World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 238

well as political-economic-social ferment in western society. The process lasted from mid-18th to mid 19th century, and is still spreading geographically, encompassing all cultures, which adopt the urban technological-industrial system, with its Capitalist mode of production, Calvinist-individualist "valuesystem". Culture, medicine, cominunication system, educational system and political-economic institutions are all based on human sovereignty and autonomy. We "modern educated people" are all today, in large measure, product of the ferment and process. In India the process is pervasive, but has not yet conquered all the people since all the people have not yet been educated!
The Modern, if not identical with that process, is certainly a consequence of that intellectual-spiritual ferment which is sometimes referred to as the European Enlightenment to distinguish it from other enlightenments like the Buddhist, to whom perhaps the term originally belongs. Enlightenment Liberalism, with its twin children of modern Science/Technology and the Urban-industrial society, and its outcomes, namely, the Marxist attempt to construct the ideal society, and the Positivist-Linguistic-Discourse endeavor to capture the truth in words is based on the affirmation of the autonomy of the human individual and his /her capacity to know, shape and order the world. These four constitute the hallmarks of the modern.
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) formulated an individualist definition of "enlightenment" similar to the concept of bildung: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." He argued that this immaturity comes not from a lack of understanding, but from a lack of courage to think independently. Against this intellectual cowardice, Kant urged: Sapere aude, "Dare to be wise!" In reaction to Kant, German scholars such as Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) argued that human creativity, which necessarily takes unpredictable and highly diverse forms, is as important as human rationality. Moreover, Herder proposed a collective form of bildung. For Herder, "Bildung was the totality of experiences that provide a coherent identity, and sense of common destiny, to a people."
In 1795, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) called for an anthropology that would synthesize Kant's and Herder's interests. During the Romantic era, scholars in Germany, especially those concerned with nationalist movements - such as the nationalist struggle to create a "Germany" out of diverse principalities, and the nationalist struggles by ethnic minorities against the Austro-Hungarian Empire - developed a more inclusive notion of culture as "worldview". According to this school of thought, each ethnic group has a distinct worldview that is incommensurable with the worldviews of other groups. Although more inclusive than earlier views, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between "civilized" and "primitive" or "tribal" cultures The connection between culture and language has been noted as far back as in the classical period and probably long before. The ancient
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