Abbed Kanoor

University of Tübingen | Collège international de philosophie (Paris)

Plaidoyer for an Intercultural Study of Cultural Ontologies

29 November 2022, 17h00 (Lisbon Time — GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Room C201.J – Department of Philosophy)

School of Arts and Humanities – University of Lisbon

Abstract

At a time when cultural encounters have become inevitable, intercultural experience plays an essential role in a deep understanding of cultures. However, it should be noted that in the experience of cultural encounters we are dealing with different, sedimented perceptions of the world and their ontological registers. One of the important dimensions of cultures that is neglected in the culturalist attitude is their inner life: their corresponding cultural lifeworld, their imaginary geography with symbolic cartographies, the dynamic transmission of beliefs, rituals and wisdom passed on from one generation to another; these invisible but living aspects are missing in the culturalist attitude and especially in multiculturalism. In contrast, traditionalism, which is aware of these neglected aspects and the world-constituting dimension of cultures, can easily lead to a conservative and even ideological misinterpretation of cultures. My argument is that an intercultural study of cultural ontologies can be seen as a third approach beyond multiculturalism and traditionalism; an approach that is aware of the invisible world of cultures without neglecting their inner hermeneutic dynamics and falling into a closed and static understanding of traditionalism.