Intercultural Philosophy and the Idea of a Universal Culture For Sustainable Development

Abstract

This paper examines the symbiosis of philosophy and culture. This is because every culture emerges either as a reaction to or a justification of peculiar circumstances. Thus, every seeming culture is an identity- marker of ethnic consciousness and as such, this consciousness stands as the cultivation of a people which is the flower for their existence. The idea here portrays the possibility of fixing a controversial universal culture as it seems pleasing and interesting and enticing yet transitorily unnoticed. The metaphorism of culture to a flower quite likely concludes the presence of innocence, love and growth which culture emits. The question this paper posits would be: when a culture dies, whose culture should form the basis of the new? Will a universal culture not also fade away? In other to attempt answering the questions raised, this paper makes use of the hermeneutics method for its analysis. Thus, we hold to the fact that the asymmetry between questions and answers as to the idea of a universal culture for sustainable development makes us wary and warns us not to universalize one particular way of doing philosophy. This paper concludes by rejecting an absolutist and exclusive view instead gave credence to a minimal universality across culturally sedimented differences