Transcultural Studies, 10, No. 1 (2014), 53-62

VESA OITTINEN and EVERT VAN DER ZWEERDE

INTERVIEW WITH THORSTEN BOTZ-BORNSTEIN

“The problem with McDonald is not that it is spreading all over the globe, but that it sells junk food . . .” (Thorstein Botz-Bornstein)

Thorstein Botz-Bornstein (b. 1964) has been Associate Researcher at the EHESS in Paris since 1999. Currently, he is Associate Professor of philosophy at the Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait. He has studied the connections between style, play and dream in different cultures. He has done comparative studies on Russian, Japanese and Chinese philosophy and the respective ‘frames of mind’ in these cultures. His books include La Chine contre l’Amérique. Culture sans civilisation contre civilisation sans culture? (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012); Place and Dream: Japan and the Virtual (Am- sterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2004); and The Philosophy of Viagra: Bioethi- cal Responses to the Viagrification of the Modern World (editor; Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2011). In 2006, Botz-Bornstein, together with Jürgen Hengelbrock, edited the volume Re-ethnicizing the Minds? Tendencies of Cul- tural Revival in Contemporary Philosophy (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2006), in which several authors attempt an analysis of the impact of globaliza- tion on local philosophies around the world. Finally, he is initiator and editor of The Online Dictionary of Intercultural Philosophy [ODIP] (see http://odip.webs.com/).

Evert van der Zweerde, Vesa Oittinen: In your paper on ethnophiloso- phy (in: Re-ethnicizing the Minds, p. 379 ff.) you criticize the idea of an ‘eth- nophilosophy’ as it is presented e. g. in the seminal book La Philosophie Ban- tou by Placide Tempels (1946). Tempels tried to extract from the traditional ways of thinking of the African tribes some philosophical categories, which he thought were already implicit in it. You criticize this approach by stating that the Bantus in fact never thought they were philosophizing, before Tempels told them so – like the hero of Molière's play never thought he spoke prose, before he was told so. The same thing is said about Chinese philosophy by Karel van der Leeuw, viz. that it was only after Feng Youlan wrote his classic work that a thing like ‘Chinese philosophy’ came in to being. You then conclude that the idea of an ‘ethnophilosophy’ in fact presupposes the existence of ‘convention- al’ Western philosophy, which to so speak by its kiss awakens the Sleeping Beauty. From this it seems to follow that non-Western and non-Modern tradi- tions of thought contain philosophy only in a potential form and need a con- 54 Transcultural Studies tact with Western thought in order to get unfolded. Did we understand you all right?

Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: Let me first note that in the written version of your questions you forgot to put a question mark behind Re-ethnicizing the Minds? The question mark is the most important part of the title. We wanted to provoke and naturally we do not believe that the mind should be re- ethnicized. We simply thought that, in contemporary philosophical discourse, this is a very relevant question to be posed. Now to your question. When formulating these thoughts about the relation- ships between non-Western and Western philosophies, I did not want to estab- lish hierarchies of philosophies saying that one philosophy has to listen to the other and if it does not, we cannot conclude that it exists philosophically. I see the whole pattern simply as a matter of communication. Today we have to deal with a large number of philosophical voices from all over the world and communication is possible only if everybody accepts certain philosophical standards. It is just like speaking English, which is the language that we all agreed on speaking. The mere fact of speaking English does not mean to sub- mit to British or American values, standards of thinking, etc. One simply uses the language that most people know. It is a practical convention. In principle, it is not the language that tells you what you have to say. Some people believe that this is the case, but I call these people “philosophical fundamentalists.” I am simply suggesting that for matters of convenience we should use the philo- sophical language that has been established by the European tradition. I use the word ‘language’ here metaphorically. By language, I mean the philosophi- cal language containing concepts that we all know. If one wants to suggest a new concept one can do so by using those concepts that are known by other philosophers. Some people do not agree with this and will reply that here a ‘Western’ way of thinking will be foisted upon the ‘original’ philosophy. Let me be as clear as possible. If you think that this language restricts you and imposes certain contents upon you while you are speaking it, then you are simply a bad philosopher, unable to formulate your own thoughts in a differ- ent language. If that is a problem for you, then you did not have much to say in the first place. Philosophical fundamentalists (or you can also call them pur- ists) believe that every philosophy has to speak its own language, hundred percent, that no alien element should be allowed to intrude. If a foreigner wants to access this philosophy, she first has to learn the cultural language of the region perfectly well in order to understand what this philosophy is saying. They believe that philosophies need to be accessed in their original state. I simply do not believe that this is true. Of course, it is better to know the lan- guage. I myself learned Japanese and Russian, but how many other languages can I learn? Life is short, but there are many more interesting philosophies to discover. In principle, you do not really need to know the language in order to say something interesting about the respective philosophy. Look at Karl Jas- pers’ writings on Buddhism or at Max Weber’s writings on Confucianism. These are the most relevant and pertinent texts on Buddhism and Confucian- ism ever written. How could Jaspers and Weber do that? They could do it be-