Professor Javier San Martín talked about the phenomenological approach to culture and how it might be important for peace-building. In this sense, we were firstly introduced to the problems of multiculturalism and cultural relativism, which nowadays are so common in our globalized world.
Phenomenology is a philosophical trend started by Edmund Hüsserl at the beginning of 20th Century. One of the things that were remarked during the talk is the way in which we can consider Science as the common factor that unites all humans. Common factor because it is based on reason and reason is common amongst all humans.
According to Husserl, science is only valid when applied to ordinary world. Truth is not existent in the natural world. However, there are some things science cannot explain, because it is subject to some truth criteria it cannot explain.
Behind any cultural notion we have our common animal features. As animals we perceive the same world. A chair is seen the same way by every human being (from our animal senses). However, every human being can bestow a use on it or sit in a determined way, giving it their own personal/cultural use. Every people has operative reason. Based on this operative reason, any people can relate to another through reason, as it is a common element. Reason is based on perception and is the base to overcome Cultural Relativism.
Considering the density of this talk and difficulty to understand some concepts for someone not used to read philosophy, many doubts came to my mind after this talk. I decided to send Professor Martín an e-mail making the following remarks and questions.
Firstly, I understood from his explanation that Edmund Husserl has a double perception of everything attending to its material ontology and its spiritual ontology (Geist). The spiritual part of everything is made up of every non-logical association that humans can make out of each object or concept. Bearing this in mind, I understand you present the world and every rational conclusion driven out of our sensitive perception of it as common to every human being. It is because of this that we could not consider any human being as unable to understand anything that can be understood by the means of reason (even if it will be much more difficult for them to understand beliefs that are not based on reason).
My question wass if we could consider the fact that human being can also be deprived from reason. I refer concretely to examples like the ones he mentioned (Orwell’s 1984) in which a person is made to believe irrefutably that 2+2 equals 5, which might make compulsory the investigation into the logic that makes this person think that and not accept other options. This, translated into cultural practices might result into accepting Cultural Relativism. I realize this example contradicts the basics of Husserl’s theory, which sees in everyone the same conditions to understand the ordinary world the same way. In this way, 2+2 equals 5 would mean a rational fallacy, i.e. not a rational conclusion in any way. However, in the real world, I see it difficult to be applied when it comes to Human Rights or other beliefs in societies that are closed because of social, political or religious dogmas.
I understand as well, that you criticize Cultural Relativism and I consider the logical argumentation based on Husserl quite valid to do it. Theoretically it is logical that if we are all humans, we should all understand our relations with the natural world the same way. But I understand that, based on this, we might actually accept the existence of universal and absolute truths. Going to a practical example: if we take that Human Rights are and must be (based on the common well-making also mentioned in the talk) applied to any society in the world, we might understand that the cultures that do not respect such Human Rights, do not do it because they have not done a rational analysis of the way they organize their society. We might say that these Human Rights are the product of our own rational analisys and susceptible to be applied on them, through the same rational analisys, as they are human beings too. However, would this give way for the paternalist vision present in the Western world, based on which we can go to other parts of the world and “teach” them the best way to organize their societies? Would this be in some way justifying theories like the Clash of Civilizations that bestows on certain civilizations the monopoly of reason, presenting others as they have abandoned it and substituted it for dogma?
I recognize my limitations as I am not so familiar with philosophy and, to be honest, did not know a lot about the topic. However, I consider the topic of Cultural Relativism as a basic element to be discussed in order to understand how we want to make communities live together in peace. It is therefore important to understand if the work for peacebuilders will be based on trying to understand other societies, their spiritual world and their “logic” or considering our conclusions as based on universal reason and try to extend this “universal reason” to them too.
Professor San Martín recommended to find more information in his webpage (in Spanish):
http://www.uned.es/dpto_fim/invfen/InvFen6/2_javiersanmartin.pdf
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