For internationalism to constitute a philosophically relevant issue at all, philosophy would have to be something national in the first place.(1) Is this the case?

Looking at the European tradition it appears to have been so from the start. At the beginning of his collection of the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Diogenes Laertius (2nd/3rd century) bluntly stated that philosophy is a Greek thing: "Philosophy has its origin with the Greeks".(2) If there is controversy about this claim, it is about alternative national origins of philosophy (Persian, Babylonian, Indian, Celtic, and so on); philosophy, the opponents of Diogenes' graecocentric thesis say, occurs and takes a different shape in each of these peoples. So the dissent is not about the national character of philosophy, but only about who first invented it.

But this is only half the story. When Diogenes asserts the primacy of Greek philosophy, his argument goes beyond the national character, he refers to humankind: "It was the Greeks who initiated not only philosophy but the education of the human species altogether."(3) Greek paideia is understood as paideia of humankind. What's considered peculiar to Greek philosophy and what raises any ordinary reflections about the world to the level of philosophy, is their universal - not merely national - perspective. To be relevant not just for a people but for humankind altogether, to transcend the national perspective by developing a universal one, constitutes the very definition of philosophy. (And as the philosophical endeavours in Greece - in contrast to other countries - strove for universality, they are, Diogenes Laertius concludes, rightly seen as establishing the proper concept of philosophy.(4))

On this view philosophy may well have various cultural and national origins, but as philosophy it has to seek to transcend its original limitation and to strive for the universal. The national taint is only an incidental phenomenon which is to be extinguished in the process of thinking pursued in the name of, and for the benefit of, humankind.

This, I suppose, is one of the most fundamental patterns of what we - at least of what people belonging to the occidental tradition - call `philosophy'. Philosophy is national and transnational, regional and universal at the same time, but not with equal weighting. The pursuit of universality must prevail over the national character - even to the extent that the latter is no longer noticeable at all.

3. The pattern is widespread and appears to be just natural

Even apparent exceptions follow this pattern. Take Protagoras as an example. He is certainly a relativist with respect to social matters, but not with respect to philosophy. His phrase "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not"(5) which establishes relativity - is meant to be universally valid. The same applies to a phrase like "What seems just and good to each state, that it actually is for this state, so long as it remains of this opinion".(6) Protagoras does not mean that phrases of this kind apply to some Greek states as opposed to others, or to Greek states as opposed to Asian states. Relativity at the factual level of customs and laws is meant to be a universal structure. - This, it seems, is what philosophical propositions always claim.

There is certainly no need to provide detailed examples of philosophy's laying claim to universality. As culturally specific as the philosophies of Plato and Plotinus, Descartes and Hegel, Husserl and Carnap were, these philosophers never wasted time on an attempt to become aware of this specifity, but instead invested all their energy into going universal. This was just philosophy's natural inclination.

There are also systematic reasons for philosophy's devotion to the universal. Philosophy tries to comprehend the world - not just a specific domestic world or lifeworld, but the whole world. Hence it has to transcend every narrow horizon - at least it has to try, or to pretend, to do so.(7)

Furthermore, it is just natural that philosophical disciplines follow a universal perspective. Otherwise, it seems, they could not be disciplines of philosophy. Logic, physics, ethics must, of course, be universal. There is no Greek as opposed to Polish logic,(8) nor a different physics in England and New Zealand, and although ethical considerations may well imply a touch of relativity, if they do, then they must do so universally (as in the case of Protagoras). And when the new discipline of aesthetics was created during the eighteenth century it of course sought universal laws of beauty or pleasure which would be applicable to the whole variety of aesthetic phenomena as well as to all epochs and styles of art (as inadequate - particularly with regard to aesthetic phenomena - as such attempts might be).

*

Throughout its history philosophy has indeed taken account of cultural variation at the level of objects, but practically it has never been aware of the specific cultural or national or regional taint in its own constitution and points of view.

If there ever was an emphasis on cultural or national specifity - as, for example, with Fichte or Heidegger - this was immediately to serve the universal goal again. When Fichte addressed the German nation he did so in order to motivate it to its universal task for the benefit of mankind. And when Heidegger emphasized the philosophical value of German language, he did so because of German's purported affinity with Greek philosophical language and because of his opinion conviction that "only from the same place in the world at which the modern technical world arose can a reverse be prepared, that it cannot occur by adopting Zen buddhism or other eastern experiences of the world. [...] Thinking is only transformed by thinking which has the same origin and determination."(9) In his lecture "Europe and German Philosophy" Heidegger even equated German philosophy with philosophy altogether: "[...] something will be said of German philosophy and hence of philosophy altogether."(10) This is the most direct way of declaring the national to be universal.

But any purported immediate universality is refuted by philosophy's obvious cultural mould. Every philosophical position is - factually, and this is a fact only disadvantageously ignored - influenced by the culture it arises from.(11) - This is evident with respect to philosophy's existence and relevance (1) as well as - even more importantly - with respect to its assumptions and concepts (2).

1. External cultural conditions of philosophy

The generation of philosophy requires social facilitation. Remember Aristotle's observation that it was only when the requisite needs and enjoyment of life had been provided for that such sciences might arise that aim not at utility, but at pure knowledge.(12) They - and in the foremost position philosophy - presuppose leisure.(13) This is still the case today - though in modern societies, where million of people enjoy such facilitating conditions, not everyone, of course, will use them in order to turn to philosophy. Societies of leisure are not usually very philosophical ones.

Also the acceptance of, or the attribution of relevance to philosophy depends on social conditions. In this respect Europe still seems a little different to the US. You find more European philosophers on European TV more often than American philosophers on American TV (pace Martha Nussbaum). Talking to my neighbor on a plane in Europe, I may be happy to answer his question about my profession, but in the US I'd better lie - unless I want the conversation to end anyway.

Furthermore, the type of social acceptance influences the style and the institutional constitution of philosophy. Today's flourishing ghetto of academia is also a consequence of social disinterest - as is the hyper-scholarly style (focused on footnotes instead of life). Remember that during one of its greatest periods - in the seventeenth and eighteenth century - philosophy's place was not in universities but in conversations, letters and books; it was a very lively enterprise.

2. Internal conditions: the cultural frameworks' influence on philosophical convictions and concepts

What's more, cultural convictions live on in philosophical conceptualizations and theories. When Plato discussed how to treat opponents and prisoners of war he made a big difference between Greeks and non-Greeks (the Barbarians)(14) - which, of course, was based on cultural prejudices, not on genuinely philosophical or universal grounds. And Aristotle would not have written a book like Metaphysics Lambda, he would not have developed a philosophical theory of the divine, if he had not lived in a culture in which speaking about Gods was the order of the day. His so-called theology is an attempt to establish from a philosophical point of view what `God' might mean, and thus to substitute and outdo contemporary talk of God. Consider too that for centuries religion was the cultural paradigm with which philosophy had to compete. Philosophy, in order to be acknowledged, had either to satisfy the religious demand on its own grounds (as in antiquity), or to leave space open for religion (as during the Middle Ages), or convincingly to transform religion into philosophy (as in modern times - think, say, of Leibniz or Hegel). Philosophy was not free to take any stance towards religion, rather its respective considerations were culturally requisite and, to a certain extent at least, even determined. Speaking of cultural convictions living on in philosophy, let me finally mention the widespread gender implications in philosophy, which have been made more than evident by the feminist critique of recent decades. - And if, so far, I have spoken only of cultural implications in European philosophy, this last point makes it obvious that non-European philosophies are equally tainted by their culture.

*

To sum this up: philosophy certainly aims at universality, but hardly fulfills this claim. Traces of its specific point of origin can be found even in the most abstract tracts on metaphysics. Often philosophy transcends single cultural prejudices and provides a strong and useful critique of its cultural framework. But it doesn't do so comprehensively. Retrospectively at least, the cultural situation and taint of a philosophy becomes evident - with respect to cultural prejudices which at the time seemed so natural that they were not recognized, but which due to subsequent cultural changes have become visible and even obvious. Wittgenstein let out one of philosophy's basic secrets when he said that philosophy always rests on cultural conditions.(15)

III. How to deal with the tension between factual specifity and intended universality

If what I've stated so far is true to some extent - if philosophy by its very constitution strives for the universal, but by its very condition is culturally bound - how, then, can this tension be resolved? How can philosophy do it justice? - I will discuss three models.

The first one is the naive model - widespread in tradition - where the culturally specific character is simply ignored and universality intended without further ado. What is in fact particular is declared to be universal. This approach leads to philosophical cultural imperialism. Postmodern criticism has strongly and rightly objected to this feature.

The minimum condition for the avoidance of outright totalitarian universalism is scrutiny of philosophy's implicit cultural taints - to begin with, one's own. Whenever this is omitted one can be sure that the pretense of universality is mistaken.

The worst strategy within this model consists of recognizing the national character without questioning it, even emphasizing it instead as directly guaranteeing the proper way to universality - a strategy followed from Diogenes Laertius through to Heidegger and, significantly enough, one linked in both cases with an explicit turn against the `Barbarians': the people not speaking Greek in Diogenes' case, and the Asians in Heidegger's case.(16)

2. Considering cultural specifity - the reflective model of Enlightenment and modernity

The second model is well aware of cultural specifity and tries to investigate it. Even when one finds no further points of cultural prejudice, one assumes that some remain. What are the consequences of this model?

Firstly, it provides, of course, useful criticism of the blindness and imperialism of the first model. Secondly, philosophers following this model will be cautious about their own claims. Not that they don't make universal claims themselves, but they do so in the mode of proposal or recommendation rather than that of declaration and imposition. Take Diderot as an example. The true philosopher, he says, "does not so cling to a system that he doesn't sense the full strength of objections. Whereas most people cocoon themselves within their own ideas such that they don't even make the effort to explore the ideas of others, the true philosopher understands the opinion which he rejects just as deeply and clearly as the opinion with which he concurs."(17) Instead of deliberately clinging to all things which could somehow serve to confirm one's own system, Diderot recommends "considering the reverse side of one's own views from a certain distance", which, he adds, "will show one how misguided these are".(18)

But how, thirdly, does this model, which is characteristic for the Enlightenment and widespread in modernity, provide for exchange between philosophies? Does it result in the connection of various philosophies and the overcoming of cultural specifity, does it lead to a new and better kind of universality?

I doubt it. The main result seems to consist of the development of a certain venerable attitude, not of theories which might rightly claim to be universal. The attitude is that of awareness of limitations, of recognition and tolerance. The guiding idea is to do justice to different approaches (with their diversity being assumed to be insurmountable). What's dropped, however, is the pursuit of universal theory.

Or, to be more precise, there is a universal view, but it refers only to the relationships between various theories: it states that their diversity is to be respected and the claim for an ultimate theory is to be dropped. To quote a more recent version of this view: "we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or another",(19) "countless alternative theories would be tied for first place",(20) "there are others, but none higher".(21) This is how Quine put the matter, and, as you know, with respect to intercultural questions he even extended this principle of the underdetermination of theory (to which the phrases quoted refer) to the principle of indeterminacy of translation.

Despite all the undeniable progress and simpatico appeal, this position is philosophically dissatisfying because it only provides conditions for respect between different positions, while at the same time blocking the way for strict argument which would aim not only at improving the single positions in themselves (in fact, these try only to profit from the exchange for their own sake), but at developing a sort of comprehensive theory; instead, the quest for universality, originally so peculiar to philosophy, is put to rest altogether.

To give an example, just think of Rorty's plea for edifying philosophy, which restricts itself to "keeping a conversation going" in which "we might just be saying something" (and with this he refers to philosophers as exacting as Heidegger and Wittgenstein) - this being seen as "a sufficient aim of philosophy".(22) And consider also how, on the other hand, this apparently peaceful position then turns into a strong defence of American or Western ethnocentrism.(23)

Or think of hermeneutics' support for this model, which it apparently makes insurmountable: all our understanding is said to be bound to the prejudices of our tradition. Even our criticism of such prejudices will ultimately fail to escape our cultural background, and less still will our deficient and vain attempts to understand the views of foreign cultures; such attempts lead, at best, to extensions and modifications of our own cultural mould. Hermeneutics, consistently viewed, ends up with a machinery of unhappy consciousness: one is forever trying to understand something foreign, and always is aware beforehand that the effort is destined to failure.

3. Today's new constellation: cultural diversity going transcultural, and the potential of transversal reason

The second model is dissatisfactory in not showing a way to get beyond the various frameworks of cultural specifity and in hence blocking any pursuit of the universality once so peculiar to philosophy. Must the quest for universality then simply be dropped (with philosophy becoming an enterprise essentially different from its traditional form, as many claim today)? Or is there a way of once again pursuing aims of universality - yet in changed conditions and in a different manner? - I want to provide two arguments for this possibility - one cultural, one philosophical.

The second model still assumes the existence of clearly delineated cultures (and hence of cultural frameworks which thwart any philosophical attempts at universality). But today this presupposition is becoming less and less tenable. The once single cultures - which seemed to be like closed spheres or islands - are undergoing deep transformation. Contemporary cultures are characterized through to the core by mixing and permeations. Today the same basic problems and states of consciousness appear in cultures once considered to be fundamentally different - think, for example, of human rights debates, feminist movements or of ecological awareness; they are powerful active factors across the board culturally. Cultures today are more and more going transcultural.(24)

Just consider our own cultural formation as philosophers: although we come from different countries we are culturally quite similar. In our cultural formation we draw on similar sources, influences, events. And so far as we are still different, these differences are less due to our national origin than to individual preferences, and to the specific accent which each of us has set within the web of today's cultural components which we largely share. Cultural identity is no longer to be equated with national identity. National terms - American, Japanese, German - may still apply with respect to political entities but not to the cultural formation of the people living in, or originating from, such states.

As philosophers, we are no longer actually national harbingers, but global players. And so we should be. We are not trying to expand a specific national pattern of philosophy all over the globe (at least I hope we're not) but reflecting and speaking within a global net of philosophy, comprised of several components which in one way or another we feel obliged to be familiar with. We make our own contributions in this field and not just with respect to some national or disciplinary discussion.(25)

So the national character of culture - which was decisive for the second model and which is still presupposed whenever one talks of national characteristics and international tasks of philosophy - has largely disappeared. Cultural specifity is no longer our problem - at least not in the way it may have been before.(26) The cultural territory of philosophy is no longer this or that country (one's so-called homeland), but the globe. The situation of philosophy today is neither national nor international but transnational or global.(27)

So much about recent change in cultural conditions which, in my view, might allow us to escape the dead-end of being bound to specific cultural frameworks and instead to consider universality anew.

Now let me suggest a corresponding change on the philosophical side. I am referring to reason.

I have a particular idea of this. My basic intuition is that reason - in contrast to rationality - is not a faculty providing first principles and establishing some primary order, further it does not contemplate from a lofty Archimedean viewpoint (a God's-eye standpoint), rather it passes between the several domains of cognition and forms of rationality. It is more a dynamic and intermediary faculty than, as was assumed in earlier times, a static and principle-oriented one.(28) Reason's activities take place in transitions. In view of this, I speak of "transversal reason".(29)

Whereas the dead-end of intercultural understanding to which hermeneutics - in my (as I'm aware, controversial) view - leads is a consequence of hermeneutics' neglect of the specifity of reason and its taking into account instead only an understanding whose character is similar to that of rationality (and hence distinguished by being bound to a specific set of convictions and categories) reason obviously goes beyond such boundness to a specific framework; reason's performance is less limited, it reaches further.

Just consider the following: When we reflect on rational or cultural specifities, or when, in reciprocal interpretation, we consider how framework A is viewed from framework B and, on systematic grounds, at least partly misrepresented thereby (and vice versa). Or when we analyze this complex of boundness and misrepresentation and, in going to and fro between the reciprocal representations, uncover their one-sidedness, then by doing this we are obviously making use of a faculty which by itself cannot simply be imprisoned in this structure of boundness and misrepresentation but must, to some extent at least, transcend it and exhibit a comparatively pure character. If any capacity deserves to be called reason - and if the term `reason' still has any meaning - then it is this capacity for uncovering and transcending rational one-sidedness, of whatever kind, that is to be conceived of as reason. To be sure, I am not saying that reason is simply pure and lacking any cultural taint from the start, but I insist that it is a capacity for progressively overcoming cultural specifity and impregnation. - To this extent fulfilling any of philosophy's universalistic tasks depends on the exercise of this capacity, on the feats of reason.

c. The congruence of the transcultural and the transversal perspectives - a new prospect of universality

If what I said before about the shift to transculturality and what I have just said about transversal reason, has a point, then a new prospect of universality opens up.

The transcultural scenario certainly provides new diversity, for the various components of the transcultural web are accentuated or woven together in different ways by different people or groups.(30) But due to their common components the different networks also exhibit a certain amount of overlap. Through this they allow for transversal connections.

Transversal reason, then, seems to be just the capacity which fits this situation. It enables us to traverse the various transcultural complexes, to explore differences in meaning of the same components, as well as to demonstrate the commonness in apparently different positions and to develop connections and propositions intelligible to all of them.

If we understand and practice reason in the way I have suggested - in a less Archimedean and principle-oriented, but more heuristic and intermediary manner - then, given today's transcultural constitution, there is a good chance of achieving propositions and theories which can be relevant and acceptable for various philosophical schools, or (to use Richard Shusterman's term) "philosophical empires".(31)

In the future, the paths of philosophy might become more convergent again. I hope they will.

1. This paper was written in response to Metaphilosophy's special issue "Internationalism in philosophy", edited by Richard Shusterman (vol. 28, no. 4, October 1997). The question raised in that issue was whether, given that philosophy is deeply rooted in specific cultural traditions, there can be such a thing as international philosophy or an internationalist style or mission for philosophy at all. A cautiously positive answer was proposed. This perspective I share, but in my view it could best be achieved by questioning the `national' (and, as a consequence, the `international') status of philosophy in the first place. - The following deliberations were first presented during the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy (Boston, 10-16 August, 1998) in a roundtable with Martha Nussbaum and Leonard Harris.

2. Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, I 4.

3. Ibid., I 3.

4. I pass over Diogenes's nonsensical argument that philosophy's name - i.e. its Greek formation - already demonstrates that philosophy be something Greek. Indeed, although Greek philosophy bears a Greek name, so too does the Persian a Persian one, the Indian an Indian one etc. Diogenes Laertius is a satiated and copiously narrow-minded Graeco-centric.

5. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, eds. Hermann Diels and Walter Kranz, 3 vols, vol. 2 (Zürich: Weidmann 61952), 263 [B 1] (Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983, 125).

6. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 260 [A 21a].

7. It is, incidentally, in this perspective that various philosophers spoke of philosophy's obligation to go beyond the perspective of rationality alone. For rationality refers to well-ordered and well comprehensible fields only; the whole, however, requires more than rational comprehension, it would necessarily be misrepresented by any merely rational endeavour. This became clear with Kant, who conceived of the whole as an idea of reason, not as a concept or object of the understanding. Consider also Wittgenstein, whose proper aim, already in the Tractatus (according to Paul Engelmann), was not to circumscribe "the coastline" of the island of the scientifically comprehensible, but rather to observe "the bounds of the ocean" surrounding this island (Paul Engelmann, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Briefe und Begegnungen, ed. Brian F. McGuiness, Vienna: Oldenbourg 1970, 77). - It is in general when turning to the perspective of the whole that the metaphor of the ocean comes in - from Aristotle and d'Alembert, Kant and Nietzsche, through to Wittgenstein, Neurath and Quine.

8. This is of course not to deny the great importance of the work of Polish logicians and of Polish notation - on the contrary: it is to emphasize their universal relevance.

9. "`Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten' - Spiegel-Gespräch mit Martin Heidegger am 23. September 1966", DER SPIEGEL, vol. 30 (1976), no. 23, 193-209, here 214 f.

10. Martin Heidegger, "Europa und die deutsche Philosophie", in: Europa und die Philosophie, ed. Hans-Helmuth Gander (Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann 1993), 31-41, here 31.

11. To some extent even Diogenes Laertius was aware of this; he took the development of Greek philosophy as being part of the broader enterprise of Greek culture when saying that the Greeks "initiated not only philosophy but the education of the human species altogether".

12. Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, I 1, 981 b 20-22.

13. Cf. ibid., 981 b 23-25.

14. Cf. Plato, Politeia, V, 469 b - 471 c.

15. His conclusion, however, that every attempt to transcend these cultural conditions philosophically were mistaken in principle goes too far in my view. What's wrong is simply to ignore cultural conditions, not attempting to criticize or transcend them. This is what Wittgenstein himself did by trying - or hoping - to foster the birth of a different type of culture.

16. With regard to the alternative of "Europe's rescue or its destruction" Heidegger declared: "The possibility of rescue [...] demands [...] the preservation of the European peoples from the Asian" (Heidegger, "Europa und die deutsche Philosophie", 31).

17. Denis Diderot, "Philosopher", in: Diderot, Enzyklopädie. Philosophische und politische Texte aus der `Encyclopédie' sowie Prospekt und Ankündigung der letzten Bände, with a preface by R.-R. Wuthenow (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1969), 343-348, here 345.

18. Ibid., 362.

19. Willard van Orman Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960), 22.

20. Ibid., 23.

21. Willard Van Orman Quine, "Relativism and Absolutism", in: The Monist 67 (1984), 293-295, here 295.

22. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), 377, 371, 378.

23. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), chap. 9: "Solidarity", espec. 191.

24. I have tried to develop the concept of transculturality ever since 1991. The first version of the conception was published as "Transkulturalität - Lebensformen nach der Auflösung der Kulturen" (in: Information Philosophie, 2, 1992, 5-20). More detailed renderings are found in Italian ("Transculturalità. Forme di vita dopo la dissoluzione delle culture", in: Paradigmi. Revista di critica filosofica, Special edition "Dialogo interculturale ed eurocentrismo" X/30, 1992, 665-689), in English ("Transculturality: The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today", California Sociologist, vols 17 & 18, 1994/1995, 19-39) and in German ("Transkulturalität - Zur veränderten Verfassung heutiger Kulturen", in: Hybridkultur, eds Irmela Schneider and Christian W. Thomsen, Cologne: Wienand, 1997, 67-90).

25. In this context, European philosophers, for example, are rediscovering the mixed constitution already of traditional European philosophy: Ionian philosophy was influenced by Indian; Africa too had its part (Egypt); the tradition of Aristotelianism is indebted to Arab tradition; Chinese philosophy, in the seventeenth century, had a big impact on early enlightenment thinkers (Leibniz, Wolff, Voltaire), as did Indian philosophy on nineteenth century thinkers (Schelling, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche) and East-Asian philosophy on some of the twentieth century (Heidegger). - Philosophy has, already in tradition, been transcultural to an extent greater than the national features prevailing since the nineteenth century are prepared to admit. It would be much more valuable to bring these inherent transcultural traits to the fore than to engage in dialogue between purportedly `pure' and `original' national philosophies.

26. From this viewpoint, I'd like to make some critical remarks with respect to standard current thinking about internationalism in philosophy today. What is avocated most often today is the acknowledgement and revival of the various national and local traditions - supplemented by a `modern' hope of dialogue between them. To put things sharply: there is a compulsion to compensate for modern western imperialism by restituting the various oppressed national traditions of philosophy from the non-western world. Politically, this is highly correct and intelligible. With a view to the future, however, this perspective proves to be retrograde and anachronistic. The path into the twenty-first century can hardly be marked by a return to the modes of thinking from the nineteenth or even earlier centuries. What's largely missing - and the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy was a symptom of this - is a resolute attempt to step forward instead of backward. The restitution of old traditions and the dialogue between them can, at best, be an interesting field of study for scholars (providing research areas and nice prospects of funding), but what the world to come needs is something very different: the development of philosophical views which are able to cope with future problems and to help in solving them.

27. Hence it is anachronistic when philosophy's institutional character is still determined by national perspectives - with national delegates, for example, constituting the members of philosophy's world organization.

28. If things were any different, if reason were to possess or decree a set of fundamental and contentful principles, and thereby issue a meta-order for all our understanding, our thinking, our conceptual activities, then reason would not be reason, but merely another kind of rationality. Advocating contentful principles and thus making primary statements about objects and stipulating the fundamental order of a field of cognition is the hallmark of rationality. - Putting this harshly, one has to say that the traditional notion of reason falls short of its concept in the most fundamental way. It wrongly turns reason into hyperrationality. In so doing, it paralyzes the concept of reason. If this traditional notion of reason were in fact right, there would be no such thing as reason at all.

29. Cf. Wolfgang Welsch, Vernunft: Die zeitgenössische Vernunftkritik und das Konzept der transversalen Vernunft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995, stw 1996). A short exposition of the concept is to be found in my "Rationality and Reason Today" (in: Criticism and Defense of Rationality in Contemporary Philosophy, eds Dane R. Gordon and Józef Niznik, Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998, 17-31) or on the Internet (http://www.uni-magdeburg.de/~iphi/ww/papers/Reason.html).

30. Therefore transculturality does not, as is often assumed, result in uniformity but engenders a new kind of diversity.

31. Richard Shusterman, "Internationalism in philosophy: models, motives and problems", in: "Internationalism in philosophy", a special issue of Metaphilosophy, ed. Richard Shusterman (vol. 28, no. 4, October 1997, 289-301, here 292).

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Welsch
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität
Institut für Philosophie
Zwätzengasse 9
D-07740 Jena
Germany
E-mail: Wolfgang.Welsch@uni-jena.de