the "Barbarism" of our "Civilization."

12

  In establishing in this manner the recourse to the plurality of visions of the world with which all the cultures of humanity appeal to us, it is understood, on the other hand, that the recognition and respect of cultures that this proposal necessarily presupposes is a foundation and condition for it, yet not its ultimate finality. I explain.

13

  Recourse to cultural diversity stakes itself on cultures because it sees in them »reserves of humanity« – to adapt an expression coined by Alfonso Reyes to name the utopian substance of America  8  – to which we can refer in order to remedy the poverty of the present. If cultures are our "reserves," they merit respect and recognition unconditionally. And in my proposal the requirement of real respect and recognition of cultures is an ethically imperative one. Observing and honoring this requirement, however, are not ends in themselves, since the ultimate meaning of this ethical requirement is not rooted in assuring the preservation or conservation of cultures as static entities transmitting absolute ontological values; rather, it is the guarantee of the personal, free realization of those subjects acting in them. In this sense, one can subscribe to the observation of Jürgen Habermas when he writes, »For in the last analysis the protection of forms of life and traditions in which identities are formed is supposed to serve the recognition of their members; it does not represent a kind of preservation of species by administrative means. The ecological perspective on species conservation cannot be transferred to cultures.«  9 

14

  Respect and recognition of cultures must be seen, therefore, as an ethical requirement that aims, in the final instance, to establish in reality the practical conditions such that the subjects of any cultural universe are able, without discriminatory consequences, to appropriate the "reserves" of their tradition of origin as a point of support (historical-anthropological, not ontological) for their own personal identity. Identity is thus understood as a permanent process of liberation that requires a task of constant discernment in the interior of the cultural universe with which each person identifies.



 Culture of Origin as a "Point of Support" for Dialogue

»The culture of origin, as the original historical situation, is nothing other than a point of support for the person. It is an inheritance that situates the person in a specific vision of herself, in relation to others and to the world but does not dispense with the task of having to make one's own way.«

15

  To illustrate more clearly the substance and intention of this idea, I should make explicit that I begin with a conception of culture according to which culture never provides the measure of all that a human being can or wants to be. Consequently, I speak of a person's culture of origin as a point of support (punto de apoyo) for conceptions of identity that, whether individual or collective, must always be free, i.e., the result of a process of discernment, critical appropriation, and choice.

16

  The culture of origin is not the individual's ineluctable destiny but rather her original historical situation. This situation undoubtedly defines the individual as a person belonging to a world with its own social, political, religious, axiological, and other codes, which constitute that person's "inheritance" from and with which the person begins to be. The culture of origin, as the original historical situation, is – as I have already said – nothing other than a point of support for the person. It is an inheritance that situates the person in a specific vision of herself, in relation to others and to the world but does not dispense with the task of having to make one's own way.

17

  Assuming, as I have, freedom as the mystery of the vocation of the person, the human being does not live in a cultural situation as in a comfortable installation in a transparent universe of certainties, but rather as in a discomforting hermeneutic task for which it is necessary to take into account the conflictive internal process according to which that culture of origin transmits, for example, one particular system of moral norms rather than any other as "obvious" or "proper." Consequently, it is necessary to assume responsibility for deciding whether the appropriation of one's "own" must take the form of affirmation or of overcoming. For this reason I have spoken elsewhere of the right to "cultural disobedience" within the particular cultural universes that originally identify persons.  10 



 Culture as a "Situation" and Biographical Character:
 The Dialectic of Determination and Freedom


»The human being is in her culture as in her original historical situation, which is to say that the human being is at the same time a cultural patient and agent

18

  What is important to emphasize in this context is that in cultures, however coherently they may present themselves, there is always practical space for the development of that which we usually call personal biography, i.e., the history of a unique and unrepresentable life seeking to realize itself.

19

  Thus, in the history of cultures we do not encounter only the conflict of traditions struggling to stabilize in a particular direction the culture with which its members identify; we also find the biographical history – or infinite histories – of their members, biographical histories whose concrete shape presupposes a specific cultural matrix, yet not one understood as a sealed envelope, nor as a sanctioned code not subject to the influence of the present praxis of the biographies underway. The human being is, certainly, a cultural being; she is in her culture as in her original historical situation, which is to say that the human being is at the same time a cultural patient and agent.  11  Culture is, thus, the situation of the human condition, not the human condition itself. In other words, for the human being there is no exercise of liberty – neither logically, nor in reason – without cultural conditioning, yet neither is there human culture without the praxis of freedom and the reflective use of reason.

20

  All culture, therefore, brings with it an unavoidable dialectical tension for the human person, since, as in the Sartrian »situation«, it is revealed as a place where one must decide the conflict between determination and freedom in the sense of an open process of overdetermination and redefinition of the cultural conditions.  12 



 The Dialectic of Oppression and Liberation in Cultures

»In cultures we also find social, political, economic, religious, and other contradictions. These contradictions reveal the internal struggles that fragment and differentiate specific cultural universes and make them socially and economically differentiated historical sites.«

21

  The human person, however, does not live the culture of origin solely against the background of the dialectic of determination and freedom integral to the process of growth in one's personal biographical identity. In cultures – or, more precisely, in processes of their constitution and stabilization – we also find, as I have just suggested by the reference to the conflict of traditions in the heart of cultures, social, political, economic, religious, and other contradictions. These contradictions reveal the internal struggles that fragment and differentiate specific cultural universes and make them socially and economically differentiated historical sites, that is, sites where there is room not only for individual difference – emphasized above – but also for differences of "class" and interest groups. These latter differences are what ultimately determine the course of what I have called the conflict of traditions and interpretations in the heart of a cultural matrix.  13 

22

  What I want to emphasize here, however, is that every concrete cultural universe, in addition to the already mentioned dialectic of determination and freedom, brings with it the tension of the dialectic of oppression and liberation, confronting its members with this fortune with the task of having to discern at this level as well what they call "their" culture and their manner of identifying with it.

23

  The first dialectic emerges and develops with the eruption of freedom as an axis of personal biography – or, if one prefers, with the reflective exercise of personal autonomy – and can be philosophically analyzed with the apparatus of Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy of freedom in situation as well as with the help of the hermeneutic-reflexive mediation demanded by Karl-Otto Apel's transcendental pragmatics in the face of the a priori of historical facticity. The second dialectic, of oppression and liberation, which responds to the praxis of different social subjects and is intensified by the articulation of the protest of the oppressed in a culture, seems to me better described and analyzed using the categories of Enrique Dussel's ethic of liberation.

24

  With its "Principle-Liberation," concretized in an ethico-critical praxis finalized by the imperative to liberate the victim, Dussel's ethics seems to offer the most appropriate perspective for interpreting the internal conflicts that fragment cultures at this level. Moreover, his ethic also offers the orientation necessary to opt ethico-critically within one's "own" culture, committing oneself to its renewal and reorganization from the perspective of the memory of the liberation of the victims.  14 



 The Complementarity of the Two Dialectics and Their Methods

»It involves seeing that the "Principle-Liberation" – at the level of theoretical foundation as well as practical facticity – requires a reflexive appropriation on the part of its potential subjects.«

25

  Although I cannot here enter into the relevant methodological issues, I would nevertheless like to note – in order to add clarity to their exposition – that the two dialectics I have distinguished do not describe two isolated realities but rather two dimensions of the same interactive cultural process. For this reason, I believe that the theoretico-methodological instruments mentioned should be employed in a complementary manner and in neither case to the exclusion of the other.

26

  Thus, for example, if I use the analytic apparatus of Dussel's ethic of liberation in order to illuminate the process of discernment in the conflict between traditions of oppression and liberation within a concrete cultural universe and I appeal in particular to the "Principle-Liberation" with the imperative to liberate the victim, I must be conscious that the praxis of this principle, precisely because it presupposes the overcoming of the conventions of a stabilized cultural system, is not, in the final analysis, a matter that can be explained by simple cultural transmission. Rather, it demands personal reflection and refers us to the characteristic tension indicated in the first dialectical moment – that is, to the thematic of liberation that, expressed in the Sartrian framework, exercises moral autonomy, converts one, through reflection,  15  to the victims of history or to the question of the reflexive foundation of intersubjective communication, if we prefer Apel's terminology.

27

  In any case, it involves seeing that the "Principle-Liberation" – at the level of theoretical foundation as well as practical facticity – requires a reflexive appropriation on the part of its potential subjects and that it is precisely this mediation of reflection that converts it into a convincing paradigmatic criterion for discerning the conflict of traditions and opting within them. Thus, it is not the appelative dimension of any tradition, nor the defensive force that can support it, but rather the movement of reflection which can make the "Principle-Liberation" a rational, communicable principle that can be shared – that is, a principle that convinces and that, by convincing, motivates action and with it the liberating return of history and cultures.

»I am myself and my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I do not save myself.«

José Ortega y Gasset
(Note 17)

28

  In order to be applied to the discernment of contradictions in the center of a specific cultural universe, then, it is necessary to explicitly link the "Principle-Liberation" to the dynamic of the dialectic of reflexive liberation. Yet, I would like to note in passing, this link may yield a somewhat surprising result: One who studies and analyzes the conflict of traditions within a culture from the perspective of this principle may be confronted with the experience that the "Principle-Liberation," above all in its character as an ethical imperative to liberate the victim, presupposes a subjective or intersubjective choice – a choice that is revealed, paradoxically, as primary, as what is actually foundational in the new ethical perspective, and which may be denoted as the choice of solidarity as a mode of being  16  reflexively adopted as a praxis of relating oneself to oneself as well as to others.

29

  Paraphrasing Ortega y Gasset, one could say that in the context of the conflict of traditions the liberating ethical option presupposes the conviction of the subject who recognizes that "he is himself and the other, and that if he does not save the other, he does not save himself."  17  Without this intersubjective act establishing solidarity as reflexively »mediated reciprocity«  18 , it is impossible to explain, from my point of view, the "Principle-Liberation," because it is that solidarity reflexively chosen as a mode of being and of life that enables subjects to historicize and make real their freedom in a common praxis of liberation. To want or be able to feel the liberation of the victim as an imperative obligation, it is necessary to establish oneself priorly as a solidary existence. Let us return, however, to the present topic.

»The postulate of recourse to the diversity of cultures neither implies the sacralization of cultural differences nor seeks to defend them as isolated and self-sufficient worlds.«

30

  If I have insisted on the moment of this double dialectical tension that appears to me latent in all established culture (signaling as well possible methodological tools for its analysis), it is because I want to emphasize the idea that in every concrete cultural universe or, if one prefers, in what are called cultural differences, there are personal differences, differences of ethico-political options that reflect tensions, contradictions, and alternatives that impede reducing them to the stabilized forms in which we customarily perceive them. Cultures are not expressions of homogeneous traditions and for this reason should not be confused with what I am calling their stabilized forms, i.e., the form that has been imposed in the conflict of traditions within a culture and which subsumes and levels other equally realizable possibilities in a given culture.

31

  It should be clear, however, that my interest in emphasizing this idea is nothing other than that of reinforcing the thesis that the postulate of recourse to the diversity of cultures as a path toward elaborating alternatives of universalizable humanization in the face of the challenge of neo-liberal globalization – which reduces the reality of the world to what has been programmed by its politics and thereby consolidates the mechanisms of mass exclusion – neither implies the sacralization of cultural differences nor seeks to defend them as isolated and self-sufficient worlds. It does postulate their value as "reserves of humanity", but this is done seeking their interaction as points of support for the articulation of concerted processes of humanization. The postulate affirming cultural plurality is thus inscribed, strictly seen, in an alternative project of communication and exchange between cultures understood as complex and ambivalent horizons rife with contradictions and internal conflicts. It is this alternative project that I label "intercultural dialogue".


 II.


 Intercultural Dialogue as a Historical Alternative

»And nevertheless ... Reality is obstinate. A group of young Mixe, in the remote Oaxacan village of Ayutla (Mexico), uses computers in order to invent the script of its language and to document oral traditions.«

Guillermo Bonfil Batalla
(Note 19, 230)

32

  In the context of the observations above, I believe the ensemble of conditions in which intercultural dialogue can yield an alternative response to the "Barbarism" produced by our dominant model of civilization are clear. For this reason and as a transition to the more strictly philosophical considerations yet to come, I would like to turn now to intercultural dialogue itself and clarify its program as a model opposed to neo-liberal globalization, explicating its meaning, character, finality, and option for hope.

33

  First, I should emphasize that despite the actual coexistence of cultures and the undeniable contacts between them, intercultural dialogue, in the strong sense in which I will be explicating it, is more a "project" than an existing reality. We must recognize that precisely in the present phase of neo-liberal globalization, the power to design and realize the shape of the planet is exercised from the point of view of a homogenizing strategy of a civilizing model. This model is so convinced of its own supremacy that it relegates dialogue to insignificant levels or forms – such as tourism – controlled by its own interests, because its interest is none other than imposing its designs of uniformity.

34

  It is not an exaggeration, therefore, to observe that it is not the logic of dialogue between cultures but that other logic of a reductive civilization that levels differences which governs the contemporary organization of the planet, at least at the surface level. And even if one wants to agree with Guillermo Bonfil Batalla when he points out from a critical perspective that it is not enough to make the surface of the planet uniform in order to neutralize the alternative force of cultures,  19  I believe that the previous observation is valid at least as a characterization of the contextuality that is having an impact on all cultures today.



 The Challenge of Globalization

 

35

  In the face of globalization as an absorbing contextuality that dictates the path and schedule to follow, intercultural dialogue represents the project or program of articulating an alternative response that opposes the integration or assimilation of alterity in a supposed "world culture" (which is monoculturally predetermined) in order to propose the transformation and reorganization of the universality of the world on the basis of solidary relations of cooperation and communication between the different cultural universes of humanity.



 Meaning and Dimensions of Intercultural Dialogue

»It concerns a process of information in which we inform ourselves (communicate) and allow ourselves to be in-formed (in the sense of given form) by what we know.«

36

  As a project for restructuring the reigning universality in the world, intercultural dialogue has its strict meaning in the intention of opening cultures, rupturing their possible categorical, symbolic, moral, and other closures, and thereby fomenting the exercise of critical reflexivity in the members of any particular culture. Intercultural dialogue is understood, therefore, as a method for learning to relativize the traditions consolidated as "one's own" in any culture and, perhaps above all, for intensifying the tensions or conflicts between those subjects or forces within a culture interested in preserving and/or defending and those interested in transforming.  20  Through this complex process of opening, relativization, and becoming conscious of the possibility of change, intercultural dialogue prepares cultures to know more about each other, and through this knowledge of others each one comes to know itself better.

37

  This strict meaning of intercultural dialogue as a method for a better knowledge of the other as well as of oneself is misunderstood, however, if "knowledge" is understood in the sense of a simple "taking note" or "making known." Rather, it concerns a process of information in which we inform ourselves (communicate) and allow ourselves to be in-formed (in the sense of given form) by what we know. It is also possible to speak, with Panikkar, in the context of a Buddhist tradition, of a "knowledge" that is completed as a reciprocal process between subjects who are born together into a new existence.  21 

»The project of intercultural dialogue opposes the strategy of neo-liberal globalization with the alternative of a worldwide universality from below.«

38

  Intercultural dialogue, therefore, implies a special ethical quality that characterizes it as a form of life or fundamental theoretico-practical attitude whose exercise goes beyond tolerance and respect to ground the reception of the other as a subject who, in order to participate, does not first have to pay customs and apply for a work permit. At this level, intercultural dialogue has the character of an ethical project guided by the value of the reception of the other as a reality with whom one desires to share sovereignty and with whom, consequently, one can share a future that is not determined solely by one's own manner of comprehending and desiring life. In Sartrian terms, I would say that intercultural dialogue is a project that aspires to the restructuring of relations between persons and their cultures, opting for the universalization of principles of co-autonomy and co-sovereignty as modes of life that concretize and realize the "plan" of freedom in and for everyone.  22 

39

  The co-autonomy of persons and the co-sovereignty of cultures constitute, on the other hand, the perspective that informs the end of intercultural dialogue as a project that opposes the strategy of neo-liberal globalization with the alternative of a worldwide universality from below. This universality is one with and for the participation of the multiple and complex real worlds manifest in cultural universes by those who today make up humanity. It would signal the possibility of the realization of a history of humanization not bound to a future dictated as the only possible one but one open to the simultaneous and solidary generation of diverse futures. To make universality worldwide from below is, thus, to make universality not something that "happens to" someone – as Zymunt Baumann says of globalization in speaking of it as something that »happens to all of us«  23  – but to transform it into a historical event in which we all recognize ourselves and which we encounter as a "good event."

»Intercultural dialogue is proposed as an alternative for articulating the concrete hopes of all those who today dare to imagine and to try out other possible worlds.«

40

  For this reason it is worth noting parenthetically that interculturality as a perspective for a worldwide universality does not oppose – as Rouanet and Welsch  24  assume – the option of transculturation of subjects; rather, it makes the latter possible, since it is the condition for communication between cultures.

41

  Based on what I have said about the meaning, character, and end of intercultural dialogue, I believe it is clear why intercultural dialogue today represents an option for hope. But I would also like to add that it is proposed as an alternative for articulating the concrete hopes of all those who today dare to imagine  25  and to try out other possible worlds.


 III.


 The (Universalizable?) Philosophical Presuppositions
 of Intercultural Dialogue


»Are not the analysis and explanation of the philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue already a common task that requires the intercultural medium

42

  I turn now directly to the issue of the philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue; I say "directly," because the exposition in the previous sections, while it served to situate the topic, represents the prelude that introduces these presuppositions. Despite this introduction, however, the direct treatment of the topic brings with it a difficulty or, more accurately, a paradox which, at least at present, appears to me insurmountable: How can we be certain, without recourse to intercultural dialogue, that we are not approaching the issue unilaterally or from a monocultural conception of philosophy? Expressed otherwise: Are not the analysis and explanation of the philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue already a common task that requires the intercultural medium?

43

  On the other hand, it is possible to consider inverting the terms of the problem and beginning with the analysis of the intercultural presuppositions that should be assumed by a philosophy that seeks to function at the level of the contemporary demands of dialogue between cultures. By this route, which would also confront us with having to identify precisely the idea of philosophy with which we operate, one could perhaps better explain how, in the context of intercultural dialogue, philosophy (or philosophies) are confronted with the requirement of transformation – which is characterized by the self-critical task of rethinking the presuppositions of one's own discourse – as the condition for participating in the identification of the philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue. The intercultural medium would thus be revealed as a place of transformation of what we call philosophy and of what are identified, by any particular philosophical perspective, as the philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue.

44

  While understanding that this alternative would lead us above all to the examination of the impact of interculturalism on the philosophical task and of the resulting intercultural transformation of philosophy as a process of apprenticeship and resituating,  26  I prefer not to follow this path and to focus instead on the tension of the aforementioned paradox. This is to say that I prefer to approach the topic from a philosophical position that is reflectively conscious of the cultural origins of its presuppositions and knows that these condition its discourse about the philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue.

45

  It seems that it could be more fruitful for the discussion of philosophy's contribution to and function in intercultural dialogue to begin with an articulated philosophy and frame from there what could be philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue – while recognizing the plurality of philosophical traditions that we have – rather than to appeal to a single possible program. It is clear that "beginning with an articulated philosophy" has nothing to do with the pretension of privileging, much less dogmatizing that theoretical system, since it is done as part of a process of discussion and with the explicit end of fomenting this discussion. Thus, the philosophy from which one starts out is the exposition of a position that is exposed to the discussion and therefore does not exclude the possibility of its theoretical transformation through the argument.

Jean-Paul Sartre
(1905-80)

46

  It is worthwhile to take into account, furthermore, that the challenge of intercultural transformation which intercultural dialogue represents for developed philosophies is misunderstood if it is thought to presuppose the overcoming of philosophical plurality by a meta-cultural thought that realizes a convergence and dissolves all the polarities and theoretico-practical tensions of cultures. Rather, this challenge signals the cultivation of a new manner of comprehending the plurality of philosophies, of understanding oneself from within this plurality, and of dealing with this plurality.

47

  In short, it does not involve creating a new philosophy but cultivating a new form of relation or interaction between philosophies that are conscious that, through their references to different cultural matrices, they speak – which is to say contribute – to the process of intellection or orientation of the real, or, if one prefers, name the logos with an accent – an accent that identifies but does not separate, because it is the articulation of the situation which, to speak with Sartre  27 , moves toward completing the dialectic of the singularity of the universal and the universalization of the singular.

 

48

  In the sense indicated, then, I will take as a point of departure for naming certain philosophical presuppositions of intercultural dialogue a philosophical tradition deeply rooted in the West that had one of its most developed moments in Sartre and that would qualify as the tradition that universalizes ethico-rational humanism.  28 



 The Concept of the Human Being as a "Singular Universal"

»Every particular cultural universe is originally punctured by the "scandal" of a human subjectivity that cannot realize its cultural situation without singularizing it.«

49

  From this tradition's perspective, a first philosophical presupposition of intercultural dialogue would be seen in the conception of the human being as a "singular universal" which safeguards the historical survival of subjectivity in all cultures and in the entire process of human history to the point of being an unsurpassable moment of the constitution and totalization of meaning.

50

  In this manner, every particular cultural universe is originally punctured by the "scandal" of a human subjectivity  29  that cannot realize its cultural situation without singularizing it, without remaking the meaning which is transmitted to it, or, according to the case, without imparting new meaning to it. Through making and appropriating culture for herself, the human being transculturalizes herself, i.e., frames or reframes the question of meaning in her cultural universe of origin and thereby grounds, within a concrete situation, the possibility of universality as a movement of argumentative intellection, since this questioning of meaning is synonymous with the universalization of the singular, or the intent of communication and union in diversity.  30  In a parallel vein, I note only in passing that one can speak here with Jaspers of universality as communication.  31 



 The Principle of Reflection

»Through reflection the human being can see the culture that makes her, can see the vision of the world with which she sees and is seen.«

51

  From this first principle can be derived a second philosophical presupposition of intercultural philosophy that will make the first one more concrete: the principle of subjective reflection, understood as the name of an anthropological constant of that type of reflection which qualifies every human being in any particular cultural universe as a source of exteriority and indetermination. Certainly, there is no subjective reflection without a cultural situation, but subjective reflection is not a simple reflection of the culture but rather the condition that lives the culture and that, from this lived experience, continuously projects it beyond what is constituted in it.  32 

52

  Through reflection the human being can see the culture that makes her, can see the vision of the world with which she sees and is seen. Consequently, there always remains in this singular universal that is the human being a "non-culturalized remainder" that transcends particular cultural universes, being precisely that reflective-critical background that not only makes dialogue with the other possible but provides it with its orientation. Thus, through the exercise of subjective reflection, every human being is transformed into a point of appropriation and totalization that overflows the limits of its cultural universe, whether of the reigning moral, political, or legal system, to confront these with its options and projects, and – depending on the situation – to depart from these.

53

  This subjective reflection is at the source of all communication, at the intracultural as well as intercultural level. It is a foundation of a self, but of a self that cannot speak of itself if it is not in third person  33  and that is lived as a tension of exteriority to what it is. And it is possible that it is this radical exteriority of subjective reflection that constitutes the condition of possibility of the exteriority of the other, of that of which Levinas and Dussel speak. Yet what is important in this context is to emphasize the idea that subjective reflection converts limits into borders, i.e., zones of communication, thereby obligating every human being to revise her conception of original cultural identity. By existing in exteriority in relation to oneself, subjective reflexivity is not bound to a fixed identity.



 Human Freedom





»Freedom impedes the civilizing colonization of subjective reflection. It is the condition, in any particular cultural universe, for any particular singular universal to be able to say that it has a right to rebel.«

54

  A third philosophical presupposition is seen in the cultivation of freedom as the true nucleus of subjective reflection. In fact, the previous presuppositions imply freedom as another anthropological constant before which every culture or socially organized and politically effective form of life must be permanently justified. If subjective reflection is what impedes a particular cultural universe from becoming a structure of coherence that imprisons its members, it is freedom – as a process of singularization and universalization at once – which questions the dynamics of stabilization in cultures, asserting subjectively differentiated projects whose realization can demand not only a new constellation or ordering of the cultural world in question but also departure from that universe.

55

  Freedom does not make peace with "what there is" culturally; it imagines and designs plans for organizing the real that do not reduce the human being, for example, to a mere "citizen" and convert the exercise of subjectivity into an exercise of "civility." Freedom, in short, impedes the civilizing colonization of subjective reflection. Or, expressed positively, it is the condition, in any particular cultural universe, for any particular singular universal to be able to say that it has a right to rebel  34  and seek, beyond the limits of its cultural situation, the common action of all those who project their singularization of the universalization of the "reign of liberty" in and beyond themselves.  35  Solidarity is a foundation of liberty, not a cultural institution.

56

  The call to this reflexive and solidary freedom, which impedes the installation of "civilized subjectivity"  36  because it seeks itself in each subject as the power of autonomy, perhaps represents the presupposition that clearly names – at least from the perspective of the tradition that serves here as the point of departure – that which should be what most commonly belongs to human beings: being co-subjects of freedom without alienation.  37 



 Contextual and Critical Rationality

»The exercise of reason presupposes human freedom. Reason is a necessity for freedom. Given the contingency of freedom, it is necessary that reason appear in the world.«

57

  One more philosophical presupposition of intercultural dialogue that I would like to indicate in conclusion is the presupposition of rationality. With Sartre, I would say that rationality represents another anthropological constant, understanding this, however, as constitutive of and organically linked to the anthropological constant of human freedom. The exercise of reason presupposes human freedom. Reason is a necessity for freedom. Given the contingency of freedom, it is necessary that reason appear in the world. In other words, if the human being is free, she is obligated to be rational, i.e., to give reason, to herself as well as to others, for the reasons she has for her manner of understanding, of living, of acting, of desiring, etc.

58

  Thus, "rationality" here does not refer to a reason that is culturally stabilized or constituted but rather the qualification of freedom as subjective reflection that can only know whether it is right (tiene razón) if it gives reason (da razón), before itself and the other, for the singularization of its freedom. In this manner, and limiting myself to what concerns the present topic, it can be presupposed that in every particular cultural universe there have to be internal dynamics of intellection, comprehension, and justification that make this universe "communicable" and thereby make it capable of dialogue with other similar processes. This also entails, as a profound implication of the vital relation between freedom and rationality, that in every cultural situation one can presuppose the responsibility of the human being in relation to her culture.  38 


Raúl Fornet-Betancourt is lecturer at the University of Bremen und director of the section of Latin America at the Institute of Missionology Missio in Aachen (Germany).

59

  As I have indicated, these presuppositions are aware of their cultural origin. The question whether they are acceptable to other traditions, whether they are universalizable, is a question that cannot be decided solely from the philosophical position that proposes them. It is a matter of intercultural dialogue.

60

  All in all, and without wanting to anticipate any result, it seems to me they can transmit at least one rationally communicable intuition: If universality is constituted through the dialectic of subjectivities that singularize what is universal and universalize what is singular, then no human being, no system, and no culture can install itself too quickly in universality.


Notes


 1   

Cf. Domingo F. Sarmiento (1976): "Facundo. Civilización y Barbarie". In: Biblioteca Ayacucho, vol. 12. Caracas. 

 2   

Domingo F. Sarmiento (1970): "La nostalgia de América". In: Carlos Ripoll (ed.): Conciencia intelectual de América. Antología del Ensayo Hispanoamericano (1836-1959). New York, 90. 

 3   

Domingo F. Sarmiento: "Conflicto y armonías de las razas en América". In: Carlos Ripoll (ed.): Conciencia intelectual de América. Antología del Ensayo Hispanoamericano (1836-1959). New York, 94. 

 4   

Cf. Franz J. Hinkelammert (1997): "El huracán de la globalización: la exclusión y la destrucción del medio ambiente vistos desde la teoria de la dependencia". In: Pasos 69, 21-27. 

 5   

Cf. Michel Henry (1987): La barbarie. Paris; Rolf Kühn (1996): Leben als Bedürfen. Eine lebensphänomelogische Analyse zu Kultur und Wirtschaft. Heidelberg. Also relevant here is the critique in Max Horkheimer / Theodor W. Adorno (1969): Dialektik der Aufklärung. Frankfurt/M. 

 6   

José Marti (1975): "Nuestra América". In: Obras Completas, vol. VI. La Habana, 16. 

 7   

Ibid., 20. 

 8   

Alfonso Reyes (1968): "Última Tule". In: Obras Completas, vol. XI. México, 60. 

 9   

Jürgen Habermas (1994): "Struggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State", trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen. In: Amy Gutmann (ed.): Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, 130. 

 10   

Cf. Raúl Fornet-Betancourt (1997): "Aprender a filosofar desde el contexto de las culturas". In: Revista de Filosofía 90, 365-382. 

 11   

Although I have preferred to illustrate this tension between culture and the human being from the perspective of the Sartrian dialectic of determination and freedom, this analysis corresponds at a fundamental level to the conception expounded by Michael Landmann in his work (1961): Der Mensch als Schöpfer und Geschöpf der Kultur: Geschichts- und Sozialanthropologie (München – Basel). See also his book (1963): Pluralität und Antinomie: Kulturelle Grundlagen seelischer Konflikte (München – Basel). My characterization of cultures of origin as a point of support for the person is indirectly inspired by the conception of culture as an "Aufbaufaktor" which Landmann develops in the latter of these two works. 

 12   

Sartre summarizes the paradox of freedom in these terms: »Il n'y a de liberté qu' en situation et il n'y a de situation que par la liberté.« (Jean-Paul Sartre (1973): L'être et le néant. Paris, 569) 

 13   

Cf. Raúl Fornet-Betancourt (1997): Lateinamerikanische Philosophie zwischen Inkulturation und Interkulturalität. Frankfurt/M. 

 14   

Cf. Enrique Dussel (1997): Arquitectónica de una ética de la liberación en la Edad de la Globalización y la Exclusión. México; especially chapter 6 (manuscript). 

 15   

Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre (1973: L' être et le néant. Paris, 484 ff., 722; (1983): Cahiers pour une Morale. Paris, 12 ff.; and Raúl Fornet-Betancourt (1996): "Sartres ethischer Entwurf: Eine noch mögliche Perspektive zur humanen Transformation unserer Gegenwart?". In: Raúl Fornet-Betancourt (ed.): Armut, Ethik und Befreiung. Aachen, 137-152. 

 16   

Cf. Jon Sobrino (1997): "Solidaridad: llevarse mutuamente". In: Misiones Extranjeras 157-158, 71-79.  

 17   

Ortega states: »I am myself and my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I do not save myself.« (José Ortega y Gasset (1983): "Meditaciones del Quijote". In: Obras Completas, vol. 1. Madrid, 322.  

 18   

Jean-Paul Sartre (1960): Critique de la raison dialectique. Paris, 439. I note that Sartre's discussion of the "serment" is highly suggestive. 

 19   

Guillermo Bonfil Batalla (comp.) (1991): Hacia nuevos modelos de relaciones interculturales. México, especially 222-234. See also his works: (1987): México profundo: una civilización negada. México; (1991): Pensar nuestra cultura. México. 

 20   

On the conflict between "preservation" and "creation" in cultural processes, see Ricardo Maliandi (1984): Cultura y conflicto. Investigaciones éticas y antropológicas. Buenos Aires, especially 131 ff. 

 21   

Cf. Raimon Panikkar (1993): "La mística del diálogo". In: Jahrbuch für Kontextuelle Theologien 1, 30. 

 22   

Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre: Critique de la raison dialectique, 588 ff. 

 23   

Cf. Zygmunt Baumann (1996): "Globalisierung oder Was für die einen Globalisierung, ist für die anderen Lokalisierung". In: Das Argument. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften 2117, 654. 

 24   

Cf. Sergio Paulo Rouanet (1996): "Transculturalismo ou retorno à etnicidade". In: Anuário de Educação 1995/96, 127-136; and Wolfgang Welsch (1992): "Transkulturalität. Lebensformen nach der Auflösung der Kulturen". In: Information Philosophie 2, 5-20. 

 25   

I use "imagine" here in the sense of an anthropological function of freedom of the conscious being. Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre (1966): L' imaginaire. Paris. 

 26   

Cf. Raúl Fornet-Betancourt: "Aprender a filosofar desde el contexto del diálogo de las culturas". 

 27   

Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre (1972): "L'universel singulier". In: Situations IX. Paris, 190. See also Jean-Paul Sartre (1971): L'idiot de la famille, vol. 1. Paris. 

 28   

Cf. Raúl Fornet-Betancourt: "Sartes ethischer Entwurf: eine noch mögliche Perspektive zur humanen Transformtation unserer Gegenwart?", 139 ff. 

 29   

Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre: "L'universel singulier", 153, 166. 

 30   

Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre (1964): "Des rats et des hommes". In: Situations IV. Paris, 79 ff. 

 31   

Cf. Karl Jaspers (1982): Weltgeschichte der Philosophie. Einleitung. München – Zürich, 72 ff. 

 32   

Here I am inspired by the Sartrian conception of the "vécu". 

 33   

Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre: "Des rats et des hommes", 80. I assume the Sartrian dialectic of the "third" in the constitution of subjectivity. 

 34   

Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre (1974): On a raison de se révolter. Paris. 

 35   

Sartre identified the rule: »[...] agis toujours de telle sorte que les circonstances et le moment servent de prétexte à tes actes pour réaliser en toi et hors de toi la généralité de l'espèce humaine.« (Jean-Paul Sartre: "Des rats et des hommes", 62) 

 36   

On the issue of "subjectivity" and "civilization," i.e., the question of reducing the subject to a citizen, dialogue between critical theory (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse) and Sartre would be important. Cf. Max Horkheimer / Theodor W. Adorno: Dialektik der Aufklärung; and Hermann Schweppenhäuser (1997): "Zur Dialektik der Subjektivität bei Adorno". In: Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie 4, 5-27. 

 37   

Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre: On a raison de se révolter, 342. 

 38   

Cf. Emmanuel Levinas (1986): "Determination philosophique de l'idée de culture". In: Philosophie et Culture. Actes du XVIIe Congrès Mondial de Philosophie. Montréal, 73-82; and Jan Hoogland (1996): "Die Ansprüche einer interkulturellen Philosophie". In: Heinz Kimmerle (ed.): Das Multiversum der Kulturen. Amsterdam – Atlanta, 73. 



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