This conference continues the work published as The Essence of Italian Culture and the Challenge of a Global Age. That conference did not consider cultural identities simply as a matter of a particular people bound by the territorial boundaries of their people. On the contrary it looked at cultural identities as achievements of humanity constituting integral dimensions of our common patrimony. Thus whereas natural resources, whether the money in a person’s wallet or the iron in a people’s mines, are theirs and cannot be shared without being diminished, the resources of the spirit may be multiplied and by that very process be intensified rather than diminished. Cultures then were described in terms of the openness of their destiny, and thus as "Italic" because "Italian" is something which belongs restrictively to the peoples and nation of Italy.

Such a notion is rather new, however, because it reflects the quite recent rediscovery of cultures as the spiritual dimension of the human person integrating all of life, both external and internal. Moreover the notion of italicity adds recognition of the emerging consciousness of the expansion not only of economic interchange, but of information to create a truly global milieu. What is the status of a culture as rich as that of the long Italian tradition precisely as it slips the bond of space and is drawn upon by others to enrich their lives?

Such was the status questions of our conference one year ago. At the end, in an executive committee meeting it was suggested by at least one person that the notion of "Italicity" was in need of further exploration. If this meeting had succeeded in detaching it from the bounds of territory and politics in what in fact did Italicity consist? This is a difficult question for it is not a material object physically observable and describable, and able to be categorized though abstraction in clearly defined universal terms. Rather it is a type of aesthetic paradigm like the Parthenon in Athens which inspires a limitless number of variations, none of which exhaust the potential of the paradigm. "Italicity" is not an object to be observed and exhaustively described once and for all, but an inspiration to be creatively unfolded in ever new ways with each new opportunity for human creativity. It adds spice and flair to what otherwise would be ordinary and mundane; it adds verve to what could otherwise be staid; it embodies a joie de vivre as when the sun is shining, and an ability to adjust and tenaciously to survive when the things turn dark and somber.

Perhaps then what might be sought is not so much a clarification of the term or notion of Italicity, but a way of drawing upon it in the process of facing the challenges of life. But what are these challenges for our day?

My suggestion is reflected in the title of this conference. Originally it read "Italian Identities" which of course, and for reasons noted above, was changed to "Italic Identities". But it continues with the words "pluralistic contexts" and the subtitle "Toward the Development of Intercultural Competencies." These words are in recognition of the fact that since our last meeting cultural identities have been plunged into chaotic confrontation through efforts violently to impose one culture upon another and the deep and pervasive reaction against this across the world and even in the United Nations. If we wish to look for ways in which cultures in their uniqueness can be shared fruitfully with others we cannot ignore this major experience of the last year and the guidance it can offer. And if you can bring to Washington some positive sense of the way cultures can contribute positively to one another it will be a gift most urgently needed.

"Italicity" does exist among an increasingly self-conscious set of diverse cultures which now must coexist as a matter not of violent imposition, but of suave cooperation. This is not something with which we are born, but is a competency to be developed. However, the term "competency" should not suggest reduction to a mere skill similar to that of the tradesman in manipulating various materials to obtain the appropriate result. In this case we are dealing rather in the aesthetic order in search of harmony in a conflicted world. Here we look again at "Italicity", not merely as an export to enrich others, but with concern for how it can work creatively with others to build human comity in a conflictual world. We look to "Italicity" both for its content and for the manner and mode of that content, both as meaning and as style.

Certainly it could not be my part of this conference to speak to "Italicity" either as content or as style. Though I lived in Italy continually for seven years, this task must be left to those born and raised in its culture. Yet it could be helpful here at the beginning of our deliberations to suggest ideas that have emerged from developments in the fields of hermeneutics as the art of the interpretation and application of cultures. First, I would like to draw upon some notions regarding the nature and process of cultures which I prepared but did not present last year; these appeared in the Proceedings volume: The Essence of Italian Culture and the Challenge of Globalization and then suggest a way of applying these to our issue, namely, the contribution of "Italicity" to the development of intercultural competencies.

First of all, then what is a culture?

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 Scots, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. A 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.

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 prejudices 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.

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).

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.

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 freedom.

From the above we can conclude that the encounter with other cultures should not mean absorbtion of one by the other for each has its own organic identity developed over centuries and embedded in its language and symbol system. These cannot be taken away and supplanted by one that is alien without the most profound disorientation.

But neither should one think simply of grafting elements of one culture upon another for that would constitute a strange creature lacking in harmony and integration. Indeed we find in medical transplants as well as in confronting major immigration the tendency of a body to protect itself and to reject alien elements.

If neither of these approaches is conceivable then another approach is needed. This is to add new elements not from without, but from within. To be born into a culture that has been elaborated by our forebears through the ages is to be endowed with a great gift. We are able to draw upon this to the degree that we can raise questions and look thereto for a response. If there are limitations in outlook they might be not so much on the part of the cultural tradition or outlook but on our part, that is, in our inability to raise the pertinent questions. This is understandable if we have heard only the same proverbs and stories and if these come from persons who share our same culture.

In order to be able to raise truly new questions we need to hear new stories and see new ways of doing things. The effect is not to graft alien elements upon us, but to stimulate our minds so that we can interpolate our tradition afresh and draw forth not only wisdom that is old and developed in response to earlier circumstances, but insight that is fresh in response to present challenges.

This requires that cultures be possessed of inexhaustible resources. For this there are both religious and philosophical reasons. Huntington points out in his Clash of Civilizations that each great civilizations is rooted in a great religion and correspondingly—with the exception of Buddhism—that each great religion has given birth to a great civilization. As civilizations are the largest cultural unit, indeed the largest "we", this entails that inherent within a culture or civilization there is a relation to the infinite and inexhaustible one, true and good. As no culture can exhaust this, if correctly addressed it can always generate new meaning consistent with its own identity as the mediating structure.

Philosophically Martin Heidegger developed this through his notion of the inexhaustible abyss of being emerging into time or being unveiled through the dasein or conscious human being. In this light truth and hence the other transcendental properties are not limited realities assembled like stone blocks as material for constructing a building, and therefore soon to be exhausted, but a limitless flow of reality as daseins and communities live through time.

In our case this suggests a special contribution for Italicity and one for which it may be especially fit. Last year it was said that because the national structure of Italy was more recent at least by comparison with many other nations and because "la donna e mobile" it might be hoped that its culture could be more readily exported. I would suggest also that especially because of its exciting vivacity and its ability always to make a "combination" it is especially capable of stimulating one to think afresh, and to see even their own culture in new light so as to draw forth from this responses that are truly creative in responding the challenges of the day.

This ability to respond to challenges might be thought of as enabling merely pragmatic steps in a mechanistic feedback mechanism. But beyond that one might also note that the questions raised by meeting another culture in new circumstances may be more spectacular yet. For what can be stimulated is not only a horizontal step along our path through time and space, but a vertical deepening of our whole sense of meaning and value, of the quality of our hopes and our commitments. It is particularly this depth dimension which can be opened by meeting a new culture. It is not simply how to manufacture some product or how to handle some special problem, but the stimulus to see life somewhat differently, to bring forth more of the potential of one’s culture and thus to live more fully. For this the zest for life, which is perhaps the special character of Italic culture, could prove particularly appropriate.