The life of philosophy as a cross-cultural phenomenon and its national character

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to inquire into the problem of correlation between the national philosophical thought and the international standards of philosophical research. The criteria of success in this field are examined in the context of cross-cultural networks, European identity and the problems of translation. The author argues that the degree to which a given cultural phenomenon can be regarded as being of universal importance is determined much more by its potential to form on a national level the ability to perceive, recognize and understand all the diversity of cultural events occurring elsewhere, and to translate this ability to later generations, than by any effect it could possibly exert on other cultures. The theoretical foundation of this idea of universality is to be found in the fact that the notion of universality is culture-dependent, so that one is entitled to speak about the 'logic' of a (given) culture and to regard the efficiency of its philosophical and logical instruments as the measure of its universal importance. This point is well illustrated by Husserl's and Hegel's conclusions about the universal importance of European culture, according to which the European way of living and thinking, once duly interpreted, manifests itself as the logically unavoidable outcome of world history. This sort of deduction can only be based on a conceptual, and by no means a geographical, understanding of 'Europeanism'. From the philosophical and conceptual point of view, European identity must be understood as a meeting place and a particular form of coexistence of national cultures, and this essentially is what 'European culture' amounts to both historically and from the point of view of the contemporary condition of societies which participate in its formation.