CHAPTER II

HERMENEUTICS OF CULTURES IN A GLOBAL AGE

GEORGE F. McLEAN

THE EMERGENCE OF SUBJECTIVITY

            In the context of the many crises with which we have been greeted in entering upon the new millennia it is dangerous to raise the question of the role of philosophy. For if, with Aristotle, philosophy is something to be taken up when the basic needs of the times are cared for then philosophy is in danger of being shelved for many generations to come. On the other hand, philosophy may have to do with our nature and dignity -- with what we are, and with what we are after -- and hence with the terms in which we live as person and peoples. If so then philosophy may be not the last, but the first consideration or at least the most determinative for life in our trying circumstances.

            During the last century human knowledge of the physical universe was totally transformed by breaking into the atom and discovering its structure. The effect was not only scientific advance but the joint threat of the atomic bomb and the great promise of atomic energy.          It is the contention here that similarly  philosophical understanding today has shifted from being a work of deduction by specialists working in abstraction from the process of human life, to deep engagement at the center of human concerns under the pressures of life's challenges. From external objective observation life is now lived in terms also of  internal self-awareness where human freedom with its cultural creativity and responsibility become central. The playing field has shifted, the challenges have risen geometrically and with them the potential not only for death but of life. To understand this we need to review the steps, negative and positive, by which this breakthrough from mere objectivity to subjectivity has occurred.

The Crisis of Objective Reason

            These pressures force us to cross a new divide as we enter into the new millennium. To see this we need to review the history of reason in this epoch. The first millennium is justly seen as one in which human attention was focused upon God. It was the time of Christ and the Prophet; much of humanity was fully absorbed in the assimilation of their messages.

            The second millennium is generally seen as shifting to human beings. The first 500 years focused upon the reintegration of Aristotelian reason by such figures as Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd and Thomas Aquinas.

            The second half of the millennium, from 1500, was marked by a radicalization of reason. Whereas from its beginning human reason always had attempted to draw upon the fullness of human experience, to reflect the highest human and religious aspirations, and to build upon the accomplishments of the predecessors -- philosophers sensed themselves as standing on the shoulders of earlier philosophers -- a certain Promethean hope now emerged. As with Milton's Paradise Lost, it was claimed that humankind would save itself, indeed that each person would do so by his or her power of reason.

            For this, Francis Bacon[i] directed that the idols which bore the content of the cultural tradition be smashed; John Locke[ii] would erase all prior content of the mind in order to reduce it to a blank tablet; René Descartes[iii] would put all under doubt. What was sought was a body of clear and distinct ideas, strictly united on a mathematical model.

            It was true that Descartes intended later to reintroduce the various levels of human knowledge on a more certain basis. But what he restored was not the rich content of the breadth of human experience, but only what could be had with the requisite clarity and distinctness. Thus, of the content of the senses which had been bracketed by doubt in the first Meditation, in the sixth Meditation only the quantitative or measurable was allowed back into his system. All the rest was considered simply provisory and employed pragmatically and only to the degree that it proved useful in so navigating as to avoid physical harm in the world.

            In this light the goal of knowledge and of properly human life was radically curtailed. For Aristotle,[iv] and no less for Christianity and Islam in the first 1500 years of this era, this had been contemplation of the magnificence and munificence of the highest being, God. By the Enlightenment this was reduced to control over nature in the utilitarian service of humankind. And as the goals of human life were reduced to the material order, the service of humankind really became the service of machines in the exploitation of physical nature. This was the real enslavement of human freedom.

Subjectivity: the New Agenda

            To read this history negatively, as we have been doing, is, however, only part of the truth. It depicts a simple and total collapse of technical reason acting alone and as self sufficient. But there may be more to human consciousness and hence to philosophy. If so in analogy to the replacement of a tooth in childhood, the more important phenomenon is not the weakness of the old tooth that is falling out, but the strength of the new tooth that is replacing it. A few philosophers did point to this other dimension of human awareness. Shortly after Descartes Pascal's assertion "Que la raison a des raisons, que la raison ne comprend pas" would remain famous if unheeded, as would Vico's prediction that the new reason would give birth to a generation of brutes -- intellectual brutes, but brutes nonetheless. Later Kiekegard would follow Hegel with a similar warning. None of these voice would have strong impact while the race was on to "conquer" the world by a supposed omni-sufficient scientific reason. But as human problems mounted the adequacy of reason to handle the deepest problems of human dignity and transcendent purpose came under sustained questioning and more attention was given to additional dimensions of human capabilities.

            One might well ask which comes first, the public sense of human challenge or the corresponding philosophical reflection. My own sense is that they are in fact one, with philosophical insight providing the reflective dimension of the human concern. In any case, one finds a striking parallel between social experience and philosophy in this century. To the extreme totalitarian repression by the ideologies of the 1930s there followed the progressive liberation from fascism in World War II, from colonial exploitation in the 1950s and 60s, of minorities in the 1970s and from closed societies in the 1980s. Throughout, like the new tooth the emergence of the person has been consistent and persistent.

            Thus, Wittgenstein began by writing his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus[v] on the Lockean supposition that significant knowledge consisted in constructing a mental map corresponding point to point to the external world as perceived by sense experience. In such a project the spiritual element of understanding, i.e., the grasp of the relations between the points on this mental map and the external world was relegated to the margin as simply "unutterable". Later experience in teaching children, however, led Wittgenstein to the conclusion that this empirical mental mapping was simply not what was going on in human knowledge. In his Blue and Brown Books[vi] and in his subsequent Philosophical Investigations[vii] Wittgenstein shifted the human consciousness or intentionality, which previously he had relegated to the periphery, to the very the center of concern. The focus of his philosophy was no longer the supposedly objective replication of the external world, but the human construction of language and of worlds of meaning.[viii]

            A similar process was underway on the continent in the Kantian camp. There Husserl's attempt to bracket all elements, in order to isolate pure essences for scientific knowledge, forced attention to intentionality and to the limitations of a pure essentialism. This opened the way for his understudy, Martin Heidegger, to rediscover the existential and historical dimensions of reality in his Being and Time.[ix] The religious implications of this new sensitivity would be articulated by Karl Rahner in his work, Spirit in the World, and by the Second Vatican Council in its Constitution, The Church in the World.[x]

            For Heidegger the meaning of being and of life was unveiled and emerged -- the two processes were identical -- in conscious human life (dasein) lived through time and therefore through history. Thus human consciousness became the new focus of attention. The uncovering or bringing into light (the etymology of the term "phe-nomen-ology") of the unfolding patterns and interrelations of subjectivity would open a new era of human awareness. Epistemology and metaphysics would develop -- and merge -- in the very work of tracking the nature and direction of this process.

            For Heidegger's successor, Hans-Georg Gadamer,[xi] the task becomes the uncovering of how human persons, emerging as family, neighborhood and people, by exercising their creative freedom weave their cultural tradition. This is not history as a mere compilation of whatever humankind does or makes, but culture as the fabric of the human consciousness and symbols by which a human group unveils being in its time.

            The result is a dramatic inversion: where before all began from above and flowed downward -- whether in structures of political power or of abstract reasoning -- at the turn of the new millennium attention focuses rather upon the emerging upward exercise of the creative freedom of people in and as civil society as a new and responsible partner with government and business in the continuing effort toward the realization of the common good.

CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND CIVILIZATIONS

            This achievement of modern hermeneutics in enabling the interpretation of human consciousness from within has made it newly possible to comprehend the nature of culture as constituted progressively of the development of values and virtues.

Values and Virtues

            The drama of free self-determination, and hence the develop­ment of per­sons and of civil society, is most fundamentally a matter of being as the affirmation or definitive stance against non-being elaborate it the very beginning of Western philosophy in the work of Parmenides, the first Greek metaphysician. This is identically the relation to the good in search of which we live, survive and thrive. The good is manifest in expe­rience as the object of desire, namely, as that which is sought when abs­ent. Basically, it is what com­pletes life; it is the "per‑­fect", un­der­stood in its etymo­logical sense as that which is completed or real­ized through and through. Hence, once achieved, it is no longer desired or sought, but en­joyed. This is reflect­ed in the manner in which each thing, even a stone, retains the being or reality it has and resists reduc­tion to non‑being or noth­ing. The most that we can do is to change or transform a thing into something else; we cannot annihilate it. Simi­larly, a plant or tree, given the right conditions, grows to full stat­ure and frui­tion. Finally, an animal protects its life ‑‑ fiercely, if neces­sary ‑- ­and seeks out the food needed for its strength. Food, in turn, as capable of con­tribu­ting to an ani­mal's sustenance and perfection, is for the animal an auxil­iary good or means.

            In this manner, things as good, that is, as actually rea­lizing some degree of perfection and able to contribute to the well-being of others, are the bases for an inter­locking set of relations. As these relations are based upon both the actual perfection things possess and the potential perfection to which they are thereby directed, the good is perfection both as attrac­ting when it has not yet been attain­ed and as constituting one's fulfillment upon its achievement. Hence, goods are not arbitrary or simply a matter of wishful thinking; they are rather the full develop­ment of things and all that contrib­utes thereto. In this ontological or objective sense, all beings are good to the extent that they exist and can contribute to the perfection of others.[xii]

            The moral good is a more narrow field, for it concerns only one's free and responsible actions. This has the objective reality of the onto­logical good noted above, for it concerns real actions which stand in distinctive relation to one's own perfection and to that of others -- and, in­deed, to the physi­cal universe and to God as well. Hence, many possible patterns of actions could be objec­tively right because they promote the good of those involved, while others, precisely as inconsistent with the real good of per­sons or things, are objective­ly disor­dered or misor­dered. This constitutes the objec­tive basis for what is ethically good or bad.

            Nevertheless, because the realm of objective relations is almost num­berless, whereas our actions are single, it is necessary not only to choose in gen­eral between the good and the bad, but in each case to choose which of the often innumerable possibili­ties one will render con­crete. 

            However broad or limited the options, as responsible and moral an act is essen­tially de­pen­dent upon its being willed by a sub­ject. Therefore, in order to follow the emergence of the field of concrete moral action, it is not sufficient to exam­ine only the objective aspect, namely, the nature of the things invol­ved. In addi­tion, one must consid­er the action in relation to the subject, name­ly, to the person who, in the context of his/her society and culture, appre­ciates and values the good of this action, chooses it over its alternatives, and eventu­ally wills its actu­alization.

            The term `value' here is of special note. It was derived from the eco­nomic sphere where it meant the amount of a com­mo­dity sufficient to attain a certain worth. This is reflected also in the term `axiology' whose root means "weighing as much" or "worth as much." It requires an objec­tive content -‑ ­the good must truly "weigh in" and make a real differ­ence; but the term `value' expresses this good especially as related to wills which actually acknowledge it as a good and as desir­able.[xiii] Thus, differ­ent individuals or groups of persons and at different peri­ods have distinct sets of values. A people or community is sensitive to, and prizes, a distinct set of goods or, more like­ly, it establishes a dis­tinc­tive ranking in the degree to which it prizes various goods. By so doing, it delineates among limit­less objective goods a certain pattern of values which in a more stable fashion mirrors the corporate free choices of that people.

            When this is exercised or lived, pat­terns of action develop which are habitual in the sense of being repeated.­ These are the modes of activity with which one is familiar; in their exer­cise, along with the coordinated natu­ral dyn­amisms they require, one is prac­ticed; and with practice comes facility and spon­taneity.­ Such pat­terns consti­tute the basic, con­tinuing and per­vasive sha­ping influence of one’s life. For this reason, they have been con­sidered classically to be the basic indicators of what one’s life as a whole will add up to, or, as is often said, "amount to­". Since Socrates, the tech­nical term for these espe­cially devel­oped capabilities has been `virtues' or special strengths.

Cultural Traditions

            Together, these values and virtues of a people set the pattern of social life through which freedom is developed and exercised. This is called a "cul­ture". On the one hand, the term is derived from the Latin word for tilling or culti­vat­ing the land. Cic ero and other Latin authors used it for the cultiva­tion of the soul or mind (cul­ tura animi), for just as good land, when left with­out cultivation, will produce only disor­dered vegeta­tion of little value, so the human spirit will not achieve its proper results unless trained or educated.[xiv] This sense of culture corresponds most closely to the Greek term for edu­cation (paideia) as the devel­op­ment of character, taste and judg­ment, and to the German term "forma­tion" (Bild­ung).[xv]

            Here, the focus is upon the creative capacity of the spirit of a peo­ple and their abili­ty to work as artists, not only in the re­stricted sense of producing purely aesthetic objects, but in the more involved sense of shap­ing all dimen­sions of life, material and spiritual, economic and pol­iti­cal into a fulfilling. The result is a whole life, charac­terized by unity and truth, goodness and beauty, and, thereby, sharing deeply in meaning and value. The capac­ity for this cannot be taught, al­though it may be en­hanced by edu­cation; more recent phenome­nolo­gical and her­meneutic inquiries sug­gest that, at its base, culture is a renewal, a reliving of ori­gins in an atti­tude of pro­found appre­cia­tion.[xvi] This leads us beyond se lf and other, beyond ide nti­ty and di­versity, in order to com­prehend both.

            This constitutes the basic topology of a culture; as repeatedly reaf­firmed through time, it builds a tradition or heritage about which we shall speak below. It constitutes, as well, the prime pat­tern and grada­tion of goods or values which persons experi­ence from their earliest years and in terms of which they inter­pret their devel­oping relations. Young persons peer out at the world through lenses formed, as it were, by their family and culture and configured accord­ing to the pattern of choices made by that commu­ni­ty throughout its his­tory -- often in its most trying circum­stanc­es. Like a pair of glasses values do not create the object; but focus atten­tion upon certain goods rather than upon others. This becomes the basic orienting factor for the affective and emo­tional life described by the Scotts, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith, as the heart of civil society. In time, it en­cour­ages and rein­forces certain patterns of action which, in turn, rein­force the pat­tern of values.

            Through this pro­cess a group constitutes the con­cerns in terms of which it struggles to advance or at least to perdure, mourns its fail­ures, and celebrates its successes. This is a person's or people's world of hopes and fears in terms of which, as Plato wrote in the La­ches, their lives have moral mean­ing.[xvii] It is varied according to the many concerns and the groups which coalesce around them. As these are interlocking and interdependent a pat­tern of social goals and concerns develops which guides action. In turn, corresponding capaci­ties for action or virtues are developed.

            This sense of tradition is vivid in premodern and village com­mu­ni­ties, but would appear to be much less so in modern urban cen­ters. Undoubt­ed­ly this is in part due to the difficulty in forming active com­munity life in large urban centers. However, the cumulative process of transmitting, adjust­ing and apply­ing the values of a culture through time is not only heritage or what is received, but new creation as this is passed on in new ways and in response to emerging challenges. Attend­ing to tradition, taken in this active sense, allows us not only to uncov­er the perma­nent and uni­versal truths which Socrates sought, but to perceive the im­por­tance of values we receive from the tradition and to mobilize our own life pro­ject actively toward the fu­ture. This diachronic sense of culture will be treated more below.

            But because tradition has some­times been inter­pret­ed as a threat to the per­sonal and social freedom essen­tial to a democra­cy, it is important here to note that a cultural tradition is generat­ed by the free and responsible life of the mem­bers of a con­cerned com­mu­nity or civil society and enables succeeding generations to realize their life with freedom and creativi­ty.

            ­In fact, the process of trial and error, of continual correction and addi­tion in relation to a people's evolving sense of human dignity and pur­pose, constitutes a type of learning and testing labora­tory for successive generations. In this labora­tory of his­tory, the stren­gths of various insights and behavior patterns can be iden­tified and reinforced, while deficien­cies are progres­sively correc­ted or elimi­nated. Horizontally, we learn from experience what promotes and what destroys life and, accordingly, make pragmatic adjust­ments.

            But even this language remains too abstract, too limited to method or tech­nique, too unidimensional. While tradition can be described in general and at a dis­tance in terms of feed-back mechanisms and might seem merely to concern how to cope in daily life, what is being spoken about are free acts that are expres­sive of pas­sion­ate human commitment and personal sacri­fice in re­sponding to con­crete danger, build­ing and rebuilding family allianc­es and con­structing and defending one's na­tion. Moreover, this wis­dom is not a matter of mere tactical adjust­ments to tem­porary con­cerns; it con­cerns rather the mean­ing we are able to en­vi­sion for life and which we desire to achieve through all such ad­just­ments over a period of genera­tions, i.e., what is truly worth striving for and the pattern of social interaction in which this can be lived richly. The result of this exten­ded process of learn­ing and com­mitment consti­tutes our aware­ness of the bases for the decisions of which history is consti­tuted.

            This points us be­yond the horizontal plane of the various ages of history; it directs our attention vertically to its ground and, hence, to the bases of the values which human­kind in its varied circum­stanc­es seeks to real­ize.[xviii] It is here that one searches for the absolute ground of meaning and value of which Iqbal wrote. Without that all is ultimately relative to only an interlocking network of consumption, then of dissatisfaction and finally of anomie and ennui.

             The impact of the convergence of cumulative experience and reflec­tion is heigh­tened by its gradual elaboration in ritual and music, and its imagina­tive config­uration in such great epics as the Iliad or Odyssey. All con­spire to constitute a culture which, like a giant telecom­muni­cations dish, shapes, intensifies and ex­tends the range and penetra­tion of our per­sonal sensitivity, free decision and mutual concern.

            Tradition, then, is not, as is history, simply everything that ever hap­pened, whether good or bad. It is rather what appears signi­ficant for hu­man life: it is what has been seen through time and human experience to be deeply true and necessary for human life. It con­tains the values to which our fore­bears first freely gave their passion­ate com­mitment in specific his­to r­ical circumstances and then constantly reviewed, rectified and progressively passed on generation after generation. The content of a tradi­tion, ex­pressed in works of literature and all the many facets of a cul­ture, emerges pro­gres­sively as some­thing upon which personal char­acter and society can be built. It constitutes a rich source from which multiple themes can be drawn, provided­ it be accept­ed and em­braced, affirmed and cultivat­ed.

            Hence, it is not because of personal inertia on our part or arbitrary will on the part of our forbears that our culture provides a model and exem­plar. On the contrary, the importance of tradition de­rives from both the cooperative character of the learning by which wisdom is drawn from expe­rience and the cumulative free acts of commitment and sacri­fice which have defined, defend­ed and passed on through time the cor­porate life of the com­munity as civil society.[xix]

            Ultimately, tradition bridges from ancient  philosophy to civil society today. It bears the divine gifts of life, meaning and love, uncovered in facing the challenges of civil life through the ages. It provides both the way back to their origin in the arché as the personal, free and responsible exercise of existence and even of its divine source, and the way forward to their goal; it is the way, that is, both to their Alpha and their Omega.

Civilizations

            On entering into the new millennium we stand at a point not only of numerical change to the series 2000 or even of a change within a system as with a substitution of political parties, but at a point of revision of the very nature of world ordering itself. Earlier the issue was one of the possession of territory under the leadership of great Emperors or of the physical resources and the military-industrial power that entailed. More recently we have seen the world divided by ideologies into great spheres. Since the end of the Cold War, however, it is suggested famously in the work of Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,[xx] that the world order is being remade on the basis of the pattern of civilizations. The tragic events of 9/11 show how violent this remaking can be.

            This reflects a deep transformation in interests and epistemology. Before attention was oriented objectively, that is, to things as standing over against (ob-against; ject-thrown) the knowing subject. In this perspective their quantitative characteristics, according to the classical definition of quantity as parts divided against parts; were particularly salient and were given major importance.

            In this century the subject and its intentional life -- or subjectivity and values -- have come to the fore and phenomenological methods have been developed for their identification and interpretation. Whether it was philosophers who brought this realm of subjectivity into central awareness or whether it was attention to subjectivity which evoked the development of the corresponding philosophical methodologies can be disputed. Probably the philosophical methods provided the reflective dimension and control over the new self-awareness of human consciousness. In any case, it is suggested that the new world order will be based not on the resources we have, but on the civilizations we are: not on having but on being.

            According to Huntington the notion of civilization seems to have developed in the 18th century as a term to distinguish cultivated peoples from the barbarian or native populations being encountered in the process of colonization. In this sense it was a universal term used in the singular. It implied a single elite standard of urbanization, literacy and the like for the admission of a people into the world order. When the standard was met the people was "civilized"; all the rest were simply "uncivilized".

            In the 19th century a distinction was made between civilization as characterized by its material and technological capabilities and that characterized by a more elaborate political and cultural development in terms of the values and moral qualities of a people. The two terms tend to merge in expressing an overall way of life, with civilization being the broader term. Where culture focuses on the understanding of perfection and fulfillment; civilization is more the total working out of life in these terms. Hence civilization is culture, as it were, writ large.

            This appears in a number of descriptions of civilization where culture is always a central element: for F. Braudel civilization is "a cultural arena",[xxi] a collection of cultural characteristics and phenomena; for C. Dawson: the product of "a particular original process of cultural activity which is the work of a particular people";[xxii] for J. Wallerstein it is "a particular concatenation of worldview, customs, structures, and culture (both material culture and high cultures) which form some kind of historical whole."[xxiii]

            Taken as a matter of identity it can be said that a civilization is the largest and most perduring unit or whole -- the largest "we".[xxiv] The elements included are blood, language, religion and way of life. Among these religion is "the central defining characteristic of civilizations",[xxv] as it is the point of a person's or peoples deepest and most intensive commitment, the foundation on which the great civilizations rest.[xxvi] Hence the major religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism) are each associated with a civilization, the exception being Buddhism which came as a reform movement, and was uprooted from its native India and lives only in diaspora among other nations.

            Civilizations perdure over long periods of time. While empires come and go, civilizations "survive political, social, economic even ideological upheavals."[xxvii]

            International history rightly documents the thesis that political systems are transient expedients on the surface of civilization, and that the destiny of each linguistically and morally unified community depends ultimately upon the survival of certain primary structuring ideas around which successive generations have coalesced and which then symbolize the society's continuity.[xxviii]

            But this does not mean that they are static. On the contrary it is characteristic of a civilization to evolve and the theories of such evolution are attempts to achieve some understanding of the process, not only of the sequence of human events but more deeply of the transformation of human self understanding itself. Famously, Toynbee theorizes that civilizations are responses to human challenges; that they evolve in terms of establishing increasing control over the related factors, especially by creative minorities; that in the face of troubles there emerges a strong effort at integration followed by disintegration. Such theories vary somewhat in the order of stages but generally move from a preparatory period, to the major development of the strengths of a culture or civilization, and then toward atrophication. In any case these imply extend cycles extend over very large periods.

            It is significant that in the end, however, Huntington is not able to give any clear definition or distinction of civilizations. Whereas Descartes would require just such characteristics for scientific knowledge, Huntington notes that civilizations generally somewhat overlap, and that while no clear concept can be delineated civilization are nonetheless important.

Civilizations have no clear cut boundaries and no precise beginnings and endings. People can and do redefine their identities and, as a result, the composition and shapes of civilizations change over time. The cultures of peoples interact and overlap. The extent to which the cultures of civilizations resemble or differ from each other also varies considerably. Civilizations are nonetheless meaningful entities, and while the lines between them are seldom sharp, they are real.[xxix]

            In this light it can be seen that a shift of world order to a pattern not of empires or commercial blocks, but of civilizations bespeaks a great development in human consciousness, beyond the external, objective and physical, to the internal and subjective, the spiritual and indeed the religious. In contrast to Descartes it appears that what is most significant in the relations between peoples, indeed what defines them as peoples, is a matter not accessible by scientific definition, but for more inclusive aesthetic appreciation. It is in these terms that one's life commitments, personal relations, and interactions between peoples are realized.

            We have seen now the nature of cultural traditions and of civilizations as constituted by freedom as it forms values, virtues and cultures. We must look next into hermeneutics as the method whereby these can be interpreted and applied in a mutually cooperative manner for a global age.

HERMENEUTIC INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION OF ONE’S CULTURAL TRADITION

Dialectic of Whole and Part

            First of all it is necessary to note that only a unity of meaning, that is, an identity, is intelligible.[xxx] Just as it is not possible to understand a number three if we include but two units, no act of understanding is possible unless it is directed to an iden­tity or whole of mean­ing. This brings us directly to the classic issue in the field of hermeneutics, described above as the hermeneutic circle, namely, knowledge of the whole depends upon knowledge of the parts, and vice versa. How can we make this work for, rather than against us in the effort to live our cultural tradition in our global days?

            Reflection on the experience of reading a text might prove helpful. As we read we con­strue the meaning of a sentence before grasping all its individual parts. What we construe is dependent upon our ex­pectation of the meaning of the sentence, which we derived from its first words, the prior context, or more likely a com­bination of the two. In turn, our expec­tation or con­strual of the meaning of the text is ad­justed accord­ing to the require­ments of its various parts. As we proceed to read through the sentence, the paragraph, etc., we reassess continually the whole in terms of the parts and the parts in terms of the whole. This basically circular movement continues until all ap­pear to fit and be expressive.

One set of problems regarding a hermeneutics of tradition concerns not its content but rather its relation to the present, for if our present life is simply a deadening repeti­tion of what has already been known, then life loses its challenge, progress is rejected in principle, and hope dies. Let us turn then from tradition as a whole to its hermeneutic application in our days.

Novelty

          To understand this we must, first of all, take time seriously, that is, we must recognize that reality includes authentic novelty. This contrasts to the perspec­tive of Plato for whom the real is idea or form which transcends matter and time, while these, in turn, arc real only to the degree that they imitate or mirror the ideal. It also goes beyond the perspective of rationalism in its search for simple natures which are clear, distinct and eternal in themselves and in their relations. A fortiori, it goes beyond simply following a method as such without at­tention to content.

          In contrast to all these, to recognize novelty – especially the novelty of our living of our own tradition – implies that tradition with its authority (or nomos) achieves its per­fection not in opposition to, but in the very temporal unfolding of, reality. For the human person is both deter­mined by, and determininative of, his changing physical and social universe. Hence, to appreciate moral values one must attend to human action: to the striving of persons to realize their lives, and to the formation of this striving into a fixed attitude (hexis). In distinction from physics then, ethos as the application of tradition consists neither of law nor of lawlessness, but concerns human institutions and attitudes which change. Ethical rules do not determine, but they do regulate action by providing certain broad guidelines for historical practice.[xxxi]

          What is important here is to protect the concrete and unique reality of human life -- its novelty -- and hence the historicity of our life. As our response to the good is made only in concrete circumstances, our cultural tradition and our ethics as a philosophic science must be neither purely theoretical knowledge nor a simple historical accounting from the past, but we must enable our cultural tradition via our moral consciousness to help in concrete circumstances.

Application and Prudence: Ethics vs Techné

          In this an important distinction must be made between technè and ethics. In tcchnè action is governed by an idea as an exemplary cause which is fully determined and known by objective theore­tical knowledge (epistême). Skill consists in knowing how to act according to a well understood idea or plan. When this cannot be carried out some parts of it are simply omitted in the execution.

          In ethics the situation, though similar in being an application of a practical guide to a particular task, differs in important ways. First, in moral action the subject makes oneself as much as one makes the object: the agent is diffe­rentiated by the action itself. Hence, moral knowledge as an understanding of the appropriateness of one’s actions is not fully determined independently of the situation.

          Secondly, the adaptations by the moral agent in apply­ing the law or traditions found in the various cultures do not diminish them, but rather correct and perfect them. In themselves laws and traditions are  imperfect for, inasmuch as they relate to a world which is less ordered, they cannot contain in any explicit manner the response to the concrete possi­bilities which arise in history. It is precisely here that man’s freedom and creativity are located. This does not consist in the response being arbitrary, for Kant is right that freedom without law or some traditional guiding nomos has no meaning. Nor does it consist in a simply automatic response determined by the historical situation, for relativism too would undermine the notion of human freedom. Human freedom consists rather in shaping the present according to a sense of what is just and good and in a way which manifests and indeed create for the first time more of what justice and goodness means.

That laws and tradition are perfected by their  application in the circumstances appears also from the way they are not dimini­shed, but perfected by epoche and equity. Without these, by simple mechanical replication the law would work injustice rather than justice. Ethics, therefore, is not only knowledge of what is right in general but the search for what is right in the situation. This is a question, not of mere expediency, but of the perfection of the law and tradition; it com­pletes moral knowledge.[xxxii]

       The question of what the situation is asking of us is answered, of course, not by sense knowledge which simply registers a set of concrete facts. It is answered rather in the light of what is right, that is, in the light of what has been discovered about appropriate human action and exists normatively in the tradition. Only in these terms can moral consciousness go about its major job of choosing means which are truly appropriate to the circumstances. This is properly the work of intellect (nous) with the virtue of prudence (phronesis), that is, thoughtful reflection which enables one to discover the appropriate means in the circumstances. These now include the new components of one’s own living cultural tradition; they include as well the other participants of a pluralist civilization. Indeed in the new global context they include all civilizations with all existent differences.

In sum, application is not a subsequent or accidental part of understanding, but rather codetermines this understanding from the beginning. Moral consciousness must seek to understand the good, not as an ideal to be known and then applied, but rather by and in relating this to oneself as sharing the concerns of others. In this light our sense of unity with others begins to appear as a con­dition for applying our tradition, that is, for enabling it to live in these global times.

            There is then a way out of the hermeneutic circle. It is not by ignoring or denying our horizons and prejudices, but by recognizing them as inevitable and making them work for us. To do so we must direct our attention to the objective meaning of the text in order to draw out, not only its meaning for the author, but its application for the present. Through this pro­cess of application one serves as midwife for the historic­ity of tradition or culture, and enables it to give birth to the fu­ture.[xxxiii]

HERMENEUTIC INTERPRETATION OF OTHER CULTURAL TRADITIONS

We must now see how hermeneutics can help toward a better understanding of the structure of communication between peoples, what dynamisms separate us, make sagacity (sunesis) difficult, impede our judgment and thus inhibit living our traditionin a pluralistic context?[xxxiv]

Thus far we have treated, first, the character and im­portance of tradition as the bearer of long human experience interacting with the world, with other men and with God. It is constituted not only of chronological facts, but of insights regarding human perfection and values and virtues which over time have been forged into cultures and civilizations in man’s concrete striving to live with dignity, e.g. the Indian ideal of peace, the Greek notion of democracy, the enlightenment notions of equality and freedom. By their internal value each stands as normative in relation to the aspirations of those who live within that culture.

      Secondly, we have seen the implications for the content of tradition of the continually unfolding circums­tances of historical development. These do not merely extend or repeat what went before, but constitute an emerging manifestation of the dynamic character of the classical vision articulated in epics, in law and in political movements.

            It remains now to look at how, conscious of our own tradition, we can live it faithfully and fruitfully with others in a time of intensifying intercultural engagement and cultural pluralism.

            In brief the glorious character of a cultural tradition has its down side. For the greater be that tradition and the more beautiful, successful and satisfying the life it engenders, the more one is liable to remain therein in a process of mere repetition. Innovation and creativity shrivel and the response to new challenges is less vigorous, innovative and successful. If we hear only the same stories, fables and proverbs we remain locked into one mind set or horizon. The way out requires access to new stories which reflect the life experience and creative responses of other peoples. Their effect is not so much to add to our culture from without elements that are alien and incongruous, but to enable us to look afresh at our own cultural tradition and to draw out in a creative manner new responses to the new challenges we face.

Dialectic of Horizons

            In encountering other cultural traditions we begin to look more consciously into our own tradition and come to a prior conception of its content. This anticipa­tion of mean­ing is not simply of the tradition as an objec­tive or fixed con­tent to over against us. It is rather what we reproduce uniquely in our hearts and minds as we participate in the evolution of the tradi­tion, thereby further determining ourselves as a community. This is a creative stance reflecting the content, not only of the past, but of the time in which I stand and of the overall life project in which I am engaged. For the cultural tradition it is a creative un­veiling of its content as this comes progres­sively and histori­cally into the present and, throu­gh the present, passes into the future.[xxxv]

            In this light time is not a barrier, a separation or an abyss, but rather a bridge and an opportunity for the process of under­standing; it is a fertile ground filled with experience, custom and tradition. The importance of the historical distance it provides is not that it enables the subjective reality of persons to disappear so that the objectivity of the situation can emerge. On the contrary, it makes possible a more appreciative meaning of our own and other cultural tradi­tions, not only by removing fal­sifying factors, but by opening new sources of self and inter-subjective understanding and new perspectives. These reveal in the traditions unsuspected implications and even new dimensions of mean­ing of which heretofore we were unaware.[xxxvi]

            Of course, not all our acts of understandings are correct, whether they be about the meaning of  ano­ther culture, its set of goals or a plan for future action. Hence, it becomes particular­ly important that our understandings not be adhered to fixedly, but be put at risk in dialo­gue with others.

            In this the basic ele­ments of meaning remain the substan­ces which Aristotle described in terms of their autonomy or of standing in their own right, and, by implication, of their identi­ty. Hermeneutics would expand this to re­flect as well the histor­ical and hermeneutic situation of each person or cultural tradition in the dialogue, that is, their hori­zon or particular pos­sibility for understanding. An horizon is all that can be seen from one's vantage point(s). In reading a text or in a dialogue with other cultural traditions it is necessary to be aware of our horizon as well as that of our partners. When our initial projection of the meaning of  another's words, the content of a cultural tradition or a sacred text will not bear up in the pro­gress of the reading or the dialogue, our desire to hear our interlocutor in the conversation drives us to make needed ad­justments in our projection of their meaning.

The assessment of what is truly appropriate requires also the virtue of sagacity (sunesis), that is, of understanding or concern for the other. One can assess the situation adequately only inasmuch as one in a sense undergoes the situation with the affected parties. Aristotle rightly describes as truly terrible the one who can make the most of the situation, but without orientation towards moral ends or concern for the good of others in this situation. Hence, there is need for knowledge which takes account of agent as united with the others in mutual interest or love.

            This enables us to adjust not only our prior under­standing of the horizon of the other with whom we are in dialogue, but especially our own horizon. One need not fear being trapped in the horizons of our own cultural tradition or religion. They are vantage points of a mind which in principle is open and mo­bile, capable of being aware of its own horizon and of reaching out to the other's experience which constitutes their horizons. Our horizons are not limitations, but mountain tops from which we look in awe at the vast panorama all of humankind and indeed all of creation. It is in mak­ing us aware of this expansion of horizons that hermeneutic awareness accomplishes our liberation.[xxxvii]

            In this process it is important that we remain alert to the new implications of our cultural tradition. We must not simply follow through with our previous ideas until a change is forced upon us, but must be sensi­tive to new meanings in true open­ness. This is neither neutrality as regards the meaning of our tradition, nor an ex­tinc­tion of passionate concerns regarding action to­wards the future. Rather, being aware of our own biases or prej udices and adjust­ing them in dialogue with others implies rejecting what im­pedes our un­derstanding of our own tradition and that of others. Our attitude in approaching dialogue must be one of willingness continually to revise, renew and enrich our initial projection or expectation of meaning.

Dialectic of Question and Answer

            The effort to draw upon a tradition and in dia­logue to discover its mean­ing for the present sup­poses au­then­tic openness. The logical structure of this openness is to be found in the exchange of question and answer. The question is re­quired in order to deter­mine just what issue we are engaging--whether it is this issue or that--in order to give direction to our attention. Without this no meaningful answer can be given or received. As a ques­tion, however, it requires that the answer not be settled or deter­mined. In sum, progress or dis­covery requires an openness which is not simply indeterminacy, but a ques­tion which gives specific direction to our atten­tion and enables us to consider significant evidence. (Note that we can proceed not only by means of posi­tive evi­dence in favor of one of two pos­sible responses, but also through dis­solving counter ar­guments).

            If discovery depends upon the question, then the art of dis­covery is the art of questioning. Consequently, whether work­ing alone or in conjunction with others, our effort to find the answer should be directed less towards sup­pressing the position of another culture and the questions it raises, than toward reinforcing and unfolding these questions. To the degree that their probabilities are built up and intensified they can serve as a searchlight. This is the opposite of both opinion which tends to suppress questions, and of arguing which sear­ches out the weak­ness in the other's argument. Instead, in con­versation as dia­logue with other cultures and civilizations one enters upon a mutual search to maximize the pos­sibilities of the question, even by speaking at cross purposes. By mutually elimi­nating errors and working out a common mean­ing, we discover truth.[xxxviii]

            Further, it should not be presupposed that a text or tradition holds the an­swer to but one question or horizon which must be iden­tified by the reader. On the contrary, the full horizon and above all its transcendent source is never available to the reader. Nor can it be expected that there is but one question to which the global text or its multiple traditions hold an answer. The sense of any text, (a fortiori the global text,) reaches beyond what any human author in­tended.

            Because of the dynamic char­acter of being as it emerges in time, the horizon is never fixed but is continually opening. This constitutes the effective historical element in under­stand­ing. At each step new dimensions of the potentialities of the tradition opens to under­standing. Especially, the meaning of a text or tradition lives with the consciousness – and hence the hori­zons – not of its author, but of the many who live the tradition with others through time and history . It is the broadening of their horizons, resu­lting from their fusion with the horizon of a text or a partner in dialogue, that makes it possible to receive an­swers which are ever new.[xxxix]

            In this the personal attitudes and interests of the various cultures are, once again, highly impor­tant. If the interest in developing new hori­zons were simply the pro­motion of one’s own understanding then one culture could be interested solely in achieving knowledge for the purpose of domi­nation over others. But this would lock one into an absolute­ness of one's prejudices; being fixed or closed in the past or in oneself they would disallow new life in the present. In this manner powerful new insights become with time deadening pre-judgments which suppress free dom.

            In contrast, an attitude of authentic openness appreciates the na­ture of one's own finiteness. On this basis it both res­pects the past and the multiple cultural traditions and is open to discern­ing the future. Such open­ness is a matter, not merely of new information, but of recog­nizing the historical nature of man. It enables one to escape from limitations which had limited vision thusfar, and enables one to learn from new experiences. It is recognition of the limitations of our finite projects which enables us to see that the future is still open.[xl]

            This suggests that openness does not consist so much in sur­veying others objectively or obeying them in a slav­ish and un­questioning man­ner, but is directed primarily to ourselves. It is an extension of our abi­lity to listen to others and other cultures, and to assimilate the implications of their answers for changes in our own posi­tions. In other words, it is an ack­nowledgement that our cultural heritage has something new to say to us. The characteristic hermeneutic attitude of effective histori­cal con­sciousness is then not methodological sureness, but devout listening and a readiness for experi­ence.[xli] Seen in these terms our cultural heritage is not closed, but the basis for a life that is ever new, more inclusive and more rich.

HERMENEUTICS FOR A GLOBAL AGE

       Today we are challenged not only to draw upon our past or to live with others in a pluralistic community. We are newly challenged by economics, politics and especially informatics to live in a context in which our lives are impacted by the entire global context all at once. This requires an expansion of hermeneutics as the fusion of horizons becomes a meeting not only with another cultural tradition, but with all as parts of a larger whole. For this it becomes necessary to think in terms of the whole. In this some brief notes on the thought of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) who analyses what it meant to think in terms of the whole at the juncture of the medieval and Renaissance thought could prove helpful.

       The thought of Cusa retains a mark of the ancient tradition with its focus upon unity of which Cusa notes four types: (1) that of the single, individual entity, (2) that of a collection of such individuals, (3) that of the whole of which the individuals are parts, and (4) that of the one divine Absolute from which all come and to which all are directed

Diversity as Contraction

            The situation is delicate however, for in attending to the whole it is imperative to avoid the kind of abstractive thinking described above in which personal uniqueness is dismissed and only the universal remains.[xlii] Cusa's solution is found in the notion of contraction, that is, to begin from the significance of the whole and to recognize it in the very reality of every individual, so that the individual shares in something of the ultimate or definitive reality of the whole of being. One is not then an insignificant speck, as would be the case were I to be measured quantita­tively and contrasted to the broad expanse of the globe. Rather I have the importance of the whole as it exists in and as me -- and the same is true of other persons and of the parts of nature.

            The import of this can be seen through comparison with other attempts to state this participation of the part in the whole. For Plato this was a repetition or imaging by each of that type of the one ideal form. Aristotle soon ceased to employ the term participation as image (mimesis) because of the danger it entailed of reducing the individual to but a shad­ow of what was truly real. Cusa too rejected the separately existing ideas or ideal forms. Instead what had been developed in the Christian cultures was a positive notion of existence as act[xliii] whereby each participant in being was made to be or exist in itself. This is retained by Nicholas of Cusa.

            But he would emphasize that the being in which each person or thing participates is the whole of being.[xliv] This does not mean that in a being there is anything alien to its own identity, but that the reality of each being has precisely the meaning of the whole as contracted to this unique instance. To be then is not simply to fall in some minimal way on this side of nothingness, but rather to partake of the totality of being and the meaning of the whole of being, and indeed to be a realization of the whole in this unique contraction or instance. Things retains their identity, but do so in and of the whole.

            De Leonardis formulates this in two principles:

            - The principle of Individuality: Each individual contraction uniquely imparts to each entity an inherent value which marks it as indispensable to the whole.

            - The principle of Community: The contraction of being makes each thing to be everything in a contracted sense. This creates a community of beings interrelating all entities on an ontological level.[xlv]

Hierarchy of the Internally Related

            After the manner of the medievals Cusa saw the plurality of beings of the universe as constituting a hierarchy of being. Each being was equal in that it constituted a contraction of the whole, but not all were equally contracted. Thus an inorganic being was more con­tracted than a living organism, and a conscious being was less contracted than either of them. This constituted a hierarchy or gradation of beings. By thinking globally or in terms of the whole, Cusa was able to appreciate the diversity of being in a way that heightened this ordered sense of unity in which relationships are not externally juxtaposed, but internal to the very make up of the individuals.

            This internal relationship is made possible precisely by a global sense of the whole.[xlvi] For this Cusa may have drawn more directly from the Trinity, but this in turn is conceived through analo­gy to the family of which individuals are contractions. This, in turn, is lived in the interpersonal relations in a culture grounded in such a theol­ogy and especially now in the global reality constituted of economics and politics information and relations between civilizations. The philosopher can look here and find special manifesta­tion of being. Indeed, hermeneutics[xlvii] would suggest that this constitutes not only a locus philosophicus whence insight can be drawn, but the prejudgments of philosophers which constitute the basic philosophical insights themselves. The critical scientific interchange of philosophy is a process of controlled adjustment and perfection of these insights.

            In a family all the persons are fully members and in that sense fully of the same nature. But the father generates the son while the son pro­ceeds from the father. Hence, while mutually constituted by the same relation of one to the other, the father and son are distinct precisely as generator and generated. Life and all that the father is and has is given from the father to the son. Correspondingly, all that the son is and has is received from the father. As giver and receiver the two are distinguished in the family precisely as the different terms of the one relation. Hence each shares in the very definition of the other: the father is father only by the son, and vice versa.

            Further, generation is not a negative relation of exclusion or opposi­tion; just the opposite -- it is a positive relation of love, generosity and sharing. Hence, the unity or identity of each is via relation (the second unity), rather than opposition or negation as was the case in the first level of unity. In this way the whole that is the family is included in the defini­tion of the father and of the son, each of whom are particular contractions of the whole.

Explicatio-Complicatio

            Cusa speaks of this as an explicatio or unfolding of the perfection of being, to which corresponds the converse, namely, folding together (complicatio) the various levels of being constitutes the perfection of the whole. Hence Cusa's hierarchy of being has special richness when taken in the light of his sense of a global unity. The classical hierarchy was a sequence of distinct levels of beings, each external to the other. The great gap between the multiple physical or material beings and the absolute One was filled in by an order of spiritual or angelic beings. As limited these were not the absolute, yet as spiritual they were not physical or material. This left the material or physical di­mension of being out of the point of integration.

            In contrast, Cusa, while continuing the overall graduation, sees it rather in terms of mutual inclusion, rather than of exclusion. Thus inor­ganic material beings do not contain the perfection of animate or con­scious being, but plants include the perfections of the material as well as life. Animals are not self-conscious, but they integrate material, ani­mate and conscious perfection. Humans include all four: inorganic, ani­mate and conscious and spiritual life.

            In this light, the relation to all others through the contraction of being is intensified as beings include more levels of being in their nature. On this scale humans as material and as alive on all three levels of life: plant, animal and spirit, play a uniquely unitive and comprehensive role in the hierarchy of being. If the issue is not simple individuality by negative and exclusive contrast to others (the first level of unity), but uniqueness by positive and inclusive relation to others, then human persons and the human community are truly the nucleus of a unity that is global. This line of reasoning Cusa carries to its epitome in his theology of Christ as both man and God.

Global Dynamism

            Thus far we have been speaking especially in terms of existence and formal causality by which the various beings within the global reality are to specific degrees contractions of the whole. To this, however, should be added efficient and final causality by which the ordered universe of reality takes on a dynamic and even developmental character. This has a number of implications: directedness, dynamism, cohesion, complementarity and harmony.[xlviii] Cusa's global vision is of a uniquely active universe of being.

            Direction to the Perfection of the Global Whole: As contractions of the whole, finite beings are not merely products ejected by and from the universe of being; rather they are limited expressions of the whole. Their entire reality is a limited image of the whole from which they de­rive their being, without which they cannot exist, and in which they find their true end or purpose. As changing, developing, living and moving they are integral to the universe in which they find their perfection or realization, and to the perfection of which they contribute by the full actu­ality and activity of their reality.

            This cannot be simply random or chaotic, oriented equally to being and its destruction, for then nothing would survive. Rather there is in being a directedness to its realization and perfection, rather then to its contrary. A rock resists annihilation; a plant will grow if given water and nutrition; an animal will seek these out and defend itself vigorously when necessary. All this when brought into cooperative causal interaction has a direction, namely, to the perfection of the whole.

            Dynamic Unfolding of the Global Whole: As an unfolding (explicatio) of the whole, the diverse beings (the second type of unity) are opposed neither to the whole (the third type of unity) nor to the absolute One (the fourth type of unity). Rather, after the Platonic insight, all un­folds from the One and returns thereto.

            To this Cusa makes an important addition. In his global vision this is not merely a matter of individual forms; beings are directed to the One as a whole, that is, by interacting with others (unity three). Further, this is not a matter only of external interaction between aliens. Seen in the light of reality as a whole, each being is a unique and indispensable contraction of the whole. Hence finite realities interact not merely as a multiplicity, but as an internally related and constituted community with shared and inter­dependent goals and powers.

            Cohesion and Complementarity in a Global Unity: Every being is then related to every other in this grand community almost as parts of one body. Each depends upon the other in order to survive and by each the whole realizes its goal. But a global vision, such as that of Cusa, takes a step further, for if each part is a contraction of the whole then, as with the DNA for the individual cell, "in order for anything to be what it is it must also be in a certain sense everything which exists."[xlix] The other is not alien, but part of my own definition.

            From this it follows that the realization of each is required for the realization of the whole, just as each team member must perform well for the success of the whole. But in Cusa's global view the reverse is also true, namely, it is by acting with others and indeed in the service of others or for their good that one reaches one's full realization. This again is not far from the experience of the family and civil society, but tends to be lost sight of in other human and commercial relations. It is by interacting with, and for, others that one activates one's creative possibilities and most approximates the full realization of being. Thus, "the goal of each is to become harmoniously integrated into the whole of being and thereby to achieve the fullest development of its own unique nature."[l]

NOTES