11(180-184)_Note for Authors A NEW AGE IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY: THE WORLD DIALOGUE BETWEEN PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS Enrique Dussel UAM-Iz., México Abstract This paper argues the following points: 1. It is neces- sary to affirm that all of humanity has always sought to ad- dress certain “core universal problems” that are present in all cultures. 2. The rational responses to these “core prob- lems” first acquire the shape of mythical narratives. 3. The formulation of categorical philosophical discourses is a sub- sequent development in human rationality, which does not however negate all mythical narratives. These discourses arose in all the great urban Neolithic cultures (even if only in initial form). 4. Modern European philosophy confused its economic, political and cultural domination, and the result- ing crises in other philosophical traditions, with a Eurocentric universality claim, which must be questioned. 5. In any case there are formal universal aspects in which all regional phi- losophies can coincide, and which respond to the “core prob- lems” at an abstract level. 6. All of this impels entry into a new Age of inter-philosophical dialogue, respectful of differ- ences and open to learning from the useful discoveries of other traditions. 7. A new philosophical project must be developed that is capable of going beyond Eurocentric philosophical Modernity, by shaping a global Trans-modern pluriverse, drawing upon the “discarded” (by the Modernity) own re- sources of peripheral, subaltern, postcolonial philosophies. In this paper I will explore a theme that I believe should occupy us Prajñâ Vihâra, Volume 9, Number 1, January-June, 2008, 1-22 1 © 2000 by Assumption University Press for a significant portion of the 21st century: our recognition and accep- tance of the meaning, value, and history of all regional philosophi- cal traditions on the planet (European, North American, Chinese, Indian, Arab, African, Latin American, etc.). This will be the first time in the history of philosophy that these diverse traditions will be open to an authentic and symmetrical dialogue-a dialogue that will enable us to understand many aspects unknown to us, aspects that may be better developed in some traditions than in others. This dialogue will play a key role in unlocking the contents of the daily life of humanity in other cultures, thanks to the enormous machinery of mass media that makes it possible for us to receive news instantaneously of cultures about which we lack first hand knowledge, and will also imply an ethical positioning grounded in the equal recognition of all philosophical communities with equal rights of argumentation. This will make it possible for us to transcend the Eurocentrism of Modernity, so prevalent today, which impedes creativity and often obscures the great discoveries achieved by other traditions. 1. Universal Core Problems When I refer to “universal core problems,” I mean those funda- mental questions (of an ontological character) that homo sapiens posed upon attaining a certain level of maturity. Once their level of cerebral de- velopment allowed for consciousness, self-consciousness, linguistic, ethi- cal and social development (that is, responsibility for their own acts), hu- man beings confronted the totality of the real in order to manage things in such a way as to achieve the reproduction and development of human life in community. Human bewilderment in the face of the possible causes of natural phenomena was further compounded by the unpredictability of their own impulses and behaviors, leading to questions regarding “core problems” such as: What are real things in their totality and how do they behave? Such questions encompass phenomena ranging from the astro- nomical to the simple falling of a stone or the artificial production of fire. They also encompass the mystery of their own human subjectivity, the ego, interiority, spontaneity, as well as the nature of freedom and the cre- 2 Prajñâ Vihâra ation of the social and ethical world. In the end, they arrive at the question of how we interpret the ultimate foundation of everything that is real, and the universe itself? Which in turn leads to the classic ontologi- cal question: “Why being and not nothingness?” These basic “core prob- lems” have inevitably been faced by all human communities since the re- motest period of the Paleolithic age; they are among the many possible variations of the universal “whys,” and are present in every culture and tradition. The content and the way of responding to these “core problems” unleashes, impels, and disperses diverse trajectories of rational narra- tives, if by rationality we understand simply that reasons have been pro- vided in support of assertions, and that these assertions are intended to interpret or explain phenomena that have “appeared” at the initial level of each of these “core problems.” 2. The Rational Development of Mythical Narratives Throughout all of its stages of development, humanity has always and inevitably given linguistic expression to rational responses (under- stood here to mean those that are proffered with some kind of underlying foundation, regardless of its specific character, at least until it is refuted) to core problems such as those described above. This has occurred as the result of a process involving the “production of myths” (mytho-poiésis). The production of myths was the first rational form of interpreta- tion or explanation of reality (of the world, subjectivity, the ethical practi- cal horizon, and the ultimate reference of reality that is described symboli- cally). From this perspective myths are symbolic narratives that are not irrational and that do not refer exclusively to singular phenomena. They are symbolic enunciations, and therefore have a “double meaning” that can only be fully elucidated through a hermeneutical process that uncov- ers the layers of reasoning behind them. It is in this sense that they are rational, and that they must be grasped in terms of the extent to which their content has a universal significance, given their reference to circumstances that are susceptible to repetition, and constructed upon the basis of con- cepts (cerebral categorizations or cerebral maps that involve millions of neurons and imply the convergence in meaning of multiple and singular empirical phenomena that human beings must confront). Enrique Dussel 3 Numerous myths are organized according to their relationship to the core problems that I have just highlighted, and have been preserved in the collective memory of communities throughout the world. This was first done through oral tradition, and in written form since 3000 B.C., when they begin to be collected, remembered, and interpreted by communities of sages who had a sense of admiration in the face of reality, in the spirit of Aristotle’s affirmation2: “but he who finds no explanation (in what he sees, and turns instead to admiration) […] thereby recognizes his ignorance. This is why he who loves myth (philómythos) is akin to he who loves wisdom (philósophos)”. This is how mythical “traditions” emerge to pro- vide peoples throughout the world with rational explanations related to the questions that have always been most pressing for humanity, and which I have defined here as “core problems”. These include peoples as poor and as “simple” in their material culture as the Tupinamba indigenous people of Brazil, who according to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ studies, carried out the responsibilities inherent in their daily lives in ways embedded in the com- plex web of meaning provided by their vast number of myths. According to Paul Ricoeur, each culture has an “ethical and mythi- cal core”3, or “vision of the world” (Weltanschauung) that provides a framework of interpretation and ethical guidance for the most significant moments in human existence. On the other hand, certain cultures (such as those of China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Aztec or Mexica, the Arabs, the Hellenic world, Rome, Russia, etc.,) as a result of their politi- cal, economic, and military hegemony, were able to consolidate geopoliti- cal dominance. These processes endowed them a degree of universality that included the imposition of their mythical structures over those of sub- altern cultures. Such patterns of cultural domination are evident through- out multiple periods of historical development. As a result of these cultural clashes, certain myths will endure in subsequent stages (even in the age of categorical philosophical discourses and of the science of Modernity itself, up to the present). Myths will never completely disappear as long as some of them continue to make sense, as Ernst Bloch argues persuasively in his work The Principle of Hope.4 3. The New Rational Development of Discourses with Philosophi- 4 Prajñâ Vihâra cal Categories We have become accustomed, in the context of explanations of the transition from mythos to lógos, to understand this process as a leap from the irrational to the rational, from the concretely empirical to the universal, and from the realm of the senses to the realm of concepts. This is false. They are both rational. Each of the narratives at issues has a certain degree of rationality, but their specific character varies. There is a progression in terms of degrees of univocal precision, semantic clarity, simplicity, and in the conclusive force with which their foundations have been laid. But there are also losses in multiplicity of meaning when sym- bols displaced, but which can be hermeneutically rediscovered in diverse moments and places (as is characteristic of mythical rational narratives). For example the Promethean or Adamic5 myths continue to have ethical meaning today. Thus univocal rational discourse as expressed in philosophical categories that are capable of defining conceptual content without recourse to symbols (as in a myth) gains in precision but loses in terms of its resonance of meaning. All of this nonetheless implies an important civilizational advance, which opens up the possibility of abstraction in modes of analysis. Here, the separation of the semantic content of the phenom- enon being observed -the description and precise explanation of empiri- cal reality- enables the observer’s management to be more efficient in the reproduction and development of human life in community. In this context, wisdom can order the diverse responses to the core problems that have been enumerated, and becomes the content of a differentiated social “role” focused upon the clarification, exposition, and development of said wisdom. From the perspective of the sociology of philosophy, communities of philosophers form groups differentiated from those of priests, artists, political actors, etc. The members of these com- munities of sages take on a ritualized form constituting “schools of life” with a strictly disciplinary character (from the Aztecs calmécac to the Athenian academy or the sages communities of the city of Memphis in the Egypt of the Third Millennium B.C.), and came to be known as the so- called “lovers of wisdom” (philo-sóphoi) among the Greeks. But from a historical perspective the “lovers of myths” were also, strictly speaking, Enrique Dussel 5 “lovers of wisdom,” and this is why those who will later be described as philosophers should be described more aptly as philo-logists, if lógos is understood to mean a rational discourse that employs philosophical cat- egories and no longer has recourse to mythical symbolic narrative, or only exceptionally and as an example of how philosophical hermeneutics holds sway. This process of leaving behind the purest form of mythical rational expression and stripping away its symbolic content gradually emerged in all of the great urban cultures of the Neolithic. This process gives certain terms or words a univocal, definable meaning with conceptual content that is the fruit of methodical analytical elaboration and is capable of moving from the whole to the parts as it fixes its specific meaning. Key examples of narratives employing philosophical categories began to emerge in India (subsequent to the Upanishads), in China (from the Book of Changes or I Ching), in Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt (in texts such as those described as the “philosophy of Memphis”), in the Eastern Medi- terranean between the Phoenicians and the Greeks, in Mesoamerica (the Maya and Aztecs or Mexican), in the Andean region the amautas among the Aymaras and the Quechuas, who gave life to Incan civilization, etc. Among the Aztecs, Quetzal-coatl was the symbolic expression of a dual ancestral deity (“Quetzal” referring to the green and red feathers of a beautiful tropical bird as a symbol for divinity, and “coatl” referring to a twin or brother, the “duality”). This is what the tlamatinime (“those who know things,” and whom Bernardino de Sahagún called “philosophers”6) described as Ometeotl (from the roots in the Náhuatl language omé, which means two, and teotl, which refers to divinity), leaving the symbol aside. This denomination highlighted the “dual origin” of the universe (instead of the unitary origin characteristic of to én, or the One in Plato or Plotinus, for example). This indicates the beginning of the transition from symbolic rationality to the rationality of philosophical conceptual categorization among the Aztecs, as reflected in the historical figure of the poet and philosopher-king Nezahúalcoyotl (1402-1472). Some authors such as Raúl Fornet-Betancourt in Latin America7 concede that philosophy was practiced in Amerindia (before the Euro- pean invasion in 1492) or in pre-colonial Africa, without much elaboration of what he understands to be philosophy. Paulin Hountondji’s sharp cri- 6 Prajñâ Vihâra tique of the concept of ethnophilosophy, derived from Placide Tempel’s book Bantu Philosophy9, highlights the need to better define what we mean by philosophy in such contexts, in order among other things to dis- tinguish it from myth. Nonetheless when we carefully read the first sentences of the Tao Te-king (or Dao de jing) by the legendary Lao-tze: “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the constant Tao; the name that can be named is not the constant name; the nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth,”10 we find ourselves confronted with a text that employs philosophical catego- ries distant from those of a purely mythical narrative. It is also impossible today to ignore the argumentative density and rationality characteristic of the philosophy of K’ung Fu-Tsu (Confucius) (551-479 B.C.),11 and the levels of philosophical development evident in Mo-Tzu (479-380 B.C.),12 whose continuous, even excessive patterns of argumentation criticized the social and moral implications of Confucianism, affirming a universalism with grave political implications, and which was skeptical of rituals and unduly elaborate organizations or “schools.” His contributions are one of the pillars of Chinese philosophy that predated the great Confucian syn- thesis of Meng Tzu (Mencius) (390-305 B.C.).13 This philosophy spans some 2,500 years, with classics each century, and even during the period of European Modernity thinkers such as Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529), who develops the neo-Confucian tradition that extends all the way up to the present, influencing Mao Tse-tung and playing a role in the emergence of contemporary capitalism in China and Singapore equivalent to that of Calvinism in Europe. There was also Huang Tsung-hsi (1610-1695) a great renovator of political philosophy. In the same way the philosophies of the Indian subcontinent are organized in terms of the philosophical expression14 of the core problems. We read in Chandogya Upanishad: “In the beginning, my dear, this world was just Being (sat), one only, without a second. Some people, no doubt, say: In the beginning, verily, this world was just Nonbeing (asat), one only, without a second; from that Nonbeing Being was produced. But how, indeed, my dear, could it be so? said he. How could Being be produced from Nonbeing? On the contrary, my dear, in the beginning this world was Being alone.”15 Enrique Dussel 7 Is it not a philosophical discourse? In Hinduism the concept of Brahman refers to the totality of the universe (as does that of Pacha in Quechua among the Incas of Peru); atman refers to subjectivity, karma to human action, and moksha to the relationship between atman and Brahman. It is with these “core” con- cepts as points of departure that a discourse undertaken by means of philosophical categories begins to be constructed in the fifth century B.C. It is then with Sankara (788-820 A.D.) that the philosophy of the subcon- tinent achieves a classical level, which it has continued to develop up to the present. Buddhist philosophy, meanwhile, beginning with Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 B.C.), rejects the concepts of Brahman and atman, given its assumption that the totality of the universe is an eternal process unfolding in an interconnected manner (patitya samatpada). This even more clearly negates the mythical traditions (such as those of the Vedas), contributing instead to the construction of a strictly rational narrative, which is not, as in all philosophies, utterly exempt from mythological moments, such as ensomátosis, referring to the successive “re-incorporations of souls.” Meanwhile, Jainism, whose first exponent was Vardhamana Mahvira (599-527 B.C.), ontologically defends the Tattvartha Sutra (“no violence, no possession, no determination”) from the perspective of a universal vitalism, which has great relevance to the ecological crisis we face today. All of this clearly implies that philosophy was not born solely or originally in Greece, nor can it be taken as the prototype of philosophical discourse. This error arises from taking Greek philosophy as the defini- tion of philosophy itself, rather than discover a clear criteria of demarca- tion between mythical and philosophical categorical discourse. This con- fuses the part with the whole: a specific case does not capture the univer- sal sweep of the definition needed. This does not deny Greek philosophy its historical place among these philosophies, or its continuity with the philosophies of the Roman Empire, which in turn opened a cultural hori- zon towards the so-called Latin-Germanic European Middle Ages. These will culminate in the European philosophy that laid the foundations for the 8 Prajñâ Vihâra Modernity produced by the European invasion of the American continent, and the emergence of colonialism and capitalism. The Industrial Revolu- tion at the end of the 18th century (only two centuries ago) will make Europe the central dominating civilization in the world-system, up to the beginning of the 21st century. This domination has obscured and distorted our understanding of history (due to the combined effects of what I have described as hellenocentrism and Eurocentrism), and impeded the global perspective necessary to grasp an authentic history of philosophy. As a Latin American I am convinced that the future development of world philosophy will be jeopardized if we do not clarify these issues by means of a contemporary dialogue between non-Western philosophi- cal traditions and those of Europe and North America. In this context, E. Husserl’s reflection set forth below, and re- peated in general by M. Heidegger and throughout Europe and North America, seems so naïve: “Thus philosophy […] is ratio in the constant movement of self-elucida- tion, begun with the first breakthrough of philosophy into mankind […] The image of the dawn characterizes Greek philosophy in its beginning stage, the first elucidation through the first cognitive conception of what is as universe (des Seienden als Universum) […]”.16 In Latin America, David Sobrevilla essentially supports the same approach: “I believe that there is a general consensus that the philosophical activity of humanity first emerged in Greece and not in the East. In this regard Hegel and Heidegger appear to be correct, instead of Jaspers, who argues for the existence of three great philosophical traditions: those of China, India, and Greece.”17 The philosophy of the East would be philosophy understood in a broad sense, and that of Greece according to much narrower criteria. There is a confusion between the origins of European philosophy, which may in part lie in Greece, and the origins of world philosophy, which has diverse origins, almost as many as there are fundamental traditions of phi- losophy. In addition it is assumed that this process was linear, following a Enrique Dussel 9 sequence “from Greek philosophy to Medieval Latin philosophy and from there to their Modern European expressions.” But the true historical tra- jectory was much more complex. Greek philosophy was cultivated sub- sequently and principally by Byzantine civilization, and Arab philosophy in turn was the inheritor of Byzantine philosophy, and in particular its Aristo- telian tradition. This required the creation of an Arabic philosophical lan- guage in the strictest sense.18 Latin Aristotelian philosophy in Paris in thirteenth century, for ex- ample, has its origin in Greek texts and their Arabic commentaries (trans- lated in Toledo, in Spain, by Arab specialists), and these Greek texts were utilized and commentated by the “Arab Western philosophers” (in the Caliphate of Cordoba, in Spain), continuing the “Eastern” tradition with origins in Cairo, Bagdad, or Samarkand. This produced a Greek legacy profoundly reconstructed from a Semitic perspective (such as that of Arab civilization), and then passed on to Latins and Germanics in Europe. It is ’Ibn Rushd (Averroes) who marks the origin of the European philosophi- cal renaissance in the thirteenth century. All of the world’s great cultures have created philosophies as well, with varying styles and characteristics of development, but all have pro- duced (some only initially and others with great depth and precision) conceptual structural categories that must be recognized as philosophi- cal. Philosophical discourse does not destroy myth, although it does negate those who lose the capacity to resist the empirical argumentation inherent in such discourse. For example the myths of Tlacaelel among the Aztecs, which justified human sacrifice and provided good reasons for it19, completely collapsed once their impossibility was demonstrated, as well as their lack of practical feasibility. In fact, mythical elements may contaminate even the discourses of great philosophers. For example, Immanuel Kant argues in favor of the “immortality of the soul” in the “pure practical reason dialectics” of his Critique of Practical Reason, as a way of resolving the question of the “supreme Good” (since the soul would receive after death the happiness it had earned in its earthly life). But these concepts of the “soul” and of “immortality” demonstrate the persistence of mythical elements of Indian origin in the Greek thought-elements that came to permeate all of the 10 Prajñâ Vihâra Roman, Medieval Christian, and Modern European world. The suppos- edly philosophical proofs provided are in these cases tautological and not rationally demonstrative upon the basis of empirical facts. This illustrates the unrecognized (and in this case inappropriate) presence of mythical elements in the best philosophies. We might also describe them as ex- amples of unintentional underlying ideologies. On the other hand, the “Adamic myth” of the Hebrew Semitic tradition, which shows that human freedom is the origin of “evil,” and not a deity, as in the Mesopotamian myth of Gilgamesh, is a mythical narrative that can still be interpreted anew in the present, and which resists the rationality of the age of logos.20 The same can be said of the epic narra- tive of the slaves led by Moses who freed themselves from Egypt-narra- tives recovered by Ernst Bloch in his previously cited work. 4. The Domination of Modern European Philosophy and its Universality Claim Beginning in 1492 Europe conquers the Atlantic, which becomes the new geopolitical center of hegemony in the world, replacing the Medi- terranean and extending its sweep all the way to the “Arab sea” (Indian Ocean) and the “China Sea” (the Pacific). This becomes the basis of new colonial empires (almost exclusively centered on the American continent between the 15th and 17th centuries), which in turn make it possible for a capitalist civilization to develop. It is in this context that Medieval Latin- Germanic philosophy becomes the core of Modern European philoso- phy, in a manner inextricably intertwined with its political and economic hegemonical claim. I believe that the specific philosophical origin of this process is Bartolomé de Las Casas’s philosophical critique of the new colonial domination in the Caribbean region in 1514, long before that of Descartes’s Discourse on Method, written in Amsterdam in 1637. Euro- pean philosophy was until then singular and regional in character, but could now reposition itself in terms of a claim to take on the trappings of philosophy itself. It is valid to characterize the domination of European philosophy as hegemonic because it imposed its sway on the philosophi- cal communities that had been colonized or reduced to its periphery. It is this economic, military and political hegemony that makes it possible for Enrique Dussel 11 modern European philosophy to develop in a unique manner, unlike any other in the world during the same historical period. My emphasis here, then, is on exploring possible explanations for this development and its supposedly universality claim. Modern colonial expansion through the opening of the Atlantic by Portugal to the West of Africa, and then towards the Indian Ocean (which leapt over the “wall” surrounding the Ottoman Empire), and by Spain towards the Caribbean and the American continent, laid siege to the Islamic world from the end of the 1500’s, paralyzing its civilizational and thus, too, its philosophical development. Classic Arab philosophy was not able to survive the crisis in the Caliphate of Baghdad and declined defini- tively thereafter. The presence of the Mongol Empire similarly destroyed the possibility of new developments in Buddhist and Vedanta philosophies during the sixteenth century. China, meanwhile, began to feel the weight of having failed to complete the Industrial Revolution at the end of the eigh- teenth century, just as Great Britain21 began to experience it fully; by the end of the same century China had already ceased to produce new hege- monic philosophy. In Latin America the process of the Spanish conquest destroyed all of the most outstanding intellectual and cultural resources of the great Amerindian cultures; subsequently the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of the Baroque period were never able to surpass the achievements of the Scholastics of the sixteenth century Renaissance. The dominating centrality of Northern Europe as a military, eco- nomic, political, and cultural power laid the foundation for the develop- ment of its philosophy from the end of the Middle Ages, from the fifteenth century of Nicolas de Cusa (1401-1464) and the Italian Renaissance, with its origins in the presence and influence of the Byzantines expelled by the Ottomans of Constantinople in 1453. This made it possible for its own philosophy to develop and, in the face of the crisis of the other great regional philosophies, elevate its philosophical particularity to a univer- sality claim. Modern European philosophy was therefore positioned in such a way as to appear to be the universal philosophy-both in its own eyes and in those of the intellectual communities of the colonial world that lay prostrate at its feet, and philosophically paralyzed. It was situated geo- 12 Prajñâ Vihâra graphically, economically, and culturally in the center, able to manipulate the knowledge and information wrested from all of the peripheral cul- tures within its grasp. These cultures were connected to the center along a link running between the Colonial South and the European metropolitan North, but disconnected from each other, without any South-South rela- tions or alliances possible as yet. These relation will evolve during the Age of European Modernity, cultivating an increasing disdain for their own identities and contributions, which includes forgetting their traditions and confusing the high levels of development produced by the Industrial Revo- lution in Europe with the supposedly universal truths in its discourse - both its content and its methods. This is what makes it possible for Hegel to write: “Universal history goes from East to West. Europe is absolutely the end of universal history.”22 “The Mediterranean Sea is the axis of universal history.”23 Similarly, certain European mythic narratives will be confused with the supposedly universal content of purely European philosophical ra- tionality. Hegel is also the one who wrote that “the Germanic Spirit is the Spirit of the New World [Modernity], whose end is the realization of the Absolute Truth.”24 He fails to note, however, that said “Spirit” is regional (European Christian and not Taoist, Vedanta, Buddhist or Arab), nor is it global, nor does its content reflect the problems characteristic of other cultures. For these reasons, it does not constitute a universal philosophi- cal discourse, but instead reflects the characteristics of a mythic and pro- vincial narrative. What does it mean in terms of a strictly universal philo- sophical rationality to speak of the “Spirit of Christianity”? Why not then speak of the ‘Spirit of Taoism” or of Buddhism or Confucianism? That “Spirit” is completely valid as a component of a mythic narrative with meaning for those who live within the horizons of a regional culture (such as Europe), but not to attribute to it a rational philosophical content with an empirically based universal validity, as modern European philosophy still claims for itself. Philosophical Eurocentrism is, then, in essence this univer- Enrique Dussel 13 sality claim of a particular philosophy, many aspects of which may still be absorbed by other traditions. We can assume that all cultures have ethnocentrist tendencies, but modern European culture was the first whose ethnocentrism became globalized, with its original regional horizon extended to coincide with that of the emergent world-system itself, as proposed by Immanuel Wallerstein.25 But this universality claim falls of its own weight when philosophers of other philosophical and cultural traditions become conscious of their own philosophical history and its grounded implications. 5. Philosophical Universality and Cultural Particularity None of what I have argued thus far negates that it is possible for philosophical discourse to take into account the fundamental “core prob- lems” and attempt to develop responses with universal validity, as contri- butions that can be discussed by other cultures, since they would involve problems that are ultimately human and thus universal in character. K. O. Apel’s26 effort to define the universal conditions of validity necessary for a “argumentative discourse” makes it plain that there must be symmetrical possibilities for each of the participants to engage in the process; other- wise, the conclusions of the discussion will not be valid because partici- pants have not participated under equal conditions. This is an ethical- epistemological formal principle (without any content based in any par- ticular material value judgment of any culture), that can be assessed criti- cally by other cultures. Similarly, the fact that there are historical-material and economic conditions grounded in the affirmation and development of human life, which are universally necessary for human existence (since we are subjects in living bodies as suggested by Karl Marx), appears to be valid for all cultures. The formal abstract universality of certain statements or principles, which can be shaped differently at the material level of each culture, does not negate that they can be “bridges” which can make it possible for there to be dialogue and debate between different philosophical 14 Prajñâ Vihâra traditions. This meta-philosophy is a product of all humanity, even if it emerges initially in the context of a specific culture, or in some specific tradition or historical period, which might have been able to make greater progress on this issue than others, but from which all the other traditions could learn from within the bounds of their own historical assumptions. For example, in the tenth century A.D. in Baghdad, mathematics advanced significantly, immediately contributing to a leap in the develop- ment of Arab-Aristotelian philosophy and proving useful to other tradi- tions as well. An absolutely post-conventional philosophy is impossible (implying no relationship to any concrete culture), but all philosophies, located inevitably in some specific cultural context, are nonetheless ca- pable of engaging in dialogue with others through the prism of shared “core problems” and categorical discourses of a philosophical character, which are universal to the extent that they are human. 6. The New Age of Dialogue between Philosophical Traditions It has been asserted for too long that this universal function is fulfilled by modern European philosophy. This insistence has obscured many great discoveries made by other philosophical traditions. This is why the great task that lies before us at the beginning of the 21th Century is the initiation of an inter-philosophical dialogue. First, we must start with a dialogue between North and South, because we will be reminded of the continuing presence of colonialism and its legacies, still with us after five hundred years. This is a multi-dimen- sional phenomenon that includes economic and political structures and expressions, as well as cultural and philosophical ones. The philosophical communities of the post-colonial world (with their distinct problems and responses) are still not generally accepted, recognized, nor engaged by their counterparts in metropolitan hegemonic communities. Second (and no less important) is the need to undertake and deepen permanent South-South dialogue, in order to define the agenda of the most urgent philosophical problems in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, etc., and discuss them together philosophically. The rules for such a dialogue must be patiently developed. We must lay the pedagogical foundations by educating future gen- erations in multiple philosophical traditions. For example, in the first se- Enrique Dussel 15 mester in the history of philosophy in our universities at the undergraduate level, we should begin with the study of the “First Great Philosophers of Humanity”-the thinkers who developed the original categories of philo- sophical thinking in Egypt (Africa), Mesopotamia (including the prophets of Israel), in Greece, India, China, Meso-America, or the Incas. In the second semester we should continue with study of the “Great Ontolo- gies,” including Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Greeks (such as Plato, Aristotle, and up to Plotinus), the Romans, etc. A third course should explore later stages of philosophical development in China (beginning with the founding of the Han empire), later examples of Bud- dhist and Indian philosophy, Byzantine Christian philosophy, Arab phi- losophy, the Medieval European philosophy, and so on. This is how a new generation can begin to think philosophically from within a global mindset. The same approach should be reflected in the courses specializing in ethics, politics, ontology, anthropology, and even logic (shouldn’t we have some notion of Buddhist logic as well?). Furthermore, we must ask ourselves if other philosophical tradi- tions (beyond those of Europe and North America) have wrestled with questions ignored by our own traditions, even though those traditions might have explored them in different ways, with varying emphases. The differ- ences might provide new perspectives on the particular conditions of the geopolitical environment where they were engaged. There must not be only dialogue between East (an ambiguous concept deconstructed by Edward Saïd) and West (equally ambiguous)27, but also with the world Periphery, because Africa, Latin America, and other regions are until now excluded. We also need a complete reformulation of the history of philosophy in order to be prepared for such a dialogue. World Philoso- phy, the pioneering work by the sociologist Randall Collins28, points to key aspects that must be taken into account. His comparative analysis crosses the geography (space) and history (time) of the great Chinese, Indian, Arab, European, North American, and African philosophers, which he categorizes in generations and in terms of their relative importance, although glaring omissions include his failures to devote a single line to five hundred years of Latin American philosophy, and to the nascent philoso- phies of the urban cultures prior to the conquest. Despite these weak- 16 Prajñâ Vihâra nesses, he provides rich information for further interpretation and gives the philosopher pause, since the author is a sociologist who provides a great deal of material for philosophical thinking. 7. Inter-philosophical Dialogue towards a Trans-modern Pluriverse After a long crisis resulting from the impact of modern European culture and philosophy, the philosophies of other regions are beginning to recover a sense of their own histories buried beneath the hurricane of Modernity. Take the example of a contemporary Arab philosopher, Mahomed Abed Yabri, at the University of Fez in Morocco, a prestigious university renowned for over a thousand years, and city which in the thir- teenth century had more than 300,000 inhabitants, and where Moses Maimonides, among others, went to study and teach. At a first stage, in A. Yabri’s two works, The Critique of Arab Reason29 and The Arab Philosophical Legacy: Alfarabi, Avicenna, Avempace, Averroes, Abenjaldun,30 he begins with an evaluative as- sessment of the philosophy of his Arab cultural tradition. Along the way, a) he rejects the tradition of interpretation prevalent in this historical pe- riod (that of the salafís or fundamentalists), a reaction against Moder- nity that lacks a creative reconstruction of the philosophical past; b) he rejects of “Marxist safism,” which forgets its own tradition; and c) he rejects with equal force the liberal Eurocentric tradition that does not ac- cept the existence of a contemporary “Arab philosophy.” Instead the au- thor employs his linguistic skills in Arabic as a native speaker and under- takes original research in the philosophical traditions of the great thinkers of the “Eastern” schools (of Egypt, Baghdad, and towards the East, under the influence of Avicenna) and of the “Western” schools (of the Caliphate of Cordoba, including the Berber regions of Fez) that pivot around the contributions of ’Ibn Rushd. At a second stage in his exploration, A.Yabri undertakes a cri- tique of his own philosophical tradition by employing the resources of Arab philosophy itself, but also drawing from some of the achievements of modern hermeneutics (which he studied in Paris). This combination makes it possible for him to discover new historical elements in his own Enrique Dussel 17 tradition, for instance, that the Arab “Eastern” tradition had to contend with Persian Gnostic thinking as a principal rival. Thus the mu’ltazilíes created the first Arab philosophy: by opposing Persia and at the same time drawing upon Greco-Byzantine philosophy in order to justify the legitimacy of the Caliphate. Subsequently Al-Farabi and ’Ibn Sina (Avicenna), employing neo-Platonic categories, will produce a philosophi- cal-mystical tradition of illumination. While Andalusian-Maghrebi “West- ern” philosophy, inspired by the scientific empiricism and strictly Aristote- lian thought (with the characteristic slogan: “abandon the argument based on authority and go back to the sources” as urged by the Almohade ’Ibn Túmert) will produce the great Arab philosopher ’Ibn Rushd, a true philo- sophical Enlightenment (Aufklärung), which will be the origin of the Latin- Germanic philosophy in 13th Century, which was at the same time the foundational moment of the modern European philosophy. ’Ibn Rushd perfectly defines what inter-philosophical dialogue should consist of: “Undoubtedly we should build upon and take from the contributions resulting from the research of all who have preceded us (the Greeks, the Christians), as sources of assistance in our process of rational study [...] Given that this is so, and since the ancient philosophers already studied with great diligence the rules of reasoning (logic, method), it will be appro- priate for us to dedicate our labors to the study of the works of these ancient philosophers, and if everything we find in them is reasonable, we can accept it, and if not, those things that are not reasonable can serve as a warning and a basis for precaution.”31 At a third stage, that of new creation based upon one’s own tradition and nourished by dialogue with other cultures, we should not allow ourselves to be blinded by the apparent splendor of a modern Eu- ropean philosophy that has laid the groundwork for exploring its own problems, but not for exploring the problems particular to the Arab world: “How can Arab philosophy assimilate the experience of liberalism before the Arab world has experienced that stage, or without having done so?”32 One more theme must be addressed at fourth final stage. The dialogue that can enrich each philosophical tradition must be carried out 18 Prajñâ Vihâra by critical and creative philosophers in each tradition, and not by those who simply repeat the philosophical theses that are the traditional echoes of consensus. An essential element of such a critical stance is for philoso- phers to assume the responsibility for addressing the ethical and political problems associated with the poverty, domination, and exclusion of large sectors of the population, especially in the Global South (in Africa, Asia, or Latin America). A critical philosophical dialogue presupposes critical philosophers, in the sense of the “critical theory”, which we in Latin America refer to our reality as Philosophy of Liberation European Modernity has impacted cultures throughout the world through colonialism (except for China, Japan, and a few others, who were spared direct European rule). It exploited their resources, extracted infor- mation from their cultures, and discarded that which it could not absorb. When I speak of Trans-modernity, I am referring to a global project that seeks to transcend European or North American Modernity. It is a project that is not post-modern, since post-Modernity is a still-incomplete cri- tique of Modernity by European and North America. Instead, Trans- modernity is a task that is, in my case, expressed philosophically, whose point of departure is that which has been discarded, devalued, and judged use-less among global cultures, including colonized or peripheral philoso- phies. This project involves the development of the potential of those cultures and philosophies that have been ignored, upon the basis of their own resources, in constructive dialogue with European and North Ameri- can Modernity. It is in this way that Arab philosophy, for example, could incorporate the hermeneutics of European philosophy, develop and apply them in order to discover new interpretations of the Korán that would make possible a new, much-needed Arab political philosophy, or Arab feminism. It will be the fruit of the Arab philosophical tradition, updated through inter-philosophical dialogue (not only with Europe, but equally with Latin America, India, China, etc.), oriented towards a pluriversal future global philosophy. This project is necessarily trans-modern, and thus also trans-capitalist. For a long time, perhaps for centuries, the many diverse philosophical traditions will each continue to follow their own paths, but nonetheless a global analogical project of a trans-modern pluriverse (other than uni- versal, and not post-modern) appears on the horizon. Now, “other phi- Enrique Dussel 19 losophies” are possible, because “another world is possible” -as is pro- claimed by the Zapatista Liberation Movement in Chiapas, Mexico. Endnotes 1Paper presented in the XXII World Congress of Philosophy (Seoul, Korea) (August 2, 2008), in the III Plenary Session on “Rethinking History of Philosophy and Comparative Philosophy”. 2Metaphysics I, 2; 982b 17-18. 3“Civilisation universelle et cultures nationales”, en Histoire et Vérité, Seuil, Paris, 1964, pp.274-288. 4Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1959, vol. 1-3. 5See Paul Ricoeur, La symbolique du mal, Aubier, Paris, 1963. 6See my book The Invention of the Americas, Continuum, New York, 1995, 7.1. The tlamatini. 7R. Fornet-Betancourt, Crítica intercultural de la Filosofía Latinoamericana actual, Trotta, Madrid, 2004. 8P. Hountondji, Sur la philosophie africaine. Critique de l’ethnophilosophie, Maspero, Paris, 1977. 9P. Tempel, La philosophie Bantue, Présence Africaine, Paris, 1949. See Miguel León-Portilla, Filosofía Nahuatl, UNAM, México, 1979. 10Sources of Chinese Tradition from earliest Times to 1600, Columbia University Press, New York, 1999, vol. 1, pp.79. 11See Confucius Analects, trans. by Edward Slingerland, Hackett Publish- ing Company, Indianápolis, 2003. 12See Sources of Chinese Tradition from Earliest Times to 1600, vol. 1, pp.66 ff. 13Ibid., pp.114 ff. See Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies. A Global Theory of Intellectual Change, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass), 2000, pp.137 ff., and 272 ff. 14See Sources of Indian Tradition from the Beginning to 1800, Columbia University Press, New York, vol. 1. Also R. Collins, Op. cit., pp.177 ff. On Japan, Ibid., pp.322 ff. 156. 12-14 (Sources of Indian Tradition, vol. 1, p.37). 16Philosophy as Mankind’s Self-Reflection; the Self-Realization of Rea- son, in The Crisis of European Sciences, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1970, pp.338-339 (the 73 of Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften, Nijhoff, Haag, 1962, Husserliana VI, p.273 ). It is the same text of The Crisis of European Sciences, 8, pp.21 ff. (German original, pp.18 ff.). For example, the so call “Pythagoras theorem” was formulated by the Assyrian 1000 B.C. (see G. Semerano, La favola dell’indoeuropeo, Bruno Mondadori, Milano, 2005). 20 Prajñâ Vihâra 17D. Sobrevilla, Repensando la tradición de Nuestra América, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, Lima, 1999, p.74. 18See for example the Lexique de la Langue Philosophique D’Ibn Sina (Avicenne), edited by A.-M. Goichon, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1938. The 792 different terms analyzed by the editor in 496 large format pages, provide us with an idea of the “precise terminology” of Arab falasafa (philosophy). The final entry is: “792. Yaqini: certain, known with certitude, relative to a certain knowledge […]”, and thereafter follow 15 lines of explanation with the Arabic expressions, in Arabic script, at the right hand margin. 19See the subject on Bartolomé de las Casas and the human sacrifices in my book Política de la Liberación. Una historia mundial y crítica [Politics of Liberation. A Worldly and Critical History], Trotta, Madrid, 2007, pp.203 ff. 20See La symbolique du mal (supra) by Paul Ricoeur. 21K. Pommeranz, The Great Divergence. China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000. 22Hegel, Die Vernunft in der Geschichte, Zweiter Entwurf (1830), C, c; in Sämtliche Werke, Ed. J. Hoffmeister, F. Meiner, Hamburg, 1955, p.243. English version Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Introduction: Reason in History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975, p.197. 23Ibid., p.210; English, p.171. 24Hegel, Vorlesung über die Philosophie der Geschichte, in Werke, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1970, vol. 12, p.413; The Philosophy of History, Colonial Press, New York, 1900, p.341. 25I. Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, Academic Press, New York, 1980-1989, vol. 1-3. 26K.-O. Apel, Die Transformation der Philosophie, Surhkamp, Frankfurt, 1973, vol. 1-2. 27And what does the West consist of? Is it only Western Europe, and in that case where does Russia fit, which was certainly a part of the culture of the ancient Eastern Byzantine Empire? Is its origin in Greece? But this too is problem- atic because for Greece the rest of Europe was as barbarous as other regions were to the North of Macedonia. 28See the book of R. Collins quoted supra. 29Icaria-Antrazyt, Barcelona, 2001. 30Trotta, Madrid, 2001. 31A. Yabri, Crítica de la razón árabe, pp.157-158. 32Ibid., p.159. Enrique Dussel 21