The Role of Philosophy in Inter-cultural Understanding

by
Dr. M.M. Dheen Muhammad
Paper read at the International conference on
Cultural Diversity and Inter-cultural Understanding
Organised by
Society for Asian Civilisations and UNESCO
Held at Islamabad Hotel, Islamabad
January 17-18, 2003

Although I come from Sri Lanka, my presentation is not going to carry any Sri
Lankan peculiarities for the issue at hand cultural diversity and inter-cultural
understanding - is universal and one that concerns all human beings wherever they
are. It is a part of human nature and understanding between human beings and
therefore, is a necessity of life.
Philosophy too is a universal phenomenon. We are all philosophers at some stage of
our lives. We do philosophy when we try to answer the queries of our children.
At the very outset, I would like to state that there is no meaning for one in the
relative world in the absence of the other. The very existence of one is only in
relation to other. The Real One is the absolute and that is God alone. That is why
He doesnt have any partners. Human being and all that surrounds him are absolutely
relative. Absoluteness belongs to God alone. It then follows, that no man, no culture
and no civilization can ever exist save in relation to the other. In fact the whole
tradition of scholastic and mystical theology on being and existence is but an
elaboration of this whole idea.
One of the very unfortunate developments in the history of human kind in modern
times is that the fundamentals of human life, the essentials of human relations and the
alpha and omega of human civilization are being questioned and destroyed one after
the other.
Modern man having distanced himself from his creator and assisted by science and
technology and with full consciousness of his freedom and liberty has destroyed
individual in the name to Individualism, family in the name of existential freedom
and lastly has made nature his enemy in the name of science and technology. And
now, as a result of all three he has started destroying social relations and cultures in
the name of absolute and religion, truth and ethics.
All this has had a direct impact on mans thought patterns, behaviour and life-styles
all-important aspects of various human cultures. Cultural changes have been taking
place in the past as well but never as rapidly as in the past few decades. The reason
quite obviously is that most nations and cultures have been hurled into contact in an
ever-reducing arena of a global village. In this confusing situation where there were
pervasive, competitive and dynamic cultures alongside cultures with conservative
orientations and those less prone to change, a so-called new issue came to light. And
that was the issue of cultural diversity. How were these cultures supposed to survive
alongside each other without compromising each their respective values, imposing
ones behaviourial patterns on the other and losing ones identity or being assimilated
into another culture?

Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, man has made a blunder by taking on this issue
as if it was a new one. Cultural diversity is a reality as old as creation itself. It is a
given. It has been there from the beginning of human life on earth and it is to be there
until the end. Cultural diversity is something divinely decreed according to the Quran
and all holy religious scriptures and the present time of rapid globalisation with both
its good and evil consequences surely commit us to inter-cultural cooperation.
Despite all this, cultural diversity in modern times has become an issue of serious
challenges in its negative sense.
It is true that human history has witnessed periods of cultural intolerance which
resulted in many unpleasant and deadly events. But in our time this intolerance has
taken a new extreme form that threatens the very existence of humankind in the form
of theologically oriented extremism, and culturally motivated fundamentalism and
above all politically and economically motivated might is right philosophies and
democracies.
Although people of different cultures and destined religions and civilizations have
lived alongside each other for centuries. The modern world has added a special
urgency to the need to do so respectfully and knowledgably. But we tend to forget
this.
We can read the trends in todays world.
I - and not you
We unqualified
We qualified = I and you.
Whenever one is in contact with the other, he takes up one of the mentioned stances.
Either he refuses to acknowledge the existence of others and acknowledges his own
rights. Or he assimilates into the other culture in which case he with the other
becomes We. Here he loses his own identity. Philosophers must look for the I-You
equation. In this equation, neither do the I nor the you denounce each other, nor do
they assimilate into one another. They simply learn to co-exist with one another
sticking to their identities, traditions, values, thought and behavioural patterns and
life-styles. In the Islamic world, great luminaries like Ghazzali and Ibn Arabi were the
models par excellence of such types of philosophers.
In our world of rapidly increasing modes of communication not just a sense of
survival but also the noblest impetuses of people of different cultures should lead
them to understand, respect and learn from others.
Thus, the necessity of inter-cultural understanding is not a matter of discussion and it
cannot be a matter of controversy rather, our focus should be on how to protect this
diversity from the negative onslaught against it and how to promote this in the midst
of growing mistrust between different cultures.
What role then philosophy and philosophers can play in translating this perennial
message into a reality?
Of course there are as many definitions of culture as there are we may sayindividuals on earth. No matter which definition one accepts culture is both the

unconscious and conscious aspiration of man, individual and collective to find a

harmonious balance at the most mundane and the most sacred levels of experience.
Culture is neither profane nor sacred, neither physical nor metaphysical, neither
material nor spiritual, emotional or intellectual, rational or irrational, illiterate or
literate. It is the sum of all these and more. [Vatsyayan, Kapila, Indian Aesthetic Tradition of South Asia
in ed. Tirmizi, S.A.I. Cultural Interaction in South Asia: A Historical Perspective (Delhi: Hamdard Institute of Historical
Research, 1993), p. 17.].

If this is accepted and I think it is culture then is the true manifestation of human
wisdom as experienced by him and expressed through arts and music, science,
architecture and sculpture, myth and philosophy.
Culture is then an aesthetic experience, an artistic expression, a behavioural pattern, a
refined philosophical reflection and a spiritual struggle all of which are capable of
multi-level manifestations which can be identified within the boundaries of the
cultural life style of people and transcends these boundaries to reach out to others.
Here, we at the core of the heart of philosophy which literally means love of wisdom
and technically and traditionally means living up by that wisdom.
Since philosophy transcends the limits of time and space it has within itself that
unifying approach and poses the ability to decipher unity within diversity with
impersonal cultural understanding.
If philosophy is the love of wisdom and the philosophers are the sages of wisdom,
culture is in one way or other- the manifestation of that wisdom as we just mentioned.
Every culture has an ideological base which reflects in the various manifestations of
that particular culture and thus there appears a conformity between these
manifestations and the ideology. Usually what happens is that the lay are most often
too engrossed in these manifestations, not bothering about the ideological foundation
upon which the whole edifice of the culture rests. It is the philosophers who are able
to transcend the dazzling manifestations of culture and grope about to reach out to the
ideologies. In fact if these ideologies can be considered as summits, philosophers are
the people who are able to meet at this summit.
One can take the example of religion to elaborate on this idea. Religion is one of the
most important founding elements of any culture. Even the most permissive and
materialistic types of cultures have betrayed strong religious tendencies. Although
there are people who can be termed irreligious or at least indifferent to religion, the
culture in which they were brought up is religious. While ordinary people are usually
content with the rituals, it has been the philosophers or at least scholars with
philosophic tendencies of the likes of al-Ghazzali, Ibn Arabi, Maimonides and St.
Abelard and Shankaracharya in the Islamic, Jewish and Christian and Indian traditions
respectively who have dug down deeper to identify the many common grounds
between the various trends of their own culture as well as their relation to other
cultures.
Just as each culture is based upon an ideological foundation, it ought to have known
parameters or boundaries of its own. These parameters not only serve as the
demarcation lines between one culture and the other, rather they act as the mark of
identity for that culture through which each culture is differentiated from the other. In
3

the process of inter-cultural dialogue these demarcation lines have to be fortified not
for the sake of preventing any intercultural contact, rather because without them the
cultures would lose their identity and an unending process of inter-cultural
assimilation would ensue.
This process of fortification requires that each culture develop its own mechanism of
defense to protect its boundaries from collapsing or caving in against the continuous
onslaught of the more dynamic and pervasive cultures.
Take the example of gay tradition that is so voraciously spreading in some cultures.
If gays are tolerated in a particular culture and are given rights whether in the name of
freedom or respect for democratic values, does it necessitate that other cultures
aspiring for inter-cultural dialogue ought to respect this cultural behaviour of a
people? Likewise, religious extremism which has taken hold of people in various
cultures of the East and West.
These are just two different examples of two phenomena spreading rapidly in the
world and all cultures have to be extremely cautious of allowing these or similar
phenomena to strike root or flourish on their soil. At times, some of these phenomena
have become so powerful owing to various factors that they have willy-nilly
penetrated into other cultures. It is against this sort of unwelcome intrusion that each
culture has to devise a mechanism to check its boundaries. It is here that the role of
the philosophers comes in again. Since they are clearly the ones to grapple with these
abstractions, it is they who can assiduously identify the loopholes in these cultural
boundaries of identity.
Lets have a look at some of the principles that ought to guide any endeavour towards
cultural interaction and understanding and in which philosophy has a role to play.
1- Cultural understanding should not be evasive as it will lead to rigidity.
2- Cultural understanding must be governed by moral principles. Morality is the
yardstick with which culture can generally be measured. No nation or culture
with flimsy moral foundations can survive for long. Allahs law operates in
such a way that either that culture would be replaced by a morally stronger one
or exponents of the culture itself would upset its foundational basis.
3- No call towards cultural understanding ought to be exploitive. Unfortunately,
this is what seems to be happening in our times. Materially strong but
spiritually impoverished cultures have done away with the less strong cultures
and robbed them of their spiritual values by imposing their values and
traditions upon others at times through forced economic measures without any
regard to the damage being done in the process.
4- It should be kept in mind that any attack on the cultural manifestation of a
people is equivalent to an invitation for a counter attack.
In each of these principles for cultural interaction and understanding philosophy has
had and will always have a role to play. For cultural diversity is not merely an issue of
behavioural trends rather it is a metaphysical and an ontological issue as well, both
branches of knowledge whose masters are the philosophers.
In modern times however, there is a need for an inter-cultural reorientation of
philosophy. In the last three centuries, philosophy has traveled far from its original
role of digging down into the reality of things and providing answers for the

betterment of mankind. Take the example of Leibniz, the well-known German

philosopher upon whose posthumously discovered advice, Napoleon attacked Egypt.
Sadly philosophers have lost that divine light which had been their guiding principle
for millennia. The reason being that modern philosophy is entirely man-centred and
desacralised and thus stands deprived of playing the role that was once played by
divines of the likes of Socrates and Plato, Ghazzali and Ibn Sina.
Philosophers traditionally have been spiritually strong and intellectually sound
people. In our own Asian tradition whether in the Far East or in the Indian Subcontinent it has been extremely difficult to distinguish between the religious tradition
and the philosophical tradition the reason being the philosophy has always viewed
matters religious specs. It has reached the same levels of objectivity as philosophy
minus religion, and even more. It has been tolerant, accommodative to a reasonable
extent and open. History bears witness that among the segments of people or various
cultures it has been the philosophers who have made extraordinary efforts to
understand the other.
If philosophy is concerned with the fundamental structure of reality. Culture is the
manifestation of that construction and the basis of this construction is classical
philosophy and in the mystical tradition has been love. Love has been the creative
force and formed the very basis of human activity.
Religion too is based on Love. According to the Quran, it is love that should
constitute the very foundation of religious life.
Say: If ye do love Allah, follow me: Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. For Allah is Oftforgiving and most merciful. (2:31)
O ye who believe! If any from among you turn back from his faith, soon will Allah produce a people
whom He will love as they will love Him. (5:54).

which implies that religiosity without love is equal to apostasy.

It is very unfortunate that religious presentation and preaching today misses this vital
element without which no good human being, no productive human relation is
possible. It is time to revive this tradition which has for so long been part and parcel
of religious life. Indeed, God-loving people are human loving people. Ones love for
God demonstrates itself in his love for His creatures and their different
manifestations, the clearest being that of human culture.
Here philosophers with their transpersonal and impersonal character should play their
role. This union of love and intellect which was visible in the very character of
philosophy throughout its classical manifestation ought to be rediscovered. It must be
remembered that when intellect fails love comes to rescue. Platos Symposium
serves as a good reminder in this context.
Moreover, philosophy should develop an inter-cultural orientation, not as a choice but
as a need. They should further develop means of communication and understanding
between themselves while cultures should make sure that their walls remain intact.