©Ruedi Baur
Poster for the International Celebration of World Philosophy Day 2010 at UNESCO

It is important to see today how it is possible to overcome the “universal / diversity” dualism by discussing how – with the contribution of philosophers, psychoanalysts and artists – the diverse, the different, the other, can be conceived as stemming from a universal that is more complex than the one we inherit from history.
The notion of a universal humanity is a recent acquisition of history: the manner in which it appeared for the first time in Europe, in Athens, clearly stresses the difficulty that the human spirit finds in this notion. Indeed, the path that led the Greeks to conceive a universal logos does not exempt them from ethnocentrism which pushes them to qualify as “barbarians” those who seem to be strangers to the logos.

Therefore, since it appeared, the universal was also at the same time contested by its meeting with cultural diversity. The history of civilizations teaches us that this contradiction took place repetitively as if the unveiling of the universal also implied its veiling. For instance, the Biblical thought that opened up to the universal by the invention of the One remained closed to the pagans; Christianity presented itself as good news for all except for those who did not believe in Christ; Hindu thought conceived the human being as cosmically unlimited, but socially limited by the caste system.

This symposium is jointly organized with the journal “Insistance”, insistance@free.fr.

Access will be upon presentation of an invitation and ID. To receive the invitation, please write to worldphilosophyday@unesco.org, or call +33 (0)1 45 68 45 48.