Intimacy or Integrity intro

as planned, i will begin publishing 'cliffnote' outlines to some of the chapters i've read that seem especially pertinent to the Path. today's is from Intimacy or Integrity by thomas p. kasulis. i have only read about four-and-a-half out of its six chapters -- but i think its introduction gives a helpful account of what inhibiting obstacles the intercultural philosopher is having to overcome: remnants of the hardcore rationalists, positivists and underdeveloped pragmatists.

here, kasulis distinguishes the universalists from the differentialists (in their extreme forms) and what can we do to avoid making the same sweeping errors of logic.

as one can likely guess, outlines like this can never substitute for the original material -- the purpose to my positing these is to illumine the direction i'm going (and the nature of the wind that blows me), provide relevant and professional input to this weblog endeavor, and perhaps, possibly, ignite a spark of interest in a subject in a reader (and become, in that way, one with the wind).


Intimacy or Integrity (2002), T. Kasulis

introduction

• (extremist) universalists - inappreciative of cultural differences
• (extremist) differentialists - often "ignore that communication and understanding often cross the boundaries of otherness" (6) (that translation is possible); also, "the very claim about the impossibility of universalizing is itself a universalization" (7)
  
• both approaches universalize

• there should instead be recognized a difference between understanding and persuasion (we can understand but not necessarily be sympathetic towards x)
• further, there's a difference between a different language and a different potential-sympathetic composition (one undermines understanding; the other, trust)

• 2 problems with the holistic comparison (e.g., all americans vs. all japanese)
• 1 - it can't do justice to the complexity and diversity of a culture
• generalizations are always distortions -- but all articulations are generalizations of some sort (K: thus, in part, a linguistic demonstration of memetic evolution)
• without generalizations, people "cannot proceed in their quest for understanding" (8)
• generalizaton is not equivalent to universal qualifier (generalizations can't be "refuted by a simple counterexample"; 8)
• generalizations always have exceptions
• only way to refute a generalization is to find a better one
• 2 - analysis of either whole would seem to be infinite
• "superficial similarity, upon closer analysis, dissolves into incomparables and difference
• reiterative components compose different patters of consistency
• cultural recursivity -- "a repetitive pattern out of which the whole is constructed" (10)

• "If we can isolate a reiterative factor in different kinds of cultures, perhaps we can also talk holistically about their similarities and differences" (11); the recursive cultural patters are the 'intimacy' and 'integrity orientations

"The role of the philosopher is not just to analyze but also to give us better tools for analysis." the purpose: that "communication and understanding across cultures will be assisted." (11)



( 'K:' = personal relevant contribution

i am aware that my bullet-form is probably unorthodox. forgive me, but this is the way that makes sense to me.)


国際化のため、いろいろな理論に全国用され、結果を伝えるべき。