The issue of hermeneutics or interpretation is particularly important today as a time of great change. This is not merely a change of numbers at the end of the millennium, nor is it similar to a change of political parties within the same political system. Indeed one might even say that it is not even a change of systems, but rather a more fundamental questioning of the very significance and nature of systematization itself. In other words, it would seem to be the end of Rationalism which over the last 400 years has come to shape the modern world.

To understand the phenomenon of Rationalism it is important to return to the end of the Renaissance and the initiation of the modern period. People, and especially philosophers, had always built on their predecessors -- it was said that philosophers stood on the shoulders of their predecessors. In contrast, the modern period began with a dramatic and unaccustomed move. Francis Bacon called for the smashing of all the idols, which in fact were the bearers of the traditions. John Locke suggested that the mind be erased until it came to resemble a blank tablet.

Descartes suggested that all be put under doubt until an idea be identified which could not be doubted. The accumulated human experience was pushed aside in order to develop an aseptic laboratory in which to construct a world of simple natures and their relations. These were abstracted from time and from individuality in order to provide content which would be universal and necessary. All else was rejected as unworthy of the new modern man. Later, the fact of time would be reintroduced by Hegel and Marx, but only according to the necessary laws of the dialectic. It was a common impression of the Enlightenment and particularly of Karl Marx that religion would atrophy. What would continue would be a scientific history and only that. Thus, John Rawls would suggest that all integrating visions, including particularly those of a religious character, be put behind a veil of ignorance and kept from the public square.

It is this rationalist Cartesian world which is now being pushed aside as the radical inhumanity of the ideologies comes to be recognized. Whereas the 20th century began with high hopes for the realization of a utopia, it ends with the recognition that it has turned out instead to be the bloodiest of all centuries. Indeed Jean Baptist Vico had predicted shortly after Descartes that the new Rationalism would produce a world made up of brutes — intellectual brutes, but brutes nonetheless.

Now we are opening once again, but with renewed con-sciousness, to the dimensions of subjectivity and the religious dimensions of human life which had developed and been lived, but then were closed.

Samuel Huntington’s now classic Clash of Civilizations recounts how, as a basis for identity, religion is reviving precisely where it was supposed to disappear. As young people enter upon the discovery of new intellectual horizons they experience a need for identity and for this turn to religion. Those who are more mobile, moving from village to urban circumstances, also are faced with a challenge to their identity and turn to religion as the natural foundation thereof. Thus, in the Islamic world statistics show that religion does not lessen as one approaches young adulthood, the university age, but rather, in an unaccustomed way, belief remains stable.

Huntington concludes that the position that religion is outmoded and will disappear is factually erroneous, and hence the attempts to impose a secular world view: first is false because it does not represent the broader reality, second is immoral because it imposes upon the freedom of people, and third is dangerous because the supposition that religion will atrophy does not represent the prospects for the future. These prospects are that the Western liberal, rationalist and secularly oriented peoples, who now are dominant for economic and political reasons, will soon be outnumbered as the demographics change. They will find themselves in a world in which the forces of globalization will put them into more direct contact with the larger populations of the East who are religious in their culture.

This revival of the religious basis of culture and of the realm of subjectivity as a whole suggests Heidegger’s notion of a step backward as being the step forward. That is, as history moves forward humanity and especially particular cultures are faced with specific decisions. As they choose one from a number of alternate paths others paths are left unexplored and undeveloped. His example is that of Plato who chose the path of clarity, which left the dynamic elements in the philosophy of the pre-Socratics undeveloped. These, however, remain on call. Today it is possible either to move forward in relatively slow incremental steps along the path of Plato, or to reach back and retrieve that which had been left undeveloped and in that way open whole new dimensions of a meaning. This option makes possible extensive and intensive forward development. This is, of course, not a return to the past, but a retrieval from the past; what is of concern here is the degree of forward movement this retrieval makes possible.

Jaroslave Pelican distinguished between tradition as the living faith of the dead, and traditionalism as the dead faith of the living. He underlines that the turn to the tradition and to religion can be done in two different manners. Tradition is a forward oriented recuperation of the faith of the past and its development and expression in ways appropriate for the present. In contrast traditionalism is a mere repetition in the same manner of the faith lived in the past. This is often referred to as fundamentalism in relation to Christianity, Islam and other religions.

For the countries of Central Asia this is a very important distinction for they are in a very delicate position. As new countries which previously had been part of the Soviet Union they are in pressing need of articulating their distinctive national identity grounded in the Islamic faith. It is important for them to articulate this in order to distinguish themselves from the Soviet-Russian socio-political reality from which they have separated. At the same time it is necessary to do this in an ongoing and progressive manner lest they fall into a suffocating fundamentalism. They must avoid the destabilizing efforts of the fundamentalists who lurk on their southern borders. During a meeting at the Institute for Strategic Studies in Tashkent one morning in February, 1999 four car bomb explosions were felt in the immediate neighborhood in an attempt on the life of the President of the country. That evening he spoke to the country saying that that day Uzbakistan had entered a new era of its history.

Hence hermeneutics as the interpretation of the texts and cultures of the past in the context of the present is a uniquely urgent issue for Islam. Indeed, if Islam can be read as a reform movement of the Judeo-Christian tradition the recent Iranian Islamic revolution is certainly the renewal of its religious tradition. What other challenge does it have today greater than that of making the revolution work in new times?

In this light some recent publications by the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy are especially relevant. First there is a work by Judge M.S. al-Ashmawy, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Cairo, entitled Islam and Political Order. Two other works by Islamic scholars are directed immediately at the issue of hermeneutics and the way in which the text lives as being and is open to human history. These are is the texts of Musa Dibadj, The Authenticity of The Text in Hermeneutics and Berhanettin Tatar, Interpretation and the Problem of the Intention of the Author. In this vein the present lecture sees hermeneutics as the living interpretation of a living text within a living tradition.

If ‘to be’ for living beings is ‘to live’, then being for conscious human beings is to live consciously and freely. Therefore to consider the human reality and realization we should follow not just the physical artifacts as would an archeologist or anthropologist, but the challenges human freedom encounters in its search for perfection through time. Here the archetype will be not matter, but rather the living God.

Value: Each being, in its contrast with non-being is oriented towards its self-realization, that is, its "perfection" in the etymological sense of "facere" (to make) and "perfection" ("made through and through") or complete realization. This can be striven for by many means and in many ways. Whereas animals are specified by instinct in their search for perfection, human beings with intellect and imagination are able to conceive the multiple ways in which perfection can be pursued. Their imagination works as it were as a spectroscope opening out the many possibilities and as a kaleidoscope in combining these in various ways. The great multiplicity of possibilities they uncover imposes the need to prioritize among them, giving some more weight than others. Values, etymologically, are those which weigh more on a scale in the marketplace. There is not arbitrary in the sense of creating objects, but the free determination among the real possibilities of how to pursue perfection. They relate to real, even at times desperate circumstances and the choices made therein. Values reflect the way in which a people has sought its survival and achievement; in this way their values reflect their history. Consequently peoples with a different history, for instance, one that is revolutionary such as the United States, may put special value upon self-determination vis a vis their government than do the people, e.g., of Canada who did not follow a revolutionary path.

But more concretely, in this world all things seek their being in contrast to non-being. Thus, a plant seeks to grow and come to fruition, and animals protect their sources of nourishment in order to be able to survive and thrive. Human beings also seek and strive for their perfection, but with consciousness, intelligence and imagination they are able to understand that process as one that has many possibilities; hence they are faced with choices and the need to prioritize among the various possibilities. As some possibilities are considered more important and given more weight. This is a work of human freedom because some people might, e.g., count courage as more important than harmony. So the various peoples, according to the circumstances of their history with its trials and sacrifice, set different patterns in the evaluation of the elements of their life. In this light these patterns of values which constitute a culture are in reality the cumulative freedom of a people.

A few notes about these valuations or values: First of all they are not arbitrary; we cannot survive if we live in an unreal world. But though not arbitrary, they are the result of our free deter-minations. In our circumstances we choose to act or not to act; we choose to act in this way or that; we find this solution acceptable and that unacceptable. All this is in the realm of human freedom.

Further, values correspond to a set of glasses. Glasses do not allow us to see what is not there, but they can shape and orient our vision. Hence, one born into a particular family and a particular culture receives a way of observing and interpreting, and a language which shapes their consciousness. In this way their values also are shaped. Consequently, we can say that values are the basic orienting factor for emotional and effective lives. We defend and act upon these values because they express our freedom and are keys to the exercise of freedom by subsequent generations.

Virtue: The other term is "virtue". If we have a particular preference such as that of harmony, if our society reinforces that preference, and if we go about learning how to live in a way which is harmonious we develop a particular capability or a particular strength in the realization and actuation of that value. But to speak of increasing "strength" is to suggest the etymological root "virtus" (strength).

Together values and virtues constitute an integrated vision of the way in which one can grow. This is called "a culture" — a way of cultivating our freedom personally and socially.

Further, to add to this notion of culture the element of time is to generate a tradition. This is reevaluated in each generation, because it is not there outside of us but is passed on by us. So we evaluate the content of what we receive and pass on what we find to be life giving in the circumstances in which we live and provide for our children.

What one passes on is not just history, which is all that has happened, both good and bad, but what is life-giving or cultivating. This is the nature of a cultural tradition which is both from the past and toward the future. It is learned and developed over past time as, generation after generation, people gradually reshape value judgments, develop patterns of virtues, and pass these on to their children. This is not only a feedback mechanism which as a me-chanism tells us what works and what does not work and consequently shapes our behavior as a kind of Skinner box. It is also the process by which we come to learn generation after generation what is important in life, what is worth striving for. Thus, we proceed through time not only horizontally but vertically, not only developing better structures and technique but deepening as well our values and their foundations.

Tradition is also future-oriented because it is formative and because it is the consistent decision of peoples through the ages as to what is life-giving and how this can be adapted to serve as the key to life for the future. In this way tradition is not something dead and deadening, but as something that comes from life and points to the future.

Tradition then includes the two other elements: living interpretation and a living text. It implies a living interpretation because the text is read with the glasses we wear. As these glasses are developed through time then the interpretation of a sacred text, such as the Bible or the Qu’ran, or a founding declaration such as the American Declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, or of a special moment in history is gradually unfolded so that its meaning provides new insight and new values. In this way then the interpretation of the text moves through time bringing to our attention elements which are ever new and creative.

Were we to take historicity only as a movement of time and events that are randomly good or evil, there would result a relativism confusing the good and the bad. If however the history is that of an umma or faithful people as striving over time to live the message of the Prophet as life unfolds through time and circumstances, then tradition is better than a set oscilloscope for it interprets the text in a living and faithful manner.

This does not depart from the original text — quite the contrary! Real faithfulness to the text is an interpretation which brings out its meaning for each person in their concrete social and historical circumstances. In this way the text itself is not a dead artefact, but living as it unfolds, speaks through time, and provides wisdom which is both old and new.

The plurality of traditions is not a threat, but the possibility of hearing from others something which might enable one to appreciate one’s own life and tradition more fully? This is not simply a matter of adding something alien to the vision that has grown integrally as my own tradition, but rather the possibility of rethinking creatively and imaginatively the content of my tradition and enabling it to speak afresh.

If the people itself is constituted of many groups, each with their own culture and subcultures, then their traditions as products of the freedom of a people are bound to be complex and pluralist. Interaction between these traditions should not compromise anyone’s identity, indeed without such contact a people remains limited to the same old stories and less able to unfold its own tradition. Hence, contact with other cultures is needed.

It is important then that interchange with other traditions be neither a matter of observing them objectivity, that is, as over against us as with Sartre’s "stare" nor of grafting them onto one’s own culture as alien elements. Instead contact with other cultures should stimulate one’s awareness of one’s own culture by challenging one’s assumptions and enabling one to enter deeply and to mine one’s own tradition. This can be done if the contact with other views enables one imaginatively to reconfigure the elements of one’s tradition.

For this, of course, a special attitude is required. This is neither a methodological sureness or defensiveness, nor a readiness to compromise by abandoning at least some of what I know to be good, nor finally the development simply of new techniques of social manipulation. Instead it is the conviction that our culture especially as religiously grounded and open to transcendence has resources of meaning that thusfar have been mined but partially, and sequently that they have more to say to us.

My own experience of studying in India made me not an Indian, but a better metaphysician with a deeper understanding of my own tradition. For over a decade I had taught the Aristotelian-Thomistic ways to God in their a posteriori manner, building upon the reasoning of the Physics and finally the Metaphysics to conclude at the very end of the Metaphysics to life divine. Encountering the advaitan philosophy of Shankara made it possible to see, however, that the "five ways" of Thomas were really saying that none of that made sense unless change was founded on the changeless as Parmenides had said it the very beginning of Greek metaphysics. I returned able to provide a much deeper and truer sense of the five ways than when I left.

A plurality of traditions, cultures and civilizations raises also the issue of possible cooperation between peoples. Cultures are keyed not simply to economics or profit in which the goods cannot be shared, but are mutually exclusive and generate competition and conflict. Nor are they simply matters of politics and power in which competition rules. Rather they must be exercised in terms of spiritual goods such as honesty and justice, harmony and friendliness which can be shared. On this basis cooperation among multiple cultures and multiple civilizations is not beyond human ingenuity.

In this light the multiple cultures and peoples appear rather according to the Biblical image of different peoples all coming with their own tradition along their own path, but converging on the Holy Mountain as the one supreme good that is both source and goal. In these terms the relation between peoples can be one not of conflict but of cooperation in a shared and hence more fully human pilgrimage.