Historical Context

Perhaps at no time has there been greater actual transformation than in the last decade in the standards and styles of life. Expectations leap forward and the shape of cities and towns are transformed, while new challenges to public welfare, employment and education emerge within. Correspondingly, its material base and national dignity depend upon its economic and cultural interaction with other peoples in an increasingly global world.

• Some countries are emerging from a period of relative isolation and there is special interest there in engaging with other philosophers in the region.
• The overcoming of a bipolar world system has put new pressures upon the cultural identities of many nations.
• There is concern that these identities be not only protected but engaged in the positive construction of the new millennium, and this not only in each country separately but in the region as a whole.
• This would contribute to making room for the peoples of the region in the overall cultural as well as economic and political world system.

As with any reality "organic, mechanical or social" as the tempo and depth of this internal and external change increases there is even greater dependence upon its guidance system. A society depends upon the values of its people which shape their vision of what is desirable through the many changes, and their choice of which patterns of behavior lead toward this goal.

Objective of Present Project

For this, scientific reflection is required in order to understand more adequately the values and pattern of a country’s culture, the significance of the internal transformative factors and the implications of influences from other cultures. While other sciences identify what is possible, philosophy is concerned with what is desirable and how present imperatives can be integrated within a broader context in a way that enables them to have positive, rather than negative effect. Such a philosophical and social study of the pattern of cultural transformation in South East Asia today is the goal of the present project.

Moreover, as this is a matter of the emergence of the creativity of the South East Asian people as a whole it is necessary to engage in this the capabilities of the various parts of South East Asia, both to draw upon the experience of local cultures and to stimulate this level of reflection on the transformation of life in these days.

Finally, this cannot be achieved in single stroke, but must be so structured as to enable an ongoing process of reflection and publications as the circumstances of South East Asia life unfold.

The objective of this project is then to develop a set of continuing research teams, linked for mutual critique and extending across South East Asia and into the future.

Method

The concept of a team to research and publication in philosophy on themes relating to "Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change" has been developed by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (CRVP) on a number of continents. As the expenses of traveling across a continent for a team meeting is prohibitive, it has proven more effective to organize according to teams situated at particular intellectual centers. This enables the participating scholars to meet periodically for mutual critique as their research develops. This approach has proven very effective across Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and China. In all the CRVP has published some 75 volumes, most of which have been developed in this manner.

The team approach also reflects the change in the manner of philosophizing. The earlier manner was rather top-down as a deduction by a single person from a single principle. The present approach is more bottom-up, growing out of the life experience of peoples. It proceeds to develop the reflective dimensions which constitutes philosophical understanding that is sensitive to specific peoples.

Conference

c. Participants: representatives of philosophy departments and institutes in the South East Asian region.

d. Dates: May 9-11, 2001

e. Sponsors: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (CRVP) and Assumption University (ABAC), Bangkok.

f. Travel: to be paid by the participants; room and board to be provided by Assumption University and the CRVP.

h. Outcomes: The conference proposed here will be directed to:

• mobilizing research capabilities in philosophy, related to social peace and cooperation

• catalyzing work by such teams in each of these countries, and

• establishing a structure for continued corporation between these teams.

The goal is for the various university centers each to form a team of some 6 to 12 scholars, principally but not exclusively philosophers. Their purpose is to study and write on a specific topic of importance to people at this time in their region, regarding the development and application of its cultural traditions to a specific present challenge. Each scholar would write a chapter relating to his or her own research specialization with the intent through mutual critique of constituting an integral and integrated study of the issue.

The overall work could be from 150 to 400 pages. Rather than limiting each to, say, eight pages, as is often done for conferences, the participants are invited to develop their thought integrally, to support it strongly from their research, and to provide solid related bibliography. The goal, in other words, is to encourage, rather than to delimit, research.

When the volume is completed an English manuscript should be forwarded to the CRVP. It is important to send both a diskette and a printed copy so that it is clear just how it is intended to look.

The CRVP on its part will edit the volume intensively for the best English expression of the team’s ideas and carry the expenses of manuscript preparation, printing and distribution of the some 350 copies to major research libraries throughout the world, especially outside the North Atlantic region (e.g., 50 in Africa, etc.), as well as making it available on the Internet and through the usual books distribution structures.