A common human ground : universality and particularity in a multicultural world
"In A Common Human Ground, Claes Ryn explores the nature of this problem and sets forth a theory about what is necessary for peaceful relations to be possible." "One Western philosophical tradition, for which Plato set the pattern, maintains that the only way to genuine unity is for historical diversity to yield to universality. The implication of this view for a multicultural world would be a peace that requires that cultural distinctiveness be effaced as far as possible and replaced with a universal culture. A very different Western philosophical tradition denies the existence of universality altogether. It is represented today by postmodernist multiculturalism - a view that leaves unanswered the question as to how conflict between diverse groups might be averted." "Ryn questions both of these traditions, arguing for the potential union of universality and particularity. He contends that the two need not be enemies, but in fact need each other. Cultivating individual and national particularities is potentially compatible with strengthening and enriching our common humanity. This volume embraces the notion of universality, while at the same time historicizing it."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
1 online resource (xii, 148 pages)
9780826264541, 9780826214942, 0826264549, 0826214940
59671787
Peace as the union of universality and particularity
Moral and cultural preconditions of harmony
A cosmopolitan basis for peace
The living past
A common ethical center
Dubious conceptions of unity
The attack on history
Value-centered historicism
The concrete as normative
The unique expression of the universal