Migrating Texts and Traditions

Introduction - What Does It Mean for Texts and Traditions to Migrate?

& Introduction What Does It Mean for Texts and Traditions to Migrate? 1 William Sweet 1. Introduction It is undeniable that philosophical texts and traditions from one culture are, and have been, found in very different cultures and intellectual milieus. Consider the presence of Buddhist philosophy in China, Korea and Japan— and more recently in North America and Europe. From its birthplace in India, Buddhism spread and developed throughout Asia (as Tibetan but also as East Asian, including Pure Land and Chan/Zen, in Japan and China, and as Seon in Korea), and also in North America—for example, Shambhala. Many philosophies originating in the West seem similarly to have travelled east and south; they have been introduced, and it would seem have been integrated and appropriated, into non-Western intellectual cultures and traditions . As examples here we can think of the introduction of schools of British philosophy (e.g., empiricism, utilitarianism, but also idealism) into Southern Africa and India in the 19th and 20th centuries, and of hermeneutics and postmodern thought into contemporary East Asia. (One notes the use and the translation of texts by Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and many others into various Asian languages, particularly Chinese.) We find, as well, philosophies and philosophical texts from one part of the West being introduced into another part of the West. Here, we might think of works of American political philosophy, such as that of John Rawls, being introduced into France and translated into French—or, 1 Part II of this Introduction draws on my paper “Intercultural Philosophy and the Phenomenon of Migrating Texts and Traditions,” in Comparative and Intercultural Philosophy, ed. Hans Lenk (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2009), 39–58. 2 Sweet conversely, texts of French philosophy, such as those of Derrida, being found in the Anglo-American world, and translated into English. The preceding examples are only a few of the instances of the spread of philosophical texts and traditions. But some would add that often what we have is not simply their presence in new environments, but a ‘migration’. By ‘migration’ here we mean that the text or tradition has come to, has taken root in and developed, and perhaps sometimes has even flourished in an environment that is far from its origin, and yet there is also a continuity and consistency—and (with texts) a univocity—with that origin. And the preceding examples seem to illustrate a thesis that many take for granted when they read and teach not just the modern and contemporary, but even the classical or mediaeval philosophers today: that philosophical texts and traditions are not restricted to their cultures of origin, and that most—if not all—philosophical texts can, in principle, ‘migrate’. Some may be curious how, in a world marked by so many different cultures, histories and world views, such a migration occurs. And so they may want to explore what is presupposed or supposed about cultural traditions, or human nature, or the possibility and nature of knowledge and truth across cultures. Others, however, go farther; for them, this thesis is far from unproblematic and uncontroversial. They do not deny that there has been some kind of encounter of the texts, ideas, and traditions of one culture by others, but they challenge how far or how deep it goes, and they suggest that the ‘migration’ and appropriation are more apparent than real. The essays in this volume bear on this issue and consider different examples and understandings of, and views on, the ‘migration’ of texts and traditions. Many of these essays discuss putative instances of migration and raise and develop answers to several key questions: What does it mean for a text or tradition to migrate? Where do we see the migration of a text or tradition? What is presupposed in introducing a text or a tradition into another (intellectual) culture? What sense can we make of texts and traditions when they appear in contexts very different from where they began? These questions, and the general issue they address are not simply matters of the history of ideas. This issue also raises a number of philosophical concerns—about linguistic or conceptual commensurability across traditions, but also of what it means to talk of a text or a (philosophical) tradition or school. It bears on how traditions and the texts that accompany them understand themselves. It bears on the relevance and place of the moral, political and religious thought of one part of the globe on the others...