On the Difficulty of Forming a Clear Idea of the Foundations of Western Culture

Abstract

I would like to show the academic teaching of philosophy in the West, and therefore the texts that come from it and that are offered to our Chinese colleagues, cannot help them make a right idea of Western culture basis. Why is it so? Because Westerners, while trying to understand representational systems of other cultures, do not proceed to the same understanding towards their own culture (they are doing others' social anthropology, but not their own). Western universities favour great philosophers' studies, and focus on what distinguishes one from another, but they do not try much to find out their common fundamental preconceptions that remain through the centuries. Moreover, as they have erected philosophy as a specific discipline, they have separated it from other cultural expressions, notably from religion and Christian thought, although these have dominated Western culture during the last 2000 years. The fact that Western culture has originated from a double matrix, both pagan and Christian, is so clear that Western intellectuals do not think there might be anything worth to study closer from it. This also prevents them from having a global vision on the specific configuration of their own culture. Consequently, it is almost impossible for Chinese researchers to understand well what constitutes fundamental features of our culture, and the inter-cultural dialogue is thus distorted.