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CONTENTS, PREFACE |
Contents
Publisher's preface
Preface
Introduction
1. The Concepts of Culture and Civilization
2. Approaches to Worlds of Culture
(a) Understanding Co-existing Worlds of Culture
(b) Disjunction Between Worlds of Culture
(c) Globalization Replacing Universalism
3. Some Methodological Remarks
(a) Methodological Differences Between Natural and Social Sciences
(b) Hermeneutics: The Method of Understanding and Explanation
Part one
Man and his culture in the ontological/cosmic perspective
Chapter one
The evolutionary framework
1. Biology Versus Culture: The Interactionist View
2. Culture As Action-Oriented Information System
Chapter two
The ontological / Cosmic framework
1. Ontological Monism and Dualism in Different Civilizations
(a) Monism and Dualism in the Modern West
(b) Monism and Dualism in the Indian Civilization
Transcendental Monism
Naturalistic, Materialistic or Ethical Dualism
The Monism of the Immanent in Tantrism
(c) No Being but Becoming: Beyong Monism and Dualism in Buddhism
(d) The Chinese Civilization
Spiritual Monism: Multiplicity in Unity
Dialectical Dualism: Multiplicity in Unity
Mystical Dualism of the Tao
Naturalist Monism
Weak Dualism and Reductive Monism in Chines Buddhism
(e) Cosmic Monism in Japanese Culture
(f) African Cultures: Monist/Dualist Symbiosis
2. The Mind/Body Problem
3. The Ontology of Being and Experience
(a) The Ontological Foundation of the Lifeworld
(b) Experience as Ontological/Cosmic reality
Chapter three
The uniqueness of human nature
1. The Self and Its Mind
(a) Self-Awareness and Transcendence
(b) Intentionality
(c) Consciousness and the Integrative Power of the Mind
2. Symbolic Communication and Expression
(a) Language and Meaning
Meaning and the Plurality of Linguistic Worlds
Meaning and Reference: Translation and Interpretation
Interactive Meaning and Internal Realism
Action-Oriented Generalized Meaning
(b) Symbolism: Shared Worldviews and Unity
Symbolic Representation and Discourse
Myth and Ritual
3. Culture and Society
(a) Individual and Community
(b) The Lifeworld
(c) Temporal Dimension and Tradition
Temporal Dimension
Tradition and Values
Tradition and Values in Non-Western Civilizations
Part two
Disjunction between the western and other cultural worlds
Chapter four
From utilitarian to meaningful rationality and ethics
A. Meaningful Rationality
1. The Essence of Western Rationalism
2. Rationalism in the Social Sciences
3. Recent Changes of the Concept of Rationality in the Social Sciences
4. The Concept of Rationality Reconsidered
B. Meaningful Ethics and Morality
1. The Meaning of Ethics and Morality
2. The Foundation of Ethics and Morality
(a) Rational Ethics
(b) Ethics Based on Intuition and Sentiment
(c) Ethics and Morality as Products of the Social Order
3. Contemporary Trends in Ethics and Morals: Utilitarianism and the Ethics of
Rights
(a) Utilitarianism
(b) The Ethics of Rights
4. Ethics and Morality in Other Civilizations
(a) Hinduism
The Ethics of Transcendence: Brahmanism
The Ethics of Salvation: Jainism and Samkhya
The Ethics of Pleasure and Good Life: Carvaka and Tantrism
(b) Buddhism: The Ethics of Self-Development
(c) Ethics in the Chinese Civilization
Confucianism: The Ethics of the Mean
Taoism: The Ethics of Quiescence
The Ethics of Reason: Wang Fu-chih
Neo-Confucian, Pragmatic Ethics
(d) Japanese Ethics and Morals: Jitsugaku
(e) Ethics and Legalism in Islam
(f) Community Ethics in Africa
5. Universalism and Relativism in Ethics and Morality
Chapter five
Interactive social order and contemporary society
1. Culture Patterns and Social Ordering
2. Interactive Ordering: Growing Differentiation and Structural Complexity
(a) Interactive Ordering: Cultural Differentiation and Re-structuring
(b) Interactive Ordering: Stratification and Hierarchy
(c) Interactive Ordering: Functional Differentiation
Differentiation in Parson's System
Niklas Luhmann: Differentiation in World Perspective
3. Interactive Social Ordering and Other Civilizations
Chapter six
Ethnicity and the nation-state
1. The Basic Tenets of Discourse on Ethnicity and Nationalism
2. The Discourse on Nation-State, Nation and Nationalism
3. Nation-Building, Ethnicity and non-Western Civilizations
Chapter seven
Political action and the state
1. The Differentiation of the Political Sphere
2. Ideology and Civic Culture
3. Participative Democracy and the Welfare State
4. Bureaucracy: Ideal-type and Reality
(a) The Weberian Conceptualization
(b) Contemporary Criticism of Bureaucracy
(c) The Hypothesis of Bureaucratic Rationality
5. Political Participation and Democracy in Other Civilizations
6. Bureaucracies and Development
Chapter eight
Modernization as framework of economic development
1. The Methodology of Contemporary Mainstream Economics: A Critique
(a) Economy and Reality: Laws, Empirical Generalizations and Assumptions
(b) Methodological Individualism and Social Forces
2. Dual Economy and Unbalanced Growth
(a) Characteristics of Dual Economic Structures
(b) Unbalanced Growth: The Only Possible Way of Growth
3. Modernization and Development in the Cultural Context
4. Modernization As Application of Economic Rationality
5. The International Dimension of Modernization and Economic Development
Conclusions
Conclusion One
Conclusion Two
Conclusion Three
Conclusion Four
Conclusion Five
Conclusion Six
Conclusion Seven
Conclusion Eight
Conclusion Nine
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Preface
This book is the result of a decades-long "inner conversation" with a large number of thinkers, biologists, social scientists, and other intellectuals of the twentieth century, in order to try to find a way out of the culture clash and civilizational decay. During my two decades of work in the field of international cooperation and technical assistance, I realized, through an encounter with other cultures and populations, and through the discovery of the immense richness of the human worlds belonging to various civilizations, that all efforts toward Western-inspired economic and social modernization in the sphere of non-Western civilizations represent an ineffective way to make them benefit from the West's modernity. I am, myself, rooted in a threefold world: in the lands and culture of Europe, the Old Continent, more specifically in Mitteleuropa or Central-Eastern Europe; in the worlds of other civilizations which I learned to understand, to respect and to love not only through interest and close contact, but through a sensitivity to their particular lifeworlds anchored in both cosmic and immanent reality; and, finally, in the world of the unforeseeable future already shaped, I felt, by the ever- increasing phenomena of inter-civilizational encounters, and through the discovery of the unmistakable signs of growing troubles in our own civilization.
I spoke above of an "inner conversation" to describe how this book came into being because I have had few chances to discuss its themes with many people, mostly similarly-minded practitioners in the largest sense of the word, but much less with those who are specialists of such questions in academia. The only person who closely followed the progression of my thought, reading, and writing, was my wife to whom I extend, again and always, all my gratitude for her endless patience during this long and sometimes tedious work. I also extend the expressions of my gratitude to all those with whom I had this decades long "inner conversation" -- thinkers and writers -- whom I never knew personally but whose thinking I eagerly absorbed.
I never looked for any financial support during the preparation of this book. I worked as part-time senior advisor in matters of technical assistance and economic and social development within the United Nations system (of which I was a staff member during a good part of my professional career). I have tried to do my work of personal interest without help from any source, in order to avoid any possible interference with my endeavor. Therefore, all ideas expressed, all conclusions made in the following reflections, are my own, and I am alone responsible for them.
I should, finally, clarify three things: first, that any and all references made in the text to persons as 'he', 'him', and the like, are a matter of convenience and should thus be understood as gender- neutral terms. Second, in respect of the transliteration of names and terms in non-Western languages, I avoid to use diacritics because the study is neither linguistic nor highly specialized in such fields that make necessary to follow the rules of transliteration; it is on contemporary problems, and its aim is not a philological or literary examination of classical and historical texts. Third, rather than encumber the study with a full scholarly apparatus and render the reading of a complex text even more difficult, I have reduced the footnotes to the minimum, and made references to authors and their writings in the text.