Author reply to peer reviews of paper number 112
Enter plain text and/or HTML tags. Heinz Kimmerle has written the following in response to Desmond Painter's review of Murray Hofmeyr's paper: Dear colleague, I have received from my friend and colleague Murray Hofmeyr your review of his article on my ideas about intercultural philosophy. I am pleased that you are interested in my modest conception. You have put some intriguing questions which I would like to answer. My view differs from that of Habermas, because I do not presuppose a general procedural rationality which is culturally independent. Habermas cannot come to a real dialogue with partners from other cultures as long as he expects them to discuss with him on the same ground of rational argumentation like he understands it. According to him this is also a question of acknowledging Western democracy as the only righteous one. All discussions are possible if they take place under these conditions. My idea of intercultural philosophical dialogues is, that the other can tell me something which I could not have told myself by any means. I cannot find it myself by using the general human procedural rationality. I want to agree as much as possible with the hermeneutics of my former teacher Gadamer. But I cannot follow him when he universalizes his conception of understanding. Before all interculturally there are aspects of failing to understand the other. The aim is not to come to a fusion of horizons, but to come as far as possible to a common understanding and to respect the remaining differences and also the 'erratic blocs' of non-understanding. Therefore, I do not call the enterprise of intercultural philosophy a hermeneutic one, like Ram Adhar Mall does. As Foucault has taught us, there are always power relations, also in intercultural philosophical dialogues. Among philosophers in principle equality can be presuposed. The differences of competence or of rhetorical abilities should be suspended as much as possible. The example of philosophical dialogues of this kind between partners from different cultures can be an appeal to politicians, businessmen or scientists to make their forms of intercultural communication more dialogical. Also in social sciences there might be some superior position of colleagues from highly developed countries over those from less developed areas because of their better equipments. Then the same appeal is directed at them. The 'methodology of the deed' can be applied by social scientists, if they 'forget' their superior position and communicate interculturally, also with people having their knowledge of the society from more traditional sources, on the ground of doing the same kind of work and therefore being principally equal. I hope, it is useful for you to have this kind of (too) short answers. Sincerely, Heinz Kimmerle
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