CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements
Chapter I. Pluralistic Culture Versus Cultural Pluralism
Chapter II. Pluralistic Culture and Open Society
Chapter III. The Ideals, Values and Social Progress
Chapter IV. Responsibility as Duty
Chapter V. Who Has the Rights?
Chapter VI. In Search for the Pentecostal Spirit
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This volume presents the author's attempt to defend pluralistic culture against the onslaught of postmodernism. It consists of philosophical essays once delivered in a number of international conferences in Boston, Washington, D.C., Istanbul, Kyoto, Bangkok, Rome, Louvain, Oslo, Sofia, Seoul, Shanghai, Saigon and Hanoi. A sabbatical year enabled him to rearrange them in a more systematic form of a monograph.
The first chapter "The Dynamic Synthesis of Culture" is originally the paper "What can be called Tradition?", presented in the international conferences organized by The Council of Research in Values and Philosophy in Bangkok, Hanoi and Saigon (May, 2001). It was recently published by the same Council in a volume edited by South East Asian philosophers: Cultural Traditions and Contemporary Challenges in Southeast Asia: Hindu and Buddhist (2005).
The second chapter "The Formation Process of Pluralistic Culture" is rearranged from a series of lectures entitled "Pluralistic Culture versus Cultural Pluralism" in Istanbul (Turkey) and in Sofia (Bulgaria), summer 2003. It was appeared in a special volume entitled To The Mountain edited by Prof. William Sweet and Miss Hu Ye-ping to honour Prof. George F. McLean on his 75th birthday.
The third chapter "Pluralistic Culture and Open Society" developed from my lecture in the annual convention of the Chinese Philosophical Society in Taipei, 2003, and then again in other international conferences in Hanoi (11.2003) and Oslo (Feb. 2004). It is then published in a volume by the World Union of Catholic Philosophical Societies (WUCP).
The fourth chapter "Moral Crisis and the Revival of Culture" is originally the paper "An Anatomy of the Moral Crisis" written for the conferences in Bangkok (2000), Saigon (2000). It appeared in Philosophia - An International Journal of Philosophy, vol. 32, No.2.
The fifth chapter "The Search for Pluralistic Culture" developed from the paper "In Search for the Pentecostal Spirit." This is a contribution to the Festschrift honouring Prof. Jean Ladriere's 80th birthday, first presented in Taipei, then in Louvain and Seoul (1999). It has been published in both Chinese (in Soochow Journal of Philosophy) and the original English in The Proceedings of The Fourth Conferences of The Asian Association of Catholic Philosophers (Seoul, 2001).
The final chapter "The Ideals: Pluralistic Culture and Social Progress" is condensed from my lectures in Shanghai, Rome and Wuhan. Its original version "The Ideals, Traditional Values and Social Progress" has been presented as a keynote address to the Fifth International Conference on AACP in Bangkok (August 2004). It will be published in a special volume by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy in Washington, D.C.
On the request from many friends, colleagues and students, I let these essays republished in a single volume making them more available to a wider public. I take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to many friends and colleagues, especially Prof. George F. McLean, Prof. Jean Ladriere, Prof. Tomonobu Imamichi, Prof. Tjeng Eui-chai who have granted me the privilege to be their colleagues. To Professor Rolando Gripaldo (editor of Philosophia), Prof. William Sweet (editor of Maritain's Studies), Prof. Warayuth Siriwarakuel (editor of Prajna Vihara), again Prof. Tjeng Eui-chai (editor of The Fourth Proceedings of AACP), and Miss Hu ye-ping, Assistant Editor, CRVP, I wish to express my most sincere thanks for their permission to let the mentioned essays reprinted in this volume. A thank to my home institution, National Taiwan University, which granted me a sabbatical year (2004-2005) so that I can have sufficient time to correct, and update these essays in this present form. Needless to say, the volume is far from systematic, and not up to my original expectation. So, any critical contribution would be greatly appreciated.
Tran Van Doan
National Taiwan University,
September 2005
Chapter I: PLURALISTIC CULTURE VERSUS CULTURAL PLURALISM
Globalization and cultural pluralism
The seemingly undisputedly fanfare conquest of the world by the CNN and the Hollywood finally verifies the long suspected and fearful specter of a total domination of the mass media. Against our will, they imposed themselves on the human mind. Against our nature, they have corrupted our taste, transforming it into a common, a-personal and commercial. In the name of "freedom" and "human solidarity," they have brought humankind closer - so close that no space is left for free decision, no sufficient time is left for reflection. Their force reaches a climax with the invention of computer that boots their power, and elevates the mass media to the rank of an absolute dictator. Globalization, their legitimate son, is born - not due to real needs (as the mass-media always exaggerate) but as the logical fruit of spatial density and temporal speed. As such, it enforces and legitimates an insatiable desire for power. In a too dense space, the world becomes a village, and desires are often artificially manufactured, fabricated, and advertised so that one may be seduced or, better say, forced to accept them as needs. They will be put on the market just as food and beverages. Dictated by these desires, and promoted in such a dense space, globalization is progressing like a rocket moving into the world orbit at the speed of light. Too rapid, too strong, its flash blinded and paralyzed most of us. Like a teenager in love, we euphorically follow its irresistible siren song, not recognizing its true face, much less its nature. Globalization tragically transforms us into a bunch of mad fools, like the lieutenants and seamen of Odysseus, completely impotent in dealing with its challenges. In a word, globalization in form of computerization, consummation and mass-mobilization has dethroned the once glorified reason of the Enlightenment and de facto becomes the spirit of our age.[1] Its unstoppable march toward total, absolute power seems to be no longer a fabrication of novelists or film producers in Hollywood. No one is able to resist its magic tune. Its sirens suck out our spirit, dry up our mind, paralyse our thinking and make us their slaves. As a matter of fact, no one can escape its gravitational will, not even the most conservative, stubborn force. Resistance nowadays becomes futile, accompanied by a resentment that may curiously produce a kind of masochistic pleasure. To change Marx's famous (or, in some sense, infamous) verdict on religion, one may say that globalization right now is "the opium of the people." And worse, it is the spirit of the age which Hegel could not have foreseen, or better, falsely predicted. As both the opium and the spirit, globalization reigns with terror and promise, with pain and sweetness. Hence, for better or worse, man has to learn to live with it.
The computer era has led to both progress and regress.[2] On the one hand, man can better control the world by means of exact calculations, and thus achieves greater freedom. But, on the other hand, over reliance on technology means also a reduction or loss of freedom. Consequently, hope and joy for a brighter future are often mixed with despair and sadness, belief in reason is disturbed by uncertainty, and confidence in life is destroyed by over-confidence in our technology which we worship as the new savior. To speak in the existentialist language of Jean-Paul Sartre, human beings are thrown into the uncertainty by the very means of certainty (reason) once desperately sought and ideologically proclaimed as sacred by modern philosophers. Nowadays, one no longer knows whether globalization is a blessing or a curse to humankind. There is however one obvious truth: the total triumph of the electronic world, doubtless, precedes its absolute domination. The world is no longer able to free itself from being computerized. The dream of a total freedom is bankrupt and becomes rather an illusion. Slowly, one has painfully to acknowledge that a new iron cage in form of technology (once foreseen by Max Weber, and warned by Martin Heidegger)[3] is silently closing the door. No exit, no escape, no place even for a dream! As the spirit of our age, technological globalization forcefully deforms human beings and molds them into a uniformed, unthinking being (as Hollywood has fancifully constructed in a series of films like Robocop, Terminator, Predator, The Hulk, and so on). As a consequence, freedom remains a powerless concept (or fantasy) in the resentful mind of the self-proclaimed liberals. The imaginative scenario of an apocalypse seems to become real -- too real and too dreadful -- so that there is no hope, nothing except a resentful, passive nihilism.
To prevent the end of history (first envisaged by Oswald Spengler, and then claimed by the ‘neo-conservative' Daniel Bell and Francis Fukujama) the postmodernists have prescribed cultural pluralism: to keep pluralism alive is the only way to escape from this seemingly unavoidable specter of self-termination.[4] Hence the point is, how to keep pluralism alive? Here, postmodernists opt for double-agent strategy (to use the language of Jean-Francois Lyotard) to outplay their enemies: they will play the same language game just in order to make it ambiguous, obscure and meaningless. They would take the same logic, of course, not for the sake of clarity but to expose its inner self-contradiction. Consequently, they would be able to deconstruct the game (its rules, its structure, its meaning) and demonstrate that freedom can be attained by means of a difference, i.e. by certain pluralism. In a word, in order to save human kind from immanent serfdom, in order to protect freedom, pluralism becomes a unique and effective weapon.[5]
In this article, I will contest their claim by showing that their prescription of pluralism as the unique means to escape from the new serfdom remains, paradoxically, ideological.[6] Instead of freedom, pluralism would violently force us to accept its ideology, i.e. to live in an illusion of freedom. I will rely on the process of formation and transformation of the recent Asian values to prove the opposite, that cultural pluralism does not implicitly contain freedom. In contrast, it may be the source of un-freedom because of its incommensurable essence. As incommensurable, a culture would be definitively closed, incommunicable, and as such, it could not reach out to other cultures. Consequently, it faces a dilemma: either it must cynically terminate itself (the so-called end of history fancifully choreographed by Fukuyama)[7] or it has to entertain a foolish and hopeless resistance to the rest of the world (the idea extravagantly orchestrated by Bell).[8] As history reveals, pluralism is no more than a sheer and poisonous slogan to human survival, just as democracy a bad joke to Nazism and freedom a tasteless caricature to communism. My paper argues precisely against such a concept of cultural pluralism. In my view, cultural pluralism is not only impossible, but it could turn out to be a new form of cultural imperialism. Therefore, it would be best to abandon such a fanciful idea. In contrast, I incline to the idea of a pluralistic culture, i.e. a culture born in the web of different cultures and traditions, and becoming their quintessence.
To argue my thesis, this paper begins first with a study of the main thesis of cultural pluralism, its claim of being the guardian of freedom, and the problem of incommensurability (or immeasurability) as its essence. It then follows with an exposition of its hypocritical face by showing the narrow view of an antinomy between reason and freedom. Finally, I opt for a fusion of cultural horizons, and its dialectical essence (both as openness and restriction, liberal and conservative), which serves as the backbone of a pluralistic culture
Pluralism and incommensurability
The prophets of cultural pluralism claim that freedom can be safeguarded only by means of a pluralism, and that pluralism is defined by the force of resisting to any temptation of unification. In Derrida's language, pluralism is represented (expressed) by difference(s). Hence, only by sticking to the very difference, or better say, only by clinging to the very act of differancing that one may be able safeguard freedom.[9] The question here is: is there any internal relation that necessarily connects freedom with pluralism? Would the act of differancing be the expression of our freedom? We know that the answer given by postmodernists is not entirely convincing, simply because the insistence on being in a totally free state does not include the claim of pluralism. There is no absolute relation between pluralism and freedom. We know for sure that one may embrace pluralism and negate freedom at the same time, just as one may commit the irrational act on the name of reason. Furthermore, the claim of an absolute free state is rather utopian. Freedom does not mean the state of absolute freedom, but rather the actual state of Being, i.e. the sate of self-revelation of Being.[10] And Being opens itself to others by means of its relational force. In a word, Being is known only in the forms of its (social) relations, just as freedom is recognized only in these relations.
Before venturing into a criticism of postmodernist claims, let us investigate first the reasons for their defense of cultural pluralism.
The Empty Promise of Freedom - The Myth of Reason
According to Derrida and Lyotard, the first and, perhaps, the most important reason for cultural pluralism is the failure of the project of Enlightenment. In their view, the achievements claimed by the Enlightenment are nothing but fabricated myth. The belief in reason turns to be a pernicious lie, and the promise of freedom turns out to be a malicious cheat. In a certain sense, such a satirical critique seems partly true if one reckons with what the Enlightenment really achieved: with the advance of technology came the bankruptcy of humanity, with the progress of reason came the poverty of spirit. The firm belief in infallible reason came with a high cost, too high to be justified. As we see, the unshakable belief in reason once proclaimed by Immanuel Kant in his famous answer to the question of "What is the Enlightenment?" did not come true. Were he alive today, the thoughtful, prudent Kant would have retracted his generous praise for reason as the only and most effective means to liberate humankind from serfdom. He would have been less certain in his belied in reason as the force behind "... man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without the guidance of another person."[11] The destructive effect of high technology, the legitimate son of reason, has persuaded such fervent believers in science as Albert Einstein, Kurt Oppenheimer, Carl F. von Weissaecker, Werner Heisenberg, and the likes to convert to the camp of humanism. Of course, we may have not faired better than Kant were we his contemporary. The total triumph of the Enlightenment and the spectacular rise of modern science blinded humankind. What Kant, Moses Mendelssohn and their colleagues then proclaimed is perhaps the truth of their time. In their mind, science, as Hegel had explicitly declared, is the Zeitgeist while reason the absolute Geist and the aspiration for freedom is the Volksgeist.
If their prophecy became true, and if their belief in science were vindicated, then our world would be perfect. Regretfully, the truth is, however, the opposite: humankind is heading toward an abyss (Abgrund) - to speak in Heidegger's language - or plunging in a terrible "negative nihilism," as Nietzsche once emphatically prophesized. What is the main problem of reason, then?
The problem is found precisely in our uncritical belief in reason. Reason is left unchecked. If reason is understood as a faculty making us autonomous, and if reason warrants freedom, then freedom must be self-determination, self-valuation, self-estimation, and so on. The problem now is how can one determine oneself? By which criteria can one judge oneself? Is it reason the foundation of all criteria as Kant and the philosophers of the Enlightenment once believed? Which are the criteria for rationality? How can we apply them into our practical life?[12] In bottom, it is a metaphysical question to ask what is reason, and what the reason of reason is. This question is the thorn in the side of ‘rationalist.'[13] Needless to say, there is hardly any satisfied answer to this question, because, in the end, any answer is in principle tautological. It adds no new meaning, and of course, no further clarification. Sadly, one cannot escape from this absurd tautology: reason is verified and justified by the very same reason, which is unverified and unjustified. Ironically, the rationalists have committed the same metaphysical mistake made by the metaphysicians once bitterly attacked by them. They have committed the same "error" that they have tried to unmask, i.e. the unavoidable Platonic "error" discovered by Nietzsche, exposed by Heidegger and rejected by Popper.[14]
The point often bypassed by rationalists like Kant is that if reason decides, justifies and verifies itself, and if its criteria are its attributes, then they have to accept that reason would play the role of a mighty God. And analogously, if God is known by His unknown essence, then reason would be known by its unknown rationality (that is irrationality). The logic is the same, and would take us by the throat, and force us to accept this![15] Here one faces an absurd contradiction: reason is born in, or better say, defined by irrationality. This is an absurdity which Horkheimer and Adorno have mercilessly exposed,[16] and with that postmodernists like Derrida and Lyotard have built their so-called paralogy, a non-rational logic. Furthermore, if reason has no need of any further reference, it does not need to rely on any other external factors. It becomes de facto a tyrant, and its force penetrates in all fields, suppresses or destroys all the rest which dares to raise a dissident voice, or to act differently.[17] In short, reason replaces the old idolae (which Francis Bacon once mercilessly attacked) to become a new iron cage (Max Weber).[18] Modern science reduces the human world in a meaningless, lifeless world (Edmund Husserl).[19] In a word, freedom is stripped of its emancipation force and becomes a passive form, identified with a certain social form or social structure. Thus what we optimistically regard as freedom, is in fact only a negative freedom, i.e. a freedom-from as Isaiah Berlin brilliantly described.[20] It needs to be liberated (Hanna Arendt),[21] or to become a positive freedom, i.e. to be a freedom-to.[22]
The ‘impotence' of reason in dealing with human problems, and social problems does, of course, not shatter the belief in it. Defendants of modernity like Juergen Habermas, the widely acknowledged most prominent warrior in its camp, may still claim reason as the only one, if not the best, to deal with our world.[23] But nonetheless, no one, including Habermas, can ignore the sad fact, once honestly confessed by Kant, that reason is not the panacea for all problems, especially in praxis.[24] Postmodernists like Derrida and Lyotard would be more than happy to seize this golden opportunity to exploit the weakness of reason and poke fun as modernity. They abusively turn some criticism of reason of Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Soeren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and most recently, of the members of the Frankfurt School into their deadly weapon spraying bullet at the strong fortress of reason. To them, reason is not only a "whore" (Anatole France), a simple means (for the privileges), an existential absurdity (Kierkegaard) but much more, a poison (Nietzsche) and a dictator (Heidegger) incorporated in different theories and forms. Precisely because of its capricious character that reason becomes a totalitarian which denies any access to freedom.
Thus, postmodernists are eager to spread insults against reason, as bluntly and repeatedly uttered by Horkheimer and Adorno. Their insults and their resentment against reason are now treated by them as a revealed dogma. This dogma, once abusively declared ex cathedra by Horkheimer and Adorno, and then noisily acclaimed as the eternal truth by Derrida and Lyotard, sounds like: "The enlightenment is totalitarian," "The essence of rationality is irrationality," "The enlightenment is a myth," and so on.[25] In short, one may quite correctly say that the postmodernists not only are the most ardent ‘critics' of reason, but are the most effective exploiters of the inner self-contradiction of reason. They developed the main theme regarding reason as the force behind domination to its utmost.[26]
Reason is now synonymous to domination, and the era of reason (modernity) to the era of totalitarianism. If one bites into their pseudo-logic, and takes their attack on reason seriously, then the most important question is no longer "what is reason?" but "who can determine rational criteria?" This latter question, according to postmodernists, cannot be separated from the question of who has the right; and again from the question of who has the power to do that.[27] Now, if the most important question is that of who has the power, then, the right of determination belongs to those who possess power and not to reason.[28] To accept this thesis is to tacitly concede an inevitable down-grading of reason to the level of a mere instrument.[29] Reason is, in fact, an instrument, or an instrumental reason (as Horkeimer and Adorno have further developed from Weber's thesis).[30] This is the main reason of postmodern hatred toward rationalists who, in their view, have misleadingly mystified reason to conceal the shameful quest for absolute power and to ruthlessly pursuit their imperialist ambition.
The Thesis of Incommensurability
Of course, the main aim of postmodernism is not to trade blows with modernism (as Habermas tried to label it, and as many superficial readers of Derrida, Foucault might believe). Its bitter and desperate assault on the fortress of modernism reflects, not surprisingly, a fierce defense of freedom-to: freedom of self-expression, freedom of legislation in the Kantian sense of autonomy, and moreover, freedom of creative arts -- once described by Kant as that of genius.[31] As a consequence, their main instrument (or the weapon to fight the autocracy of reason) is no longer reason but the so-called pluralism: the pluralism of different arts, the pluralism of expression, the pluralism of games, the pluralism of rules of play and, most importantly, the pluralism of values. In order to defend their thesis, postmodernists oppose to any form of reason, which they label as meta-narrative or grand theory.[32] In their view, reason has lost its force to fight for freedom. Its pretension to ‘liberate' humankind from the yoke of ‘ignorance' (Bacon), or of ‘religion' (from Voltaire to Comte) could not conceal its true nature as that of domination. Behind the mask of the freedom fighter is the true face of a dictator. As a matter fact, the Enlightenment has transformed reason into a new dictator par excellence. Reason usurps the throne of God and imposes its own iron grip on all fields of human activities. As an expressive form of reason, modern freedom no longer means autonomy, self-decision, and self-sufficiency, but simply a kind of freedom-from. Aware of this capricious essence of reason, postmodernists develop further the insight of Hegel and Heidegger: Freedom is now understood as an act of self-expansion, self-expression, self-formation or, in Heidegger's interpretation, the act of self-revelation of Being. Heidegger's "ontological" Being is certainly not the Being of traditional metaphysics, which is no more and no less than reason itself, but the spirit of our time.
Such demand seems to be legitimate, and one can hardly raise an eyebrow if they stick to their principle of freedom-to. The weakness of postmodernists is found, however, in their adoption of a mistaken strategy: their demand for a return to the pre-modern[33] or more precisely, a post-modern understanding of reason which they have erroneously identified with freedom. To them, if reason is the spirit of time (the thesis of Hegel), and if reason reveals itself in time and in nature (the thesis of Schelling), then our age is definitively no longer the modern age. In the post-modern age, it is freedom and no longer reason, that is our spirit. Freedom is possible only in a pluralistic medium, and must be unrestrained by any force, including rational force. In a word, our freedom is unlimited, unrestrained and unpredictable. It is a freedom-to. In this sense, if freedom is the essence of Being (the thesis of Heidegger)[34] replacing reason, then what is reason but a useless relic of the past?
By too much concentrating on the relation between reason and power, postmodernists maliciously leave the question of "what is reason?" untouched. Or better say, they opposed any attempt to limit reason (freedom) in a certain conceptual framework, i.e. they refused any kind of definition of reason, because such enterprise, in their view, is as futile as dangerous. They argued that, any attempt of such kind (in form of definition, or logical arguments) would be an indirect consolidation of the power of reason, and justification and confirmation of institutions based on reason. Hence, to them, the most important task must now be a liberation from the center of gravity of power. In this context, the insistence on freedom demands a fight against any force which tries to preserve or defend this power center. To maintain the status quo, to expand power, to control diversity, to bring all differences unto a single language, under a command, to set them in an order (Foucault), to force them to take rank under a flag, etc., is rather different means of suppression. This fight, or this process of liberation[35] needs an effective weapon, which is none other than the principle of incommensurability itself. Had we bite into this strange logic of postmodernism - the so-called paralogy - and to accept the logical consequence of such postmodernist conception of freedom, then we would find that the thesis of incommensurability is very promising. The thesis can be simply formulated as follows: Because no idea, no principle, no ideology, etc. can serve as the sole truth, the sole criterion, the unique standard, and because in a pluralistic society, no religion, no culture, etc. could afford to be the master, then every culture is equal, everybody has the same right to enjoy, to play, to create new value. In a word, no one is absolute, everyone is relative. Incommensurability indeed represents the essence of relativism. To Derrida, incommensurability can safeguard the difference, and as such each culture may be able to be free and not coerced by other greater or stronger culture. To the self-proclaimed prophet of neo-pragmatism Richard Rorty, incommensurability may be most suitable to reconstruct pragmatism,[36] while to Lyotard, it plays a vital force of invention. Its logic (paralogy) would create different new ways of thinking.[37]
In order to have a fair verdict on the strength and weakness of postmodernism, it would be necessary to reexamine the thesis of incommensurability which has been put forth by scientific minded philosophers like Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhelm (including Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend).[38] We know for sure that, influenced rather by Bachelard and Canguihelm, and perhaps by Wittgensteins' conception of language-game, as well as by Friedrich Nietzsche and Heidegger, postmodernists seem to ignore the theories of Kuhn or Feyerabend, at least to recently. In fact, the theories of Kuhn and Feyerabend are rather taken by American philosophers like Rorty to support their view only. Thus, I will give a brief account of "incommensurability" not only as it is understood by Kuhn and Feyerabend only, but as it is developed until recently.
The first argument of incommensurability is elaborated from the concept language-game of Wittgenstein.[39] If language (speaking or writing) is a game just as any other play game, then its rules, its formation, its semantics, etc. must be of pragmatic character, i.e. they must be variable depending on their context.[40] As Wittgenstein suggested, the formation of language is identified with the construction of rules, and that of rules must follow the pragmatic principle; and furthermore, the pragmatic principle is constructed from the life-world as a matter of course.[41] Each language is a form of life, and each language game is a game of life. Since each of us belongs to a different world, each of us possesses a different life-world. The difference of language, the richness and complexity of language game, as well as the incessant emergence of new languages and language-games display the diversity, the richness, the depth and the generative formation of our life-world(s). Such conception of language game and its diversity reflect the diversity of our life-worlds. That means, since there is no common life-world, there is no common language, and consequently no common language game. This uncommon is also found in the way we are constructing linguistic rules (grammars, semiotics). The rules of the game could be constructed variably, sometimes based on certain logic or on a certain way of living, but sometimes, fully arbitrary (just as the way we give name to an object).[42] Sometimes they are guided by certain interests (the business language for example), sometimes for no reason at all. But in any case, they must follow a certain rule, even if this rule is arbitrary.[43] And this rule (these rules) must represent a certain activity in a certain life-world. If language and its rules are constructed in such a pragmatic way (and they are, indeed, as seen in many cases which Wittgenstein and his followers have showed), then the idea of a universal language, a common game with transcendental rules would collapse. Since behind any construction of language game, there exists no absolute reason (the kind of Kant's reason or Hegel's Spirit), but different life-worlds where people live.[44]
The second argument supporting the thesis of incommensurability is taken from the view of indeterminacy in quantum physics (of physicist Werner Heisenberg), from the theory of undecidability in mathematics (of Kurt Goedel),[45] and more importantly, from the view of the development of science in an unlinear line and interrupted period of Bachelard.[46] We know that quantum mechanics and atomic physics have challenged the idea of a highly stable system of thermodynamics, i.e. the idea that the whole process of a system's performance can be predicted if all the variables are known beforehand.[47] Quantum mechanics and atomic physics limited the range of thermodynamics by arguing: first, there would be no complete definition of the initial state of a system, because such a definition "would require an expenditure of energy at least equivalent to that consumed by the system to be defined."[48] Second a certain inconsistency is found in the claim of stable system. Simply because the idea of perfect control over a system would lower the performance level it claims to raise. Third, quantum physics requires a far more radical revision of the idea of a continuous and predictable path.[49]
A similar view of science is taken by Goedel, the famous mathematician and logician, who had exercised an immense weight on postmodernist view of science. According to Lyotard's interpretation, Goedel's search for a meta-mathematical foundation of science ends with a paradox: that in the arithmetic system of a proposition, there is no absolute consistency, no syntactic completeness and no absolute decidability. That means any claim of a meta-mathematical foundation in the Newtonian tradition seems to be self-contradictory. Lyotard is more than happy to find in Goedel's theorem the best support for what he has learned from Bachelard and Canguilhem,[50] that no science is absolutely exact and predictable. He wrote: "Now Goedel has effectively established the existence in the arithmetic system of a proposition that is neither demonstrable nor refutable within that system; this entails that the arithmetic system fails to satisfy the condition of completeness."[51]
As noted, Lyotard developed his idea neither from Goedel nor from Thomas Kuhn. There is no doubt that the strongest impact on postmodernist view of science is none other than the view of science once proposed by Bachelard and well exposed by his disciple, Canguilhelm. According to Bachelard, science does not necessarily take the ‘normal' course, and follow rational logic. It may strangely strayed into an unknown, not predicted path. It could suddenly explode, and forms a new pattern. No logic could be effective to foresee this kind of revolution, In short, science can be understood in a totally new way: revolutionary, interrupted, un-linear, and so on.
Michel Foucault, the main figure behind the postmodernist movement, embraced this view and developed a concept of science as "archeology". For a more adequate understanding of Foucault's view of science, let us return back to his main ideas of a social science, exposed as the appendix of his Les mots et les choses, and then expounded again in the part of introduction of his L'archeùologie du savoir.[52] In these two most basic works, Foucault proposes to view the history of science as the general history of ideas. Such history is shaped not by continuities (as seen in Hegel and Marx) but by discontinuities, not by eternal (natural) causes but by accidental events. It is not guided by infallible principles but by "anachronistic survivals, possible types of relations." He then suggests to change the traditional view of history as a 'total history' to a ‘general history': "General history speaks of series, segmentations, limits, difference of level, time-lags, anachronistic survivals, possible types."[53] If history is only the record of interrupted, discontinuous series, then, its method must be that of archeology, or, by using Nietzsche's jargon, genealogy. In fact, Foucault understands his L'archéologie du savoir as a study of "the theoretical problems posed by the use of such concepts as discontinuity, rupture, threshold, limit, series and transformation in he history of idea."[54]
In sum, according to the above mentioned views (which the postmodernists seem to put on the same foot stage), science, in order to be science in its true sense, must free itself from the traditional concept of science born in modernity.[55] Science today must be a play game. Scientist has to learn to play the game, to identify it, to develop strategy, and to invent new game. Lyotard prescribes: "The problem is not to learn what the opponent ("nature") is, but to identify the game it plays." And he continues: "If God played bridge, then the level of "primary chance" encountered by science could no longer be imputed to the indifference of the die toward which face is up, but would have to be attributed to cunning - in other words, to a choice, itself left up to chance, between a number of possible, pure strategies."[56]
The third argument, supported by the recent discoveries of anthropologists like Bronislaw Malinowski,[57] E. E. Evans-Pritchard,[58] and most recently by Clifford Geertz,[59] insists that each culture has its own history, possesses its own values and follows its own logic. The claim of a universal culture is in fact the result of imperialism and colonialism. But no culture (including the Western culture) could have succeeded in imposing its own form on other culture. And no culture had perished or vanished. It transforms itself into a more variant and richer culture.
The fourth argument pro cultural relativism is an (uncritical) application of Kuhn's view of science to human science (or to societal organization). Kuhn argues that science can be divided into the normal and the evolutionary one. Normal science follows a certain pattern, and follows a certain order widely taken by scientists, while revolutionary science would take a different approach, with no common pattern, no fixed order. In other words, revolutionary science may take the same approach once described by Bachelard and taken by Foucault: the so-called un-linear, sudden, discontinued, and so on. But, this is the revolutionary science that contributes to scientific progress, and to the emergence of new societal organizations, and to new thinking. In other words, the revolutionary science and not the normal science is the main force behind human history. As such, it would be impossible to establish common standards or criteria with which one may judge or compare other sciences. Here is his main argument pro incommensurability.[60]
The fifth argument raised by Paul Feyerabend, a Berkeleyan philosopher of Austrian origin, is in fact a synthetic replica of the views of Bachelard, Foucault and Kuhn (which he claimed to have discovered by his reading of Einstein's theory of relativity). He divides incommensurability into three types formulated in three theses: "The first thesis that there are frameworks of thought (action, perception) which are incommensurable."[61] He elucidated his thesis, as Bernstein truthfully explained: "What Einstein showed is not that Newton's dynamical equations are partial or incomplete but that they are wrong. It is false to believe that Newtonian dynamics can be logically derived from relativistic dynamics. It is because this type of incompatibility and conflict is neglected that "scientific revolutions" frequently appear to be invisible."[62] That means the first is the one in which different paradigms "use concepts that cannot be brought into the usual logical relations of inclusion, exclusion, overlap."[63] The second type of incommensurability is born in the difference of different worlds, and different activities. Feyerabend claims, in Bernstein's description: "My third thesis is that the views of scientists, and especially their views on basic matters, are often as different from each other as are the ideologies that underlie different cultures. Even worse: there exist scientific theories which are mutually incommensurable though they apparently deal "with the same subject matter."[64] And, since scientists "practice their trades in different worlds" and "see different things",[65] there is hardly any commensurable standards or criteria. Here, Feyerabend seems to follow Kuhn who argued earlier: "The normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before."[66] The third meaning of incommensurability is expressed by Feyerabend not only as incompatibility (among rival theories, paradigms, traditions), or logical disjointedness of theories, but "covert classifications" and major conceptual changes: "As incommensurability depends on covert classifications and involves major conceptual changes it is hardly ever possible to give an explicit definition of it. Nor will the customary "reconstructions" succeed in bringing it to the fore. The phenomenon must be shown, the reader must be led up to it by being confronted with a great variety of instances, and he must then judge for himself."[67] Furthermore, incommensurability is explicit in our own way of conceiving: the "development of perception and thought in the individual passes through stages which are mutually incommensurable."[68]
2.3. The Myth of Postmodernism
At first glance, the main thesis of a cultural relativism trumpeted by postmodernist protagonists seem to be very promising. An as a matter of fact, a great number of intellectuals could not have been able to resist its seductive promise. However, the point is not a pure theory but its practicality as Karl Marx once rightly emphasized. Any theory, however good it be, that cannot be realized is simply an empty and meaningless promise. And here is my main arguments against the thesis of cultural relativism.
- My anti-arguments begin first with the so-called category-mistakes, i.e. the mis-application of the category of exact science to the human sciences. Suppose that each sort of science is fully independent (this thesis is very dubious), that each scientific community follow its own rules, speak its own language and do its own practice (experiment), then the point neglected by Kuhn and Feyerabend is, an human community is not, and can never be a scientific community. Bernstein made a point when he objected to theory of scientific community, arguing that even a scientific community must be a social community first. Kuhn conceded this fact, and Lyotard acknowledged it too when the latter gave an example of a scientist who announced his discovery on television. What the scientist would say? He certainly would tell the whole history of his discovery; he would refer to many not quite relevant, or even non scientific factors, etc. That means, any clear-cut distinction between different branches of science, different communities, any claim of a full independence among them, etc. are simply impossible.
- My second argument against cultural relativism is based on the postmodernist gravest error: they mistake culture as the fixed or dead relics, or the immutable essences, kind of Platonian ideas which a priori exist in each community, each genre, each age, etc. Like a good Hegelian, I argue that the essence of culture is not the remaining and fixing values, but its transformation force. This force can, of course, not change the world (the illusion of rationalists and Marxists as well), but it can change our life-world by means of human adaptation, integration, appropriation etc. Precisely thanks to this force that our life-world enriches itself, enlarges itself, deepens itself. In a word, our life world is in a permanent process of self-development and self-progressing.
- My third criticism is against the third mistake, widely common among postmodernits. It is seen in their one-sided over-trumpeting human desire for a "freedom-to" as human final telos (the same mistake committed by rationalists when they over-zealously defended the "freedom-from"). The point is, they brush aside the more important question of for what is freedom? Obviously, they simply refused to go on for a further search of more essential causes. There is no need to repeat the fact that one would prefer survival over freedom, and it is wise to do so.
- My fourth argument against the postmodernist view is directed at the fourth mistake - ironically the same mistake desperately attacked by postmodernists - namely the one identified (rightly) by Lyotard as the "choice of Occident," or better say, Occidental imperialism.[69] Despite the rhetoric full of hope for a pluralism of cultures, postmodernists are not thinking as world citizens but as Westerners who, thought unhappy with their own traditional roots, cannot be get rid of them. As a matter of fact best depicted by Karl Mannheim (Mannheim's paradox), the Hegelian ghost of a "final complete West" still exercises its magic force on their mind even at the moment they try to exorcise it from their own body. Thus, behind a seemingly modest language, their proposal is still bearing the very dogmatic mark of the West.
- My fifth criticism is against their superficial investigation of the nature of reason. Their hasty identification of reason as an instrument (rationality) with reason as the force of judgment, and again reason as a means with reason as the purpose has given to a premature(if not naïve) thought that postmodern age is anti-rational or irrational age. Actually as we have argued above in the section on incommensurability, there is no absolute antinomy or contradiction in our life-world. The logic of life is not, and cannot be, identified with the logic of thinking.[70]
Honestly speaking, these mistakes do by no means demonstrate the irrelevancy of their protest against any claim of universal laws, universal thinking, and unified values. They earned a lot of sympathy from the world when they waged the battle against imperialistic thinking, when they tirelessly demand for a freedom-to. Of course, their claim may sound like a manifesto of individualism in the Renaissance, and their ideology may bear the imprint of neo-individualism and neo-capitalism, but they certainly do not deserve to be blamed as neo-conservatives as Habermas has tried to convince us.[71]
My point is, the postmodernist reaction does not fare better than the rationalist claim, since if a total domination of reason may lead to a new serfdom, then a radical demand for total freedom-to would be either utopian or nihilistic. As I will argue, the claim of cultural pluralism does represent neither conservatism nor liberalism. It is a repeat of the same thinking in a different expression. Bluntly speaking, it diffuses another ideology, the so-called anti-rational ideology. Thus, instead of a claimed progress, it could be rather a retreat into the past, where each individual entertained the illusion of an independent Robinson, and where each community pretended and jealously kept itself to be "pure" by means of a self-quarantine. As we see, the illusion of not being infected by the hostile outside world is as dangerous as the policy of laissez-faire of the liberals. However, the post-modernist scored a certain point here, namely no one, no culture, no religion would, on the name of their God, or reason, have the right to claim to oneself any unique role, any universal value, and so on. And in this respect, they deserve to be treated fairly. Any accusation of them as "neo-conservative" would be rather ideological.
3. Pluralistic Culture versus Cultural Pluralism
As we have argued above, the thesis of cultural pluralism remains a sheer rhetoric. The brute fact is that it has to retreat in face of the irresistible advance of globalization, simply because any system of values may be purposively constituted by its own (internal and external) factors to deal with internal and external problems respectively. And nobody would doubt about the fact that the spatial density and the increasing tempo of living have not only brought human kind closer, but also caused more problems. These newly emerging problems are no longer of particular or geographical characteristics, but now become universal: they are ours even against our own will. Thus, they forced us to sit down and search for solutions. As such, no particular value, no individual, no single system, and certainly, no single culture could be able to confront these universal problems. The past claim of universal solution is now dismissed, and even horrified by most of us. Holocaust, similar genocide and racism all are the bitter fruit of the ideology of a universal world. Similarly, the claim of universal values have been taken to be the pretext and reason to justify imperialism and colonialism.
Aware of such tragedy, we argue for another alternative, namely for a pluralistic culture with its two essential principles: the principle of participation and the principle of communion. We sympathize with the postmodernist criticism of modernism, but we also find in their claim of cultural pluralism the seed of terror. Here is the main reason of our opposition to the postmodern claim of cultural pluralism.
Pluralistic culture reflects rather a new way of living guided by rational principles. It is constituted by human beings in a world of new emerging structure, and it forms an essential part of our life-world. We know and have to accept the fact that in a globalized world, no one can be pure, no one is isolated (except by a self-quarantine), and no one can claim to be fully independent and free. That means, as Rousseau had declared in his famous Le Contrat social, all of us are "enchained", i.e. social, dependent and relational. But on the other hand, pluralistic culture inherits the spirit of the Enlightenment that Kant ardently fought for: human beings are in the permanent process of emancipating themselves from the chains imposed on them, or of getting rid of the idols (Bacon), and ideologies (Marx): no one would be enchained by any unique ideology, by any single system of value, in short, by any fixed way of living. That means, pluralistic culture must be guided by the force of reason leading human beings to a state of freedom-to, i.e. a state in which human choice is autonomous. In this context, one can confront globalization: Although the globalized world forces us to live in a globalized manner, but it could not enslave us so long we are able to transform it into a part of our life benefiting us. To say in Kantian language, so long our life is guided by the force of reason. To say in Marxist language, the slave would no longer be a slave if he knows how to transform the hostile force and make it fruitful for his life. To elaborate this idea in a more detailed fashion, I begin first with what we mean by "globalized world" and "global life." Globalized world expresses not a world of unique (universal) character, but a world functioning in an inter-relational, reciprocal manner, kind of a web. Thus, to live globally means (1) to have many common needs (wanted or unwanted), (2) to participate into the process of producing commodities and satisfying needs and desires, (3) to share duties (responsibilities) to preserve and develop our life-world. In a word, global life demands any of us to actively take part in the process of transforming the world making it as our own life-world. Understood in this sense, the globalization process means a process of living which requires that all those livings in the global world must (1) have the needs and interests, (2) participate in the process of satisfying needs and interests.
Since we cannot afford to avoid (or better say, to live without) globalization, then our problem now is no longer a meaningless debate on the nature globalization, on how to escape from it (as defeatists might have entertained), or on how to destroy it (as postmodernists are still waging their hopeless war against). It would be meaningless to do so! Our aim is how to participate into it, and how to make it fruitful for our life. Such enterprise was ardently pursued by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. It was followed by great medieval philosophers like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. It was developed further by philosophers of high reputation like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and especially by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and refined by Kant and Hegel as well as by Karl Marx. Since our aim is not a description of their proposals, but a search for a solution which may be of use to deal with our actual global life, I would prefer to single out two principles: the principle of participation once brilliantly worked out by Aquinas and the principle of communion, a traditional principle rooted in Christian belief and its civilization which Gadamer has developed in his now becoming classic Truth and Method (1960).
3.1. The Principle of Participation
The principle of participation is a logical consequence deduced from the metaphysical assertion that man is a part of nature (cosmos). This principle is extended to explain the relationship between God and human beings, the divine world and the human world, etc. Baruch Spinoza, and much earlier, the Neo-Platonians like Plotinus, Filone, Clemente, and, especially, St. Augustine have argued that God is the Totality while human beings are only a part, that the world is only the partly appearance of God. St. Thomas Aquinas applied the same principle to human world: each individual is a part of his society. That means, man by virtue of his nature as a part of society, and by his own act of participation, is constructing his own society. In this sense, society is gradually and selectively constructed by all individuals who participate in it. The point is, how man constructs society and why he participates in it. The principle of participation would be quite plausible in explaining human nature (he participates because he is a part of it) and human essences (he does it because only by such participation he may be able to survive, and develop his own life). Obviously, Aquinas has successfully overcome the difficulty of the Neo-Platonians by putting more emphasis on the latter aspect: it is the act of participating that determines human fate. Since our aim is not a critical investigation into the principle of participation, but a search for the answer of why our participation into society, and in our global age, into our world is necessary, it is sufficient to sum up our view as follows:
First, albeit from any metaphysical speculation, one cannot deny that human nature is primarily social nature, and social nature is defined by one's own act of participating into society. As such, each individual is a part of society, and the more individuals would make a society bigger, richer and more sufficient.
Second, participation means not a passive presence but an active "engagement" into the life-construction of society. Active engagement means a dynamic expansion of the force of preserving and furthering life. To preserve life, one needs a force greater than that which may endanger life, and such force can be possible by means of a unification of the force of all individual participants. Here is the first meaning of solidarity that binds human beings (or as Rousseau expressed, that put the people in chain). To further life, one needs much more, since a happy life means more than a bare existence. To enjoy more, to be more meaningful, to prolong life, etc. human beings must engage in searching and producing the means to such purpose. Aristotle's insight into human profound, insatiable desire for happiness helps to explain the reason why human constantly searches for the means which may be able to attain, and preserve happiness.
Third, as a consequence of these two tenets, a social man (woman) is expressed rather in terms of morals: he (she) is a moral man (woman). And as a moral essence, the act of participation manifests humanity. Here is the reason of why Confucius insists that a true human (chun-tzu, gentleman) must be primarily a moral man. Explicitly, Confucius' moral code is constructed on human sociality.
3.2. The Principle of Communion
The idea of man as a social animal reflects in fact only a part, though very important part, of human nature. As a social man, the act of participating into common social life is natural. However, the act of participating does not yet fully constitute human culture, because culture means more than a simple participation of individuals in a group or so.
Culture, in the sense of Bilden (literally, to make an image, or formation) and cultivare, (to nourish, to mold, to form) can be possible only if our participation into society is as natural as intimate. That means, only a participation in the sense of taking part into what essentially belongs to oneself can be a true participation that contributes to cultus humanus, or human culture. Such participation is therefore not passive but active, not coercive but free, aiming not at other purposes but at human life as such. To say in Kantian manner, only participation for the sake of duty (of humanity) can be a true participation. We simply call such participation a kind of communion.
Communion means a total, unconditional and most intimate participation. To take part in a political party, to enter in a certain group, to be a member of certain society, etc. is not yet a communion, since our participation can be coercive (against our will), or our participation is conditional and artificial (to adopt a citizenship, to engage in a professional club, etc.), or our participation is simply unconscious (as mechanic reaction, or uncontrolled behavior). But to be a member of a family is the most natural and intimate participation that is quite different from the kind of participation described above. Since to be a member of family requires that (1) one must be a natural part of it, (2) one shares its common traits, and (3) one feels responsible for it. (4) In the case of Oriental (Chinese) family, to be a member means also to share, to nourish and to develop its common hope for better future. Only this kind of participation can be strictly called communion.
From these two principles (participation and communion), I argue further that a pluralistic culture can be possible if human kind accept the belief that all belong to a very big family, if we all share common hope for a better world, if we are bearing the same characteristics that are described as human characters. The thesis of the fusion of horizons of Gadamer could serve as a good example to demonstrate the plausibility of a pluralistic culture, since in its most basic foundation, the horizons-fusion thesis is based on the principle of participation and communion.
Concluding Remarks: Gadamer's Fusion of Horizons and Pluralistic Culture
Gadamer's thesis of the fusion of horizons, expounded in his Truhh and Method, can be summed as follows:
First, horizon is not a single line "at the end" linking the earth and the sky, but a view constituted from our own world, from our own experiences and so on. Horizon also symbolizes the limit. Our view is limited or restricted, by our ignorance, by our static state as well as by our closed mind and attitudes. It is in this sense that Gadamer once described horizon as "the range of" vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point.[72]
Second, the literal horizon we observe is, in fact, not static. It is not even "real" in the sense that it is not the same. Horizon "moves" with us, "recedes" with our advance, changes with our knowledge, and "varies" with each particular person. In a word, horizon is horizon in terms of its difference. To apply this kind of horizon understanding to our own view (or our own opinion), one can say that our view is in a permanent process of being "enriched" or "impoverished" depending on our move. Our view is expanding or receding with our forward or backward move. It is either "progressive" or "regressive," either "liberal" or "conservative" depending on our liberal or close attitude. The "liberal" opens itself for new horizons, while the "conservative" would exclude other possible alternatives from his or her own range (world). From this point of view, the belief in a static view is, in fact, unfounded. Bersntein brilliantly summed up this insight of Gadamer as follows:
"The closed horizon that is supposed to enclose a culture is an abstraction. The historical movement of human life consists in the fact that it is never utterly bound to any one standpoint, and hence can never have a truly closed horizon. The horizon is, rather, something into which we move and that moves with us. Horizons change for a person who is moving. Thus the horizon of the past, out of which all human life lives and which exists in the form of tradition, is always in motion. It is not historical consciousness that first sets the surrounding horizon in motion. But in it this motion becomes aware of itself.[73]
Third, if horizon represents a view, or a "situation," then it is, in a certain context, limited. The end-line (as we see from our own eyes) is the symbol of the borders. Within these borders is our present horizon, i.e. our present world-view. These borders can be understood as our present or traditional views (values, morals, ideologies).[74] This clearly suggests that horizon is limited and finite. However, a close inspection of human horizon yields a very interesting aspect, perhaps, the most essential aspect of human life: it is limited but at the same time not closed. It is open towards a new line, new border. Bernstein has fully grasped the meaning of Gadamer's language when he comments: "A horizon, then, is limited and finite, but it is essentially open. For to have a horizon is not to be limited to what is nearest but to be able to move beyond it. Indeed the very idea of a closed horizon is a false abstraction."[75]
Fourth, the expansion of horizon implicitly implies a fusion of new dimensions, situations, and so on. Our new view encompasses our own view, just as the new horizon encompasses the old one. This kind of fusion is best se en in the formation of language. Gadamer's such idea is described by Bernstein: "...for him the medium of all human horizons is linguistic, and that the language that we speak (or that rather speaks through us) is essentially open to understanding alien horizons. It is through the fusion of horizons that we risk and test our prejudices. In this sense, learning from other forms of life and horizons is at the very same time coming to an understanding of ourselves."[76]
Actually, this insight can be applied to our daily contact with others. Through contact, we know us better: "Only through others do we gain true knowledge of ourselves."[77] Here is the reason why Gadamer interprets the formation of our consciousness in terms of horizons fusion: He argues: "When our historical consciousness places itself within historical horizons, this does not entail passing into alien worlds unconnected in any way with our own, but together they constitute the one great horizon that moves from within and, beyond the frontiers of the present, embraces the historical depths of our self-consciousness. It is, in fact, a single horizon that embraces everything contained in historical consciousness. Our own past, and that other past towards which our historical consciousness is directed, help to shape this moving horizon out of which human life always lives, and which determines it as tradition.[78] Fifth, historical consciousness is not a blank sheet or tabula rasa in which historical facts are recorded, but a "compact" fused and arranged or systematized from many diverse world-views, experiences, etc. Brief, historical consciousness looks like a horizon, the one that embraces everything in the past, and open for the present and the future.
To apply Gadamer's thesis of the fusion of horizons to our understanding of pluralistic culture, I would argue that, not only our historical consciousness or our langue is formed and reformed, the way the horizons are fused. More concretely and visibly is the formation of our life. The formation takes the form of fusion. It is going through a permanent and slow process, in which new view we contact or face are first, rejected, criticized, rethought and finally accepted. But such view, once accepted and taken in our life is no longer the original. It becomes what we may say, a particular way of life of a certain people. This particularity consists of traditions (values, customs, history, and even senses), and the new acquired values. Today, Asian people in general and Chinese intellectuals in particular, absorb not only their history, tradition, values, but also acquire new values (science, democracy, religions). As result, their view of freedom, democracy, human rights, and even philosophy is no longer purely Asian or Chinese respectively. That is fitting perfectly to our present language. There are too much new (Western) terms and even Western way of using language in our present languages. But, by being no more original, our new way of life is still original: it is quite different from the Western life. By any account, it is richer, more encompassing, but at the same time, it is still "original."
References
Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism; Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.
Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference. Trans. by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London: NLB, 1975.
Michel Foucault, Archeology of Knowledge. Trans.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Method, 4th. Ed. Tuebingen: Mohr, 1975. Truth and Method. Trans. and ed. by Garrett Barden and John Cumming. New York: Seabury Press, 1975.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science. Trans. by Frederick G. Lawrence. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1981.
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution. 2nd ed. enl. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.
Jean Ladriere, Les enjeux de rationalite. Quebec: 2002.
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1981.
George F. McLean,
Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Tran Van Doan, "In Search of the Pentecostal Spirit" in The Proceedings of The 4th AACP International Conference. Seoul: The Catholic University of Korea, 1999.
Tran Van Doan, Reason, Rationality, Reasonableness. 2nd eEd. Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2001.
[1] Reason has been glorified as the spirit of the modern ages. It has been tacitly regarded as a modern God by the French and German enlightenment. To Kant, reason is the force of life that liberates us from ignorance (in "An Answer to the Question of ‘What is Enlightenment?" (Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklaerung?), 1784), while to Hegel, it is our spirit. In The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel had explicitly placed reason (spirit) in its full form (philosophy) at the final stage of history.
[2] Similar remark with regard to reason has been made by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno in their classic, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), trans. John Cumming (New York: Continuum Publ. Co., 1972).
[3] Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 293-94; Martin Heidegger, The Questions Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. and with an Introduction by William Lovitt (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1977), p. 14: "And yet the revealing that hold sway throughout modern technology does not unfold into a bringing-forth in the sense of poiesis. The revealing that rules in modern technology is a challenging, which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored as such." In this essay, Heidegger accused modern technology to have been alienated from the original sense of "technology as a way of revealing" (pp. 12, 13): "Technology is a mode of revealing. Technology comes to presence in the realm where revealing and unconcealment take place, where aletheia, truth, happens."
[4] The recent terrorist attack on the USA (11 Sept. 2001) shows how a single violent act can drag the whole world into an unknown future. Such a horrible crime is accepted (widely by the Arab world, and perhaps the Third World) as an unavoidable and legitimate revolt (or a necessary challenge) against neo-imperialism and its mighty of technology as well as to keep autonomy. But such argument has directly lent a hand to violence. Similarly, the arguments of Jacques Derrida for difference would mislead us to a certain form of relativism. In their view, violence is the only one - and the last - effective instrument to protect the cause of "difference" (relativism). Such a distortion is certainly groundless; it involves a logical fallacy identifying the consequence with the cause. How could they warrant a difference without violence? Regretfully, the extravagant rhetoric of people like Derrida would encourage naïve people to entertain such illusion. We know, Derrida himself would understand "deconstruction" and "differance" as a necessary strategy to preserve freedom. But he neglects the fact that "deconstruction" is in se already a violent act. It ironically obstructshe freedom - the freedom of solidarity - that Derrida and French liberal thinkers jealously claimed and defended.
[5] Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Conditions - Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), Introduction, p. xxv: "Postmodern knowledge is not simply a tool of the authorities; it refines our sensitivity to differences and reinforces our ability to tolerate the incommensurable." Hereafter as The Postmodern Condition.
[6] Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Hartcourt, Brace, 1936). The so-called Mannheim's paradox.
[7] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and The Last Man (1992). For a more detailed critique of Fukuyama's thesis, see Timothy Burns, ed., After History? Francis Fukuyama and His Critics (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994).
[8] Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (New York, 1960).
[9] Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, translated by Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
[10] Marin Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit (Tuebingen: Mohr, 1951): "Das Wesen der Wahrheir ist Freiheit."
[11] Immanuel Kant, "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklaerung?" in Kants Gesammelte Schriften (Akademie-Ausgabe), (Berlin, 1902-42; 1966-1974), Vol. VIII, p. 35; Also in Max Horkheimer & Theodor W. Adorno, The Dialectic of Enlightenment, p. 81.
[12] See Alasdair McEntyre, Whose Justice, Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 1982).
[13] Kant himself had tried very to construct a metaphysical foundation of morals in his much discussed Grundlegung der Metaphysik der Morals (1785).
[14] Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (New York, 1950); especially chap. 10.
[15] Lewis Carroll, ‘What the Tortoise Said to Achilles', in Complete Works (London: Nonesuch Press, 1956), quoted by Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), p. 56.
[16] The Dialectic of Enlightenment, p. 3: "In the most general sense of progressive thought, the Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant."
[17] The Dialectic of Enlightenment, p. 6: "Enlightenment is totalitarian."
[18] From Max Weber: Essays on Sociology, op. cit., p. 44. See also Herbert Marcuse, "Industrialization and Capitalism in the Work of Max Weber", in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), p. 215.
[19] Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1970).
[20] Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 122-131. Berlin divides freedom (liberty) into the negative and the positive, pp. 121-2: "... I shall call the ‘negative' sense (what) is involved in the answer to the question ‘What is the area within which the subject - a person or group of persons - is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?' The second, which I shall call the positive sense, is involved in the answer to the question ‘What, or who, is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?'
[21] Cf. Hanna Arendt, "On Freedom" (On Revolution. New York: Viking Press, 1963), pp. 120-121. To Arendt, freedom is different from liberation. Liberation demands a liberation from something (or someone). In contrast, freedom is the positive achievement of human action. It is known in human participation, debate and interchange: "Freedom for them could exist only in public; it was a tangible, worldly reality, something created by men to be enjoyed by men rather than a gift or a capacity, it was the man-made public space or market-place which antiquity had known as the area where freedom appears and becomes visible to all." (p. 121).
[23] Juergen Habermas, Twelve Lectures on Modernity. Trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985).
[24] Immanuel Kant, "Ueber den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht fuer die Praxis" in Kants Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. VIII, p. 283.
[25] Dialectic of Enlightenment, pp. 6, 11.
[26] The thesis that knowledge is power once laid down by Francis Bacon ("In Praise of Knowledge", in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Basil Montagu, London, 1825), Vol. I, pp. 254 ff.) was heavily criticized by Heidegger, and especially by Horkheimer and Adorno (Dialectic of Enlightenment, pp. 4-5).
[27] The Postmodern Condition, pp. 8-9: "For it appears in its most complete form, that of reversion, revealing that knowledge and power are simply two sides of the same questions: who decides what knowledge is, and who knows what needs to be decided? In the computer age, the question of knowledge is now more than ever a question of government."
[28] The Postmodern Condition, p. 8: "The point is that there is a strict interlinkage between the kind of language called science and the kind called ethics: they both stem from the same perspective, the same "choice" if you will - the choice called the Occident."
[29] The Postmodern Condition, pp. 36-7; Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. A. Sheridan (New York: Pantheon, 1977); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon, 1978). See also the important interview, "Truth and Power", in Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 109-133.
[30] The Dialectic of Enlightenment, p. 4.
[31] Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Force of Judgement, (New York: Cornelll University Press, 2000).
[32] The Postmodern Condition, p. xxiv: "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives."
[33] This kind of nostalgia (in the sense of "renaissance", or "romanticism") has made postmodernists a bunch of "neo-conservatives" as Habermas raised his attack in his paper "Modernity versus Post-modernity." See R. Bernstein, ed., Habermas and Modernity (Boston: Polity Press, 1989).
[34] Actually, Heidegger regards freedom as the essence of truth. But, to him, truth is inseparable from Being. See Martin Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit (Pfullingen: Neske, 1967), p. 32: "Das Wesen der Wahrheit is Freiheit". See also his Sein und Zeit (1927), SS. 40: "Das Dasein ist die Moeglichkeit des Freiseins fuer das eigenste Seinskoennen."
[35] Hanna Arendt distinguishes freedom from liberation. In her view, liberation means "liberation from something (hardship, oppressive rulers, etc.), while freedom expresses the positive achievement of human action. It exists only in a human community in which individual can debate, exchange ideas, participate and determine public affairs. See Hanna Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1963), p. 120-1.
[36] See Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge, 1989); See also Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis, 1982).
[37] The Postmodern Condition, pp. xxv, 60-61, 66.
[38] Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1961) (2nd ed. enl. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Paul Feyerabend, Against Method - Outline an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (London: NBL, 1975). Of course, Kuhn and Feyerabend were not the inventors of the concept of ‘incommensurable." However, they are perhaps the firsts who intensively discussed and passionately argued for incommensurability. To be fair, the French postmodernists have developed by themselves their own version of the "immeasurable," and thus, a discourse on Kuhn's or Feyerabend's thesis would be superfluous here.
[39] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. M. Anscombe (London: Blackwell, 1953), sect. 23. Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism - Science, Hermeneutics, And Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983): "For those attracted by the new varieties of relativism, the alleged incommensurability of language games, forms of life, traditions, paradigms, and theories had been taken to be the primary evidence for the new relativism." For those who have a "pro-attitude" towards incommensurability, it has been viewed as a liberating doctrine, one that releases us from the false parochialism of regarding our familiar language games and standards as having some sort of transcendental permanence. And for those who have a characteristic "anti" attitude, the "thesis of incommensurability" opens the door to everything that is objectionable-subjectivism, irrationalism and nihilism." (Bernstein, p. 79)
[40] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 65-84; The Postmodern Condition, p. 10.
[41] Philosophical Investigations, 37-1.
[42] To "give rules" is different from to "follow rules." If to "give rules" does not necessarily obey a certain previous set of rules or conditions (as seen in the case of genius which Kant analysed in his Critique of the Power of Judgement) then to "follow rules" means to "act in the same way on the same kind of occasion." Cf. Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957), p. 28.
[43] The Postmodern Condition, p. 10: "The pragmatics of prescription entail concomitant changes in the post of addressee and referent."
[44] Peter Winch, p. 32: "Establishing a standard is not an activity which it makes sense to ascribe to any individual in complete isolation from other individuals. For it is contact with other individuals which alone makes possible to external check on one's actions which is inseparable from an established standard."
[45] Kurt Goedel, On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems. Trans. B. Bletzer (New York: Basic Books, 1962).
[46] Gaston Bachelard, Le Rationalisme appliqueù (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1949).
[47] Pierre Simon Laplace's fiction of the "demon" would be best depict this theory of thermodynamics: the demon knows all of the variables determining the state of the universe at a moment t, and can thus predict its state at a moment t'>t. (Exposition du systeøme du monde, 2 Vols., 1976), quoted by Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition, p. 55 and note 190. Lyotard comments: "This fiction is sustained by the principle that physical systems, including the system of systems called the universe, follow regular patterns, with the result that their evolution traces a regular path and gives rise to "normal" continuous function (and to futurology...)." The Postmodern Condition, p. 55.
[48] The Postmodern Condition, p. 55.
[49] The Postmodern Condition, p. 56.
[50] And perhaps by authors like Michel Serres and Louis Althusser. Cf. Alan Sheridan, Michel Foucault - The Will to Truth (London and New York: Tavistock, 1980), p. 91.
[51] The Postmodern Condition, pp. 42-43. See also Jean Ladrieøre, Les Limitations internes des formalismes (Louvain: E. Nauwelaerts, 1957).
[52] Michel Foucault, Les mots et les choses (Paris: Gallimard, 1966, trans. as The Order of Things by Alan Sheridan with a foreword of Michel Foucault (London, Tavistock and New York: Pantheon, 1970); Michel Foucault, L'archéologie du savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), trans. as The Archaeology of Knowledge by Alan Sheridan (London, Tavistock and New York: Pantheon, 1972).
[53] The Archaeology of Knowledge, Introduction.
[55] The Postmodern Condition, p. 57: "Here, the relation between the scientist's statement and "what ‘nature' says" seems to be organized as a game without perfect information. The modalization of the scientist's statement reflects the fact that the effective, singular statement (the token) that nature will produce is unpredictable. All that can be calculated is the probability that the statement will say one thing rather than another."
[57] Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion (Boston, 1948).
[58] E.E. Enans-Pritchard, Social Anthropology (Glencoe, Illinois, 1957).
[59] Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
[60] Kuhn commented to Sneed's Formalism in a paper entitled "Theory-Change as Structure-Change: Comments on the Sneed Formalism" Erkenntnis 10 (1976), 190-191: "Most readers of my text have supposed that when I spoke of theories as incommensurable, I mean that they could not be compaired. But ‘incommensurability' is a term borrowed from mathematics, and it there has no such implication. The hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle is incommensurable with its side, but the two can be compared to any required degree of precision. What is lacking is not comparability but a unit of length in terms of which both can be measured directly and exactly. In applying the term ‘incommensurability' to theories, I had intended only to insist that there was no common language within which both could be fully expresses and which could therefore be used in a point-by-point comparison between them." Here I follow Bernstein's analysis of Feyerabend's concept of incommensurability. See Bernstein, op. cit., pp. 83 ff.
[61] Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (London: NLB, 1975). p. 271.
[62] Bernstein, p. 83. Bernstein comments: "This is why Kuhn (and Feyerabend) argue that "the relation between contemporary Einsteinian dynamics and the older dynamic equations that descend from Newton's Principia is fundamentally incompatible." Bernstein, p. 83; Kuhn, p. 98.
[63] Feyerabend, "Changing Patterns of Reconstruction," British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 28 (1977), p. 363. Bernstein, p. 81. Or "When using the term ‘incommensurable' I always meant deductive disjointedness and nothing else." Feyerabend, p. 365; Bernstein, 81.
[64] Feyerabend, Against Method, p . 274; Bernstein, p. 81.
[67] Feyerabend, Against Method, op. cit., p. 225. See also Paul Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society (London: NLB, 1978).
[68] Feyerabend, Against Method, pp. 273-74.
[69] Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, p. 10; Similar criticism is also widely circulated among theologians of the Third World, or in favour of a pluralistic theology. The Tuebinger theologian Hans Kueng has explicitly condemned occidentalism (found in many missionaries in the past) as imperialism. See Hans Kueng and Julia Ching, Christentum und Chinesische Religion (Muenchen: Piper, 1987).
[70] See Tran Van Doan, Reason, Rationality, Reasonableness (Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2000).
[71] See for example Habermas' criticism of postmodernism in his polemic "Modernity versus Post-modernity," in Thomas McCarthy ed., Habermas and Modernity (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987).
[73] TM, 271; WM, 288; Bernstein, 143.
[77] "Problem of Historical Consciousness," p. 107.
[78] TM, 271; WM, 288; Bernstein, 144.
Chapter II: PLURALISTIC CULTURE AND OPEN SOCIETY
Introductory remark
The idea of an open society is as old as the history of humankind. Open society is a society in which people are tolerant towards others' idea, life-style and ideology. Open society thus is known by its member's behaviour of respecting and even taking other ideas into consideration. In a word, open society can be known by its ability to receive other cultures, and by its capacity to fuse them into its own body, making itself more ideal.
In this sense, many Confucians have claimed that the ancient China was an open society with a certain democratic practice, once found in the regime of Yao and Schwen, the two legendary kings. The two sages knew how to listen to their people, how to satisfy their needs and how to harmonize the conflicts. Similarly, one would boastfully exalt the "chin-ming" or "love for people" of Mencius as the best example of democracy, an essential aspect of open society. Of course, the Western apologists would rival their Eastern scholars by crediting the merit to Socrates and Plato as the forerunners of open society. The killing of Socrates certainly inspired Plato's criticism of the myth of cave: only the ignorant, the autistic ego would be intolerant of truth. His idea of a republic in fact aimed at correcting the intolerance and cynicism of oligarchy which was responsible for the death of his master.
It is not my intention to question these claims, nor is it my wish to look for an exact definition of open society. In fact, these claims are not completely founded and justified; and the idea of open society seems to be as vague as it is controversial. We know that the prophets of open society may be its worst offender, as seen in the case of Platonians and even of Confucians. Similarly, the most ardent opponents of feudal system may turn out to be its most fanatic defenders. Popper has exposed this paradox in his classic: The Open Society and Its Enemies which I will discuss in the next section. Thus, I will not embark on a search for a definition of open society. It would be impossible or, in a certain sense, self-contradictory to do so. There is one thing that we may agree, and Popper himself would concede, namely, that the idea of open society is born and constructed slowly and progressively in the process of human history - in Popper's own vocabulary, piecemeal social engineering - and as such, it is by no means definitively conclusive. This is the starting point on which I shall rely to prove the internal relationship between human tolerance towards other cultures, their receptivity of different ideas and the emergence of open society.
Popper's concept of open society
The reader of The Open Society and Its Enemies would be deeply schoked by Popper's violent attack on Plato, George F. Hegel and Karl Marx, to mention but a few to whom applies the label of open society's greatest enemies. This hard, unpleasant feeling may be similar to that of the captives in the cave at the moment they were told about the truth of another world they never saw. Plato's narrative of this uneasy feeling is insightful. He demonstrated that what one regarded absurd in the past might turn to be unconsciously taken for granted later. In this sense, despite its provocative and extravagant character, The Open Society and Its Enemies is worth a careful revaluation.
Supposing that Popper is right, I would like to begin first with the question of how can great and most open-minded thinkers, the ones who have decisively contributed to the progress of mankind, make a 180 degree turn to become the enemies of open society. This is Popper's main concern. Popper himself never doubts the greatness of these immortal thinkers, and he does not question their titanic contribution to the building of human society. Plato's far reaching vision of a republic, Hegel's forecast of the coming of the absolute state, as well as Marx's attempt to give flesh and bones to Hegel's absolute spirit (i.e. the Proletariat), all have generated the force pushing the world forward. Similarly, Martin Heidegger's tireless digging into the still undiscovered dimension of human beings, and his relentless critique of Western philosophy has inspired generations to follow.
Now, the question of whether or not Popper is right to blame them for the closed character of society, for dictatorship, for being the enemies of open society must be carefully examined. Here, we have to examine his arguments, or his explanation of the switching of great philosophers from men of enlightenment to enemies of reason. Popper's arguments could be resumed in following points, widely discussed and repeated mainly in his The Open Society, in a previous work, The Poverty of Historicism, and in his later Conjectures and Refutations.
First, the claim of science and of being scientific among scientists and philosophers is very questionable, and in many cases, somewhat unfounded. This claim is based on a biased conception of science, according to which science means a certain kind of knowledge of universal and necessary character. Consequently, scientists are those who possess this kind of knowledge. As seen in the case of Plato, and Descartes later, only the idea that is universal and necessary can be treated as "scientific." Descartes made no doubt that such knowledge is mathematical, and therefore, science is identified with mathematics, and scientific methods are none other than mathematical method of deduction or analytic, and geometrical intuition. On the other hand, John Locke, by following Francis Bacon, would favour induction as the best method of all sciences. Such a claim is hardly challenged, but it is taken for granted by most of scientists and even philosophers until to our days. Popper objects to such view and claim. In his view, if science is defined by the criterion of truth, and if its method is analytic, then there is hardly any scientific discovery at all. All that mathematicians and philosophers have done, and are doing, may be only a confirmation and reconfirmation of the fact; or in Marx's quite reasonable critique, all that philosophers have done is only a certain kind of interpretation of the same thing, of the same fact.
Hence, it is time to rethink science. Implicating Marx's view of social critique, Popper holds the view that the business of science is to discover, first, the problems of knowledge and of the world, and then to solve them. And in order to solve the problems, or to change the world, criticism, a relentless criticism is the conditio sine qua non. From such a conviction, Popper conjectures a new understanding of science, in his own words, as follows: "The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it... As scientists we do not seek highly probable theories but explanations; that is to say, powerful and improbable theories." A similar understanding of science is applied to the social sciences and the humanities as well, as he exposed in his thesis on social sciences: "Thus the method of science is one of tentative attempts to solve our problems; by conjectures which are controlled by severe criticism. It is consciously critical development of the method of ‘trial and error.'
Second, as a consequence of the view of science as an endless process of "trial and error", i.e. a rational criticism, Popper rejects any kind of scientific theory that claims absolute truth. If science is acquired by mistakes learning, and if the process of mistakes learning is endless, then as logical consequence, no truth could be final. Therefore, any belief in the absolute form of science, i.e. in an absolute truth, in a perfect society (once claimed by Plato, Hegel and Marx) is dismissed by him as historicism. Historicism is the belief that history would end itself in an absolute state, that the historical process would follow a certain logical pattern, and that such a history is within our reach. Plato's absolute state based on the eternal , Hegel's absolute Geist and its impeccable dialectic, Marx's dream of an absolute proletariat, i.e. a classless society, as the final stage, all point to the belief of a culmination of human history; all share the dogma of a final, absolute logic of history. Precisely in this sense that Popper interprets Marx's historicism as the belief in "the method of a science of society", i.e. the belief that "the study of history, and especially of the tendencies (is) inherent in the historical development of mankind." According to this belief, historicism is implicit in human activities, and of course, in all human societal structures. And in conformity with Marx's division of societal structure in the super-structure and the infra-structure, historicism expresses itself in its two most fundamental forms: the economic and the moral. In Popper's view, the first one is embraced by Marx, while the latter by Christianity (which Marx inherited from, even if he rhetorically denied). Such an historicism contradicts itself, not because the premise of Hegel's logic was false (no proof is sufficient), but because the conclusion of a progressive society contradicts any claim of an absolute. Hence, objection to the claim of an absolute truth implicitly implies an objection to any form of historicism.
Having unmasked the hypocritical essence of such a logic, Popper goes to the consequence of his logic by arguing that historicism would be the chief enemy of open society. From this conclusion, Popper goes a step further: to defend the open society, one has unmask the fallacy of Hegel's and Marx's logic - Here he strictly follows Marx's radical criticism, by unmasking his own master. Only if we succeed in doing it, then we may have the chance to regain the freedom once lost in the hand of historicism.
Third, Popper sides himself with David Hume arguing that there is no logical connection between fact and norm, between the "is" and the "ought." He repugnantly writes: "It is impossible to derive sentence starting a norm or a decision or, say, a proposal for policy, from a sentence stating a fact." This is his direct confrontation with the great Kant, even if he is, in a certain measure, a Kantian, as seen in his stubborn insistence on the autonomy of ethics. In Popper's view, fact belongs to the order of the first world, while norm to that of the second world. Fact is "natural" while norm is often constructed after a certain model of nature, or in most cases, artificially at the wimp of rulers. In the case of policy, it could be made in accordance with, or in response to some facts (the case of natural disasters), but mostly, arbitrarily. The norms adopted by socialism are surely not identical with those found in capitalist system, even if both claim the rightness of their norms, simply because their factual (actual) life is different. He argues: "That most people agree with the norm ‘You shalt not steal' is a sociological fact. But the norm ‘You shalt not steal' is not a fact, and can never be inferred from sentences describing facts."
Fourth, Popper follows Kant in insisting the autonomy of ethics. As a rational individual, fully conscious of his or her own act, man (woman) has the right to determine his (her) own fate. Here is the main reason of Popper's "passionate belief in the right of individuals to criticize their rulers and the institutional framework of their societies." Here is also the reason of Popper's bitterness against Plato's concept of justice that Popper dismisses as "a synonym for ‘that which is in the interest of the best state.'"
Fifth, Popper accuses Plato, Hegel and Marx of being prophets of historicism, in the sense that they were trying to build a utopian society, i.e. a society of no foundation and unrealisable. In contrast, Popper conceives of an open society, i.e. a society in a process of being constructed step by step and by means of critique. In his jargon, his is a piecemeal social engineering. Here a further clarification of Popper's conceptions of utopian society and "piecemeal social engineering" is needed to avoid possible misunderstanding. Utopian society is the ideal but unreal state which Plato and Platonians sought to build on the earth. The utopian is often conceived as the perfect, the absolute, the ultimate that never exist before, and which there would no other state can replace. If Plato had tried in vain to build his ideal republic, if Hegel had attempted in futile to reincarnate the absolute Geist, then Marx's ideal of an absolute proletariat would have been rather a sheer vision and hopeless project, since their ideals are in fact of utopian essence. In a word, the ideal of an absolute, final state remains as vague as unreal, and consequently, un-realisable. In contrast, "piecemeal social engineering" is a realistic attempt to build our society. Piecemeal engineering is described by Popper as follows:
Any rational action must have a certain aim... Only when this ultimate aim is determined, in rough outline at least, like a blueprint of the society at which we aim, only then can we begin to consider the best ways and means for its realization, and to draw up a plan for practical action... I wish to outline another approach to social engineering, namely, that of piecemeal engineering. It is an approach which I think to be methodologically sound. The politician who adopts this method may or may not have a blueprint of society before his mind, he may or may not hope that mankind will one day realize an ideal state, and achieve happiness and perfection on earth. But he will be aware that perfection, if at all attainable, is far distant, and that very generation of men, and therefore also the living, have a claim; perhaps not so much a claim to be made happy, for there are no institutional means of making a man happy, but a claim not to be made unhappy, where it can be avoided... The piecemeal engineer will, accordingly, adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.
For all of these reasons, Popper concludes that just because of an obsession with these gigantic ideas that Plato, Hegel and Marx were logically seduced to the dogma of a unique truth, a unique ideal state, etc. And consequently, against their will, they indirectly advocated for a close, monolithic society. In short, they are the enemies of open society.
Pluralistic culture and its relation to open society
There is no doubt, Popper might have gone too far with his rather lavished critique, and his conclusion seems to be less convincing as many criticism have been raised against him. Nonetheless, one can hardly dismiss his good, very good point indeed, namely, an open society is marked by its capacity of receptivity, and by its ability of non-conformity. Furthermore, social progress proceeds step by step, by means of constant correction, and not by any external force or extra-terrestrial idea. I will develop his idea further, by extending the two characteristics of receptivity and non-conformity beyond the sphere of scientific research.
On the one hand, one has to recognize Popper's true intention behind his devastating critique. His merciless attack on Plato, Hegel and Marx does not in fact aim at these great personalities, but rather at what they might have been responsible for, namely a certain ideology, the so-called historicism which Popper regarded as the stronghold of the enemies of open society. Historicism with the ideology of tribalism as its legitimate product is an ideology cemented on the belief that only a certain genre, a certain race, a certain country, or a certain culture has the privilege or the gift to possess the whole of truth and the right to claim (or better say, the right to dictate) the world. And as such, it entertains the view of a unique history, a predetermined history which belongs to this race, country or religion, political party, etc.
In the same context, scientific tribalism is the uncritical view that only a certain view, a certain method (induction e.g.), a certain science could warrant truth, stimulate discovery, and change the world. This ideology is regretfully wholeheartedly taken by scientists and philosophers, the ones once claimed to themselves the right to possess truth and its method. Here is the main reason of why Popper starts his arguments against, first with his criticism, the claim of a unique truth. In his view, the belief in a unique truth, and the illusion of possessing it are too strong and too uncritical, so that almost all Western philosophers, especially modern ones have taken it for granted. Such a belief strongly persuaded scientists and philosophers to search for it. They came to the idea that, only the best method is the most effective instrument for the search for truth, to warrant truth; and consequently, who has the right method, who has the truth. Such logic leads to a corollary, the search for truth is identified with the search for the best method, and vice-versa; and of course, this method must be scientific in nature. Scientific discovery is identified with an elaboration (or manufacture, or construction) of method. In this context, Descartes had built his philosophy. In his view, if truth is the unique, then, it is the question of correct method that decides (Descartes). To him, correct method is of scientific character, i.e. a method of analytic and inductive character. Needless to say, this method is none other but mathematics (with geometry and arithmetic as the models). We have no need to reiterate here what Bacon, Locke, Newton... had achieved with their search for the exact methods. It is sufficient to note that, to all of them, scientific work is identified with their elaboration of scientific methods. However different they might have been, they shared the same belief, only their method is the only one correct and most effective.
Popper argues, if their method is the only one correct, and if their truth is the only unique one, then the point we have to do is to put their claim under the test of reason. Not quite in the line of the great Kant, Popper takes the two principles of falsification and justification as the criteria for the test. He argues, if a view could be easily "falsified", then we can successfully prove the claim of unique truth untenable; then we can demonstrate that such and such method may be questionable. In a word, such a view can be easily refuted. Here, Popper takes the pincer-tactics by attacking from two sides: First, in the case of the claim of a unique truth, then there is perhaps only a certain most correct method which may reach this truth. However, each scientist may adopt different methods. That means, they tacitly accept that there are many methods to reach it. If so, then Popper attempts to demonstrate that these philosophers and scientists commit either self-contradiction or they have to accept a new view of science. In Popper's view, they have misunderstood science, and hence, the conception of truth. Science is not marked by the criteria of universal and necessary truth, but by the constant criticism. Second, if truth is unique, then one should have a clear-cut definition of truth. The fact is that no one can afford to do so. So, one has to concede that truth cannot be defined. If so, then any ideology seems to be absurd. Ideologists tend to turn a blind eye on the fact that, as an inclusive concept, open society is too vague. It is not identified with truth, and certainly much less defined by the truth criteria. By not discovering the difference between theoria and praxis, and by entertaining the illusion of a perfect society in accordance with the principle of mathematical truth, they have pushed very hard for the realisation of such a society. And as such, they opened the door letting the enemy sneaking in. Open society becomes therefore a sheer slogan, or better say, just as an instrument for the exactly opposite purpose. As seen in human history, dictators, behind the mask of open society, have transformed it into an ideology to grab power first, and then to back and cement their power later. Worse, they suppress their opponents, and destroy open society itself. The case of a Robert Robespierre, a Paul Marat is by far not an exception; it is, pitifully and deplorably, a common case, regularly repeated by great "leaders" like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Dze-tung, Chang Kai-shek, and a horde of similar "great leaders." They ritually proclaimed with fanfare a coming democracy, but at the same, they cynically extinguished the burning desire for freedom of their people.
On the other hand, we also discover in Popper's logic certain fallacies, the one of insufficient grounds (or data) to universalize the critical method as the only scientific one, and the other of categorical mistake, i.e. the tendency of applying the same method in as much diverse as different subjects. And as such, Popper seems to be on the same footing of those whom he attacked: he is still a faithful believer in a certain ideology, that of rational criticism. As a consequence of his unquestioned belief in the magic power of criticism, i.e. in his method of "trial and error," he is prevented from recognising the true intention of Plato, Hegel, and, especially, Marx. I will elucidate my critique as follows.
First, one cannot, I guess, take the method of the so-called "trial and error" as a panacea, applying it to all sciences, not to mention, to the human spheres beyond the sphere of exact sciences. Can one test the love of a mother? Can one verify her love by taking the so-called objective criteria? Or must we recognise the fact that love cannot be defined, that there is not the same love, that love has its own logic (as Pascal once brilliantly showed). Here is evident of the one we identify as category mistake, i.e. the error of applying the same criteria (or the same method) to different categories, or in Kantian views, of applying the same categories to different subjects. Second, even if such method may be of scientific character, then it is still far from immune of "dogmatic" belief which scientist tirelessly attacked. The fact that any choice or any conjecture of a thesis (premise) cannot be a kind of creatio ex nihilo. It is born (or constructed) in our life-world, of which it aims at a certain problem. And our life-world is shaped by traditions, habits, beliefs and so on. That means, any conjecture can be possible in a certain life-world, and influenced by pre-scientific views. Just as the claim of reason is often nourished in the womb of irrational belief, scientist's claim of science is often grounded on non-scientific belief. Here is the reason why no one, including Popper himself, could not avoid the so-called Mannheim's paradox, i.e. any critique of ideology is in-itself ideological; any criticism is born in an uncritical belief, i.e. an unverified premise.
Second, Popper seems to be dictated by the belief that any one, the one who produces a kind of "meta-narrative" (the language of post-modernists) or grand theory, commits the same mistake of being utopian and determinist. Such a belief has prevented Popper to pass a fair verdict on these great theoreticians. The fact that Marx has wisely discovered the double face of the claim of open society hidden in the uncritical claim of truth is simply sidelined by Popper. Actually, Marx had dismissed Bauer, Proudhon, Feuerbach and Bakunin for their lack of criticism and for the contentment with a sheer rhetoric for an open, utopian and unscientific society. In Marx's view, the danger of utopian society advocated by Proudhon is as great as the irresponsible adventure of an anarchistic state championed by Bakunin. In the same line of Marx, and ironically against Marx, Heidegger's attack of the traditional conception of truth could be interpreted as his objection to Marx's prophecy of an absolute truth incorporate in the dictatorship of the proletariat. And the neo-Marxist Habermas would play the same game, by chiding the postmodernists for their aimless adventure, and by doubting the extravagant claim of absolute truth of the self-bestowed guardians of socialism from Kremlin or from the newly forbidden city (Peking). To be sure, Heidegger, Habermas and the likes are returning to the path once opened by Socrates, namely it is not the truth, but the search for truth that counts. That is the path once locked up by modern philosophers like Descartes and Locke when they claimed possessing the truth, and the method of truth acquiring. Seen in this context, it appears that Popper scratches where does not itch: his criticism of Marx, Heidegger, and the others led to nowhere, since he himself has followed the same path once cleared by Hegel, Marx and most recently, Heidegger. In this sense, he may understand reason not in the sense of modern philosophy, but of our rigorous and non-conformist attitude. That means, thought different his conception of reason may be, he still believes in the force of reason. Here, Popper continues to share the belief let down by modern philosophers like Kant indeed.
Open society and its characteristics
The Dialectical Formation of Pluralistic Culture
Following the main thesis exposed in The Open Society ad Its Enemies one may put forth another thesis as its corollary, namely, as long as the transition from the tribal or closed society to open society does not obey the principle of critical power of man, it would encourage reactionary movements which try to overthrow civilizations, and to return to tribalism. Here Popper elevates the power of criticism up to the rank of a non-negotiated condition. According to Popper, the world imagined by Plato, designed by Hegel and constructed by Marx is deprived of this critical force, and therefore, prey to tribalism. Thus, they are at best pseudo-champions of open society. I find Popper's thesis very challenging, but at the same time, very "dangerous." It is dangerous, because it would lapse into a certain kind of scepticism, or radicalism. The point I wish to argue against Popper is, his view is quite plausible so far if it is applied in a certain field, say, the field of logic; but it would become sheer slogan if applied to a real world. My thesis would be different, a society makes progress only if it has a clear purpose that benefits it, and it knows how to attain this goal. In this section, I will context the view of Popper by arguing that, a criticism alone is insufficient to constitute the open society. Criticism can at its best to safeguard our path, not letting us wandering and getting loss in the thick and dark woods. Open society cannot grow out from criticism, but from a permanent construction and reconstruction, i.e. a tireless dialectical synthesis of all elements of life. Criticism is only a means helping us to be clear of our purpose, to correct our methods, and sometimes to adjust even our purpose. Without a certain purpose in sight, any criticism would be empty and meaningless. Criticism makes sense only when it examines the rightfulness or the usefulness of purpose, when it helps to find a correct method to attain this goal, and when it challenges, forces us to be not at rest, but to discover the problems which we often ignorantly takes for granted as non-problems. Thus, I contend that the main force which makes society progressing is not criticism only, but much more, human power of dialectically synthesizing all elements of life, i.e. elements which may contribute to human survival, human self-preservation and human progress. Furthermore, the richer is the world, then the more encompassing knowledge, practical ideas and methods one needs. That is true to our present world, the so-called globalized world, i.e. a world of innumerable problems and myriad of needs that no single idea, no single method, and no single knowledge can adequately respond to. Plato would respond differently to our world, just as Hegel and Marx must have a second thought before venturing any conjecture. They have to know what is our world, what do the people need, where from we are coming and whereto are we going, and so on. In other words, they would reiterate the same questions that a thoughtful Kant once posed, what are the contemporary human beings?
The Hegelian Model and Its Principles
The Rational Law of Aufhebung. Hegel may be a prophet of bad reputation, or he is simply a soothsayer, a "charlatan" as a great deal of his rivals once attempted to badmouth him - Schopenhauer is one, Nietzsche is another one who intoned the anti-Hegelian chorus. The point is, if Hegel is a "dead dog" (the way his contemporary intellectuals like Arthur Schopenhauer, and even Friedrich Schelling treated him) then how can we explain the survival and even the irresistible attractiveness of his dialectics. The onslaught of these prominent figures on his philosophy seems to get nowhere, but to hurt themselves badly. Schelling himself, for example, ended up with his very Hegelian manner, consciously widening dialectics to the sphere of religions, while Schopenhauer tarnished his image with a mystic and pessimistic philosophy of will. Yes, to be fair, Hegel has scored a point, a very important point indeed, namely history progresses forwards, precisely by means of a dialectical Aufhebung. According to this view, human history is a long, endless process of negating the negative elements, conserving the positive ones, and synthesizing the new elements with the old ones making society more perfect, more progressive. This logic led him to suggest that the spirit of his times (Zeitgeist) and the spirit of his society (Volksgeist) as well as his arts (romantics) and religion (Christianity) would be the final synthesis of human history, since they conserve and sublime the best elements of the Eastern culture (religions) and the Western civilisations. Romantic arts, he said, are the synthesis of the pre-classics and classics, of the subject and object, just as Christianity the final synthesis of all religions since in it one finds the elements of feeling and reason, of immanence and transcendence. Of course, the philosopher would conjecture philosophy as the final synthesis of all kinds of knowledge (arts, religions, etc.). In a word, as Karl Loewith brilliantly describes, "The outline of the Hegelian system consists in its measuring the course of history according to temporal progress; that is, on the basis of the final stage, it argues backwards to those preceding as necessarily leading to it. This orientation toward an historical sequence presupposes that the only valid aspect of world history is that which has many consequences, that the sequence of world events should be evaluated according to the rational principle of its success."
Hegel's vision seems to be quite plausible if there is only an unique truth, and if the power of reason really overwhelms the world. The question is, if reason and truth cannot be known a priori, but only a posteriori, then how Hegel, the thinker par excellence, knows before hand what will happen. This kind of speculative thinking does not help much in cementing the absolute power of reason. As a matter of fact, Hegel dogmatically gives to reason what he has found in God. Furthermore, if reason and truth reveal themselves in different ways, even diversely and self-contradictorily - the kind envisaged by Heidegger and later by postmodernists-, then Hegel's conclusion is rather premature and dogmatic. My critique of Hegel's speculative reasoning does not rest on the above-mentioned point, but goes farther against the dangerous game of dualism which Hegel and most of Western philosophers have played so far. The argument that there is either a reason or a non reason, and that this reason is possessed by them, logically leads to an exclusion of any culture, or civilisation or belief, or practice which do not conform themselves to the reason of modern philosophers. That Hegel dares to claim that his Christian-Germanic civilisation is the final stage, that "his" philosophy the ultimate knowledge, etc. is in fact a logical sequence of such an extravagant claim indeed. We know (by learning from Hegel's over self-confidence and optimism) that any claim of a unique reason seems to be too far-fetched and even "irrational." Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno have ironically demonstrated this "truth" in their now becoming classic The Dialectic of Enlightenment. Conscious of this error, Neo-Hegelians (be the rightists or leftists) have developed the idea of Aufhebung in a more acceptable manner, by searching for a scientific ground to justify it. For our purpose, I will explore the model of horizons fusion of Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), a disciple of Heidegger but with a true Hegelian spirit, to back my thesis.
The Model of Horizons Fusion
Gadamer's Thesis. The fact that human history (and human culture) does not follow the unique way, but many as much diverse as contradicting ways, and the fact that reason is expressed not uniquely but in different manners, force us to cast doubt on the claim of modern philosophy, and to search for a new model. The point is, how to aufheben as much different and contradicting elements into a new more complete, more reasonable synthesis. Heidegger suggested a new understanding of identity in the sense of "belonging together". Only so, one can fully grasp the paradox of "identity in difference." Aufhebung here is a kind of Oriental thinking (by which Heidegger heavily in influenced) expressing how one constructs his life world from a pool of different elements and lives. That is also the kind of thinking rooted in the Christian tradition, as expressed by Nicholas of Cusa in terms of coincidentia oppositorum, of how man relates himself to God, and God to the world; of how the infinite discovers itself in the finite, and in reverse, the finite in the infinite. Of course, such a way of thinking has been fully developed (and distorted) as mediation and synthesis (as seen in the philosophy of Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel). Gadamer develops this principle in a more concrete way. He takes the model of horizons fusion to be a proto-model to give light to how cultures shape themselves, how our consciousness formulates itself, and how knowledge comes into its proper form.
Let us begin first with what we understand as horizon, especially the horizon of life. Looking forwards, one easily finds a line which gives us impression that it would be the point (line) linking the sky and the earth. Such a line is called by us horizon. The point is, such a line is not real, in the sense that it does not exist as a thing even if it appears however before our eyes. We really do see it. Everyone see it. It is not under the effect of illusion or hallucination. Thus, its existence is beyond any doubt. However, it cannot be verified by the same external facts, by the same data or by a set of criteria, as required by science. It is in our mind that this same line constitutes itself as what we call horizon. Horizon hence means not only a real line, but rather a real world which emerges with our presence, which constitutes our actual and conscious world. Yet this world never exists as the same. It gradually emerges as a more encompassing, more widened, and more deepened one. It is our world, but we are unable to grasp it completely. The more close we approach it, the same distance we discover. Thus, the only one thing that we discover is, with our constant approach, our knowledge is widening, deepening and perhaps, more intimate. From this observation, one may say, the same line seems to be extended, and appears quite differently, and often richer in the sense that it encompasses the past lines, and the past worlds which surround the line. Secondly, we are not advancing farther than we believe, since the distance remains the same. However, we are getting more encompassing knowledge about it. The distance in terms of space between us and the line is narrowed, and curiously, widened in our mind. In this sense, one can say, our constant approach to horizon produces a richer knowledge about it. Third, the newly acquired line does not exclude the past lines, just as the newly acquired knowledge, and the newly acquire world do not exclude old knowledge, worlds and traditions. It encompasses all of them in it. Thus, it may appear as the same but certainly with richer and more encompassing content.
To apply this thesis into our discussion, I would venture to argue analogously, that the more contact do we pursue, the more encompassing is our life world; the more rencontres do we have, the richer is our life. Our life world is thus in a permanent process of self-enrichment, providing that it is open to possible contacts.
Concluding remark
The Inseparability of Pluralistic Culture and Open Society
Since my main focus is on the relationship of pluralistic culture and open society, or better say, pluralistic culture is the most expressive and concrete form of an open society, I will not delve into the detail of the long process of the formation of either Vietnamese culture or Chinese culture. It is sufficient to make some notes, as short as needed, about what I mean by pluralistic culture. By pluralistic culture, I understand as a culture which is open for all possible different cultures which it may tries to incorporate into its own body their quintessence, with a certain purpose of enriching its own treasure of values. Pluralistic culture is far different from a newly emerging ideology of pluralism, the so-called cultural pluralism with a policy of laisser-faire: all are possible, all are not for critique and all have its own right. Since I have raised my critical voice against such an ideology, I will not delve into detain here, and content with my argument that, only an open society would be in position to enrich itself, and only by means of the so-called horizons fusion that our life-world may be able to response to the newly emerging needs and human desires. To conclude I would formulate my thesis in following items:
First, open means the capacity of receiving new elements, which one digests and fuses them into one's own body.
Second, open indicates one's ability to use new elements to solve the existing problems, and to discover new ones.
Third, open expresses human way of living, the way of making it better in terms of more encompassing, more perfect and more enjoyable.
Fourth, our society today is the one of newly and constantly emerging needs, the one full of new emerging desires which, due to the rapid expansion of high technology and its products, are beyond our control. Any rigid attitude, narrow policy dictate by the close mentality would produce more harm than benefits. It could not solve the problems emerged from modern society, and of course, unable to satisfy human newly emerging needs and desires.
Fifth, with the facility given to us by the high technology, one easily recognises that our needs and desires are implicitly hidden in our different and diverse cultures. Hence, new desires and needs are the direct products of the so-called cultural fusion, and of the new products.
Sixth, therefore, cultural fusion is the condition for an open society.
Chapter II: PLURALISTIC CULTURE AND OPEN SOCIETY
Introductory remark
The idea of an open society is as old as the history of humankind. Open society is a society in which people are tolerant towards others’ idea, life-style and ideology. Open society thus is known by its member’s behaviour of respecting and even taking other ideas into consideration. In a word, open society can be known by its ability to receive other cultures, and by its capacity to fuse them into its own body, making itself more ideal.
In this sense, many Confucians have claimed that the ancient China was an open society with a certain democratic practice, once found in the regime of Yao and Schwen, the two legendary kings. The two sages knew how to listen to their people, how to satisfy their needs and how to harmonize the conflicts. Similarly, one would boastfully exalt the “chin-ming” or “love for people” of Mencius as the best example of democracy, an essential aspect of open society. Of course, the Western apologists would rival their Eastern scholars by crediting the merit to Socrates and Plato as the forerunners of open society. The killing of Socrates certainly inspired Plato’s criticism of the myth of cave: only the ignorant, the autistic ego would be intolerant of truth. His idea of a republic in fact aimed at correcting the intolerance and cynicism of oligarchy which was responsible for the death of his master.
It is not my intention to question these claims, nor is it my wish to look for an exact definition of open society. In fact, these claims are not completely founded and justified; and the idea of open society seems to be as vague as it is controversial. We know that the prophets of open society may be its worst offender, as seen in the case of Platonians and even of Confucians. Similarly, the most ardent opponents of feudal system may turn out to be its most fanatic defenders. Popper has exposed this paradox in his classic: The Open Society and Its Enemies which I will discuss in the next section. Thus, I will not embark on a search for a definition of open society. It would be impossible or, in a certain sense, self-contradictory to do so. There is one thing that we may agree, and Popper himself would concede, namely, that the idea of open society is born and constructed slowly and progressively in the process of human history - in Popper’s own vocabulary, piecemeal social engineering - and as such, it is by no means definitively conclusive. This is the starting point on which I shall rely to prove the internal relationship between human tolerance towards other cultures, their receptivity of different ideas and the emergence of open society.
Popper’s concept of open society
The reader of The Open Society and Its Enemies would be deeply schoked by Popper’s violent attack on Plato, George F. Hegel and Karl Marx, to mention but a few to whom applies the label of open society’s greatest enemies. This hard, unpleasant feeling may be similar to that of the captives in the cave at the moment they were told about the truth of another world they never saw. Plato’s narrative of this uneasy feeling is insightful. He demonstrated that what one regarded absurd in the past might turn to be unconsciously taken for granted later. In this sense, despite its provocative and extravagant character, The Open Society and Its Enemies is worth a careful revaluation.
Supposing that Popper is right, I would like to begin first with the question of how can great and most open-minded thinkers, the ones who have decisively contributed to the progress of mankind, make a 180 degree turn to become the enemies of open society. This is Popper’s main concern. Popper himself never doubts the greatness of these immortal thinkers, and he does not question their titanic contribution to the building of human society. Plato’s far reaching vision of a republic, Hegel’s forecast of the coming of the absolute state, as well as Marx’s attempt to give flesh and bones to Hegel’s absolute spirit (i.e. the Proletariat), all have generated the force pushing the world forward. Similarly, Martin Heidegger’s tireless digging into the still undiscovered dimension of human beings, and his relentless critique of Western philosophy has inspired generations to follow.
Now, the question of whether or not Popper is right to blame them for the closed character of society, for dictatorship, for being the enemies of open society must be carefully examined. Here, we have to examine his arguments, or his explanation of the switching of great philosophers from men of enlightenment to enemies of reason. Popper’s arguments could be resumed in following points, widely discussed and repeated mainly in his The Open Society, in a previous work, The Poverty of Historicism, and in his later Conjectures and Refutations.
First, the claim of science and of being scientific among scientists and philosophers is very questionable, and in many cases, somewhat unfounded. This claim is based on a biased conception of science, according to which science means a certain kind of knowledge of universal and necessary character. Consequently, scientists are those who possess this kind of knowledge. As seen in the case of Plato, and Descartes later, only the idea that is universal and necessary can be treated as “scientific.” Descartes made no doubt that such knowledge is mathematical, and therefore, science is identified with mathematics, and scientific methods are none other than mathematical method of deduction or analytic, and geometrical intuition. On the other hand, John Locke, by following Francis Bacon, would favour induction as the best method of all sciences. Such a claim is hardly challenged, but it is taken for granted by most of scientists and even philosophers until to our days. Popper objects to such view and claim. In his view, if science is defined by the criterion of truth, and if its method is analytic, then there is hardly any scientific discovery at all. All that mathematicians and philosophers have done, and are doing, may be only a confirmation and reconfirmation of the fact; or in Marx’s quite reasonable critique, all that philosophers have done is only a certain kind of interpretation of the same thing, of the same fact.
Hence, it is time to rethink science. Implicating Marx’s view of social critique, Popper holds the view that the business of science is to discover, first, the problems of knowledge and of the world, and then to solve them. And in order to solve the problems, or to change the world, criticism, a relentless criticism is the conditio sine qua non. From such a conviction, Popper conjectures a new understanding of science, in his own words, as follows: “The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it… As scientists we do not seek highly probable theories but explanations; that is to say, powerful and improbable theories.” A similar understanding of science is applied to the social sciences and the humanities as well, as he exposed in his thesis on social sciences: “Thus the method of science is one of tentative attempts to solve our problems; by conjectures which are controlled by severe criticism. It is consciously critical development of the method of ‘trial and error.’
Second, as a consequence of the view of science as an endless process of “trial and error”, i.e. a rational criticism, Popper rejects any kind of scientific theory that claims absolute truth. If science is acquired by mistakes learning, and if the process of mistakes learning is endless, then as logical consequence, no truth could be final. Therefore, any belief in the absolute form of science, i.e. in an absolute truth, in a perfect society (once claimed by Plato, Hegel and Marx) is dismissed by him as historicism. Historicism is the belief that history would end itself in an absolute state, that the historical process would follow a certain logical pattern, and that such a history is within our reach. Plato’s absolute state based on the eternal , Hegel’s absolute Geist and its impeccable dialectic, Marx’s dream of an absolute proletariat, i.e. a classless society, as the final stage, all point to the belief of a culmination of human history; all share the dogma of a final, absolute logic of history. Precisely in this sense that Popper interprets Marx’s historicism as the belief in “the method of a science of society”, i.e. the belief that “the study of history, and especially of the tendencies (is) inherent in the historical development of mankind.” According to this belief, historicism is implicit in human activities, and of course, in all human societal structures. And in conformity with Marx’s division of societal structure in the super-structure and the infra-structure, historicism expresses itself in its two most fundamental forms: the economic and the moral. In Popper’s view, the first one is embraced by Marx, while the latter by Christianity (which Marx inherited from, even if he rhetorically denied). Such an historicism contradicts itself, not because the premise of Hegel’s logic was false (no proof is sufficient), but because the conclusion of a progressive society contradicts any claim of an absolute. Hence, objection to the claim of an absolute truth implicitly implies an objection to any form of historicism.
Having unmasked the hypocritical essence of such a logic, Popper goes to the consequence of his logic by arguing that historicism would be the chief enemy of open society. From this conclusion, Popper goes a step further: to defend the open society, one has unmask the fallacy of Hegel’s and Marx’s logic - Here he strictly follows Marx’s radical criticism, by unmasking his own master. Only if we succeed in doing it, then we may have the chance to regain the freedom once lost in the hand of historicism.
Third, Popper sides himself with David Hume arguing that there is no logical connection between fact and norm, between the “is” and the “ought.” He repugnantly writes: “It is impossible to derive sentence starting a norm or a decision or, say, a proposal for policy, from a sentence stating a fact.” This is his direct confrontation with the great Kant, even if he is, in a certain measure, a Kantian, as seen in his stubborn insistence on the autonomy of ethics. In Popper’s view, fact belongs to the order of the first world, while norm to that of the second world. Fact is “natural” while norm is often constructed after a certain model of nature, or in most cases, artificially at the wimp of rulers. In the case of policy, it could be made in accordance with, or in response to some facts (the case of natural disasters), but mostly, arbitrarily. The norms adopted by socialism are surely not identical with those found in capitalist system, even if both claim the rightness of their norms, simply because their factual (actual) life is different. He argues: “That most people agree with the norm ‘You shalt not steal’ is a sociological fact. But the norm ‘You shalt not steal’ is not a fact, and can never be inferred from sentences describing facts.”
Fourth, Popper follows Kant in insisting the autonomy of ethics. As a rational individual, fully conscious of his or her own act, man (woman) has the right to determine his (her) own fate. Here is the main reason of Popper’s “passionate belief in the right of individuals to criticize their rulers and the institutional framework of their societies.” Here is also the reason of Popper’s bitterness against Plato’s concept of justice that Popper dismisses as “a synonym for ‘that which is in the interest of the best state.’”
Fifth, Popper accuses Plato, Hegel and Marx of being prophets of historicism, in the sense that they were trying to build a utopian society, i.e. a society of no foundation and unrealisable. In contrast, Popper conceives of an open society, i.e. a society in a process of being constructed step by step and by means of critique. In his jargon, his is a piecemeal social engineering. Here a further clarification of Popper’s conceptions of utopian society and “piecemeal social engineering” is needed to avoid possible misunderstanding. Utopian society is the ideal but unreal state which Plato and Platonians sought to build on the earth. The utopian is often conceived as the perfect, the absolute, the ultimate that never exist before, and which there would no other state can replace. If Plato had tried in vain to build his ideal republic, if Hegel had attempted in futile to reincarnate the absolute Geist, then Marx’s ideal of an absolute proletariat would have been rather a sheer vision and hopeless project, since their ideals are in fact of utopian essence. In a word, the ideal of an absolute, final state remains as vague as unreal, and consequently, un-realisable. In contrast, “piecemeal social engineering” is a realistic attempt to build our society. Piecemeal engineering is described by Popper as follows:
Any rational action must have a certain aim… Only when this ultimate aim is determined, in rough outline at least, like a blueprint of the society at which we aim, only then can we begin to consider the best ways and means for its realization, and to draw up a plan for practical action… I wish to outline another approach to social engineering, namely, that of piecemeal engineering. It is an approach which I think to be methodologically sound. The politician who adopts this method may or may not have a blueprint of society before his mind, he may or may not hope that mankind will one day realize an ideal state, and achieve happiness and perfection on earth. But he will be aware that perfection, if at all attainable, is far distant, and that very generation of men, and therefore also the living, have a claim; perhaps not so much a claim to be made happy, for there are no institutional means of making a man happy, but a claim not to be made unhappy, where it can be avoided… The piecemeal engineer will, accordingly, adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.
For all of these reasons, Popper concludes that just because of an obsession with these gigantic ideas that Plato, Hegel and Marx were logically seduced to the dogma of a unique truth, a unique ideal state, etc. And consequently, against their will, they indirectly advocated for a close, monolithic society. In short, they are the enemies of open society.
Pluralistic culture and its relation to open society
There is no doubt, Popper might have gone too far with his rather lavished critique, and his conclusion seems to be less convincing as many criticism have been raised against him. Nonetheless, one can hardly dismiss his good, very good point indeed, namely, an open society is marked by its capacity of receptivity, and by its ability of non-conformity. Furthermore, social progress proceeds step by step, by means of constant correction, and not by any external force or extra-terrestrial idea. I will develop his idea further, by extending the two characteristics of receptivity and non-conformity beyond the sphere of scientific research.
On the one hand, one has to recognize Popper’s true intention behind his devastating critique. His merciless attack on Plato, Hegel and Marx does not in fact aim at these great personalities, but rather at what they might have been responsible for, namely a certain ideology, the so-called historicism which Popper regarded as the stronghold of the enemies of open society. Historicism with the ideology of tribalism as its legitimate product is an ideology cemented on the belief that only a certain genre, a certain race, a certain country, or a certain culture has the privilege or the gift to possess the whole of truth and the right to claim (or better say, the right to dictate) the world. And as such, it entertains the view of a unique history, a predetermined history which belongs to this race, country or religion, political party, etc.
In the same context, scientific tribalism is the uncritical view that only a certain view, a certain method (induction e.g.), a certain science could warrant truth, stimulate discovery, and change the world. This ideology is regretfully wholeheartedly taken by scientists and philosophers, the ones once claimed to themselves the right to possess truth and its method. Here is the main reason of why Popper starts his arguments against, first with his criticism, the claim of a unique truth. In his view, the belief in a unique truth, and the illusion of possessing it are too strong and too uncritical, so that almost all Western philosophers, especially modern ones have taken it for granted. Such a belief strongly persuaded scientists and philosophers to search for it. They came to the idea that, only the best method is the most effective instrument for the search for truth, to warrant truth; and consequently, who has the right method, who has the truth. Such logic leads to a corollary, the search for truth is identified with the search for the best method, and vice-versa; and of course, this method must be scientific in nature. Scientific discovery is identified with an elaboration (or manufacture, or construction) of method. In this context, Descartes had built his philosophy. In his view, if truth is the unique, then, it is the question of correct method that decides (Descartes). To him, correct method is of scientific character, i.e. a method of analytic and inductive character. Needless to say, this method is none other but mathematics (with geometry and arithmetic as the models). We have no need to reiterate here what Bacon, Locke, Newton… had achieved with their search for the exact methods. It is sufficient to note that, to all of them, scientific work is identified with their elaboration of scientific methods. However different they might have been, they shared the same belief, only their method is the only one correct and most effective.
Popper argues, if their method is the only one correct, and if their truth is the only unique one, then the point we have to do is to put their claim under the test of reason. Not quite in the line of the great Kant, Popper takes the two principles of falsification and justification as the criteria for the test. He argues, if a view could be easily “falsified”, then we can successfully prove the claim of unique truth untenable; then we can demonstrate that such and such method may be questionable. In a word, such a view can be easily refuted. Here, Popper takes the pincer-tactics by attacking from two sides: First, in the case of the claim of a unique truth, then there is perhaps only a certain most correct method which may reach this truth. However, each scientist may adopt different methods. That means, they tacitly accept that there are many methods to reach it. If so, then Popper attempts to demonstrate that these philosophers and scientists commit either self-contradiction or they have to accept a new view of science. In Popper’s view, they have misunderstood science, and hence, the conception of truth. Science is not marked by the criteria of universal and necessary truth, but by the constant criticism. Second, if truth is unique, then one should have a clear-cut definition of truth. The fact is that no one can afford to do so. So, one has to concede that truth cannot be defined. If so, then any ideology seems to be absurd. Ideologists tend to turn a blind eye on the fact that, as an inclusive concept, open society is too vague. It is not identified with truth, and certainly much less defined by the truth criteria. By not discovering the difference between theoria and praxis, and by entertaining the illusion of a perfect society in accordance with the principle of mathematical truth, they have pushed very hard for the realisation of such a society. And as such, they opened the door letting the enemy sneaking in. Open society becomes therefore a sheer slogan, or better say, just as an instrument for the exactly opposite purpose. As seen in human history, dictators, behind the mask of open society, have transformed it into an ideology to grab power first, and then to back and cement their power later. Worse, they suppress their opponents, and destroy open society itself. The case of a Robert Robespierre, a Paul Marat is by far not an exception; it is, pitifully and deplorably, a common case, regularly repeated by great “leaders” like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Dze-tung, Chang Kai-shek, and a horde of similar “great leaders.” They ritually proclaimed with fanfare a coming democracy, but at the same, they cynically extinguished the burning desire for freedom of their people.
On the other hand, we also discover in Popper’s logic certain fallacies, the one of insufficient grounds (or data) to universalize the critical method as the only scientific one, and the other of categorical mistake, i.e. the tendency of applying the same method in as much diverse as different subjects. And as such, Popper seems to be on the same footing of those whom he attacked: he is still a faithful believer in a certain ideology, that of rational criticism. As a consequence of his unquestioned belief in the magic power of criticism, i.e. in his method of “trial and error,” he is prevented from recognising the true intention of Plato, Hegel, and, especially, Marx. I will elucidate my critique as follows.
First, one cannot, I guess, take the method of the so-called “trial and error” as a panacea, applying it to all sciences, not to mention, to the human spheres beyond the sphere of exact sciences. Can one test the love of a mother? Can one verify her love by taking the so-called objective criteria? Or must we recognise the fact that love cannot be defined, that there is not the same love, that love has its own logic (as Pascal once brilliantly showed). Here is evident of the one we identify as category mistake, i.e. the error of applying the same criteria (or the same method) to different categories, or in Kantian views, of applying the same categories to different subjects. Second, even if such method may be of scientific character, then it is still far from immune of “dogmatic” belief which scientist tirelessly attacked. The fact that any choice or any conjecture of a thesis (premise) cannot be a kind of creatio ex nihilo. It is born (or constructed) in our life-world, of which it aims at a certain problem. And our life-world is shaped by traditions, habits, beliefs and so on. That means, any conjecture can be possible in a certain life-world, and influenced by pre-scientific views. Just as the claim of reason is often nourished in the womb of irrational belief, scientist’s claim of science is often grounded on non-scientific belief. Here is the reason why no one, including Popper himself, could not avoid the so-called Mannheim’s paradox, i.e. any critique of ideology is in-itself ideological; any criticism is born in an uncritical belief, i.e. an unverified premise.
Second, Popper seems to be dictated by the belief that any one, the one who produces a kind of “meta-narrative” (the language of post-modernists) or grand theory, commits the same mistake of being utopian and determinist. Such a belief has prevented Popper to pass a fair verdict on these great theoreticians. The fact that Marx has wisely discovered the double face of the claim of open society hidden in the uncritical claim of truth is simply sidelined by Popper. Actually, Marx had dismissed Bauer, Proudhon, Feuerbach and Bakunin for their lack of criticism and for the contentment with a sheer rhetoric for an open, utopian and unscientific society. In Marx’s view, the danger of utopian society advocated by Proudhon is as great as the irresponsible adventure of an anarchistic state championed by Bakunin. In the same line of Marx, and ironically against Marx, Heidegger’s attack of the traditional conception of truth could be interpreted as his objection to Marx’s prophecy of an absolute truth incorporate in the dictatorship of the proletariat. And the neo-Marxist Habermas would play the same game, by chiding the postmodernists for their aimless adventure, and by doubting the extravagant claim of absolute truth of the self-bestowed guardians of socialism from Kremlin or from the newly forbidden city (Peking). To be sure, Heidegger, Habermas and the likes are returning to the path once opened by Socrates, namely it is not the truth, but the search for truth that counts. That is the path once locked up by modern philosophers like Descartes and Locke when they claimed possessing the truth, and the method of truth acquiring. Seen in this context, it appears that Popper scratches where does not itch: his criticism of Marx, Heidegger, and the others led to nowhere, since he himself has followed the same path once cleared by Hegel, Marx and most recently, Heidegger. In this sense, he may understand reason not in the sense of modern philosophy, but of our rigorous and non-conformist attitude. That means, thought different his conception of reason may be, he still believes in the force of reason. Here, Popper continues to share the belief let down by modern philosophers like Kant indeed.
Open society and its characteristics
The Dialectical Formation of Pluralistic Culture
Following the main thesis exposed in The Open Society ad Its Enemies one may put forth another thesis as its corollary, namely, as long as the transition from the tribal or closed society to open society does not obey the principle of critical power of man, it would encourage reactionary movements which try to overthrow civilizations, and to return to tribalism. Here Popper elevates the power of criticism up to the rank of a non-negotiated condition. According to Popper, the world imagined by Plato, designed by Hegel and constructed by Marx is deprived of this critical force, and therefore, prey to tribalism. Thus, they are at best pseudo-champions of open society. I find Popper’s thesis very challenging, but at the same time, very “dangerous.” It is dangerous, because it would lapse into a certain kind of scepticism, or radicalism. The point I wish to argue against Popper is, his view is quite plausible so far if it is applied in a certain field, say, the field of logic; but it would become sheer slogan if applied to a real world. My thesis would be different, a society makes progress only if it has a clear purpose that benefits it, and it knows how to attain this goal. In this section, I will context the view of Popper by arguing that, a criticism alone is insufficient to constitute the open society. Criticism can at its best to safeguard our path, not letting us wandering and getting loss in the thick and dark woods. Open society cannot grow out from criticism, but from a permanent construction and reconstruction, i.e. a tireless dialectical synthesis of all elements of life. Criticism is only a means helping us to be clear of our purpose, to correct our methods, and sometimes to adjust even our purpose. Without a certain purpose in sight, any criticism would be empty and meaningless. Criticism makes sense only when it examines the rightfulness or the usefulness of purpose, when it helps to find a correct method to attain this goal, and when it challenges, forces us to be not at rest, but to discover the problems which we often ignorantly takes for granted as non-problems. Thus, I contend that the main force which makes society progressing is not criticism only, but much more, human power of dialectically synthesizing all elements of life, i.e. elements which may contribute to human survival, human self-preservation and human progress. Furthermore, the richer is the world, then the more encompassing knowledge, practical ideas and methods one needs. That is true to our present world, the so-called globalized world, i.e. a world of innumerable problems and myriad of needs that no single idea, no single method, and no single knowledge can adequately respond to. Plato would respond differently to our world, just as Hegel and Marx must have a second thought before venturing any conjecture. They have to know what is our world, what do the people need, where from we are coming and whereto are we going, and so on. In other words, they would reiterate the same questions that a thoughtful Kant once posed, what are the contemporary human beings?
The Hegelian Model and Its Principles
The Rational Law of Aufhebung. Hegel may be a prophet of bad reputation, or he is simply a soothsayer, a “charlatan” as a great deal of his rivals once attempted to badmouth him - Schopenhauer is one, Nietzsche is another one who intoned the anti-Hegelian chorus. The point is, if Hegel is a “dead dog” (the way his contemporary intellectuals like Arthur Schopenhauer, and even Friedrich Schelling treated him) then how can we explain the survival and even the irresistible attractiveness of his dialectics. The onslaught of these prominent figures on his philosophy seems to get nowhere, but to hurt themselves badly. Schelling himself, for example, ended up with his very Hegelian manner, consciously widening dialectics to the sphere of religions, while Schopenhauer tarnished his image with a mystic and pessimistic philosophy of will. Yes, to be fair, Hegel has scored a point, a very important point indeed, namely history progresses forwards, precisely by means of a dialectical Aufhebung. According to this view, human history is a long, endless process of negating the negative elements, conserving the positive ones, and synthesizing the new elements with the old ones making society more perfect, more progressive. This logic led him to suggest that the spirit of his times (Zeitgeist) and the spirit of his society (Volksgeist) as well as his arts (romantics) and religion (Christianity) would be the final synthesis of human history, since they conserve and sublime the best elements of the Eastern culture (religions) and the Western civilisations. Romantic arts, he said, are the synthesis of the pre-classics and classics, of the subject and object, just as Christianity the final synthesis of all religions since in it one finds the elements of feeling and reason, of immanence and transcendence. Of course, the philosopher would conjecture philosophy as the final synthesis of all kinds of knowledge (arts, religions, etc.). In a word, as Karl Loewith brilliantly describes, “The outline of the Hegelian system consists in its measuring the course of history according to temporal progress; that is, on the basis of the final stage, it argues backwards to those preceding as necessarily leading to it. This orientation toward an historical sequence presupposes that the only valid aspect of world history is that which has many consequences, that the sequence of world events should be evaluated according to the rational principle of its success.”
Hegel’s vision seems to be quite plausible if there is only an unique truth, and if the power of reason really overwhelms the world. The question is, if reason and truth cannot be known a priori, but only a posteriori, then how Hegel, the thinker par excellence, knows before hand what will happen. This kind of speculative thinking does not help much in cementing the absolute power of reason. As a matter of fact, Hegel dogmatically gives to reason what he has found in God. Furthermore, if reason and truth reveal themselves in different ways, even diversely and self-contradictorily - the kind envisaged by Heidegger and later by postmodernists-, then Hegel’s conclusion is rather premature and dogmatic. My critique of Hegel’s speculative reasoning does not rest on the above-mentioned point, but goes farther against the dangerous game of dualism which Hegel and most of Western philosophers have played so far. The argument that there is either a reason or a non reason, and that this reason is possessed by them, logically leads to an exclusion of any culture, or civilisation or belief, or practice which do not conform themselves to the reason of modern philosophers. That Hegel dares to claim that his Christian-Germanic civilisation is the final stage, that “his” philosophy the ultimate knowledge, etc. is in fact a logical sequence of such an extravagant claim indeed. We know (by learning from Hegel’s over self-confidence and optimism) that any claim of a unique reason seems to be too far-fetched and even “irrational.” Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno have ironically demonstrated this “truth” in their now becoming classic The Dialectic of Enlightenment. Conscious of this error, Neo-Hegelians (be the rightists or leftists) have developed the idea of Aufhebung in a more acceptable manner, by searching for a scientific ground to justify it. For our purpose, I will explore the model of horizons fusion of Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), a disciple of Heidegger but with a true Hegelian spirit, to back my thesis.
The Model of Horizons Fusion
Gadamer’s Thesis. The fact that human history (and human culture) does not follow the unique way, but many as much diverse as contradicting ways, and the fact that reason is expressed not uniquely but in different manners, force us to cast doubt on the claim of modern philosophy, and to search for a new model. The point is, how to aufheben as much different and contradicting elements into a new more complete, more reasonable synthesis. Heidegger suggested a new understanding of identity in the sense of “belonging together”. Only so, one can fully grasp the paradox of “identity in difference.” Aufhebung here is a kind of Oriental thinking (by which Heidegger heavily in influenced) expressing how one constructs his life world from a pool of different elements and lives. That is also the kind of thinking rooted in the Christian tradition, as expressed by Nicholas of Cusa in terms of coincidentia oppositorum, of how man relates himself to God, and God to the world; of how the infinite discovers itself in the finite, and in reverse, the finite in the infinite. Of course, such a way of thinking has been fully developed (and distorted) as mediation and synthesis (as seen in the philosophy of Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel). Gadamer develops this principle in a more concrete way. He takes the model of horizons fusion to be a proto-model to give light to how cultures shape themselves, how our consciousness formulates itself, and how knowledge comes into its proper form.
Let us begin first with what we understand as horizon, especially the horizon of life. Looking forwards, one easily finds a line which gives us impression that it would be the point (line) linking the sky and the earth. Such a line is called by us horizon. The point is, such a line is not real, in the sense that it does not exist as a thing even if it appears however before our eyes. We really do see it. Everyone see it. It is not under the effect of illusion or hallucination. Thus, its existence is beyond any doubt. However, it cannot be verified by the same external facts, by the same data or by a set of criteria, as required by science. It is in our mind that this same line constitutes itself as what we call horizon. Horizon hence means not only a real line, but rather a real world which emerges with our presence, which constitutes our actual and conscious world. Yet this world never exists as the same. It gradually emerges as a more encompassing, more widened, and more deepened one. It is our world, but we are unable to grasp it completely. The more close we approach it, the same distance we discover. Thus, the only one thing that we discover is, with our constant approach, our knowledge is widening, deepening and perhaps, more intimate. From this observation, one may say, the same line seems to be extended, and appears quite differently, and often richer in the sense that it encompasses the past lines, and the past worlds which surround the line. Secondly, we are not advancing farther than we believe, since the distance remains the same. However, we are getting more encompassing knowledge about it. The distance in terms of space between us and the line is narrowed, and curiously, widened in our mind. In this sense, one can say, our constant approach to horizon produces a richer knowledge about it. Third, the newly acquired line does not exclude the past lines, just as the newly acquired knowledge, and the newly acquire world do not exclude old knowledge, worlds and traditions. It encompasses all of them in it. Thus, it may appear as the same but certainly with richer and more encompassing content.
To apply this thesis into our discussion, I would venture to argue analogously, that the more contact do we pursue, the more encompassing is our life world; the more rencontres do we have, the richer is our life. Our life world is thus in a permanent process of self-enrichment, providing that it is open to possible contacts.
Concluding remark
The Inseparability of Pluralistic Culture and Open Society
Since my main focus is on the relationship of pluralistic culture and open society, or better say, pluralistic culture is the most expressive and concrete form of an open society, I will not delve into the detail of the long process of the formation of either Vietnamese culture or Chinese culture. It is sufficient to make some notes, as short as needed, about what I mean by pluralistic culture. By pluralistic culture, I understand as a culture which is open for all possible different cultures which it may tries to incorporate into its own body their quintessence, with a certain purpose of enriching its own treasure of values. Pluralistic culture is far different from a newly emerging ideology of pluralism, the so-called cultural pluralism with a policy of laisser-faire: all are possible, all are not for critique and all have its own right. Since I have raised my critical voice against such an ideology, I will not delve into detain here, and content with my argument that, only an open society would be in position to enrich itself, and only by means of the so-called horizons fusion that our life-world may be able to response to the newly emerging needs and human desires. To conclude I would formulate my thesis in following items:
First, open means the capacity of receiving new elements, which one digests and fuses them into one’s own body.
Second, open indicates one’s ability to use new elements to solve the existing problems, and to discover new ones.
Third, open expresses human way of living, the way of making it better in terms of more encompassing, more perfect and more enjoyable.
Fourth, our society today is the one of newly and constantly emerging needs, the one full of new emerging desires which, due to the rapid expansion of high technology and its products, are beyond our control. Any rigid attitude, narrow policy dictate by the close mentality would produce more harm than benefits. It could not solve the problems emerged from modern society, and of course, unable to satisfy human newly emerging needs and desires.
Fifth, with the facility given to us by the high technology, one easily recognises that our needs and desires are implicitly hidden in our different and diverse cultures. Hence, new desires and needs are the direct products of the so-called cultural fusion, and of the new products.
Sixth, therefore, cultural fusion is the condition for an open society.
Chapter III: IDEALS, TRADITIONAL VALUES AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
Progress and social progress
Progress in its etymological sense of progredire is understood as "a step forward."[1] The question now is, can a simple step forward constitute progress? Surely not! One may make many steps forward, but if to nowhere, then these steps are either futile, or in some cases, lead to the reverse, namely regress. Therefore, the question is not a step forward, but "forward to what" in order to explain what we mean by progress or regress. This question points to the very essence of progress: progress means a step forward closer to a certain goal. It is, then, the goal that determines progress. It leads us to the idea that our examination of social progress should centre on the goal (and its nature) set by our society, to see whether this goal is the real factor determining progress. We know, a step forward to a certain goal of negative character, like destruction, sickness, death, and the like, can be hardly hailed as progress. In contrast, such a step (as one of murdering or suicide) would be despised and condemned, in a milder case, as "regress," or "decadence, and in a serious case, as a crime.
In this context, the progress made in technology could not be esteemed as progress if it leads to human self termination, even if it were undisputedly an invention or discovery. The claim of highly developed technique of mass murder, terror and vice to be a "progress," turns out rather to mock "technical breakthrough." It plays an essential role in social regress, and, doubtless, contributes nothing to progress. Similarly, the extravagant proclamation of the success of terror as "progress" paints a caricature of bad taste: "the progress of self-destruction." Such kinds of "progress," however, does not mean social progress, but social regress, since it brings humankind closer to self-annihilation. We know, Nazi scientists and those working for their war machine, the inventors of mass-destructive weapons (gas-chamber or rockets, etc.), the "fathers" of mass-destructive bombs did not contribute anything to social progress, since their goal was, in contrast, the destruction of a certain society or a certain race. Despite their claim of being the "defenders of peace by means of violence," they have indirectly participated in the hideous unpardonable extinction of million of innocents. How can they clean their hands tainted with the blood of their victims? Their claimed progress, if there be any, is then "a step forward" in the destruction of humanity. It would be absurd to claim that the estimated 50 million human beings (including civilians, Jews, Gypsies, Polish, homosexuals, and others) have taken their own death to "certify" the scientific "progress" of Nazi scientists. What we have to accept then is that "progress" made in the field of technology is not "progress" in the strictest sense, but rather a breakthrough, and in the field of technology only. Scientists would contribute nothing to social progress, if the purpose of their scientific invention (or discovery) is fully alien or hostile to human life. In contrast, only the invention of techniques or new ideas serving mankind, warranting world peace, reducing human sufferings, prolonging human life, and bettering society should be hailed as real contributions to social progress.
From the above consideration, progress is understood as both a step forward in the sense of getting far away from being constantly menaced by terror and destruction, and a step forward closer to the noble goals of safe-guarding, developing human life and human happiness. Progress makes sense only if it satisfies this double function. The further point we want to argue is that a step forward closer to noble goals is rather a step backward, since these noble goals are not the products of the present, or the prophecy of future society. They are "immanently" in and inseparable from human life. Certainly, they are certainly not identified with our ordinary goals of being better, smarter, richer, happier, and the likes.
As a step backward, the constant striving forward to noble goals - truth (veritas), goodness (bonitas), beauty (pulchritudo) and holiness (sanctitas) -[2] would be the real factors deciding progress, since the first aspect of progress, i.e. "to go away from" or to step forward far from evil (malum) is actually a necessary condition for progress. Interestingly, precisely this factor was and still is the dynamic force behind human construction of different sets or systems of values. Are not Asian (Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Thai, Philippines, Malaysian, etc.) values the products of this permanent construction of means and purposes for these ultimate ends (noble ideals)? Are not Western values based on them? Are not African values and human values in general judged by the yardstick of the truth, the good, the beauty and the holy?
In this context, my paper argues that social progress is determined by noble goals (truth, goodness, beauty, holiness), which are ardently desired, zealously sought by humankind, and constantly applied in our society.[3] This means that social progress is made first by the human search for, i.e. human invention of these noble ideals, and then by human continuous effort to realize them in concrete form in order to make them flourish, and to cultivate them. A society makes real progress only when it is trying to take "a step forward" closer to the ideals of truth, goodness, beauty, and holiness, i.e. when it attempts to transform itself to fit their forms, i.e. the various sets of values. As the forms which are already tested and accepted by a certain society, traditional values are conceived of, first, as the ideals of this society, of a certain nation, or more universally, of humankind. Then, after a long history of being tested by their life-worlds, these ideals took he forms of values which are "passed on" (traditio) to the next generations. As such, traditional values do exist not a priori (since they are not innate), but are worked out, tested, used and reused by generations of people. In a word, as both the witness and the soul of history, traditional values are the real testaments of social progress. We argue further that, since traditional values represent the ideals of a certain society, and since we are always oriented towards the ideals, then a step closer to traditional values means social progress also. Precisely in this context that we may say progress means both "a step forward" and "a step backward."
The dialectic of progress: a sep forward and a step backward
Progress, as we have mentioned, is often characterized in spatial terms by its "advance", or in ordinary language, as "a step forward." "Forward" means "going farther" than the hic, i.e. the present position. "Forward" means also "later" in terms of temporality: going further than the nunc, i.e. the present time (moment). "Looking forward" bears at the same time a temporal and spatial dimension. But, as we will see, the "temporal forward," often understood as the future, does not clearly point to progress because our existence is limited by our own insurmountable end. To go farther than the present (the hic) means also to approach our own end, i.e. death. Hegel's analysis of the human Dasein, just as Heidegger's analysis of temporality (Temporalitaet) both point to the tragic destiny of human existence: existence is limited by the death. There is nothing more paradoxical and tragic than the reality of human existence as it is defined by the non-existence: man is born in order to die.[4] This is a truth that no one denies but no one would happily accept. Such a bleak future is, of course, not the goal that human beings are seeking. Our burning desire for a bright future, i.e. an unlimited future, and our "march forward" toward it means also our effort to prolong our end. Progress in biological sciences would be measured by success in the human effort to prolong our own end. Therefore, progress now means a step forward closer to longevity - the ideal sought by all of us; it is a cardinal virtue for Chinese -, i.e. closer to the unlimited, the absolute, i.e. an aeternitas, or, in religious expression, to a "never ending here and now" (infinitus hic et nunc).[5] Hegel's attempt to overcome this fateful end with his search for the absolute, the infinite i.e. the absolute Geist, must therefore be understood as a progressive approach.[6]
Similarly to the dialectic of life, a step forward closer to the good also means a step far from evil, a step closer to beauty and away from the ugly, and a step closer to the holy away from the unholy. As we will argue in the next section, the search for noble ideals of truth (veritas), goodness (bonitas), the beauty (pulchritudo) and the holy (sanctitas) has always been the most urgent task. It takes a double and dialectical course, the first is the via negativa while the second the via positiva. The first calls us to take a step far from the evil, the untruth, the ugly and the unholy, while the second one calls for a step closer to the truth, the beautiful, the good and the holy. Consequently, the human construction of values must be guided by these two approaches. However, at bottom they must be based on the second ones, namely on the ideals of truth, goodness, beauty and holiness. In this sense, it is clear that noble ideals serve both as our ultimate goals and as the metaphysical foundation of all values so far.
The Paradox of Progress as a Step Forward
There is no doubt that, the future is always prior to and posterior from our present moment. In different expression, our future existence will come later than our present existence; tomorrow comes after today, and so on. However, there is no warrant that what comes later would be closer to our ideals, and consequently, would constitute progress. Our future existence makes "progress" only in comparison to the achievement of our present existence, just as our claimed progress is verified by the present success in comparing with that of the past. This means that it is the "what" and not the temporal dimension that counts here. Hence, future understood as a "temporal forward" would lose its sense if it is restricted to a temporal measure.
Let us begin first with the ordinary understanding of progress as "a step forward," and a step forward means an advance towards the future. Clearly, progress is defined by its temporal advance. The idea of advance in terms of temporality forces us to bite into the logic of "no advance no progress." It is usual to find the belief that the progress of human history is striving forward toward a certain future. Such tacit understanding of progress leads us to a conclusion that the future must be the real objective of the human search. It is the human ultimate end.
Of course, such a conclusion is fully consistent with the advance logic. The point we have mentioned above is, it is not the temporal dimension, but the content of our existence, i.e. the "what" that counts. Consequently, our question is whether the advance logic would be appropriate for any understanding of progress at all. As we see, progress or regress is measured by the different quality or quantity between the content of the present moment and that of the future. The difference of quality or quantity of the content should be the sole criteria determining progress or regress. This is tacitly accepted by humankind as reflected in the motto of altius, fortius et longius once laid down by the Greeks and the Romans in the Olympic games: the better or the best are those who are stronger, who spring higher and jump farther. That is, those who achieve better result in terms of quantity and quality are the bearers of progress.
In this sense, the advance logic based on temporal dimension would yield no meaning, since future is a vague concept lacking any concrete content. As such, it is "unreal" even if "true" in theory. Future can at best point to an unknown event, not yet happening or existing. That means, the content of the future is void so long as we still do not reach it. As a consequence, one encounters a very dubious and paradoxical reality, best expressed by Samuel Beckett in his Waiting for Godot: the future is certainly coming (true to advance logic), but we never possess it. We are uncertain of our future life despite its unquestionable reality. Sticking to the advance logic, protagonists of the view of progress as an advance toward the future brush aside this paradox. And to convince themselves of its "truth", they must "imagine", and "design" a future in which they force themselves to believe. To them, this future must advance farther than the present in terms of quantity and quality. Charles Darwin is certainly not the sole defender of this view, though he is unquestionably the best.
The question is, what they "regard" as "real" and "true" is rather a product of our imagination and perhaps our arbitrary design. If the future does not yet exist and if the real is what already existed, then such an imagination remains a pure product of phantasma. Could we judge progress or regress by comparing the existing to the non-existing? That means, by taking the future as the goal of progress, and by conceiving of "a step forward" closer to the future as the sign of progress, one is obliged to accept non existence as our ultimate goal. As such, we are either facing the bleak prospect of "abyss" (Heidegger), "nihilism" (Nietzsche), or "absurdity" (Sartre), or we must embrace a certain utopia (a sort of a terrestrial paradise, or the total triumph of the proletariat) as the ultimate goal of history.[7] The fact is that we can never arrive at it simply because future is unreal (even if it is true) and its content is void. The future is a true idea, but a void concept. This dilemma forces us to renounce the thesis of progress in terms of advance logic: such progress seems to be a self-portrait of the madman of Nietzsche, or of expressionists like Renoir and Van Goh painted in their state of hopelessness.
This consideration forces us to go a step further in arguing that it is not the logic of temporal advance, i.e. not the future, but the ideals and our effort to realize them that decides progress or regress. By rejecting the thesis of temporal advance as progress, and by arguing that the real content, i.e. the "what" of the present cannot be measured or compared by the yardstick or the contents of the future, here we conjecture that a step forward closer to the ideals is the real sign of progress. That means that not any step forward means progress, but only "a step forward" closer to a certain goal of an ideal character may be taken as the sign of progress. In the case of evolution and transformation, one may apply the same argument pro and contra: not evolution in se is the sign of progress, but an evolution to a certain higher (in quality), better goal that may be called progress. A blind evolution as a kind of natural law can hardly be praised as progress at all.
Progress as a Step towards Ideal Goals
This thesis demands a further investigation into human goals, as well as the qualitative difference among human goals. We will argue further that, although progress can be judged by the degree of success, i.e. by the closeness to the goal, social progress is possible only if the goal set by us is noble in character. Let us return to the Darwinian view. If the goal of the human race is simply a continuous self-transformation, and if the course of self-transformation is natural, then any talk about progress seems not to be meaningful. We know, such a goal is implanted in all living beings and that is not set by us because we have nothing to do with it; or better said, we are fully impotent in dealing with it. Can we praise the fact of a baby being born, growing up, getting old, and finally dying as human progress? Even by any generous standard one can hardly take this natural fact as progress. Growing old confirms the human course determined by natural law, but growing old is not our goal, just as death is certainly not our goal, even if it is fully natural and marks the end of life. Hence, one can say that simple natural transformation or evolution is not the goal of human life, and much less of human society. Consequently, if the future is marked (or better, predicted) by what we are transforming to, then such a future is rather a repetition of time, and our life is only a repetition of the same, though in different forms.
More tragically, would we be willing to accept death as a sign of "progress"? One may say, we are conscious of our fateful end, but we object to the idea of death as the ultimate human goal. Death is the concluding moment of life, but it is not our goal. Similarly, the future is not our goal, even if we are passively moving forward to the future. One could argue against us by the Darwinian logic of evolution (and transformation), and Freud's analysis of the unconsciousness. Natural instinct always orients us to a certain goal, either conscious or unconscious. In the case of suffering and dying, one may say, ironically, that any step closer to them is natural, and as such that they can be legitimately considered as human "goal." The goal conceived by the defender of this view is certainly not different from the goal implicit in nature. Nature is blind, but as a bat is in darkness. If so, any step forward to this goal can be regarded as "progress."
Of course, such an argument is absurd. Moving closer to the death means not progress but regress, simply because even if death is deliberately chosen as the goal by some one, it certainly is not ideal. Suicide reveals only the state of hopelessness, and not the reverse, i.e. hope. Hope is not the symptom of illness but the expression of a better life, better work, better chance, etc. In other word, hope reflects the ideals. By ideal, one understands what is the best, the perfect, or in a milder expression, less mistake, less burden, etc. Our normal understanding about death, and our categorical objection to death is a case in point showing that it is certainly far from ideal. In contrast, it is generally identified as the evil of evils. It is the worst! We would therefore call progress a certain recovery from illness, a longer distance from death, or a farther distance from the region where death reigns. We make progress in our work by keeping death from coming, of preventing diseases from attacking us. Biologists make progress in discovering the bacteria, viruses, certainly not simply for the sake of pure understanding or curiosity, but rather for practical purposes: to slow down death, to go a step forward that is further from the tragic "future." Similarly, politicians make certain progress in reducing the death rate of their people, or in keeping their country uninvolved in affairs where death is present (e.g. war). In a word, death, suffering, and the likes are not human goals because they are opposed to the ideals.
If progress is understood as a step forward closer to our ideals and to a certain future, then the point here is, does the ideal set by us lie in the future, or is it already immanent in our society or in our own existence. I would opt for the second view, arguing that our noble goals neither exist a priori nor lie a posteriori in the future, but are immanent in our existence and our society. Immanent here is understood in the sense that they were constructed by human beings in a long process, and remain inseparable from our own existence, even if we are unconscious of them. They were constructed not to satisfy our present moment, but for a lasting history, i.e. for a long lasting existence. As such, our ideals are not to be found only in the distant future, but also in the past and in the present. Our future life-world means not a life after the present moment, but an encompassing and multi-dimensional life. Consequently, the search for the ideals need not look forward to the future, but perhaps, better, they can be found in our own life-worlds, in its past and present.
German idealists like Georg F. Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling discovered this truth long ago. Nostalgic for the Homeric spirit and the Renaissance vitality, they have taken Forschritt (literally, a step forward) as the logic of the world (and nature). To them, Forschritt carries a double function: striving forward and receding back to the most substantial values. History in their eyes must obey the law of progress, i.e. it has to walk towards the end required by reason. As such, Forschritt here does not means a step forward to the future in the Darwinian sense, but a step forward-and-backward, in the sense of a step closer to the "end," i.e. the absolute, i.e. human ultimate goal. Actually, Hegel still conceived of the absolute as what Homer dreamed, as what Plato sought, and as what the protagonists of the Renaissance attempted to revive: ultimate harmony as the goal (the end) of history. This ultimate end is immanent in history, but is not placed at the end of history, i.e. in a future, or in the final day of judgement. It poses itself as the beginning and the end. To use messianic language, it is the alpha and the omega of human destiny. Walter Benjamin, a writer famous for his kabbalistic melancholy and mysticism, has blended messianic flavour with his repugnant surrendering to the (Heideggerian) "abyss." He "foresaw" the ultimate end of history immanent in our now-time (Jetzzeit).[8] He thus took the stand against an optimistic Marx who, still clinging to a certain kind of messianism, predicted it forthcoming in the form of a proletariat society.
Understood in this sense, progress reveals the right course of history. Whenever history approaches the final end, it has made a certain progress. And in this logic, history is conceived of by Hegel as history only due to its quality of progress, and progress can be judged only in its Forschritt towards the ultimate goal of history. Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) wants to demonstrate such logic. In this logic, the world history is a dialectical accumulation of periods (Zeitsgeist) and a dialectical synthesis of the diversity of people's minds and habits (Volksgeist) in accordance with the logic of reason of which its essence is progress. In other words, if spirit is the universal form of history, and if reason is its law that forces all phenomena to orient, or to go toward this universal form, then a step further, close to this universal is called Forschritt, i.e. progress.[9]
Our concern is not with Hegel's identification of spirit with reason itself, but rather with his understanding of progress as its "characteristic." We may have here two quite contradictory views: the one contra and the other pro Hegel. The contra argument goes to the direct consequence of Hegel's logic: if progress is the characteristic of reason, and if reason is absolute then progress means a step closer to an absolute. However, if the absolute is unreachable, or simply a void concept (as embraced by nihilists and Marxists), then progress means ironically (or paradoxically) a step either to nowhere or to nihilism, i.e. self-destruction (as seen in the prediction of Marx about the doom day of capitalism). In this logic, progress remains either an impracticable utopia or a dangerous illusion. Not only the pessimist existentialists like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, but also post-modernists would heartily welcome this Nietzschean prophecy; not only writers like Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, but also some historians would enthusiastically embrace it as the unavoidable consequence of Hegelian logic in the reverse. Oswald Spengler was certainly neither the first nor the last historian,[10] just as David Bell and Francis Fukuyama were surely not single voices in the "desert." These voices are repeated in a polyphonic post-modern chorus loudly sung by people like Derrida and Lyotard.[11]
The second or pro Hegel's view begins where Hegel left off: progress means a step closer to the absolute, but absolute here reflects rather an ideal that is reachable only in its temporality and historicity. That means the ideal is a concept that appears in history and makes history, and since history is proceeding to the absolute, the ideal reveals a part of the absolute. Progress in this sense means the process of realization of the ideal in history, as Loewith describes: "As a spirit which continuously surrenders and recollects, it is per se historical, even though the dialectic of becoming does not proceed in a straight line toward infinity, but rather goes in a circle, so that the end is the consummation of the beginning."[12]
Ideals and traditional values
So far, we have pointed out the close relationship between social progress and noble goals, i.e. human ideals. This part goes a step further to identify noble human goals with human values, and to show that traditional values were constructed so as to attain such goals.
As argued above, progress means "a step forward" far from destructive force, and a "step forward" closer to the noble goals, i.e. our ideals. Actually, these two steps are the two faces of the same coin. They bear the imprint of the same essence. To live longer means to keep a further distance from death, just as to live better means to reduce misery, and so on. In this sense, to be closer to the ideals is tantamount to being far from the undesired reality. Hence, one may adopt two different tactics for the same goal. The first approach is to change the unfavourable conditions, to dismiss the obstacles, or to reduce the factors which may hinder, endanger or destroy our life; while the second one would be a positive approach, to discover and take the means which help us to attain these noble goals. Progress could be seen from these two aspects, or judged by the success of these two different approaches. Now, keeping us far from the factors (conditions, milieu) which may endanger us, and reaching the ideals which benefit us make sense only if one knows exactly what these ideals are. In a word, noble ideals are what one conceives of as the best goals serving as principles guiding our life, and at the same time, on which one constructs methods to attain them.[13] In the manner of Giambattista Vico who, in his classic La scienzia nuova, rightly elevates sex (marriage), death (funerals) and religion to the rank of the "trinity" of the social sciences,[14] we can also categorically claim that, truth, goodness, beauty and holiness have been, still are, and always will be the most noble goals human beings are seeking. They become the quintessence of human life.
These most noble and highest ideals are not lying in the future; nor are they a product of the past. More importantly, they are not the products of a particular people, or a particular nation. They are neither single-handedly constructed or invented by a genius, nor are they randomly or arbitrarily imposed by some one of us. Great philosophers did not invent them, but attempted to defend them, and to work out various methods in order to attain them. So, Socrates did not invent truth, just as Plato did not discover beauty. Similarly, Buddha did not create goodness, and certainly Confucius had not worked out the ideal world based on moral tenets. We know, the reason of Socrates' attack against the Sophists is certainly not a vulgar vanity showing his superiority over them, but his defence of the ideal of truth. He considered truth as a noble goal not because it may produce the best effect, but simply because of its eternal and universal rightness. Simply speaking, truth is identified with justice. Kant brilliantly defended Socrates' position when he repeatedly argued for its eternal rightness: even if all men are lying, that does not change the eternal truth, and consequently, the command "you should not lie" must always be valid.[15] To Socrates, Kant and philosophers like them, truth is the goal most desired. It is the ideal and remains ideal even if no one can attain it.
Similarly, Aristotle and almost all great philosophers have found in goodness (happiness) the ideal. Various moral systems have been based on goodness. Of course, all of them are fully aware of the fact that there is no clear-cut definition of happiness, just as there is hardly a complete set, or a perfect system of truth, holiness and beauty. This seeming paradox is found in the essence of human beings: their ideals both remain human and surpass human limits at the same time. This means that even if the ideals are constructed by human beings, they transcend the limit of human experiences. This is what we mean by saying that the ideals are constructed by generations of humankind, but lie immanently and transcendentally in us. More interestingly, they are already existed in the future as the goals we are striving for.
Since the purpose of this paper is to prove the dialectical relation between progress and traditional values, I will detail the process of construction of ideals, but be content to say that without these noble ideals our system of values would not be stable, and since these ideals are internal, the values based on them are always valid. As such, one may find in traditional values those based on these ideals. They are eternally valid. This is the reason and value of our inquiry into traditional values. It is as well the raison d'etre of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.
Before moving to the next section discussing the relationship between progress, ideals and traditional values, I would reiterate our thesis, namely, progress is achieved only when we are approaching the noble purposes - truth, goodness, beauty and holiness. These ideals serve as both the foundation and the goals of our activities. These ideals serve also as the conditions and criteria of any system of values, if values are understood as those which satisfy the most basic human needs and the most intimate aspirations, our expected or planned future and in a word, give life, fulfil it and make it flourish.
Conclusion: progress as a step forward to the ideals and backward to traditional values
Traditional values, as we understand, may consist of two sets of values, the one based on the ideals, and the other on temporal needs and deeds.
In the first set of values based on the ideals, one finds similar characteristics between the ideals and traditional values: they all are essential (necessary) and long lasting (universal). They serve as the foundation of all values. Without them, the idea of values would become vague and confused; hence, they are necessary. Since the ideals were not a product fabricated by a certain age, they are eternal; since they were certainly neither a property of the Greek nor a possession of the Chinese or the Hindu, they must be the common property of human beings. Furthermore, since they are neither the products of a creatio ex nihilo nor that of pure experiences, they must be transcendentally known (or recognized) by us in the course of life. Based on the ideals, and sharing the same essences, the first set of traditional values is not the product of a certain period, a certain history or a certain group. And, to be sure, they are not the property of a certain genre, or a certain culture as "cultural imperialists" would claim. To be more concrete, traditional values, say of Chinese, like benevolence (Jen), fidelity (Chung), filial piety (Hsiao), rightness (Yi), etc... are based on the ideals of goodness and truthfulness (sincerity).[16] Traditional values (virtues) like happiness, justice, etc. laid down by Aristotle are no doubt founded on the ideals of goodness and truth, and perhaps, even on the ideals of beauty and holiness. We may recite a horde of values (virtues) which can by no means be rejected.
The second set of values may be constructed to suit the temporal tastes, to solve temporal needs, to satisfy the sudden emerging desires, needs and so on.[17] The values of democracy, autocracy, or monarchy in politics are, doubtless, not traditional values based on the ideals of truth or absolute goodness and rightness. They are nonetheless guided by some ideals of values that one lesser in the sense that these values are not universal and necessary like the ones of temporal and spatial urgency (stability, power and the likes). Since they are of rather temporal and regional characters, Plato once rightfully argued that each of these lesser ideals would generate values only in a certain conditions; they may endanger human life (or society) if they step over their own limit. As in Greek society, each people would construct a set of minor values depending on their temporal, spatial and racial ideals, and depending on their taste. The ideal beauty lady for black people would be for example a lady of black skin, while the reverse is true of the white people. The ideal food for a Chinese, in most cases, is Chinese, while that would not be the case of, say, an Indian or an African. These ideals could be changed or transformed once their social conditions, knowledge about them, and other factors are diminished, expanded or deformed. In a globalized world, many of them, especially of minor groups or races, are simply wiped out and replaced by others of stronger or larger groups. The conquering of (American) fast food chains and beverages in every corner of the globe, just as the triumph of Western luxury goods is certainly not an isolated case. The slow and quiet death of many dialects of African tribes, just as the explosion of new (sometimes bad) tastes among young people everywhere are the most eloquent and tragic examples showing that the ideals of minor values cannot resist the change. However, one cannot, and has no right to claim that English (American) language is the new absolute ideal language, that the American CNN is the absolute news channel, and so on. The fact that they are "globalized" does not prove their universal and necessary characters, since they can never become our noble ideals. In contrast, we can make progress without CNN and fast foods, just as we may acquire knowledge without American language and universities. In some case, it could be that the reverse is true. [18] To identify Coca Cola, MacDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken with American culture displays not only a naïve and superficial understanding of Americans, but it is a malicious insult to them. Americans, just as Chinese, Japanese, and others may have some kind of commercial culture, but it is not their essence. Their merit (values) is found in their strength and strong will, which is nourished by their ideals. The essence of American culture must be found in their ideals (respect for human rights, equality among human races, belief in God) which Abrahm Lincoln brilliantly represented and defended. Similarly, the essence of the Chinese (and Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese) is the ideals of harmony, benevolence, righteousness, etc., while that of the Thai people would be human peace and tranquillity. Of course, we can find similar essences in the cultures of the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia and Indonesia. We would contribute to a real social progress if we possessed these ideals. A strong sense of self-consciousness, a firm belief in our own faith, a self-confidence in our own values, etc. have always been, and still are conditions for excellence.[19]
As seen in our above analysis, traditional values belong to two set: some are a priori and others are a posteriori. The first are constituted in our consciousness, and become what we may call "good conscience" (liang-chih in Chinese), or "good will" (Kant), or "divine will"; the latter are constructed by us in accord with social and temporal conditions. They form what we may call "morals" (in the sense of customs), social values, national values, political values, and the like. It is important to make this distinction, since we have by no means taken all traditional values for granted, and put them on the same level. When we insist on the essential relation between traditional values and progress, we have in mind the traditional values of noble ideals, and not those of lesser values of the second set which are restricted by temporal and spatial as well as social conditions. Only the highest ideals would be at the same time the dynamic forces and the goals which attract us and force us to march forward and to search for the means to attain them. It is precisely in terms of these real factors that social progress is understood as a step forward closer to the ideals; and it is precisely because of their transcendental characteristics that social progress must also be a step backward closer to them.
[1] Note that progress is different from development. By development, I understand as a growth of quantitative character, while progress as a step closer to perfection. In the Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, sect. 4, John-Paul II makes clear that sviluppo (development) surpasses a simple crescita (growth ). Actually, the term sviluppo used by the Pope bears the same meaning of progress that I am discussing.
[2] Aristotle himself had elaborated a great deals of ideals like eudemonia (happiness, blessedness, prosperity), logos (kata ton orthon logon, Nicomachean Ethics, 1138b25), phronesis, dike (justice, 1155a), episteme, etc.
[3] It is interesting to note that the empirical researches on the structure of development (Jean Piaget) and moral development (Lawrence Kohlberg) both point to the fact that human development (progress) is dictated (or guided) by noble values. An inter-disciplinary research of a group of scholars in Taiwan (TARGTI Group) displays the same fact that the view of values among Taiwanese (Chinese) is oriented by most basic values and supreme values. See Luis Gutheinz, ed., Quality of Life in The Bioregion of Taiwan (Taipei: Faculty of Theology, Fujen University, 1994).
[4] Martin Heidegger, Was ist Metaphysik? (Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 1957); Jean-Paul Sartre, L'Etre et le Neant (Paris: Gallimard, 1947).
[5] The theme once explored by Plotinus, St. Augustine, Meister Eckhard and, most recently, by Walter Benjamin and Emmanuel Levinas. See Emmanuel Levinas, Totalite et l'infini. Essai sur l'exteriorite (1961).
[6] See the interpretation of Alexandre Kojeve in his Introduction to the Lecture of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (English translation, 1971). It is well-known that contemporary philosophers, the prophets of the earlier existentialism, like Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Maurice Merleau-Ponty have been heavily influenced by Kojeve's lecture.,
[7] The works of Daniel Bell, The End of History (New York, 1976), and Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free, 1992) may best depict the tragedy of an immanent "end of history."
[8] Walter Benjamin, The Origin of the German Tragic Drama. Translated by John Osborne (London: New Left Books, 1973). The concepts of aura and Jetzzeit were also developed by Benjamin in other works like Illumination (New York: Schocken Books, 1969) and Charles Beaudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism (London: New Left Books, 1973).
[9] George F. Hegel, Phaenomenologie des Geistes (1807). Karl Loewith observes summarises brilliantly Hegel's view of history as a constant progress towards the absolute spirit as follows: "This pathway of the eternally present spirit through the previous nature of history is not a detour to be avoided, but the only practicable way to the consummation of knowledge. The absolute or spirit, not only has its external history, as a man has clothing, but is, in its deepest nature, as a movement of self-development, an entity which exists only by becoming." See Karl Loewith, From Hegel to Nietzsche - The Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought (Canada: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), p. 32.
[10] Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Hamburg, 1972).
[11] See Jean-Francois Lyotard, La condition postmoderne - Un rapport du savoir (Paris, 1978); English translation of G. Bennington and B. Massumi, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis, 1984).
[12] Loewith, op. cit., p. 32.
[13] Note that in the Homeric tradition, the ideals are almost understood as virtues. Arete in its most original sense means "excellence," "the best." Aretai are regarded as the virtues in the Homeric times (such as courage, physical strength, goodness, and the likes). See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtues (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), sec. ed., p. 141 ff. Similarly in the Confucian tradition, the ideal man is a chun-tse (gentleman, noble man, moral man), i.e. the one who possesses virtues like benevolence, loyalty, filial piety, etc.
[14] Giambattista Vico, La Scienzia nuova. English translation: The New Sciences, 332-333. In this work, Vico demands for a new understanding of science grounded on the three most basic factors (forces), i.e. marriage, funeral and religious rites.
[15] Actually, Kant in his Grundlegung der Metaphysik der Moral (1785) had conceived of the ideals as something of a priori and absolute character. He conjectured that it is the good will, i.e. a will of unconditional and absolute good, the necessary condition of every case or form of goodness. It is in this context that Kant apportioned happiness, truth, etc. to the good will (which is tantamount to the summum bonum of Medieval philosophers).
[16] See Tran Van Doan, "The Dialectic of Tradition and Modernity" in Philosophical Review, No. ( Also: Tran Van Doan, "What can be called Tradition?" in George F. McLean, ed. (Washington, D.C.: CRVP, 2002), and Tu Wei-ming, Modern Spirit and Confucian Tradition (Hsian-dai Ching-shen yu Ru-chia Chwan-tung) (Taipei: Linking, 1995).
[17] Actually Aristotle had constructed his ethical principles in accordance with the Greek tastes. His attempt to construct an ethics that can be demonstrated in the geometrical way is certainly motivated by the Greek's aesthetic cultivation of harmony and proportionality. His conception of goodness in terms of not deficient, not bad, not excessive is clearly the result of the Greek view of beauty. We know, in the Homeric tradition of heroes, honour is also a taste. And as such, it was declared to be an arete (virtue). Similarly, following Plato, even political ideals, in Aristotle's view, must conform to these tastes. In the books Seven and Eight of Politea, his ideal of a state is neither too large nor too small, and the number of citizens must not exceeding. Only an ideal taste can provide to its citizens a leisured life, an enjoyable luxury: Thus, the main aim of the city is not a "mere wealth," but a pleasurable life: "importing her needs and exporting her surplus." Politeia, 1325 b 33 - 1326 b 24.
[18] The report of Hongkong Bureau of Education in 1999 has issued a warning to educators and politicians about the deterioration of Hongkong students and residents on many subjects, especially in language and morals. It is stated that Hongkong students are "so good" in language so they speak English "like" Chinese and Chinese "like" English, that is, they are speaking the so-called "Chinglish," a corrupted English mixed with a bad Chinese.
[19] The success of the first and second generations of Asians in the Sates is a strong case in point to back this view. The most successful Asians (Nobel laureates, the millionaires, etc.) in the States, etc. are those who are mastering their own natal (mother) languages and fluent in English, fully conscious of their values, and nourished by their ideals. Recent study on the third generation of Asian immigrants (2000) has revealed a not very bright prospect: they are less successful, less motivated and lacking of moral values. Furthermore, they are unable to express their own thought in their mother tongue. Many of them feel "alienated" from their own American society.
Chapter IV: RESPONSIBILITY AS DUTY - REFLECTION ON RESPONSIBILITY
Preliminary remarks
The thesis which I wish to defend here is, responsibility is the foundation of moral duty and not the reverse. Duty makes sense only if one feels that he is obliged to respond to whom (or to what) one is bound to. That means, response displays the primary act of duty, and the duty of response expresses our moral obligation to respond to some one we are indebted to. Responsibility is, therefore, a moral sense of rational characteristics in the sense that its obligation is not unconditioned but based on necessary degree of request for response. This thesis seems to stand indirectly against the Kantian understanding of duty as the absolute request of reason alone, and of freedom as the essential property of reason. In Kant's view, a moral man is the one who fulfils his duty for the sake of duty, and no more no less. And duty is an imperative obligation to categorical laws which are none other than "the laws of the intelligible world." Kant's view is based on the premise that all moral beings must be rational beings, and as such, they have to fulfill their purposes which are inherent in them as their property.
Since, Kant's deontological ethics has been the subject for endless debates and criticism, which, though valuable might have been, made it nonetheless more complicate, stirred more problems and offered less solutions, I will not delve into the labyrinth of arguments pro or contra the metaphysical foundation of Kant's morals. Instead, I will concentrate on the practical aspects of morals, i.e. on its function as problem-solving. My question is whether pure duty could be effective in responding adequately to (i.e. in solving) our problems, especially those of human inter-actions, or only a concrete duty towards a certain subject would be the case. The duty towards some one (some ideal, some world) is what I would call responsibility, and its most concrete form is, doubtless, the act of responding. To search for an answer, our approach consists of two steps: firstly, we have to re-examine the meaning of duty, and secondly, to build an argument that responsibility is a kind of duty. In these two steps, our approach is rather genetical (in the sense of philo-genetic and onto-genetic, once propose by Juergen Habermas (1928-), and not exactly in biological sense), i.e. we question the genetical process of responsibility, and on the reason of why we elevate it to the rank of ethical principle of life, i.e. of our moral duty.
Following the above laid-down tasks, my discussion will proceed from two angles: on the one hand, the concept of responsibility and duty will be carefully revised. These two concepts are most often synonymously understood, too close so that duty is unquestionably identified with responsibility. I will try to argue that these two concepts are of different meaning, carrying different functions, and coming from different roots. On the other hand, we come from an opposite angle to demonstrate our thesis that responsibility, as a moral sense born in human search for a more intimate and reliable response (solution) to the problems of human indispensable relation, could serve as a kind of duty, more effective and more practical than the pure duty proposed by Kant. My argument is neither analytical nor synthetical but socio-genetical (or socially constructive), i.e. based mainly on the most basic functions of responsibility, which human beings as social and rational beings have constructed in conformity with the degree of intimacy of their relationship, and with practical purpose of solving those problems emerged exactly from their social world.
A critical revision of kant's concept of duty
Our critical evaluation of Kant's concept of duty points to the three essential aspects of his arguments: his identification of reason with duty, his conception of duty in the sense of moral obligation, and his isolation of moral sense (responsibility) from the womb, i.e. human world and human relationship where it is born and nourished.
My argument begins with the close, inseparable link of the innermost sense of ‘being-bound-in-and-by' - born and grown in human inter-relationship - to the idea of duty. By disagreeing with the Kantian assertion of pure reason as the substance of duty, and consequently, of his definition of duty as for the sake of duty, of reason as for the sake of reason, I argue that the idea of pure reason in practice is almost inconceivable, and consequently, any duty for the sake of duty would be rather impossible. Firstly, Kant's strength and weakness is seen not only in his unwillingness to acknowledge the difference between theory and praxis (as he himself might have discovered much later), but rather in his assertive belief in an unique transcendental reason which serves as the foundation for all human activities and scientific activities. To accept the transcendental essence of reason means to reject its historical dimension and its progressive logic; and to confirm its uniqueness means to object to any form of belief which is not grounded on such a conception of reason. However, despite Kant's claim of being awaken from the dogmatic slumber, his firm belief in the mighty of a unique reason pushes him too far to such a hasty and uncompromising objection to all forms of reason incompatible to his own conceived reason. Consequently, it has prevented him from discovering the richness of human life-world and human activities. It leads logically to his conclusion of an identification of reason with duty. Of course, theoretically, this inevitable conclusion is based on his other dogma, the dogma of truth found in mathematics. The identification of mathematical reasoning with reason, and the identity of the means and the end in geometry are the indubitable conclusion of Kant's conviction of the mathematical truth. In short, his logical (analytical) arguments, regretfully, are constructed on his belief in the unique reason that sounds as much dogmatic as extravagant, much like to the metaphysical claim (of philosophers like Alexander Baumgarten, 1714-1762) which Kant had vehemently attacked as unscientific. To my purpose, it is sufficient to note that the belief in the unique reason blinded Kant to such a degree that he simply bypassed (without offering much arguments) the fact that, in practice, human reasoning does not necessarily follow mathematical reasoning, and human choice is not necessarily dictated by a certain form of reason only. Each action has its own reason, and even if there is a final cause, or ultimate reason, then it is still unknown, that means, it is certainly not the mathematical reason. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) goes much farther when he insightfully discovered that "the heart has its own reason," and as such, he indirectly went ahead of the post-modernist movement which conjectures a pluralism of reason. Of course, I would not venture beyond the border of my discussion and go into the dark jungle of post-modernist arguments, since I still think that Aristotle's vision of a pluralism form of reason would be more tenable. Consequently, I object to the claim of a unique form of reason that is none other than the mathematical form.
Furthermore, this belief forces him to contradict his own theory on the world of noumena. In fact, by giving to reason the properties which are unknown in themselves, Kant might have betrayed his own claim about the unknowable of the thing-in-itself. Since, if we faithfully follow Kant's premise about the unknowableness of the thing-in-itself, then we have to accept that reason-in-itself, just as the thing-in-itself, must be unknown. And if thing-in-itself, just as reason-in-itself, all are unknown to us, then any assertion about the nature of reason would be more than adventurous. Unable to overcome this hurdle, Kant embarrassed himself with his unconditioned (and uncritical) belief that, as he is fully convinced, reason is exercising its absolute power in universe, and is appearing in a unique form and way, the same manner in the world of phenomena that the great Isaac Newton (1642-1727) has proved. Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) has fared better when he developed Kant's concept of reason in a more convincing manner. He argued, since reason can be conceived through phenomena only, and since phenomena reflect the world, and reason is the force behind these phenomena, then it can be understood only in the context of human inter-active world. In other words, reason is known through and by purposes implicit in the world, and in the used means to attain these purposes. Hegel's insight gives a more encompassing understanding of reason. First, reason can hardly be known albeit from the human world, and more precisely, from human interests. We know for sure that any choice is motivated, or dictated by certain purpose, or interest, or in many cases, by many as contradicting as controversial interests. We know also that purposes, interests, needs, etc. are not necessarily and entirely a priori or innate, but mostly emerged in the process of human construction of their world; and their world is as much complex as contradictorily. If reason can be known and must be understood in such a world, then rational choice is no longer a clear-cut and definitive choice dictated by the unique, transcendental reason, as Kant asserted. As a corollary, what we can say is, our judgement of a rational choice no longer follows the categorical tables of formal logic (as Kant tried to show in his Critique of Pure Reason), but perhaps the constantly emerging logic of the process of human construction of their life-world. If so, the utilitarian table proposed by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), or the pragmatic criteria let down by John Dewey (1859-1952) would be more receptive to us than Kant's categorical imperatives. These pragmatic criteria are constructed in conformity with our tastes, our needs and our ideals which human language notoriously reflects - a thesis tentatively conjectured by Habermas in "What is Universal Pragmatics?", one of his most debatable works. As such, the difference of rational, irrational, or less rational choice is seen in its effectiveness: the more effective is often regarded as the fruit of rational decision, while the ineffective, that of irrational act. Furthermore, the ineffective, or less effective choice is due to human wrong choice, or to our adoption of wrong method, or less fruitful method, i.e. wrong decision. Hence, rational action is more than often judged by our choice of method, or the means. In this sense, any choice is a choice guided by certain reason, but there is rarely a choice motivated by the interest in reason itself, i.e. pure reason. Rational choice is therefore not limited in the choice of purpose, but also in the choice of the means (Max Weber (1864-1920) would call the later "instrumental reason" to make it distinct from the former that he named "purposive reason"). If so, then, rational choice is not identified with a determination by pure reason, and consequently, the claim of reason for the sake of reason seems to be rather rhetorical, or at best, purely theoretical. Secondly, if reason can be known only in the world (and its phenomena), then in the reverse, different worlds would require different forms of reason, and different ways of appearance, i.e. its logic. If so, then any claim about the uniqueness, invariability and universality of a certain form of reason would be rather a wish. Kant's ambition to build a philosophy in the manner of Newton's physics remains unfulfilled. In contrast, we have to accept the plurality of rational forms implicit in the manifold of our world. Despite Hegel's firm conviction of an absolute and unique reason, his logic unmistakably leads to the conclusion now embraced by post-modernists, namely, a rational pluralism. Reason is no longer understood as the unique, fix, universal and all powerful one; it is no longer "transcendental", i.e. a-historical, and neutral, but rather relational, historical and temporal.
Starting from such an understanding of reason, I argue that there is no purpose outside the wedlock of human life. Consequently, there is no duty for sake of duty, but only duty towards some one, or for the sake of some ideal (belief) shared by those we feel closely bound with; and that such duty is measured by the depth and magnitude of our concern, and the intimate level of our relationship. We are obliged to God, to our parents, to our spouses, to our children, to our teachers, to our students, to our friends, to our country, to our community (neighbours), and others, not simply because of the idea of rational duty, but because we love them, we are, in a certain way, indebted to them, we feel related to them, we are associated with them, we care for them, we are concerned with their life, and so on. We require ourselves to act for the sake of some ideals, not because they are pure scientific ideas, but because they are "noble" in the sense that they reflect our common concerns, or better say, our common life, and moreover, because they may be of help in promising us the best, in making us happy, in realising our hope. In sum, one would say that there is no duty without a certain reason, and there is no reason without a certain inter-relationship, and there is no relationship without a certain kind of interest. That means, duty reflects human act of inter-actively responding to this inter-relationship built on human interests. As such, Kant's duty for the sake of duty, and reason as pure reason, seems to be rather "void" just as concept without experiences is empty (to take Kant's comments on the relationship between concept and experience).
Hegel might have been right here when he doubted Kant's ethical system due to its empty content. To Hegel, theory and practice are not identical. They belong to different level of knowledge; and practice can be understood only through theory. He wrote in the preface of his Philosophy of Right (1820): "Right and ethics, and the actual world of justice and ethical life, are understood through thoughts; through thoughts they are invested with a rational form, i.e. with universality and determinacy." In other words, in Hegel's view, ethics must primarily be Sittlichkeit or social ethics, since its objectives are none other than a regulation of social conducts (or behaviours), of which law is its form. In this sense, social ethics has much to do with social political life. Actually, politics is a part of social ethics that Hegel described as the third stage of the dialectic of life.
My second argument for the separation of duty and moral duty would be essential to understand the non-identity of duty and responsibility. As I see, the impracticality of Kantian morals is not implicit in moral duty but in the concept of duty as such. Kant conceived of duty as a necessity (a categorical imperative) since he regarded it as natural law, i.e. a matter of fact and necessity (GM, 88). The unsolved controversy here is, one can hardly call a natural act as duty, even if it is absolutely necessary. The act of taking some food, some drink to satisfy the demand of our body cannot be called duty, even if such an act is absolutely necessary. It would be ridiculous to say something like ‘the stomach obeys the command of digestive system', or ‘one acts after the command of the stomach.' Stomach does not command, and it does not obey either. Only human beings, in their freedom and consciousness, know what they mean by the terms like command, obey, and rules. Of course, Kant was well aware of the antinomy of freedom and necessity (GM, 123), and made clear that such an act may be not of moral character because it is coerced, i.e. un-free. It is at best in conformity with duty, but not from the motive of duty. Only an act out of freedom would be called a moral act (GM, 123), because freedom "must be presupposed as a property of the will of all rational beings" (GM, 115). However, such argument is, tongue in cheek, contradicted by Kant himself when he acknowledged the identification of duty with moral duty (as we have pointed earlier) and of the rational with the natural, a view he heavily borrowed from Newton. How can one explain the difference between the causal effect in nature and the natural needs in our body? It would be rather strange to argue that the act of following natural laws is rational while that of satisfying our natural needs is not rational (or irrational), even if both satisfy the criteria of universality and necessity. Could we deny the universal and necessary character of hunger and the need of hunger stilling?
In bottom, the enigma in Kant's understanding of moral duty lies in his bona fide belief in the presence of a unique reason and its mighty force. To Kant, since such a belief is true, then it is imperative to fulfil the duty born out of it. And as such, duty must be a categorical imperative, i.e. unconditioned obligation. Actually, as we see, any duty (so far we take it as duty) is imperative, but not absolutely categorical. Obviously, Kant did not distinguish moral laws from natural laws. In practice, "imperative" is understood in the sense of moral obligation to a command and not of natural necessity. Natural laws (in form of mechanical and organic function) are not of imperative character. They express the pattern of automatic and blind, i.e. mechanic function of the world. That means, they are of necessary character but they do by no means point to the act of commanding and obeying, since the latter require freedom, while natural necessity not. Not quite like such a necessity, any imperative, strictly speaking, is a command and command following. As we know, any command involves a web of factors: who commands, the reason of command, the form of command, and its force. Similarly, to obey, or to follow a command demands the reason of obeying. This complex web of factors clearly indicates that the reason of obeying is not identified with natural order, or natural law. Here, the factor of freedom comes into play: we follow a certain law, a certain order, or a certain requirement for different reasons, or for many reasons and not just for one single, unique reason. Freedom in this sense means not "free from" interests, feelings, or sensible conditions, but "free to choose", "free to follow", etc. If one opts for the second meaning of freedom, i.e. the positive freedom of choice, then the idea of absolute determinism, especially in moral field, seems to be absurd. One has to accept that, any imperative is conditioned. It cannot be separated from the factor of freedom of choice, and any choice is always conditioned by a certain interest. In this sense, obligation is understood and executed conditionally. Moral obligation is not tantamount to the absolute necessity of the law of "to be or not to be" as seen in nature. We cannot imagine an unconditioned obligation: should we pay tax if we get no benefit from our tax paying? Ought we to love someone who has no love for us? Obviously, not! There is no consensus on obligation here, even if there is some one who may try to love his (her) enemy (as seen in the case of Christian ethics). We are obliged only to the one we are indebted, just as they are obliged to us only if they own us something. In this sense, obligation is of mutual or reciprocal nature: the parents are obliged to raise and educate their children just as the latter are obliged to take care of the former. The degree of necessity of obligation is often calculated by the degree of relationship, the quality and quantity of debt, etc.
Third, duty cannot be identified with responsibility, even if responsibility is a duty. If pure duty is understood in the Kantian sense of the obligation of respecting or following laws, and if natural laws may require no other but the law-obeying-subject him or herself, then responsibility demands another co-subject who is, though not the subject him or herself, reflects the subject. Responsibility makes sense just because it displays the obligation of responding to some one other than the subject him or herself. Responding to the demand of some one, to the request of our country, to the laws required by society, or by God, to the plea of the people in need... is the primary and most essential act revealing our moral sense. In this context, I may argue that if pure duty could be for the sake of duty, then responsibility as a (form of) duty must be for the sake of some one else. Here, duty is an obligation for the sake of other.
Furthermore, the expression of "duty for the sake of some one" displays many characteristics as essential as different, and consequently, it could be moral or not: duty as an obligation, duty as a simple requirement, duty as a response, and duty as a demand, and duty is a right, etc. The obligation to pay tax, for example, differs itself from the request to follow a certain custom, law, etc.; just as the demand for a response is not synonym to the prescription to act. But more essentially, any obligation can be moral or unmoral, or amoral, or even anti-moral if it is not equipped by moral sense (that is responsibility). The duty of tax paying is far from a moral duty, since it is depending on other conditions like whether the tax system is just, or whether the state does need tax at all, etc. That means, duty is not yet moral duty, and it cannot be come moral duty without a moral sense first. One may argue further that a duty towards the state cannot be equalised to the responsibility to the state, just as the obligation to take care of our own parents cannot be understood as the act of filial piety, since the latter is based on moral sense while the former is uncertain. The pure duty may be enforced by law but it is not yet moral. It is moral only if it is born in our moral sense of responsibility. Responsibility is directly rooted in the feeling of indebtedness. In this sense, a duty is not necessarily moral if it is albeit from the concept of indebtedness. The duty of tax-paying is considered moral only if one belongs to a certain community from which one benefits. That means, duty is moral only to the one who lives and benefits from the community of which one is a member. He senses that he has to respond to the demand of this community, simply because he knows he is indebted to it (as a member, he is nourished in and by it). In fact, the uneasy feeling would arise at the moment one refuses to respond, or to respond inadequately, to the demand (or request) of one's own community (family, country), especially to that of those one is most indebted to (i.e. to those whose or where one is born in, whom or which one is nourished by, whom or which one is developed through, and survived by). As I will argue in the second part, Confucian ethical principles like filial piety (xiao), loyalty (chung), sincerity (cheng), righteousness (yi), etc. are actually different forms of responsibility, since they express human manners of responding to those whom one is most indebted.
By adequate response I do not mean an adequacy in terms of quantity, but rather in terms of quality. The ratio between benefit and debt is calculated from the intimacy of human relationship and not from the exchange-rate. In this sense, response is a kind of paying back what we are indebted to, but the amount of debt is calculated in terms of intimacy only. If duty is understood as a kind of request implicit in the feeling of indebtedness, then any obligation must be an obligation to some one, some thing, some world, some country, etc., to whom or to which one is indebted. If so, then the centre of obligation is not obligation per se, but obligation pro quid or pro quem; and this quis or quid must intimately related to us. That means, duty is an act born in the consensus of the subjects in their relatedness and indebtedness. The quis (quem) (the subject/object) and the quid (the object), just as the idea of indebtedness and human relationship must be the most essential factors deciding our duty, and not the reverse as Kant insisted. Kant seemed to bypass these factors when he referred duty to obligation (in form of laws), obligation to duty, and duty for the sake of duty.
The genetical process of responsibility
The Form of Obligation : Response
If obligation makes sense only in human inter-relationship, and if human relationship is measured by human needs, or interests, then the form of our acts of obligation must depend on the degree of relationship, which is again depending on human needs and interests, as well as on the degree of needs satisfaction. To be more precise, one may say, common interests would bind a group of human beings together, absolute needs (necessity) would make them inseparable, and absolute needs would require absolute obligation. In this context, obligation is implicit in all forms and acts of human inter-relationship, and its force (mild, strong or absolute) would depend on the degree of mild, strong or absolute needs. The need of survival requires an absolute obligation (military service); the need for progress and stability would require a strong sense of obligation (tax system, education and training demand); while the need for pleasure would yield a milder force, and hence, less obligation. To clarify these principles, I will take the phenomenon of love as an example to show how and when it becomes an obligation, a duty, and a moral duty.
First, the act of loving manifests the most intimate and fundamental need, and therefore it caries with it a certain obligation: that of self-satisfaction. But, at the same time our act of satisfying own needs cannot be realised without the other, because only through other that our need would be satisfied. Since the need of love is universal, and the act of loving is expressed in form of a mutual, or reciprocal satisfaction, then in order to persuade others to satisfy our needs, we have to satisfy them first. In this sense, the act of loving displays not only our needs but also the needs of others; our own interest in others, but also others' interest in us. Hence, our interest in others and others' interest in us are not one-way but two-way oriented and fee-backed. That is the interest to meet our own needs by satisfying other's needs. Here, love is a response of equal status to the demand for self-satisfaction.
Second, the act of loving takes a certain form, follows a certain pattern of behaviour, and obeys a certain logic of thinking, acting and reacting. The demand of satisfying oneself by satisfying the other requires a reciprocal act of loving, and as such, the idea of avoiding the loss of love is its logical consequence. The loss of anyone, or the loss of interest in anyone would break down love. Here, love takes the form of communion, i.e. both involved partners form a whole from which and in which each finds his or her own existence. If its form is communion then its logic is far different from rational logic, or formal logic. It does not follow a rational principle, but a complementary and negative principle. Complementary principle requires that each has to complement the other, while negative principle requires the loyalty of involved partners, by not negating (or losing) the other. Following this logic (or the logic of the heart as Pascal once exalted), the pattern of behaviours (thinking, acting and reacting) among lovers is perhaps follows the moments of either compliment or negation: love or hatred, joy or jealous, etc. The complimentary act is responded by the complimentary re-act, while the negation of other would be responded by negation or resignation, hatred or sadness, etc.
Third, the demand for love and the fear of loss of love from both side push human beings to work out a solution, that is a response from each side which may be able to warrant the status-quo. This response must come freely from each side, and must be effective in safeguarding the needs of both side, and moreover, must be kept, first in form of promise, and later in form of obligation. Be promise or obligation, both side know and believe that, only by such a response, they may be able to attain the goal set by them. From here, they voluntarily assign to them the duty, that of taking care of other, or of loving other, which they want to fulfil.
Fourth, the obligation becomes a moral duty at the moment the lovers feel a certain debt: the debt of life. That means, love (given) for him or her does not only satisfy his (her) need, but much more, fulfil his or her life. Other forms of obligation (law of adultery, e.g.) may oblige spouses to be faithful, but not necessarily make them moral, if marriage does not give him or her the full meaning of his or her existence. Polygamy in certain society is widely practised, legalised, and even considered moral. In the old Asian society, and perhaps, in some Muslim society, where polygamy is either tolerated or even encouraged, the meaning of existence is often restricted in giving birth, in feeding, and perhaps, in taking care of the living condition. In this context, the husband would offend moral duty if he refuses to take care of his wife and his family, i.e. her existence and that of his family. In contrast, the wife would not fulfil her moral duty if she fails to give him what he needs most: a son (or children) in some society, some help in serving his family in other society, etc. Such examples clearly point out the fact that moral duty is always closely connected to the duty of supporting, generating and developing life. Love, therefore, becomes a moral duty only if it fulfils its main said functions.
Fifth, to expand love (as a form of human most intimate relation) to other human activities, I would say that our human relation is always expressed precisely by a certain act that, in accordance with its degree (of intimacy, closeness, depth, etc.), could be called love or sympathy, etc. Human relation could be jeopardised, broken, or even, hostile, or in a milder case, indifferent. In these latter cases, human feelings and activities could be called anger, sadness, indifference or hostility. In any case, no activity without a certain motive, i.e. a certain interest. The act of love, thus, expresses a mutual concern, a reciprocal exchange, a demand from both involved partners, while the act of hatred, in contrast, displays the break-of, or break-down of this relation, and consequently, points to an indifference towards other, or in the worst case, to the idea of destroying other. Furthermore, the act of human relation comes from the self, and from one's own expectation of other who should act or react in the same manner. This entertains a kind of demand that is based on a tacit consensus that we all expect the same from all involved partners; namely, all would give, and expect the same response. Our will to respond and our expectation of being responded yield a consensus of being bound by a certain activity that we call obligation. This obligation is freely wished and accepted by the involved partners. It is clear here that such an obligation is free (or autonomous) but born and guided by interests (love). Jealousy displays a part of our feeling towards other's lack of obligation, and infidelity (betrayal) means the break down, or disrespect of this obligation. The idea of duty comes to us, perhaps, a little later after, when obligation loses its force, i.e. when the consensus is broken down by one side, or when the involved partner is afraid of losing love. Here, duty is often expressed in terms of moral rules, laws or principle which is as follows: "Don't do unto others what we do not expect they would do to us." In this sense, moral duty is thought of first as a solution, and a means to keep the status-quo or to enforce obligation.
Our analysis of the phenomenon of love (and human relation) gives us some clues: love as a need which can be satisfied by two ways in a reciprocal, mutual and reflective manner; love as demand and command: the demand for satisfaction and the command to satisfy; love as obligation to fulfil our own needs, and the needs of others; and love as a moral duty that is ‘autonomous' in the sense of consensus, but not free from interest in love, and even in material conditions. At bottom, love is inseparably connected to life. Precisely thank to its main functions of supporting, generating and developing life, love is universally regarded not only as an obligation (duty), but, moreover, moral obligation, i.e. moral duty.
By extending what we have found in the phenomenon of love to other human activities, we can say that only those activities which support, generate and develop our life which will require a certain obligation. This obligation is of internal character in the sense that its command comes from us ourselves (autonomy). It is also universal and necessary, since the needs of and for support, generation and development of life are the most universal and necessary which constitute, support and develop human life, human organization, i.e. human society. Thus, we can say that such an obligation is moral, and our moral duty displays a certain and adequate response to these substantial functions indeed.
The Sense of Responsibility
After having investigated the genetical process of response, and of the formation of responsibility, this section aims to make clearer the sense of responsibility, not only from the perspective of obligation, but moreover from the innermost sense, or common sense (sensus communis, in the sense described by Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), and not of John Locke (1632-1704).
To my purpose, I would be content with a remark that all forms of human inter-relationship are known to us by the act of response. That means, response is the first and the most universal act, implicit in us, not only as a reaction, but the act of self-made existence, and that of human beings as social beings. That means, response reflects our common sense. Hence, it is the form, the attitude, the manner as well as the tempo of response that constitute the state of our relation, and consequently, our sense of responsibility. In short, our relationship takes response as its most fundamental form and act. Hence, it is of help to go a step further, to conjecture that the kind of response, the language of response, the time of response, and the choice of response are the criteria displaying and judging how good, how bad, how fair, how indifferent, how cool, how warm, etc. is this relationship, and of course, how moral it is. That means, the sense of responsibility could not be discovered without a response first, just as a response could not be understood without a certain sense of bond and responsibility. Responsibility, thus, expresses a certain demand for response, for an adequate response, and for the best response. To make our argument clearer, I will examine, in a sketchy manner, the phenomenon of response as follows:
First, a response is a re-act, but not in the sense of reaction. Re-act requires a reflective and selective feedback, while reaction, as behaviourist correctly observes, is rather an instinctual and blind response to a certain stimulus. That means, there is no question, then no answer; no subject in a question, then no exact answer. Here, response, as re-act, is not an instinctual reaction in a mechanistic way but as a reflective and controlled feed-back. Should we respond, how do we respond, when do we respond, and why should we respond, etc. Secondly, one may choose to respond or not. Response in se, as we have argued, does not constitute a moral duty if we feel no obligation. That means, a response could be of obligatory or mandatory character. However, the act of complying or refusing request is by no means accidental even if it could be arbitrary or whimsical. It must have some reason. Hence, the point I would like to investigate is, why and how a response could be either obligatory or mandatory. A response is mandatory when the inquired feels no need, i.e. when he finds no necessary reason to respond, or when the question is either unimportant or irrelevant to him. From the angle of the inquirer, he would not expect our answer if it makes no change, or contributes nothing to him. In contrast, one must respond to the request if there is a certain reason, and if this reason is essential, or vital to one's interests, one's existence, etc. Would we dare to decline the request if it involves our own survival? Would we chose to ignore the request of the one we do not wish to lose? Would we stay idle not reacting to the enemies, who want to take our life? Would we afford to lose our life-saving by not reporting to the request of the bank where our saving is deposed? Obviously not! These questions and similar questions unmistakably show that response is obligatory in the case of vital reasons concerning our survival, the meaningfulness of our life, the security of our beloved persons, etc. Of course, by "obligatory" answer, we do not understand it as of pure formal character, but of essential to us, i.e. an answer bearing a significant meaning relevant to our existence, or to our survival. An obligation would lose its moral force if it generates more harm than good, or if it may hurt a noble ideal, destroy a better life, etc. Jesus' refusal to answer the question posed by Pilate is a case in point, Socrates' option for silence, not answering his enemies, is another example to show that obligation would be moral only if it is essentially related to human life. A response is only moral if it is for noble cause, i.e. if it is related to human life.
Secondly, as a corollary of the first observation, one may say that response itself does not form any sense of obligation yet, and consequently, it cannot be considered as a duty. Response becomes a duty only when there is an essential link between the act of response and the demand for response. The demand for response could be arbitrary, purely legal, purely habitual (or customary), and moral. Only the moral demand would be considered as moral duty. Demand for no reason can never yield any idea of duty, while demand for a certain reason could be legal, moral or purely sentimental. The point here is what kind of reason behind demand, and this is this kind of reason that determines the different kind of duty. As we have argued, the more necessary, the more fundamental, the more universal, the deeper, the closer, etc. a reason is, then the more obligatory is for response. In the same manner, a moral duty is an obligation of inner reason, i.e. reason born in our inter-relationship, while legal duty an obligation of formal character. In this sense, the demand for tax-paying could be legal but immoral, if it does not satisfy the demand (need, interests and benefits) of tax-payers. Though it could be formally requested, it generates no moral force binding tax-payers. At the bottom, one may find that this kind of legal duty is not born in our human inter-relationship and our common needs (consensus) but from the interests and needs of a party (the state, the rulers), and that it benefits only the rulers and not the whole people. In contrast, the system of taxation would be fair, and tax-paying would become a moral duty if all of tax-payers would get benefits from their own tax. In this latter case, any refusal to comply with the tax rules would be immoral. Here, the response to the demand is a duty, and more than a duty, a moral duty.
In this context, we would say that filial piety, righteousness, loyalty, humanity, proper behaviour, etc. all are different forms expressing human inter-relationship, but at the same time, a certain obligation which we may call responsibility. The Confucian ethics reflect, first, this kind of response; and from it, it attempts to systematize the most demanded responses making them the so-called golden rules, or the practical imperatives for human life. Due to the limit of my discourse, I will concentrate on the imperative of filial piety, one of the most central moral duties in the body of Confucian ethics. Let us return back to the phenomenon of love as a case in point to explain the need for response. No one would feel the need to respond to the one whom one does not love. One would respond to some one only if there is a need, i.e. if one loves. Furthermore, the more urgent need the more needed is a response. That means, the degree of necessity of need may oblige us to respond. Hence, it would be necessary to pinpoint out what kind of need that would force us to respond.
First, we are obliged to respond to those we sense bounded, obliged. We are obliged to respond to the ones we love, or to those who love us. The urgency of response is by no means accidental or casual but necessary in a certain relationship. That means, the need for response reflects our inner feeling of being bound to the one we have to respond. In this sense, responsibility expresses our concern, our sense of bounding, our relationship, our deep feeling. A response can become a duty, when it directly meets the demand: to love the one who loves us, to give what he (she) needs, to do to others what we wish they do to us. Needless to say, Confucians are the ones who are most aware of this kind of love and response. No one would love us more than our parents. They give us our life; they grow our life; they support our life, and they even sacrifice their own life for us. That means, they are the ones whom we are most indebted to: without them, there is no life for us. Precisely in the parental love that one finds the most central functions of love: love as life-generating, life-supporting, and life-making. Aware of this fact, filial piety must be seen as an adequate response to parental love. Filial piety demands that we have to sacrifice our life for them, that we have to support their life and that we have to take care of them, to make them happy. In short, filial piety requires that we have to love our parents as much as they do to us. Only in this sense, filial piety is the most adequate response.
Second, the form of response could be a certain attitude (behaviour) conforming to a certain form of law-like rule or behaviour (li, or rites, or ceremonies). Love to parents requires from us certain behaviour, a certain language, and certain feeling which can best reflect our love to them. The concept of li (or proprieties, or rites) prescribes some principles of behaviours which we have to follow. These principles truthfully reflect our relation as well as our feeling. It would be ridiculous, if not absurd, to claim of following filial piety rules with abused language against parents, or with violence in treating them. It is also self-contradicting if one does injustice to one's parents on the name of love. That means, a true filial piety can be best expressed in terms of li, yi and jen (benevolence).
Third, the demand for response is called by us as responsibility. Filial piety means neither a gift nor a grace to parents. Gift and grace can be given or bestowed arbitrarily, or at wimp, or for certain reason, but there is hardly any obligation here. The grace God gives us cannot be understood as God's duty towards us, just as the gift we receive from friends cannot be regarded as their duty, kind of tax pay or national service. Filial piety is an obligation, not from natural concern, or from sympathy but from our sense of righteousness (yi). To respond to what our parents have done to us, and in the same terms of love, is righteousness. Hence, filial piety is the right act in the spirit of justice, and not an act out of demand or command of any one. Here, the sense of responsibility is closely linked to the sense of justice, and the obligation of response to the duty of being filial. This sense of justice is found in human activities in similar relationship. We have to repay to someone what we owned to; we have to give back to someone what we have received from him or her. This is a duty (and responsibility) born in justice (or fairness, to borrow the language of John Rawls), and not from a random sympathy, or from the divine command. Here, Kant might have been right when he insisted on moral duty as an obligation not from any external force. He, however, by regarding reason as the sole source of moral duty, had confusedly enclosed human feelings and basic interests in the category of external force.
Now, suppose that the son (or a child) cannot give back what he owns from his parents, or that he can return only a small part of it, does he still fulfil his moral duty? As I have argued in above, the ratio between our debt and our capacity to pay back cannot be seen in terms of quantity, but rather in terms of our feeling, or our inner sense. Thus, even if he is a bed-ridden poor man, unable to shoulder the task of feeding his parents, he is still bounded by a certain obligation that I may call duty: he has to love his parents as much as they love him. Here, the duty to love his parents is known not by any a priori principle, but by the love his parents gave to him: love means life-giving, life-supporting, and in the case of our parents, making their life meaningful and happy. That means, love is the most intensive, most intimate, most forceful response with it he demonstrates his moral duty towards his parents.
Concluding remark
As I have argued in the first part attempting to criticizing Kant's understanding of moral duty as a pure obligation guided by reason, it is his view of a non-difference between duty and moral duty, duty and responsibility, and moreover, his insistence on pure duty, free from any kind of interests, that could be the main reasons of the impracticality of his deontology. To overcome Kant's difficulty, I propose to understand responsibility as a kind of moral duty. Thus, in the second part, by an analysis of the phenomenon of response, and in particular, of human most intimate act of relation, i.e. love, I have tried to show that responsibility reflects the true sense of duty. Responsibility is neither innate nor transcendental. There is no sufficient proof backing the view of responsibility as innate moral sense. Similarly, responsibility cannot be understood out of the context of concrete life and life-world. Responsibility begins only with our feeling or sense of being related to others, with our awareness of the inseparability of our existence from that of others. It becomes a duty with our act of responding to those whom we are indebted to; and we sense our moral duty in the act of response if we are most indebted to them. The most indebted is none other than what is closely bound to our existence, namely, to the conditions of life-giving, life-supporting and life-growing, or meaningful life-making. Precisely in this context that Confucian concept of moral duty (as seen in the case of filial piety) is constituted.
Chapter V: WHO HAS THE RIGHTS? FROM MARX'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OF JUSTICE TO THE PROBLEM OF EQUAL RIGHTS IN MARKET ORIENTED SOCIETY
Introductory remark
Marx's critique of Hegel's conception of rights aims rather at demonstrating the impracticality of Hegel's solution to the problem of rights in civil society. In Marx's view, there is no place for justice in a civil society since its individual members are for their own interests. Justice, rights and other moral virtues are empty slogans. Still worse, they become the means of oppression at the hands of the bourgeois ruling class. So, it is not the question of the ideas of justice and rights but rather the question of which kind of justice and which kind of rights that one has to take into account. And since rights have never been separated from power, it is the problem of the legitimacy of power that has been Marx's main concern.
Hegel envisages civil society as the most complete form of the incarnated spirit hitherto, because he regards it as the final stage of the dialectical process of history. It preserves both the particular and the universal, freedom and responsibility, the "volonte generale" and the "volonte du tout" -- that Rousseau was unable to reconcile --; and it is a "system" of "needs." Civil society (or bourgeois society) respects the principle of individualism, according to which each citizen defines his or her own purpose, and works for his or her own end. So, in civil society, each individual is free, but at the same time, dependent upon all others. The well-being or ill-being of each is interwoven with that of all others and secured only in its economic context. The state is therefore only formal and has no substantial meaning. For all of these characters, the basic structure of civil is rational, and consequently, most ideal. That entertains the rational idea that its laws, morals, etc. are "right": "What is rational is real and what is real is rational."
Against Hegel, Marx shows that Hegel's analysis of bourgeois society is incomplete, and that the dialectical logic would bring the reverse effect. The idea of a reconciliation among classes turns to be illusory due to the naïve belief in the essence of bourgeois class as the most universal and the final. As such, there is no reconciliation between the individual and the universal, freedom and responsibility, private individual interests and common interests. In contrasts, this pretending universal class would resist any change. It pushes forward to a society which may warrant its privileges and special status. Evidently, the particular class, i.e. the bourgeois class, now claims to be the universal, and hence, the dominant. Consequently, justice, rights, etc. are their justice, their rights. But that is precisely the unjust, the wrong. Aware of Hegel's error, Marx prescribes a radical revolution that, he believes, may abolish the basic structure of civil society, and give power back to the real universal class, i.e. the proletariat. As the true universal class which represents the universal interests, the proletariat can claim the rights for themselves since it possesses the real force, i.e. labour that is actual and real (productive). So the Hegelian saying of "What is rational is real" can be turned upside down to be "What is actual is rational." Labor omnia vincit.
Marx's confidence in the force of the proletariat is evidently cemented by his dialectic -- that he had borrowed from Hegel, -- according to which the final state of history must be a universal and necessary state, or "classless class." That is a class of its own in which all members, by means of their own labour, can subsist by themselves, enjoy the pleasure of life, fully freely and independently, etc. In short, the proletariat warrant the real rights to their members. It is clear that Marx has tried very hard to reconcile the two principles "volonte generale" and "volonte du tous" of Rousseau with his "communism." Only the proletariat had the capacity to represent the general will and the ability to satisfy the will of all.
Thus, the legitimacy of the proletariat and their system of rights is supported by the productive force of their own. As a logical consequence deduced from Marx's thesis, one can conclude, the legitimacy of rights must be born in the productive force. Whichever class that possesses it has the "rights" to set the rules. That means, if the proletariat possess labour force - and indeed it does--, then it has the rights. Similarly, if a certain class, or a certain factor which possesses the same productive force, then it must have the same rights to set the agenda which others have to follow. That is a serious issue which we have to reckon with.
Contrast to the prediction of Marx, capitalist society does not collapse. It survives, transforms itself into various more solid forms in the course of history, and nowadays, develops into a rational form of mechanic character with a "quasi-natural" structure, and a rational system of laws. The reason of such a transformation and development is precisely what Marx has given to the proletariat: productive force. Nowadays, market is still a-personal, but no longer blind; capital is still a means but no longer pure instrumental. They become both "subjects" and the "objects," the "end" and the "means." Marx once foresees the "power" of capital, but he miscalculates its power by relegating it to the sub rank of unreal productive force. Market, capital, even the stock market are generating incredible force, stimulating productive force, changing the geo-politics, setting new rules, transforming moral values, and even furthering aesthetic sense. This fact "immediately" and "rationally" confirms the long-suspected trauma: it is the market that possesses the rights. So, it is imperative to return to Marx's insistence on critique as a means unmask the hypocrisy of the claim of legitimacy of the market-oriented society. To argue for our case, we begin with Marx's critique of the Hegelian conception of Rights, and then with our critique of the system of rights in the market oriented society.
Marx's critique of hegel's conception of rights in civil society
Marx's critique of Hegel's conception of justice has been a theme, frequently explored by a great deal of Marxist scholars, philosophers and economists. Different may be, they all agreed with Marx that the conception of justice in-itself cannot be understood albeit from the conception of rights, which has been too abstractly treated by Hegel. The point raised by Marx is, it is not justice that gives legitimacy for rights, but (political, religious and economic) power, and in turn, the possessors of power with their individual interests. And as such, justice in their hand is rather a sheer rhetoric, or worse, an unjust instrument serving their own interests:
I have dealt more at length with . . . ‘equal right' and ‘fair distribution' ... in order to show what a crime it is to attempt, on the one hand, to force on our Party again, as dogmas, ideas which in a certain period had some meaning but have now become obsolete verbal rubbish, while again perverting, on the other, the realistic outlook, which it cost so much effort to instil into the Party but which has now taken root in it, by means of ideological nonsense about right and other trash so common among democrats and French socialists.
Understood in this context, the problem of justice plays a minor role in Marx's critique, since it must be understood in the context of ideology in general. To him, it is the question power and rights that must be his main concern. And, again, this question cannot be answered without a critique of the whole social structure in which it is nurtured, developed and worsened. Here is the reason of his objection to Hegel's concept of history and his critique of the Hegel's understanding of the state. In Marx's view, human history is not the process of the self-manifestation in the Spirit, but, better say, a history of human struggle for their own rights. It is in this sense that Marx understands the history of the Communist Party and the revolution history. It begins with the task of overthrowing the whole structure of previous societies and their system of rights (or laws) and ideologies which, in Marx's view, is unjust because it is based on private interests and individual needs, and completes with the realization of a new classless, free and self-responsible society.
Marx optimistically predicts the final victory of the proletariat, partly because of his belief in the self-collapse of capitalism as logical consequence of self-contradiction, but more important, because the later represents the universal ‘class' of universal interests. Such a prediction turns out to be empty, as Marx himself knew too well that class-abolition is rather utopian, and that the survival of capitalism is possible. In many passages, scattered in his works, Marx observes that class is a necessary product of social development, and that self-interests and needs are a matter of fact. He observed, for example, in the Communist Manifesto, at the same paragraph where he raises his strong objection to class society:
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank.
So, it is more correct to say that Marx tries to abolish the bourgeois system of two classes, but not class in se; and that he wishes to promote a just distribution of interests and needs in according with the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
Now, the problem is, not the rational force that prevails, but in contrast, the irrational force. That means, a just distribution does not yield any force, and of course, not any political force either. The moral value is not the purpose of the proletariat but its consequence, providing that it can seize power. Marx is rather optimistic, even if he knows too well that the fight has been more than often won by those who possess power, or in power. Here is the reason of why Marx wrote that the communist "do not preach morality at all." For what use is justice, love, democratic values without a real power? The premature democracy in the ancient Greek came to an expected end with the dead of Socrates, just as the burning hope for equal rights among people was extinguished, ironically, at the hands of those who loudly advocated a democracy. The short-lived democracy during the unexpected French Revolution testifies this tragedy.
Rights and Interests in Civil Society
So, the question of rights cannot be understood and, perhaps, solved without our understanding of the question of power and power-share; and the question of power and power-share cannot be detached from human self interests and interests-distribution. Precisely in this context Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is right when he, aware of human egoistic nature, prescribes "common power" or "sovereign power" to regulate individual and group interests. His argument is basically rational: by nature all human beings are concerned with their own self-interests, especially their own preservation. However, due to scarcity and (over)population, a struggle for interests is unavoidable. In order to survive, humans have to take a rational approach, accepting the so-called common-wealth and submitting to the sovereign power which has the right to regulate and distribute interests to all involved members. If Hobbes' thesis is tenable, then a sovereign power (i.e. ruling class) is an absolute necessity.
Marx takes a different approach. In his view, there is no warrant that the ruling class would abandon their own interests and work for common interests. In fact, history testifies against Hobbes's optimistic prediction. The common-wealth is in fact in the hand of capitalists and the idea of power-sharing remains an abstract idea in the mind of philosophers. So, Marx comes to a conclusion: to solve the problem of inequality, in justice, etc., there is no other choice but a radical eradication of its root, which is none other than class society. He optimistically predicts that with the abolition class society, the question of power no longer exists, and with it the system of privilege rights. Consequently, equal rights among the people can be established.
Now, Marx's idea of overthrowing the ruling class and replacing it with the proletariat seems to be involved in a self-contradiction: the proletariat cannot solve the injustice problem without an absolute power, i.e. without becoming the new ruling "class." And once as rulers, they may incline towards a system of rights favourable to their own interests. And that fits perfectly to Marx's insight of human nature as egoistic. Marx's contradiction confirms Hobbes' insight that a society of different classes is a fact, that ruling class is necessary and that human interests must be the centre of politics and morals.
Marx's Critique
Let us return back to Marx's critique of Hegel's conception of rights. In The Philosophy of Right, Hegel puts forth a thesis of the modern state which Buchanan resumes as follows: (1) the goal of history is the Spirit's consciousness of its own freedom that is realized in history, and (2) "the (modern) state is the realization of the fully developed concept of freedom; it is the synthesis of subjective and objective freedom." As a consequence deductive from such premises is the so-called civil society (buergerliche Gesellschaft). In Hegel's own understanding, civil society expresses a newly emerging society, i.e. bourgeois society with new characteristics expressing the subjective and objective freedom: expanding, postfeudal, market oriented, In short, although Hegel does not explicitly use the terms, this bourgeois society is the original form of capitalist society. In Buchanan's presentation, Hegel's civil society possesses following features:
a competitive, egoistic interaction, based on the institution of private property and the market;
b accelerating technological and organizational development in manufacturing;
c increasing urbanization, with deepening divisions between town and country life;
d class division, extreme wealth coexisting with extreme poverty, and the creation of a permanent, materially and culturally impoverished "rabble;" and
e rapid development of a world market, with the increasing interdependence of peoples and nations this brings."
More important, Hegel also discovers that individuals in civil society act from their own particular and limited interests, rather than from any conception of the common interests. They treat each other as mere means to their own private ends.
Marx's Conception of Rights. Marx's own opinion, since morals in general, and justice, love in particular are not the fundamental factors, and since they can be easily fabricated and misused as ideological instruments serving the interests of ruling class, Hegel's idea of the absolute role of the spirit expressed in form of ideas like justice, love, benevolence, reason seems to be rather a pure product of irreality. Furthermore, human history is not the one in the mind, and human progress is far from being the "progress in the consciousness of freedom.' Thus, Marx objects to Hegel's insistence on the correspondence of the forms of social organization with the consciousness of freedom.
Marx's critique of Hegel's abstract system of rights and his offered solution seem to be, theoretically, very promising. However, unfortunately, the young Marx's solution fares not better than that of his predecessor because of its utopian essence. How can one abolish class society if human self-grouping is the essential characteristic of society? The proletariat which Marx dubbed as classless-class in The Communist Manifesto (1948) is in fact a class par excellence. Later, Marx was quite well aware of this fact when he wrote in the final chapter of Capital, III, and in the chapter 17, section 6 on "Theories of Surplus Values" that one can hardly think of society without classes, and that classes are in the state of permanent emergence. So, he doubts his own preliminary analysis of class, since "the real constitution of society, which by no means, consists only of the class of workers and the class of industrial capitalists". He discovers that due to the social conditions, a new class may emerge. In the same part, Marx refers explicitly to the existence of the middle class as a step of the formation of capitalism. He wrote, for example:
What [Ricardo] forgets to emphasize is the continual increase in numbers of the middle classes . . . situated midway between the workers on one side and the capitalists and landowners on the other . . . [who] rest with all the weight upon the working basis and at the same time increase the social security and power of the upper ten thousands.
Indirectly, Marx acknowledges that his analysis of class-struggle and his prediction of the self collapse of capitalist society are still very questionable.
Since, our purpose is to study the problem of justice, and since class society problem is a part of social injustice, we will deal not with the existence or the emergence of class, but rather with the relation between class and power. Therefore, Marx's critique of Hegel's conception of justice must be seen from the perspective of power. That suggests that justice is closely connected with the rights, and those who possess them, i.e. those in power.
If one cannot abolish class-society, then Marx's approach to the problem of justice and rights must be revised. One can no longer dismiss justice, morality, rights, etc. regarding them as illusion and prejudices fabricated by capitalists and land owners. One has to accept their necessity. In this paper, we attempt to go along with Marx by insisting on the inner relationship between the factor of power and the question of rights, and consequently, justice. However, we go further to reflect on the problem of who has the rights. This question is of extreme importance, especially in the global context, and in the so-called market society. Our idea can be formulated as follows: Granted that the question of rights cannot be detached from that of power then the first question will be, who has the power: the people, the rulers, or the market, or the rulers of market? This question is followed by the second question of whether one can have a just distribution, and a warrant for equal rights in the market society?
WHO HAS THE RIGHTS -- THE PROBLEM OF LEGITIMACY IN THE MARKET ORIENTED SOCIETY
Suppose that Hobbes is right, and suppose that Marx's proposal of the proletariat as the only class in the position of being the rulers is plausible then it is the question of legitimacy must be our focus. By which quality, by which rights a certain class could claim to be the ruling class? By which reason the proletariat can claim authority? What is the difference between the claim of the proletariat and other classes? The claim of being universal class that Marx assigned to the proletariat is not vindicated as Marx had predicted. He made wrong prognosis of the "petit bourgeois" dismissing them as "reactionary" and his hope in the entrepreneurial bourgeois -- whom he optimistically saw as the force behind the proletariat movement - is shattered. Actually, the former did not remain "reactionary" but transformed itself into the middle class while the latter had not possessed any "revolutionary power;" they become capitalists. Let us not spend much time on this issue and concentrate on the main issue of the legitimacy of the claim of rights possession. Our question is rather simple: whether rights can be based on power? And if so, then which power is it? the moral, the intellectual, the tradition or the market? Is power based on the so-called consensus (Habermas) as seen in the democratic system? Or is it relied on the so-called emancipation force? These questions are followed by a series of other questions like whether this power is natural or artificial, positive or negative, free or manipulative, and so on.
Capital and Market
As we have briefly mentioned that Marx is aware of the fact that capital possesses a certain power, and that the market, the womb in which capital is nourished and developed, is also a power. So, it is necessary to take a glance at them, to see which power they possess and which are the characters of their power.
We know that the civil society, described by Hegel and understood by Marx, of the 18th and 19th centuries is now developing into a full capitalist society. That is a society which is no longer controlled by either the state or any class. In a certain respect, it is more true the reverse: it dictates the policy of the state, manipulates the life-style of the people, and transcends beyond the border of any nation. That is also a society in which individuals are free to transact business on their own account in order to maximize their profits and to own their capital and to possess the means of production. Consumers enjoy full freedom of choosing the products which are in turn made for them. So, in a word, what Hegel once described as subjective freedom now becomes dominant, while the objective freedom is reduced to the freedom of market.
The apparently joyful and hopeful face of the market society is actually not false, if it is seen from the reverse side of logic: it stimulates the growth of production by manipulating and inventing the new appetite and needs of consumers. However, if one sees it from the logical perspective of productive force (of Marx), one would be wondering about how an "unproductive" market can generate such incredible force, and how it can extend its power-range beyond any possible limit. A quick glance at the market behaviours (functions) would be of some use for our understanding the reason behind its growth even it is not a productive force in the sense defined by Marx.
First, the market enjoys a relatively independent state which no government has sufficient right and power to intervene, to tame the market. In some sense, the government must be "dispersed." Second, the market is bearing a multi-facie and possessing multi-functions. It is the medium in which all activities of trading, exchanging goods; it is also the abstract factor which is not limited spatial and temporal limits. The intellectual market is an example, and the so-called multinational corporation is another. They show that the today market and its activities can be seen and done abstractly. More than a medium, or an abstract factor, the market becomes the ends and the means of human activities. It stimulates new activities, and helps in forming new organizations, new institutions, and perhaps, new classes as well. In short, it changes the structure of human society, and human behaviours. Third, it extends its power beyond purely economic activities, and penetrates deeply into other areas. Our today culture has long been an "industrial" culture, a "capitalist" culture," a "consumer culture," and an informative culture, and the likes. So, one may say with a great confidence that with culture, even our moral values are rapidly changing and become what we may terms as the market morals. No protest, no objection, no challenge is strong enough to force the market to sop, or to retreat from our life. In contrast, we are forced to search for moral values to deal with it, and these values are often implicit as a part of the mechanism of the market. There no need to mention the effort of philosophers to search for a new ethics capable to handle the problems of our present market oriented society. However, whether they succeed, in taming it, or they must seek a compromise, as in the case of John Rawls and more notably, Milton Friedman. In sum, the total structure of society is in the process of being restructured by the force of market.
This sketchy analysis of the functions of the market oriented society displays an undeniable truth: it is the market that possesses now the "absolute" power: no longer the absolute spirit (Hegel), and no longer the absolute class, i.e. the proletariat (Marx). It gives also a certain impression that the market oriented society is the most rational, so its structure is rationally constructed. The belief in the rational and stable structure of the market has stimulated economists to build economic models after a certain mathematical models, or mechanical model of Newton. According to the latter, then market forces direct the movement of price and quantity sold in a market. There is no external force that is in sufficient position to disrupt or change the course of market. In a word, more than capital which is a power in se, the market is now a super power. It dictates the laws, and it has the rights. Now, the power is no longer in the hands of the rulers, but in the hand of the market. Capital still plays a decisive role, but it is no longer understood as valuable subjects, but useful subjects and it is incorporated into the market, just as a part of it.
The Power of the Market Oriented Society and the Legitimacy of Rights
The attack of the Al Qoeda on the world trade twin tower in New York, perhaps, delivers a double message: it declares war on the new form of imperialism which is symbolized by the American power, and more significantly, it reacts violently against the dictatorship of the market. The attack has drawn a mixed and confused reaction. Most of Americans are frightened, shocked and angered. They felt that the American power is strongly challenged. In contrast, many people, including Europeans, showed their understanding for this violent act (or reaction). They may share the same uneasy feeling towards any form of imperialism. However, no country, including the Arab countries, would side with Bin Laden and his comrades in their attack against the mechanism of the market. It is a matter of fact that the market is becoming so sacred that no one is allowed to touch it, including the American government. OPEC are well aware that they would become rich if they can control the oil price; just as the Peking government believes that China would become a super-power if it can manage over one billion human force. That is true, but more true is, they cannot control the market. And it is the market that sets the oil price and not the oil producer. Similarly, it is the market that decides the fate of one billion people and not the reverse. China would be still in poverty had Teng Xiao-ping not opened the door, changed the policy and made it suitable to the international market. So, the question of who has the rights seems to be irrelevant. No answer is needed, since the market is the answer.
With a quasi absolute power, the market set rules. The right and the wrong are now judged neither by objective criteria (Kant), nor by the consequences of our act (utilitarianism), and much less by traditional values. It is up to the market. The market would sacrifice a certain class or a certain group just in order to be in a healthy state. To save the market, one would dump tons of rice or fruits in the sea, disregarding the brutal fact that million people are starving. To stimulate the growth, inequality is also required.
So, the question of whether the market has the real rights to dictate our fate, and whether its legitimacy comes from itself or from elsewhere, i.e. from a certain group working for its own interests has still no definitive answer so far.
Concluding remarks
We do not wholly share the view that the market possesses a power beyond control of any group. But, the claim that the market has greater power, much greater than the state, has in a certain sense some ground. So, Hegel might have not foreseen this newly emerging Frankenstein which is trying to usurp the throne of God. He is too optimistic (or naïve) to believe in the rational force, and consequently, in a reconciliation between the state and civil society, between the ruling class and the people. Actually, there is no reconciliation in sight. The market plays the double role of player and referee, and it has no intention to recede. It decides the form of the state and not the reverse. Marx did fare a little better when he unfound Hegel's illusion. The conflict among social classes, just as the difference between civil society and the state is not solvable. But he himself did not go farther, stopping short and returning back to Hegel by conjecturing the new classless class, the so-called proletariat as the true reconciliation. He did not realize that, the common trait between the rulers and the ruled is their aspiration for power. And here, Hegel might have been right: the master will remain as the master, while the slave will be slave. The capitalists know so well that they are the masters. They invent the market, give their own force to it, and install it into the throne. As such, capitalism does not collapse, but grows, thanks to the dynamic of the market that they invented. So, it is up to us to question the claim of the market. Is it true that it possesses the rights to dictate our life? Or, is it its masters?
Chapter VI: THE SEARCH FOR THE PENTECOSTAL SPIRIT: JEAN LADRIERE ON CULTURE
Ladriere‘s cultural thesis
Et cum complerentur dies Pentecostes, erant omnes pariter in eodem loco: et factus est repente de caelo sonus, tamquam advenientis spiritus vehementis, et replevit totam domum ubi erant sedentes. Et apparuerunt illis dispertiae linguae tamquam ignis, seditque supra singulos eorum: et repleti sunt omnes Spiritu sancto, et coeperunt loqui variis linguis, prout Spiritus sanctus dabat eloqui illis. Erat autem in Jerusalem habitantes Iudaei, viri religiosi ex omne natione, quae sub caelo est. Facta autem hac voce, convenit multitudo, et mente confusa est, quoniam audiebat unusquisque lingua sua illos loquentes.
Actus Apostolorum, 2, 1-7.
The thesis on culture and philosophy of Jean Ladriere could be resumed in a proposition: "The principle of division becomes a principle of participation."[1] There is no doubt that such a principle appears at first as an absurd proposition, not only because it contradicts the basic law of logic but much more, it stands stubbornly against the current of history: the history of domination with formal logic as its legitimate weapon. The cultural relativists and the post-modernists would heartily welcome Ladriere in their own rank. They may find in him one of the best fighters against modernism.[2]
Of course, such an understanding of Ladriere's cultural thesis would distort his main theme of culture as a life-world in which human participation plays a decisive role. The view and belief in culture as a "transcendental" field in which and by virtue of which all players can participate the game, reflects without doubt Ladriere‘s modernism in the sense of Kant's. It places him along side with the universalistic Leibniz. It brings him close to Rousseau. Even his stand against formalism does not strip him off his scientific rigour and put him in an odd anti- Kantian position. It brings him close to the late Husserl of Phanomenologie als strenge Wissenschaft instead.[3] I would say with confidence that, in the spirit of the Pentecost of "facta autem hac voce, convenit multitudo, et mente confusa est, quoniam audiebat unusquisque lingua sua illos loquentes," he belongs to the most ardent fighters against cultural relativism. Like Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Peter Winch, and even Jurgen Habermas, just to mention a few, he certainly deserves to be admitted in the club of the "contemporaries of the young Hegelians"[4] i.e. the club of the masters of dialectics and in the circle of universalists. Ladriere is indeed a master of dialectic and a prophet of the universal world in the strictest sense of the word.
However, Ladriere's principle, unlike the one defended by Habermas, could not be the fruit born in pure rationalism. His understanding of reason in the line of Gadamer for example clearly demonstrates his difference with the German rationalists. He, and his friend, Ricoeur, do by no means advocate the ideology of objectivism. To him, the concept of objectivism betrayed the spirit of the Pentecost, because in the mind of objectivists - whose proto-type is the positivist-, there is only a language i.e. the universal language of reason, to which we should obey. The logical force of language, as seen in logical positivism, is irresistible even if it is absurd.[5] As such, there is no room left for the diversity of languages (and cultures).[6] But to Ladriere, the manifolds and openness of language could be by no means sacrified. The diversity of languages could not be "unified" in a formal, single false "universal language." It could not be falsely and violently "unified" in the Carnap‘s manner: "quoniam audiebat unusquisque lingua sua illos loquentes." Each retains his own language; each understands other languages by and in his own language, or better say, his own world. In Ladriere's own expression, the Pentecostal spirit would be the right principle and path correcting objectivism and relativism: "In the effusion of the spirit the different cultural perspectives, represented by the different languages, becomes as so many modes of receptivity which open the minds and the hearts to the announcement of a common vocation."[7] It would also be the right weapon, by borrowing Richard Bernstein's language,[8] to subdue the false dichotomy of objectivism and relativism and to overcome the incommensurability in cultures, as he himself expressed: "This overcoming is however not a complete negation. The fact of diversity is maintained but its meaning is changed."[9]
Of course, the Pentecostal spirit has been a hallmark of Hegelianism; and the program of overcoming has been carefully elaborated by the "mighty" Hegel himself. His Geist seen in the Volksgeist and Zeitsgeist represents not only the commonality of the people, but also the totality of a time. And a successful overcoming of the Zeitsgeist results in the Absolute Geist. But the "absolute" means rather the "infinite" and the "temporaless,"[10] and the program of overcoming proceeds endlessly so that "overcoming process" turns forwards to the inner world instead to the Transcendence.[11] In this sense, Ladriere‘s attempt follows the Hegelian path, but takes the distance at the last movement of dialectic. Like Hegel who projected philosophy as the ultimate manifestation of the absolute spirit, Ladriere seems to assign to philosophy the responsibility and the role serving as common vocation. But unlike Hegel, he does not claim the absolute role to philosophy. Philosophy can never replace the Transcendence. It cannot claim the role of culture either, because philosophy serves rather as the mediator between "the discourse of representation, which is science, whereof it shows the possibility and the meaning, and the discourse of the symbol, which says already in concrete figures what philosophy recaptures in the conceptual language of speculation."[12] To Ladriere, the belief in the omnipotent role of the "philosopher" (Hegel), in the absolute power of reason (the Enlightenment), in the will-to-power (Nietzsche) appears to be rather naive and even absurd. Such a belief betrays the spirit and distorts the essence of philosophy; it "turns upside down" (to use Marx‘s critique of Hegel) the course of history. Ladriere rightly puts the problem straight: "In a sense philosophy is only a tentative thematization of what is already given by culture. Its proper contribution is to recall in the space of reflection and to translate in discursive discourse what was operating silently in the medium of culture."[13]
From the overcoming of cultural incommensurability to the search for universal culture
This work of ours picks up what Ladriere left unsaid, and goes a step further to explore the possibility of a universal culture in the spirit of the Pentecost, i.e. a culture free of domination and guided by a "common vocation." This part consists of two main themes: the first theme is elaborated and expanded from Ladriere's concept of culture, while the second theme of the possibility of a universal culture developed from the factual tendency of the emergence of a common language. The emergence of common language is possible through a dialogue of two or more diverse languages. Like the fusion of different horizons,[14] dialogue dialectically unites the two or more life-worlds guided by "the same vocation" and in the same spirit.
The Tragic Dialectic of the Tower of Babel
The tragedy of the Tower of Babel begins with, in Ladriere's view, the loss of our common vocation, the vocation called up by the Spirit. "Incomprehensibility," "uncommunicability" or, in Thomas Kuhn's language, "incommensurability,"[15] etc. express the diverse effects of the tragedy. They are not its essence. The disaster of Babel means much more than a simple disruption of communication: it reveals the fate of human kind: contradiction implicit in human constitution and in the dynamic force to escape from this contradiction, i.e. the factor of human historicity. Thus, on the one hand, the metaphor of the Babel Tower signals the unstoppable conflict; it legitimizes "misunderstanding;" it advocates cultural provincialism; it consolidates the getto-mentality; and it encourages cultural imperialism etc. However, on the other hand, precisely because of the divergence of mankind (or the manifolds of language), precisely in the peculiarity of each individual and precisely in the contradiction that the Spirit (either in the form of Volksgeist, Cultura, Classics...) re-appears like "the phoenix rising from the ashes" (in Hegel‘s language), that the common vocation finds its way and its force again.
In a word, the mythical force of the Tower of Babel has not lost yet its historicity: it reconfirms the destiny of human beings as an inevitable tragedy, the Nietszchean fatum. But at the same time, it opens up the gate for salvation which only those who first discover their Spirit, or their common vocation can reach. Thus, it seems to us, as strange as true, the history of human beings records a long struggle to repair the disaster of the Babel, a desperate struggle often lost by its own fateful self-destruction. It is by no means a mere coincidence between the story of the Tower of Babel and the myth of Sisyphus, between the Jewish and the Greek culture: both record the absurdity of human destiny,[16] and both harbor a final solution in their search for the common vocation.
Like Camus and Sartre, Ladriere is fully conscious of the tragedy; but unlike them - who pessimistically headed toward the abyss of nihilism - he optimistically tries to downgrade human tragedy and attempts to recapture the lost paradise in a dramatic manner. In this sense, Ladriere does blame neither God nor man for the absurd tragedy of the Tower of Babel. He seriously believes in a milieu divin (Teilhard de Chardin), and not a comedia divina (Dante), in which the ghost of the Babel no longer haunts the future of mankind. In fact, he sees in this tragedy as an example par excellence of the historicity of culture. Let us follow his arguments by exploring culture in its constitution, culture as the form of life, and culture expressed in the hermeneutic act of understanding.[17]
Culture in its Constitution
The constitution of culture is, in a certain sense, dialectical. That means, it constitutes itself in a process or a "movement of exceedence,"[18] inspired by its "origin" and guided by the "eschaton": "Inrootedness gives the solidity of a point of support, relation to the "eschaton" opens the space where a constructive action can be undertaken."[19] The two factors of "origin" and "eschaton" which constitute culture point to two different, contradictory course of history, unity and diversity. Human beings are bound to their root, and are striving to exceedence at the same time. The relation to their root, its inrootedness demands for the recognition of the origin, while the relation to eschaton requires a freedom of self determination and of overcoming.
Seen in this context, the biblical explanation of the tragedy as the curse, the chastisement, the punishment of God has not completely revealed its essence. It reveals only a facie of the tragedy: the forgetfulness of their origin. Or in Hedegger‘s language, the oblivion of Being as such. It is the forgetfulness of their root that cause the illusion of absolute freedom which, in Ladriere's language, lays foundation to a metaphysics of diversity. To Ladriere, the tragedy is implicitly born in the very contradictory essence of culture as a form of life and its metaphysics of diversity. This contradiction activates in the claim of totalization of metaphysics against the factual diversity of culture. It is a metaphysic which excludes other possibilities, which "pretends to be the authentic totality,"[20] and which claims the universality for itself. In Hegel's word, it is the culture grounded on the first stage of dialectic, i.e. the stage of the unreflective and isolated subject, who "pretends" to be the totality, to be the final synthesis of history. As totality, as absolute, the subject does not need any communication. It self-communicates. Like God who communicates through, in and with Himself, the subject does not need language. Silence, the ultimate silence, is His language, and emptiness, the absolute nothingness, is His form. Consequently, language appears to be luxurious, and dialogue superfluous. In this sense, incomprehensibility, uncommunicability, incommensurability are not the real consequences of the diversity of language, but the expressive forms of the isolated subject which claims the totality, the uniqueness and the absolute. The fact that the subject shuts out any other language demonstrates the essence of the undialectical subject. To the super man and mad man - a product of the super ego Nietzsche -, to the Cartesian ego, communication becomes impossible; it is a strange, unnecessary and toxicated word.[21]
In the second stage, unlike the Hegelian subject, the subject in the story of the Tower of Babel does not become the object. The subject is not objectified. Like God, who sees in all objects His own image and who created all objects according to His own image, the subject subjectifies the world and makes the world according to his representation.[22] Thus, when the subject attempts to "talk" to the world, this is in fact a soloquity, a monologue. He talks in fact to himself. No one, except him, can understand his language. The tragedy described in the myth of the Babel Tower, like the tragedy of Oedipus, is thus constituted and its fate is ultimately sealed off. No communication is possible. In fact, no communication is permitted. Like the light which is swallowed in the black hole, and like the planets after the big bang, all languages either disappear into nothingness or are violently fused into a uniformed language: the language of the subject. All language-games are then dictated by a meta-language; pretention becomes decision and nightmare becomes real life. This dialectic is not only wrong-headed; it reveals its very anti-dialectic essence.
Hegel was certainly aware of such a negativity. The negation of the world would result with self-negation, with what he named distress (Entausserung). Instead of becoming self-conscious, the subject alienates himself. The people who constructed the Tower knew that too. They were willing to risk their life just in order to become the final subject, i.e. God. Thus, the project was in fact aiming at the conquest of power, the power of self-determination. Their challenge to the divine authority was motivated by the thirst for power; it was fortified by a universal language, the language that would have excluded the divine word, i.e. Logos. That means, they knew exactly, only a universal language could be the most effective means to dethrone God in order to install themselves into His throne.
As a means, language (communication) is not their final end. Their final end is the absolute power still possessed by the mighty God. That is to say, the most basic factor and the main cause of the tragedy is power. Hence, one may say, the metaphysical foundation of universal language or meta-language is not communication but power as such. As a matter of fact, the language of communication was violently replaced by the language to power and of power.
God did not punish the challengers. He let them punish themselves. As a matter of principle, the undialectical subject can only subjectify the world; he is unable to be objectified. Thus, negation of other, and negation of other languages is indeed the logical consequence of its principle, the principle of cogito, ergo sum (Descartes), the principle of Ich = Ich (Fichte).
The naive belief that man can replace God (Feuerbach, Nietzsche), that the world as pure representation of the subject (Schopenhauer, Fichte), that power comes from the subjective will (Nietzsche), that power is the product of violence (Mao, Stalin)... turns empty. Such a belief is ungrounded because it contradicts the "basic and original" principle of power: power is the expressive form of communication and not for power as such. Thus, the negation of the divine power, the negation of the power of others resulted in the negation of their own power, i.e. their own capacity and ability to understand others and to be understood by them. Once the language as communication is destroyed; once the manifolds of language disappears, the language as means for power simply collapses. The metaphor of the linguistic incomprehensibility (seen in the diversity of meaning, the incommunicability of symbols, etc.) expresses rather the impotency of castrated power. It testifies the tragedy that Hegel brilliantly expressed in terms of Entausserung: instead of absolute power, it is the objectified consciousness, the unhappy state of existence. Instead of becoming God, the challengers faced self-annihilation. God‘s punishment of human beings in the narratives of Sodom and Gomorra, or in the epic of Noah, etc. points to the same message: it was not the diversity of languages (cultures) but the thirst of absolute power as such which was the cause of incomprehensibility, incommunicability and incommensurability. It is not the difference itself, but difference in the sense of negation of others which causes human tragedy.
There is no wonder that such language is fading away once its metaphysical foundation, i.e. power, is destroyed. The curse of God was therefore in reality the curse of man: in negating the others, one negates one's own existence and one's own power. The dialectic of the Tower of Babel reveals a sad verdict: the synthesis based on power appears as a false synthesis which can never capture the ontological authenticity of language; that is a synthesis that even with the help of violence, is destined to failure.
Ladriere is fully conscious of the false dialectic based on unified language. He is certainly aware of the illusion of domination and the fading glory of any culture nurtured by power. The glory of the Babel short-lived; it died the death of the false dialectic; it revealed the misery of imperialistic culture. The disembodiment of the Greek culture, the fall of the Latin civilization, the disappearance of the Byzantine arts, and the collapse of the golden age of Chinese culture, etc... all seem to confirm the fate of the Tower of Babel. Actually, no culture, no language, no civilization which claim absolute power and domination, can survive, even if such a culture relies on violence, or massively supported by structural force. As historical facts confirm, brute domination, violent force, naked power are not the essence but the inauthenticity of culture. It destroys culture indeed. In Ladriere's language, these cultures and civilizations have lost the common vocation because they are either seduced by the magic siren of uniformism, or because they are blinded by its own force. To cheat on their own consciousness, they pretend to be loyal to the common vocation by falsifying it and forcing it to fit to their world. And here is the real reason of the tragedy of the tower of Babel: without a common vocation, or with a false vocation, human kind heads to the inevitable black hole.
Culture as a Form of Life
Like Karl Mannheim, Ladriere contends that culture reflects the real life. It is indeed the expression most vivid of the "lived experience" or life-world (Lebenswelt).[23] More than simple experiences, the lived-experiences are constituted into certain habits, patterns of living, ways of thinking, etc. which we often refer to as the forms of life. Similarly, culture can be best seen in language. Like a mirror, language reflects and displays the true face of culture. One can say with Ludwig Wittgesntein that language is also a form of life: "Every language is a form of life." In Ladriere‘s interpretation, Wittgenstein's thesis could be understood in the sense of "language is a central component of culture,"[24] which leads to an analogous thesis of "every culture is a form of life."[25]
An analysis of language as well as human habits and patterns of living and thinking would yield interesting facts: On the one hand, as the form of life, - and as life is unique in the sense of my (our) own living life - culture first reflects the uniqueness, the particularity and individuality of the subjects. But, on the other hand, it also displays the commonality, the common sense (sensus communis), the basic desire and interests, the common corporeal construction, the common way of sensual reception, the intellectual constitution, the basic communication through language, acts, moral norms, etc. of a group, a people, a race and a state in that order accordingly.[26] That is to say, culture cannot be detached from the subject; but it cannot afford to stay aloof from the concrete life of such a group, a race, a people, etc. either. This double essence of culture clearly indicates a distinct difference between the subject and the group, between the subject and other subjects. As essence, diversity is extended to any group, any people, any race so that they are by no means identical. They are different in every aspects, as Florival correctly observed.[27] Hence, it is quite correct to say that their culture, just as they are, reflects, displays and express this diversity. Consequently, any understanding of culture starts first with the acceptance of this brute fact of lived-experience: difference lies deeply in the very essence of human beings. Here explains the reason of why Ladriere begins the first haft of his thesis on culture in a dramatic manner with "the principle of division."
However, the principle of division is not a principle in the strictest sense, but a de facto description of the existential state of culture which is constructed on both diversity and commonality of human nature and human life-world. That is to say, division express the second stage of the dialectical process of culture with diversity as its principle as seen in Hegels‘ "Entzweiung."
In culture, diversity as principle gives force to the revolt of our deep and fundamental "instinct,"[28] those commonly found in the constitution of our body, and reflectively found in our sensual life as stressed by Merleau-Ponty and Florival. These instincts are reacting against the violent uniformity imposed on human kind by any ideological forms such as modernism, rationalism, etc. and against the dictatorship of instrumental reason.[29] Based on this fact, Ladriere‘s critique of hyper-rationalism[30] aims to deplore the naive belief in the power of unified science, and consequently, in the homogeneity of universal culture under the flag or rationalism and positivism. Hyper-rationalism does not only suppress or negate the role and function of sensibility (as seen in Kant's system presented in his first Critique of Pure Reason). To Ladriere, it suppresses the diversity of culture. That means, it negates the lived-experiences. Any negation of lived-experiences would violently destroy human life, causing a kind of schizophrenia: "Practically everybody is obliged to live in that kind of schizophrenia"[31]or responsible to what Husserl once condemned as "the loss of the meaning of life."[32]
Ladriere‘s recognition of the factual division in culture, and his critique of any attempt of unifying culture under the flag of rationalism in the first part leads to an understanding of culture in a much broader sense. One finds here a triple aspect of culture: culture reflects human acts, culture exercises its impact on human acts and, culture serves as a medium in which human acts are situated.
First, as a form of life, each culture lives on in an invisible manner the life of a race, a group, a community, etc. However, to live means to activate. That means culture can be culture as far as it lives, i.e. so long it activates and stimulates the people to act in conformity to life. Hence, in order to understand the form of culture, one has to investigate the activities of those who are living in, with and by this culture. Precisely here that we are slowly discovering the difference and the commonality of culture: they are found in human acts which can be divided in two groups: the acts common to all people, and the particular ones found in a certain species, race, group, etc. only. As Giambattista Vico once noted, the common acts among all people, all races... and in all cultures are none other than those relating to birth, death, and religion, while in the second case, they are the variants of these three fundamental acts.[33] To be more concrete, one may discover in all cultures and civilization common activities such as religious worship, ceremonious marriage and respects for the dead in funeral; but one also finds different dogmas (because of different religions), diverse forms of worship (rites), and quite divergent behaviors in paying respect to God, ancestors, or to the dead. Similarly, each community may have different forms, laws and habits in contracting marriage. Vilfredo Pareto calls the basic activities as the residues while its different forms as the variants;[34] Jean Piaget classifies them into the categories of the structural and the transformative;[35] while Ladriere may refer to them as the ontological acts and the existential acts. The former acts are lying in the sphere of philosophy while the last ones more visible in the sphere of culture.[36]
Second, as a form of life, and as life serves as transcendental conditions (in the Kantian sense), culture may effect human acts by exercising its undeniable impact on human behaviors, acts, and consequently, on their choice of a mode of life, conforming or unconforming to such a form of culture. In the first case, there is no doubt that conforming form with conformist attitude among the people are expressed in their habits, customs, laws, religions and arts which are often constituted in conformity with cultural form. The cult of ancestors, totems or animism for example are not the origin or cause of a culture, but inversely, its products. Similarly, public laws are also constituted in accordance with social order. That explains the difference of laws among the states, the people and communities. In the non-conformist case, a revolution is much needed to produce an immense effect which may be sufficient to negate old habits, customs, laws and beliefs. Copernig‘s courageous view of sciences leads to Galileo‘s shocking discovery of astronomic laws. Similarly, French revolution, Darwin's evolutionism as well as Marx's invention of socialism... all are not the product of culture, but of a conviction of progress and a metaphysics based on dynamism. This new idea is in bottom anti-cultural if culture is understood in terms of the crystallization of tradition, or of present life-world.
Third, as a medium, culture offers itself to those who live in it a quasi a priori condition for living, acting and thinking. As a medium, it strongly exercises its force on human life. Its invisible power penetrates deeply into the vein of human body and stimulates the nerve-system in a manner which only conscious people could discover. This invisible power runs through our life like electron in the electric field generating energy so that without it one can hardly think, act or judge. Due to its absolute necessity, one may say that human nature is defined by its cultural medium. Hence, the diversity of culture reflects the difference of medium, and the difference of medium would make human different.
Culture and Hermeneutics or Hermeneutics of Culture[37]
Evidently, these forms of culture are insufficient to satisfy empiricist and rationalists alike due to their inner self-contradiction. Such an insufficiency is, in Ladriere‘s view, implicit in the fact that culture is not formal, but a process of life guided by common vocation. Any attempt to limit culture in a certain expressive form of life would do injustice to culture itself. Hence, in order to grasp the essence and nature of culture, one has to search for this common vocation. Here comes into Ladriere's discourse the role of hermeneutics.
The presence of the divine Hermes can be only justified by a diversity of understanding, and his existence is valuated by his skills of bringing diverse and contradicting meaning into a common sense. Hermeneutics or the arts of interpretation means therefore the arts of producing common understanding, or common sense (in Locke‘s sense). It is also the arts of manifesting or revealing the common grounds in human nature which may be sensus communis as seen in Gadamer's interpretation, or affectivity as seen in Florival‘s hermeneutics, or corporeity as seen in Merleau-Ponty. The message about Odysseus which the mighty Zeus sent to Telemanchus through Hermes, Zeus' own son, has to be "interpreted" by a common language in order to be understood. In the Homeric world, this common language and medium is none other than a synthetic language of the divine and the human. Hermes, Athena... are in certain sense haft divine, haft-human. Similarly, the necessity of common medium and language has always been the center of the Judeo-Christian culture: the difference between the divine life-world and human life-world cannot be dissolved without a mediator who serves as a bridge, or a medium. The divine Creator, in order to understand human world, has to command His own Son to be incarnated, just in order to become the son of man. Jesus Christ is therefore a mediator par excellence, because he is the son of God and the son of man. In Chinese history, the haft divine-haft human figures like Huang-ti, Pan-ku, Fu-hsi have played a particular role as mediator, and creator; while the human figures like Yao, Schwen, and later the emperor have always been regarded as the sender of God, or His representative on Earth. These examples display a fact, quite common in almost all cultures: the diversity of culture cannot be overcome without a common language or common understanding, just as the gap between the divine world and the human world can be only over-bridged by mediators. However, such a common understanding can be possible only if it is a part, i.e. the essence of all partners involved in a discourse. The presence of prophets, angels, semi-gods, etc. have always played a major role as mediator, messenger or representative of gods. But only the semi-gods have succeeded in bridging the gap between the divine and the human worlds. God has not always succeeded, so are the emperors, because they are still "different" in substance and nature. This belief is abundantly described in folk-literature and religions and plays an indispensable role in any culture.[38]
The point here is, if one needs a mediator to bridge the gap between the divine world and the human world, one also needs a certain kind of mediation, and further, certain conditions for mediation, in order to bridge the diversity our different life-worlds. We know for sure that the aborted mission of Babel had born a double insurmountable obstacles: the diversity between the divine and the human, and the diversity among the humans themselves. The tragedy has been foreseen, but consciously ignored by our human beings: it is the impossible mission because the essence of human is freedom,[39] and freedom implicitly contains the right of diversity. However, the Babel‘s ambitious claim of being the mediation, or the symbol of unity, and here is our main point, is only apparent, because it serves as an external symbol representing the external structure of human beings. As such, it missed the whole problem and miserably failed. The mediation has to be constructed on human essence, i.e. internal characteristics, the one called by Florival as "ontological foundation."[40] Only by a kind of mediation based on ontological foundation which is implicitly in any particular culture, but not identified with the particular culture itself, that a mutual understanding is possible. One has to make clear here that such an ontological foundation is manifested sometimes as the spirit, sometimes as the origin, and sometimes as the ultimate end, the ones which Ladriere found in philosophy,[41] and which he had described as the common vocation. Without this "trinity" of spirit, origin and ultimate end, any attempt to mediate in its particularity and diversity cannot "reconcile" the manifolds of world views. Such a mediation would transform understanding into a monologue of the deaf. It repeats the same tragedy of the Babel.
The search for common ground
From this fact, we come to the main argument that, it is the motivation of searching for common understanding, i.e. common language and common medium - and not the language, understanding or medium themselves - that would be the main dynamic to overcome the incommensurability in culture. The motivation, or the impulse for communication, or more precisely, communion with God and other human beings was described as the spirit. And communion with God and other human fellows means a mutual recognition as a part of their life. This mutual recognition persuades any involved partner to participate into this community: only through participation that communion is possible (Thomas Aquinas). Through communion, the participants become what they are aspiring for: they are co-living in the divine, ultimate and absolute world. Or perhaps, it is better to say, they are co-building a world, and not the Tower, a world in the sense of the medium in which we live, of the ultimate end for which we are aspiring, and of common vocation, for which we are called to realize the project of creation. And perhaps only in this sense that we may understand the spirit of the Pentecost.
Understood in this context, philosophy comes into play here not for its ambitious claim of being the origin, the ultimate end and the spirit of culture (as seen in the case of German idealism). Philosophy is concerned with the common vocation as Ladriere rightly puts forth. And such a concern requires that philosophy should place all claims under a rigorous investigation and thorough reflection, or in Kantian language, bring them before the tribunal of reason. Only by means of a thorough search for the motivation and the force behind the process of culturalization and civilization that philosophy may accomplish its mission. Philosophy does not force culture to reveal its spirit. In fact, it is unable to do so. But philosophy can trace the root of culture by investigating its ultimate concerns, i.e. its ontological foundation. And only by this way, it lends its hand in letting the spirit self manifesting in the cloudy diversity of culture; the same way the Spirit descends from heaven on every people gathering (participating) in the Synagogue. The participants of heterogeneous background and culture can now, by means of their participationis or communionis, "audiebat unusquisque lingua sua illos loquentes". Here, "common" sense, "common" language, "common" understanding are different expressive forms of the spirit of communion indeed. It is the communion that bring them in a mutual understanding. Hence, one may say with confidence that, philosophy does not produce - in fact, it cannot - a common language or a common sense as Locke onsidedly conceived. Philosophy is not satisfied with the under-labor task of clarifying language, the ungrateful task which Ayer, Carnap or Hare have once attempted to assign to it. It is concerned rather with our ultimate motivations. It wants to assist us in discovering our common vocation, and consequently, it prepares us to participate into a true communion.
Here, I share Ladriere‘s, and earlier, Jaspers's view that philosophy starts where science stops, where the fact emerges. Starting but not concluding, searching but not determining and proving but not claiming, these belong to the essence of philosophy. To Ladriere, philosophy challenges the pretense of being the solus ipse (as seen in the case of Descartes), the false claim of absolute, and the extravagant demand for absolute power. Philosophers like Plato, Descartes and even Heidegger..., all know too well that when they reacted against the false claim of sophists, metaphysicians and scientism-minded philosophers respectively. Even so, blinded by the illusion of absolute philosophy (and reason), they go into the same footsteps of their predecessors in taking philosophy to be a kind of universal knowledge, "unified" science or instrumental reason, or the foundation of all foundations, the meta-science of all sciences. That means, philosophy is conceived of as philosophy, in the same sense of Being as beings. Philosophy is the ultimate objective of philosophical investigation. The search for being or to ti on is therefore identified with the search for the ultimate purpose of philosophy which is philosophy itself. By doing so, the question of the meaning of Being is simply ignored, or brushed aside. And once the meaning of Being falls into oblivion, it is Being itself which justifies itself. The Cartesian project of philosophy as solus ipse, just as the project of idealism found on the absolute subject, can therefore not mediate the diversity of life-world. Philosophy does not mediate; it tries to dominate all diverse cultures in a system, the so-called rational system.
If philosophy is understood in this sense, then the role of mediator seems to be superfluous. Then, the rest would be a hard struggle, a dead-or-live competition of different rational systems, or in Kuhnian language, of different paradigms. The point is not to persuade, or to argue, or to convince our dialogue partners of our "good" move, point, or argument; but how to dominate, to coerce, to subdue them and to force them to obey and follow our "philosophy." Absolute philosophy is followed by absolute and universal culture (as the ecclesia catholica once falsely claimed). As corollary from absolute philosophy, dialogue among cultures is suppressed and disappeared; the rest would be "euntes docete omnes gentes" (go to teach all people)[42] the dominant culture with its consequence of imperialism and colonialism.
If each culture is primarily an art of self-expression and communication, and if such an culture is motivated and guided by the vocation of each people, race or class, then philosophy has the task to dig into the meaning of such a vocation in order to find our its universal meaning. And to seek the universal meaning means to search for the common vocation. But to discover the common vocation, dialogue, communication are still sufficient, because language in bottom is not only a form of life; it also reflects the very ideology which ties our hands. We are living in language; but we are also imprisoned in it. It is not only the house of Being (Heidegger), but also the Plato‘s cave! In our view, and in Ladriere‘s logic of culture, it is the art of communion which may be the best for the enterprise of searching for the common vocation.
Communion surpasses the act of communication. It demands a direct involvement of participants into the community. A direct engagement can be possible only if human act shares the common origin, is motivated by the same concerns, and conscious of the same destiny. That means, communion requires participation; but participation can be possible if becomes a part of the totality. In a direct and concrete language, communion consists of two acts: the free act of acceptance of the culture where we are living in, and the free act of making it as a part of our life. Understood in this context, what Ladriere means by "common vocation" is none other than what we point out as human common concerns, human destiny and human hope. Similarly, what Florival calls by affectivity, corporeity which she regards as the basic constitution of culture are referred by us as human physical conditions, or the sensus communis (Gadamer).
The point is, common vocation as well as human basic constitution do not exist a priori, but biologically, historically and relationally constructed. That is true that, human organs and human basic needs, from the physical aspect, are developing in structural and functional order. Similarly, human faculty of sense is almost constructed in the same way. But human sense, sensibility, affection, love do not follow the structural or functional order of human physical construction. That means, they may develop quite different, and sometimes independent from human organs. The fact that a man or woman without sexual organ still has the capacity to love; that a sublime love (love of beauty, patriotism, love to God...) is as much common as a pure happiness. As often, the degree of affection (increasing or diminishing, indifferent or irritating) has less to do with physical stimulation and more with intimate relationship. All these examples and many more, show that human desires, needs... cannot be understood without human relationship, and relationship occurs only in human sociality. The form of communion is the highest from of relationship.
By taking communion as the highest form of human relation, we venture to put forth a hypothesis as follows: the tragedy of the Tower of Babel is born not in the incapacity of communication, but in the impotency of communion. If it is so, then only a true, sincere communion could be the right solution to the problem of incommensurability in cultures.
Concluding remark
Ladriere is a catholicus in the correct sense, because he is a man of universal soul, with a deep belief in a common vocation. But he objects to the idea of "universal culture" in the sense once falsely interpreted by the Holy Roman Empire. He is a man for openness but not for relativism. Any idea of relativism contradicts his idea of common vocation. It is on this common vocation that our love to wisdom is founded. So, I completely agree with him, that common vocation must be the objective of philosophy, and not the other way. Precisely inspired and motivated by common vocation that human kind could avoid the almost unavoidable tragedy of the Babel Tower. Its awareness as well as our acceptance of the basic constitution of human beings are the first conditions for communion. No doubt, it is communion the correct solution to the tragedy of the Babel Tower.
[1] Cf. Jean Ladriere, "Philosophy and Culture," Research-paper presetented at the Second International Conference on Philosophy and Culture at Ateneo de Manila University (March 1994). Published in Philosophy and Culture (Manila: Ateneo de Manila, 1997). Hereafter as PC.
[2] Cf. Francois Lyotard, La Condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir (Paris: Minuit,1979). In fact, Ladriere has once critically observed the process of modernization as follows: "Le processus a maintenant gagne toute la planete, il bouleverse profondement les cultures, s‘ebranle toutes les traditions et introduit sur l'avenir des indeterminations inquietantes," in "De la critique de la societe industrielle a la critique de la modernite". Revue philosophique de Louvain (Tome 89, 1991), p. 5.
[3] Edmund Husserl, Phanomenologie als strenge Wissenschaft, in Husserliana, vol. ?.
[4] Jurgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Boston 1985, p .vii.
[5] See Lewis Carroll, "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles," in Complete Works, Nonesuch Press.
[6] Note that Ladriere‘s view reflects the common reaction against the new rational dogmatism. Much earlier, R. G. Collingwood had vehemently protested against the domination of reason and the verdict "irrational" against other cultures. See Collingwood, The Principles of Arts, p. 67.
[8] Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).
[10] Cf. G. F. Hegel, Phanomenologie des Geistes (1807), ed. by Kurt Michel and Eva Moldenhauer, Frankfurt a. M. : Suhrkamp, 1961.
[11] See my "The Unfinished Project," Chinese version in Review of Philosophy ( Taipei, 1999). The original English lecture is delivered at the 20th World Congress of Philosophy, Boston August 1998.
[14] Cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Method (Tubingen 1975) (4 ed.), p. 286, 288. Truth and Method (New York 1975), p. 269, 271.
[15] Cf. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1970), (2 ed.), pp. 4, 103, 148. 149 ff.
[16] As Albert Camus had brilliantly presented in his now classic Le mythe de Sisyphe (Gallimard, Paris), 1943.
[21] Cf. F. Nietzsche, Also Spoke Zarathustra.1885-7.
[22] Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1819.
[23] G. Florival in "An Interpretation of Culture from the Ontological, Anthropological and Ethical Viewpoints," op. cit., p. 4: "Cultures - like men - exist always already in the starting of their concerns, they are weaving the lived relations of a people, they recall to mind their past traditions in order to reactualize them in the present history, called by the project to come."
[24] Ladriere, PC, p. 7. The formula in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, quoted by Ladriere.
[26] Ghislaine Florival, Etudes d‘anthropologie philosophique. Les dimnsions de l'exister, Paris - Louvain-la-neuve, vol. 1, 1980, pp. 97-119, notes 7, in Florival, op, cit., p. 6.
[27] Florival, p. 5:"The West is no more the philosophical or cultural center of perspective: it is itself comprehended in the diversity of cultures."
[28] In form of libido of Sigmund Freud, or desire of Gilles Deleuze.
[29] See the thesis of Theodor Adorno in his Kritik der instrumentalischer Vernunft and Negative Dialektik, and earlier in Dialektik der Auflarung (1947 with Max Horkheimer).
[30] Ladriere, "University and the Future of Asian Culture," The Third International Conference of The Asian Association of Catholic Philosophers (Nagazaki, March 1996), p. 8. Hereafter as UFAC.
[32] Husserl, op. cit., part 2.
[33] Giambattista Vico, La Scienza nuova, 331.
[34] Cf. Vilfredo Pareto, Trattato di Sociologia generale,
[35] Cf. Jean Piaget, Le Structuralisme, Paris 1966.
[37] Cf. Ghislaine Florival, "Logos Pathique et Vie Morale," in Figures de la Rationalite, Etudes d‘Anthropologie philosophique, IV, Paris-Louvain, 1991, pp. 163.
[38] Cf. Peter Berger, The Search for Angels,
[39] Cf. Martin Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit,
[40] Ghislaine Florival, "Cultural Differences," in The Proceeding of the First Conference of the Asian Association of Catholic Philosophers (Taipei, 1993), ed. by Tran Van Doan, p. 15.
[42] Taken out from Mt. 14:12 to be the purpose of the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide seu Evangeli Populorum.
