The Idea of a world philosophy in the East-West philosophical contex

ENThe cultural and geographical interaction between the nations of the world is not a twentieth-century development. This state of affairs is well argued for and exemplified by the theory of global Diasporas. Still, what is peculiar to the past experiences of cultural assimilation is that for so many centuries diverse peoples came into contact mostly for purposes of mutual exploitation, and not because of sincere desire to learn about one another. This situation considerably changed in the twentieth century when the process of globalization set in: politics, economy, mass media, transportation, industries, entertainment, etc., are deployed on a worldwide scale. This is the time when the idea of a world philosophy makes its appearance in the context of a series of East-West Philosophers’ Conferences in the comparative movement of Honolulu. According to Charles A. Moore, one of the fundamental tasks assumed by the participants of these conferences is to study the possibility of a synthesis and a world philosophy. Consequently, three different meanings of a world philosophy are distinguished and then critically reviewed: (1) a theoretical synthesis which would be broad enough and flexible enough to include the rich manifold of the different perspectives of the several philosophical traditions without doing violence to any, all of them being considered aspects or parts of the comprehensive total truth; (2) a system of thought purged of numerous misunderstandings concerning the philosophies of both East and West and built on a significant degree of agreement on fundamental issues in metaphysics, methodology, and ethics and social philosophy; (3) the idea of total perspective in philosophizing, with a demand for adequate consideration of the experiences and the insights of all philosophical traditions and the elimination of unphilosophical provincialism.