Thematic Description
The history of humanity is the
history of civilizations, which stretches through
generations of a few millennia and ups and experiences ups
and downs of long historical processes. Originally,
civilization indicates a “civilized society” that
differentiated itself from a so-called “uncivilized
(barbarian) society.” According to S. Huntington, a
civilization as a broadest cultural entity involves material
factors and mechanics, and as a cultural area it contains a
set of cultural characteristics and phenomena, a worldview,
customs, structure, etc. Whereas culture covers values,
ideals, and intellectual and moral qualities. Civilization
is the inevitable destiny of culture, while culture is the
common theme in defining civilization. However, both
civilization and culture refer to the overall way of life of
a people who live together and develop a way of life that is
distinctive to themselves. Each civilization is a culture
writ large. Civilizations as well as cultures are dynamic
and enduring, rise and fall, merge and divide.
Each singular civilization or
culture is only a particular form of the universal whole. In
response to challenges and crises through history, each
raises up and weighs in what is worthy as much and good as
much for living. Gradually, each develops a ranking of
values that are important to life as the choice of freedom.
For instance, through their long historical struggle,
Chinese have developed their value preferences, benevolence,
righteousness, propriety, sincerity, etc. that are important
to their way of life; Indians have their own; Africans;
Europeans, etc. Questions may arise, Are there something in
common in all these value judgements? Do these different
value preferences cause conflict or confrontation? How to
understand common values in all human civilizations and
cultures?
Although human civilizations
vary in sizes, locations, formations…, they are all based on
certain common principles, ideals or ideas, values and
virtues, all of which aim at something that is good,
important, and worthy for each people in their life. What
can bring all people together are these shared common
principles, ideas or ideals, values and virtues. However,
today in our complex and pluralist 21st century, living
together peacefully among different civilizations and
cultures, religions and peoples becomes a challenge. It
seems rather urgent and necessary to look for common values
that can be shared by all peoples and to construct a human
civilization in its best form.
This conference will focus on
the following issues:
- Is it possible to pursue
common values among different human civilizations?
- What are the common values
that can be shared by all peoples and civilizations?
- How to understand the
uniqueness and commonality of different civilizations?
- What are fundamental values
that are important for all civilizations?
- How to have effective dialogue
and communication among cultures and religions?
- What are traditional value systems? Can they still
function in the 21st century?
- What are new values that
should be produced in the new challenging world?
Abstract
Please send an abstract (300 to 500 words) and a brief CV to
Qi Xiaodong [qixiaodong@163.com]
and [cua-rvp@cua.edu] by March 20, 2024. Full paper will be
due on June 10, 2024. Well-developed papers will be
published by the Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy in its publication series “Cultural Heritage and
Contemporary Change.”
Logistics
Conference participants will cover the costs of their own
travel, the conference organizer will provide room and meal
during the conference. Detailed abstract should be sent to [qixiaodong@163.com] and [cua-rvp@cua.edu] by
April 20, 2024 and full paper by June 10, 2024. The
conference will be conducted in English.
Contact
Qi Xiaodong
The Center for Judaic and Inter-religious Studies
Shandong University
Jinan, P.R. China
qixiaodong@163.com
