Raising the Question of Intercultural Philosophy

Some models of intercultural philosophy

    One approach to the question of intercultural philosophy is rooted in the phenomenological tradition in Europe, in the writings of Paul Masson- Oursel (1882–1956), who taught at Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, and who was a long-time editor of the Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger. Influenced in part by the Indian polymath Brajendranath Seal (1864–1938), who was the author of a number of comparative studies,8 Masson-Oursel proposed the development of a comparative philosophy – “the general examination of the ways in which human beings of all races and cultures reflect upon their actions and act upon their reflections.” While Masson-Oursel argued that philosophers should look at a wide range of phenomena, he did not himself provide any specific set of answers to philosophical questions. His emphasis was on method: “Le véritable problème de la philosophie comparée consiste, non pas dans la détermination de son concept, mais dans la poursuite d’une méthode rigoureuse.”
What is this rigorous method? Masson-Oursel saw his work as scientific, in the positivist tradition of Auguste Comte. He argued that one need take “the facts of philosophy from history,” and then seek an objectivity that nevertheless acknowledged context; “We are obliged to take Europe as our point of departure because we can only comprehend our neighbour relatively to ourselves, even though we learn not to judge him by ourselves.” While Masson-Oursel states, perhaps paradoxically, that “there is no truth that is not relative,” he argued that it is by following a comparative approach – specifically, what he called an analogical approach – that one can have a more “securely founded” scientific view. Thus, comparative philosophy is said to offer a “pure and universal positive science of analogy.”
Yet relatively few philosophers took up Masson-Oursel’s proposal. There was, and remains, an interest in comparative philosophy in Asia, but in ‘the West’ (i.e., in those countries to the ‘west’ of the Middle East) interest was quite limited. A few figures, such as Martin Heidegger, drew on the work of Asian thinkers in their writings, but even there the focus was not obviously comparative; generally, the project of comparative philosophy met with little support.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a renewed and stronger interest among Western thinkers, particularly in central Europe, in the matter. Increased consciousness of the cultural rootedness and biases of philosophical traditions led thinkers such as Ram Adhar Mall, a Professor at the University of Munich, to develop what he called ‘intercultural philosophy.’ Mall writes that “intercultural philosophy stands for a process of emancipation from all types of centrisms, whether European or non-European,” and that it seeks to exhibit “a philosophical attitude, a philosophical conviction that no one philosophy is the philosophy for the whole of humankind.” He continues: “It is the task of intercultural philosophy to mediate between…two ends, i.e., the specific philosophies as they are found in different cultures and the universal philosophy which is not culturally bound itself.” This mention of there being even a possibility of a universal philosophy is an interesting one. It suggests that there are philosophical questions and methods of resolving those questions that are not restricted to specific cultures, and that may cross, or even transcend, cultures. Mall also insists that intercultural philosophy is not the same as comparative philosophy. Nevertheless, he allows that “Methodically intercultural philosophy…is based on comparative studies, and in particular on the comparison of cultures and their philosophical traditions.”
A similar response has been that of Franz Martin Wimmer. Here, intercultural philosophy is described as “the endeavour to give expression to the many and often marginalised voices of philosophy in their respective cultural contexts and thereby to generate a shared, fruitful discussion granting equal rights to all,” and its aim was “to facilitate and develop a new and timely culture of a plurality of philosophical dialogues between thinkers from around the world” – what Wimmer called a “polylog.” Like the early comparativists and also like Mall, then, Wimmer wishes to open up traditional approaches to philosophy by insisting on an awareness of the philosophies and wisdom traditions of different cultures. Moreover, like Mall, Wimmer believes that such mutual awareness and exchange allows for making progress on philosophical issues. The ‘polylog’ approach

entails a new orientation because, in acknowledgment of the cultural situatedness of philosophy, claims must prove themselves interculturally, and culture and cultures must be consciously kept in view as the context of philosophising. It entails a new practice because this consciousness demands a departure from an individual, mono-cultural, frequently ethnocentric production of philosophy and seeks instead a dialogical, process-oriented, fundamentally open polyphony of cultures and disciplines.

Wimmer, then, offers an elaborate description of how intercultural philosophy is to be done that is arguably clearer than that of many of his predecessors. He acknowledges that philosophy can be understood in two ways: first, as a thematic study, consisting of ontology, epistemology, and ethics, which can be identified in a range of different traditions and cultures, though the particular questions raised may have different origins. But philosophy may also be seen as exemplifying particular “forms of thinking and argumentation.” This may be a somewhat narrower, and more traditional understanding of philosophy than some proponents of intercultural philosophy might prefer.
A fourth, substantive approach to intercultural philosophy can be found in the writings of Indian philosophers Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and P.T. Raju – but also figures such as Alban Widgery – as a result of the contact between British and Indian philosophers in the early and mid- twentieth century. Radhakrishnan and Raju not only sought to engage philosophies outside of India and the Hindu traditions, but proposed the development of what they called a “comparative philosophy” – though it seems to be what we would now call an intercultural philosophy – that would involve philosophical traditions from the West, China, and India. Raju holds that, for example, in Chinese thought, we find an autonomous, social ethics based in human nature; in Indian thought, the reality and autonomy of the inner spiritual life; and in Western thought, a view of life as rooted in physical nature. These traditions, Raju writes, are distinctive, yet complementary. The complementarity of each tradition provides, according to Raju, a means by which each can “widen its scope” – but he also suggests that “they can be brought together” through a kind of intercultural dialogue.
We have here, then, several different models of, or approaches to, intercultural philosophy – and there are others still. And some of their proponents would argue, moreover, that there is evidence for such a project of intercultural philosophy in various encounters of philosophical texts and traditions, across cultures, in the past.