Multiple symbolic worlds and philosophical diplomacy

Abstract

The article discusses issues surrounding the negotiation of diversity, arguing that critical philosophical hermeneutics is a prerequisite for philosophical diplomacy. In today’s post-humanist, post-truth society, which is moving at an accelerated pace, the growing importance of recognising social and cultural diversity is more closely linked to the need for dialogue and public diplomacy than to traditional ethics. The article critically examines the political projects of the ‘Neoreactionary Enlightenment’, which seek to reinstate grand narratives and deny the necessity of diplomacy grounded in diversity, even as its proponents themselves belong to this group. Without philosophical-anthropological or philosophical-sociological interpretation, diplomacy concerning public diversity cannot be fully understood. Previous critical theory theses on the primacy of recognition, which diminish the importance of dialogue and diplomatic action, represent an uncritical ethical ideal. Some diversity groups may be wrongly accused of being toxic or pathological. While the article is based on Ricoeur’s critical hermeneutics and Habermas’s theory of communicative action as prerequisites for recognition, it emphasises that communication occurs within communities in which differences in symbols, symbolic organisations, and competing (even hostile) symbolic worlds emerge. The article analyses the correlations between diversity in symbolic worlds and philosophical diplomacy. Habermas explained the collapse of grand narratives as a crisis of legitimacy within the epistemology of the social and human sciences. This has led either to the recognition of new diversity or to the restoration of the old order. Grand narratives are key texts that are later interpreted by other texts, forming the basis of truth, identity, faith, and predictions about the future. Small political, scientific, and cultural groups may regard their own texts as grand narratives. However, growing diversity and the emergence of smaller, more dynamic narratives create a need for philosophical, anthropological, and sociological negotiations, which I refer to as ‘philosophical diplomacy’. Negotiations on recognition, reducing exploitation, and preventing segregation depend on interpretation – a form of critical hermeneutics in practice. As cultural diversity expands, symbolic organisations emerge, creating their own worldview and outlook. They strive to exist in a world that transcends the mere confines of a simple symbolic organisation, be it a political party or even a state. As the diversity, form, and content of these organisations grow and the function of social and humanitarian truth narrows, the need for new legitimacy–recognition increases. The development of these symbolic worlds is linked to philosophical diplomacy and philosophical approaches to diplomacy, including critical-practical hermeneutics.