C O N C O R D I A Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie • Revista Internacional de Filosofía Revue Internationale de Philosophie • International Journal of Philosophy Intercultural Philosophy: An Anthology of Texts Digital Edition © 2021 EIFI CONTENTS Editor’s Note 3 Bianca Boteva-Richter 5 HARMONY AND JUSTICE ON THE NECESSITY OF INTERSUBJECTIVE JUSTICE TO CREATE AND ESTABLISH HARMONY Choe, Hyondok 23 MIGRATION , GENDER , TRANSCULTURALITY – PHILOSOPHIZING BETWEEN CULTURES Edward Demenchonok 43 RETHINKING CULTURAL DIVERSITY : INTERCULTURAL DISCOURSE AND TRANSCULTURE Edward Demenchonok 73 DISCUSSIONS ON CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND INTERCULTURALISM IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA Vincent Gabriel Furtado 113 THE CONCEPT OF POWER IN HINDUISM Vincent G. Furtado 127 SOUTH -SOUTH INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE FROM INDIAN PERSPECTIVE Jorge J.E. Gracia 137 INTERPRETATION , TEXTS , AND INTER -CULTURAL STUDIES AN INTERVIEW Rainier A. Ibana 151 HYBRIDITY AS A TRANSVERSAL VIRTUE J. Obi Oguejiofor 159 SELF IMAGE AND DEVELOPMENT IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY J. Obi Oguejiofor 171 JUST WAR THEORY VERSUS HUMAN RIGHTS : AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE Wale Olajide 185 YORUBA EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY AND GENEALOGY Olatunji A. Oyeshile 195 HUMANISTIC CULTURAL UNIVERSALISM AS A VERITABLE BASIS FOR AFRICA ’S DEVELOPMENT Fred Poché 213 GLOBALIZATION , DE-TERRITORIALIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP Mayra Rivera 219 CARNAL CORPOREALITY : TENSIONS IN CONTINENTAL AND CARIBBEAN THOUGHT Héctor Samour 231 LIBERATION AND INTERCULTURALITY Rolando Vázquez 245 QUESTIONING PRESENCE : THE SURVIVAL OF THE PAST IN WALTER BENJAMIN AND HANNAH ARENDT Editor’s Note With this selection of texts, Concordia , International Journal of Philosophy , offers the English-speaking reader a series of articles regarding various aspects of the current intercultural challenges, from a diversity of experiences and contexts. The original texts were published in different Concordia Journals between the years 200 and 2020. This digital re-edition has the intention of contributing to an international and intercultural interchange. Bianca Boteva-Richter (Vienna) HARMONY AND JUSTICE ON THE NECESSITY OF INTERSUBJECTIVE JUSTICE TO CREATE AND 1 ESTABLISH HARMONY “Harmony” and “justice” are well-known and well-elaborated concepts, which, however, are each subject to differing connotations in varying philoso- phical cultures. But while “justice” is at first glance associated with human existence, “harmony” is chiefly differentiated as being cosmic or divine. Thus, it is usually assumed that they are not interwoven, interrelated, or linked with each other, respectively. In this article, an attempt is now made to explain why harmony both between people and between humans and the divine cannot be established without justice. But before any such connection can be presented, it must first be described how “harmony” is differentiated in various cultures of thought and what is meant by “justice” as it is understood in various interpretations. “Harmony” is, especially in the philosophical cultures of East Asia, an important concept that permeates the whole of thinking and decisively shapes the history of philosophy. For example, in the different schools of thought in Japan and China many philosophical concepts exist under the heading of har- mony, i.e. the harmonious coexistence between the people or under the heavens, which directs related thought in certain directions and positions subsequent content. But not only in East Asia is the term “harmony” of decisive and difficult importance. In European thinking, too, we find a thread of reflection, which is spun in terms of “harmony” and stretches into thinking today. The Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , edited by Joachim Ritter, attempts to subsume this concept, which is different in meaning, as a “connection through interlocking (intermeshing) and, as a result, adjustment of a whole, unity in the multiplicity of a whole”2. This interpretation, that is, unity in multiplicity, which already arose among the Pythagoreans on account of their resonating strings in music pro- duction, has been worked out even more clearly in East Asian philosophy, and especially that of China. However, for some European thinkers, starting with the 1 Translated by James Garrison 2 Ritter, Joachim: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie , Band 3: G-H, Basel: Schwabe Co. Verlag 1974, p. 1002. 5 Pythagoreans, harmony is not only a concordance of the one and the many, but also an activity needed to protect the purity of the soul from the danger of being polluted by the sensual, in order to preserve the body 3, with the mentioned ela- boration of the interaction of the parts and the whole appearing to me to be a particularly important aspect. For this elaboration of the term bridges Eastern and Western thought by sketching an interaction of unity and difference, trans- forming the individual parts into a whole, then conversely splitting them up, and then linking and later balancing these individual parts. “Harmony” can thus be understood as meaning that the difference can become unity through harmony and that unity can be reconciled by difference 4. But this very general initially established finding, being based on musical investigations and medical presentations, there soon followed practical applica- tion. For example, the Pythagoreans saw harmony as another important aspect of human behavior; a lifestyle of solidarity is to be cultivated as an “ideal of friend- ship and brotherhood for all people”5. This idea of solidarity is, as to a certain extent, positioned amongst the heavens and the many, as an eternal cycle of conflict, where harmony emerges as the determining factor in the connections amongst humans and in the connec- tions between humans and heaven (the cosmos) 6. Cultivating the self as a fundamental, constitutive tone of harmony is very important to the Pythagoreans and is experienced as a “culture of the soul and mind,” which is constantly worked upon and advanced to a higher level through asceticism, mental exercises, ethical self-reflection and indeed also physical exercise, and renewed through tireless effort 7. This activity of self-cultivation is also to be found a little later among Confucian thinkers; and there it plays an even more important role, both in promoting refinement of the individual, and in regulating relationships between humans and the heavens. Another prominent manifestation of the term cannot be withheld—and this comes from Leibniz, with his elaboration of pre-established harmony. His concept is so prominent that it has to be mentioned, albeit briefly, even if its ex- position veers far from the intended poising of the problem. As early as 1695, Leibniz regularly used the term “harmony” and interpreted it ontologically and phenomenally. In its first interpretation, he focuses on the “communication of substances among each other”8 and refers to “the regulation of the relationship 3 Hirschberger, Johannes: Geschichte der Philosophie , Band I: Altertum und Mittelalter, Freiburg/Basel/Wien:Verlag Herder 14 1991, p. 24. 4 See Ritter: p. 1001. 5 Hirschberger: p. 24. 6 Cf. Ibid., p. 25-26. 7 Cf. Ibid., p. 24ff. 8 Ritter, p. 1002. 6 of monad and monad”9 by God himself. In the phenomenal elaboration Leibniz becomes clearer as he maintains that “[t]he series of representations of the soul and that of the movements of the body” are “like two independent (yet coor- dinated) clock, where God is the chief watchmaker. They correspond not only in their sequence, but also in their intensity, the clarity of the perceptions, which depends on the power of the movement”10 . God, as concertmaster of matter and souls, as well as of the whole cosmos, directs, arranges, and coordinates the mo- vements of the monads, their intensity and sequence, and thus determines from the highest point the sequence, which runs uniformly and without any irregu- larity. But why is Leibniz mentioned, albeit briefly, if his monadology bears no direct connection to the conclusions intended here? There are two strands of thought that owe to Leibniz, and which appear in another paper in this article: first, there is the notion of harmony as being due to God’s intervention, or rather, God’s pre-established perfection that allows monads to act in perfect coordi- nation. This therefore stands as the presupposition of God as the cause of har- mony, which later appears as an important connection between God and huma- nity in another train of thought. And secondly, there is the correspondence of relationships or connections, not only in their sequence, but also in their inten- sity, which are equally important in another context 11 . In Leibniz’s thinking, therefore, there is the Greek idea of wholeness, where “wholeness…is especially manifest in the realm of the living.”12 , and to continue, “All nature without exception is an infinitely wonderful work of art, because everything fits into the harmony of the whole”13 . But the idea of cosmos, strategies of brotherhood or solidarity, self-culti- vation, as well as the concordance of the parts and the whole are not only reflec- ted in European thinking. In many non-European thought systems, such as those found in India, China and Japan, “harmony” is sometimes represented or focu- sed more on philosophical terms. There are a number of well-represented philo- sophical schools, where the term “harmony” is an important key concept, which in turn serves as a basis for other concepts, connecting them together or helping them to differentiate them. In Chinese philosophy,