The Struggle of Cultures and the role played by philosophical education

Both the awareness and the configuration of the political international situation have undergone a dramatic paradigm shift. As to how greatly the asserted or actual ‘struggle of the cultures’ dominates minds in general and politics in particular can be shown by citing an optimistic ‘spirit of the times’ of a previous era. 26 years ago, Fukuyama’s assertion of the ‘End of History’ elicited enthusiastic acknowledgement from broad circles of people: scientists, the public at large and politicians (Fukuyama 1992). There were, after all, sufficient grounds for optimism: the ‘bloodless’ revolution of 1989 led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and put an end to the division of the European continent. The so-called ‘Cold War’ was at an end and the successor nation states of the U.S.S.R. were aspiring to democracy. Parliamentarianism in the countries of the newly founded Commonwealth of Independent States proved to be sufficiently resistant. Long despaired-of disarmament agreements were ratified. The Republic of South Africa overcame ‘Apartheid’ and the world celebrated presidents such as Nelson Mandela or Vaclav Havel. The conflict in Northern Ireland was pacified and Israelis and Palestinians extended each other the hand.

However, this stage was concluded by September 11th 2001, at the latest. This was the greatest symbolic scenario of an open attack on Western life and culture, and demanded new explanation and categorization. A suitable exponent was already available: Huntington’s lecture, article, paper and book, all linked by titles containing Clash of Civilizations. A paradigm shift was again introduced. The ‘Struggle of the Cultures’ became the predominant interpretative sample for national and international conflicts. Dramatic, politically adverse decisions and wars against international law became an expression of as well as a catalyst for such developments.

The United Nations, which has become an organization of coagulated ideas of global international understanding, has very little to offer as counteraction to such disturbing developments. One initiative is the UNESCO program ‘Philosophy, a School of Freedom’. Philosophical education, the declared aim of the global project, is to act as a prophylaxis against any form of radicalization and dogmatism. The idea is to promote a ‘world citizen’ of majority age, who does not perceive plurality as a threat, but proceeds to participate in collective opinion-forming by means of critical judgment. Federico Mayor Zaragoza couched this idea in the following terms:

Philosophy and Democracy urge each of us to exercise our capacity for judgement, to choose for ourselves the best form of political and social organisation, to find our own values, in short, to become fully what each of us is, a free being. Among so many dangers, we have no other hope. (Mayor 1995, p. 12)

But what can philosophical education achieve amidst the increasing ‘clash of civilizations’? I will highlight in this article three specific accomplishments of philosophical education and their significance for the impending ‘clash of civilizations’: (i) philosophical education as differentiation and critique; (ii) philosophical education as a defense for universalism; and (iii) philosophical education as transcendental tolerance education.

A differentiated image of the ‘clash of civilizations’

When Samuel P. Huntington published his article “The Clash of Civilizations?” in 1993 in the journal Foreign Affairs, the publishers claimed that he triggered more debates in the first three years thereafter than any other contribution published since the 1940s (cf. Huntington 1996, p. 11). Huntington’s principal claim maintains that coherence, disintegration and conflict in a world after the end of the Cold War is no longer emphasized through ideologies and/or individual nation states, but by borders and the interplay of so-called ‘cultural spheres’, which can be defined by the eight great cultures of the globe (cf. Huntington 1996, p. 19).

The ‘One-World Theory’, as expounded at the end of the Cold War, and the triumph of liberal democracy by leading politicians and intellectuals, are considered by Huntington to be naïve and unrealistic. Furthermore, he believes that the universal hegemony claim of the West will lead not towards harmony but to conflict with other cultural spheres. Increasing integrational pressure in the global world, he maintains, will increase withdrawal into the own cultural identity of nation states and their individuals, and although the nation states will remain the more important actors, their negotiations will be more and more influenced by cultural awareness. “The world will decline into a Western civilization and many Non-Western civilizations” (Huntington 1996, p. 95).

Fukuyama’s assertion of the ‘End of History’ is considered by Huntington to be a great error. In no way, he maintains, will Western culture automatically become a future universal world culture. Western consumer goods are well known and appreciated throughout the world through economic networking and communication, but the ‘central characteristics of the West’ are neither industrialization nor lifestyle products. Huntington moreover points to the separation of spiritual and political power, the rule of law, social pluralism, representative organs and individualism (Huntington 1996, p. 99). Such attributes were not necessarily exported with the modernization of other nation states. Modernization is not the same as ‘Westernization’, but only reinforces the resistance of other cultures towards the West and tends to reduce its worldwide influence. According to Huntington, the survival of Western culture will depend on the appreciation that one’s own culture is ‘unique but not universal’ and is to be understood as worthy of both protection and renewal (Huntington 1996, p. 20).

No matter what one’s attitude may be towards Huntington’s theories, his forecasts have arrived and are being received to a breath-taking extent. In actual fact, cultural conflicts have predominated the twenty-first century. Economic and power-political aspects have played important roles. The separating characteristics of individual groups have always been central fault lines. Huntington describes such fault-line conflicts from which controversies can emerge (Huntington 1996, p. 253). According to Huntington, the Ukraine is a culturally split country. The western half has been dominated partially by Poland, Lithuania and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whilst the eastern half has been dominated by Russian Orthodoxy. These differences can be found at the political and language level (Huntington 1996, p. 264). Huntington uses the Ukraine as an example of a constitution no longer being able to unite a country; what is instead needed is a reorganization on the basis of cultural values. He states that “the differences between West and East Ukraine are manifested in the attitudes of the people” (Huntington 1996, p. 264), and that for this reason, “the Ukraine will devolve into two portions along its fault line, and the eastern part of the Donbas will merge with Russia.” (Huntington 1996, p. 266)

Despite the admiration for Huntington’s astuteness and acumen, his interpretation of world affairs is neither mandatory nor without alternatives. Furthermore, the query presents itself as to whether The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order turns out to be an objective phenomenon, or only presents one possible explanation of world events. In the latter case, an additional query presents itself, namely that of causality. Has the actual effect of world affairs generated this theory, or does an all-dominating interpretation of world affairs have the effect of producing corresponding political power-awareness and decision-taking as self-fulfilling prophecies? A philosophical reflection has the assignment of inspecting such aspects and thereby of investigating the use of terminologies, and the coherence and consistency of the resultant inferences and conclusions.

It is of interest to note that Huntington’s Civilizations has been translated into German as Kulturen. As a matter of fact, Huntington’s understanding of the term seems to originate from that metaphysically ‘weighted’ context, which is allocated to the sphere of the German cultural concept. It is not necessary to enter into the details of the largely superfluous German-French Culture-Civilization dispute. In fact, Immanuel Kant was using the term Kultur (culture) to demarcate ‘moral advance’ from technical and organizational progression (‘civilization’). In this manner, Kant does not propound a ‘cultural concept’ characterized by ‘blood and soil’, but takes up a position close to the French civilization concept of the Enlightenment. Of interest above all is that the civilization concept of the Enlightenment has an ‘including’ aspect, whereas the alleged German culture concept has an ‘excluding’ effect (Fisch 1992). From the time of the Enlightenment up to the catastrophe of the First World War, this civilization concept stood for the ethical progression of all rationally gifted beings. Huntington tends to fade out this tradition of the French civilization concept, or rejects this out of hand as the ‘Davos Culture’ of a disappearing ‘small educational elite’ (Huntington 1996, p. 78). International successes as well as the power of the individual are left unmentioned. People have always succeeded in overcoming their cultural emphasis in favor of a universal perspective. Ethical universalism in the sense of the Enlightenment needs neither a common religion nor a common language. The United Nations are a case in point, and the European Union has, over decades, succeeded in converting the most warlike of continents into a community of peace and common values.

It would also appear questionable to deny economic interdependence and communication from any form of peace-promoting effects. Of course, the dissemination of Western consumer goods and pop culture does not equate to correspondence with Western values, but their effects go beyond techniques and fashion. Films, according to Huntington, are only entertainment and not cultural conversions, and have always been otherwise interpreted and evaluated (Huntington 1996, p. 80). But could not emancipated female protagonists, for example, generate the idea of ‘equal rights’ and their attractiveness for women, via dancing and sports films? If it were otherwise, numerous nation states could waive the censoring of their press and media. More communication means more information on what moral values exist in the world, and how life would look with them. The ability to know alternatives represents the basis for a reflective observation of one’s own life conditions, and can be a trigger for discussion (Baumann 1992, p. 1966–1983). Moreover, the justification is missing, that values like separation of power or freedom of speech cannot be attractive to people of different cultural persuasions.

For example the ‘Global Ethic Project’ of Hans Küng (Küng 1990) rests upon the assumption that the cultures and religions of the world are not all that dissimilar, and that similar basic values exist. ‘Murder’ is almost always negatively connoted, while other institutions such as the family, on the other hand, are given positive significance. Huntington does not dispute this diagnosis, but draws attention to the fact that humanity’s warlike past is also proved by history (Huntington 1996, p. 76). The hope, however, that sooner or later identical universal cultural values will be generated in all cultural spheres is decidedly denied by Huntington. He sends a clear denial to the cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment. Progression in the cultural spheres is primarily of a demographic, technical and military, but not of an ethical nature. Civilization is thus reduced to the level of ‘technical’ accomplishments, whilst identity is coupled with the metaphysical concept of ‘culture’.

The civilization concept in the French tradition is thus not substantially invalidated. The core of this understanding of civilization is embedded in the demarcation to barbarism, as a higher degree of refinement and sophistication, which can be measured by the objective standards of ‘bourgeoisie’. Civilization thus restricts itself to formal ethical criteria, without negating cultural backgrounds. If rules could be instituted so that people could live together as kind of ‘worldcitizens’, then a universal culture would not be necessary; a form of civilization along French lines would be sufficient. The ‘clash of the civilizations’ is thus, at least in the concept itself, not at all without alternatives.

Conceptual proof for an alternative may not be deemed to vouch for its ethical consistency. For this purpose, an explicit defense of universalism is required.

The defense of a ‘soft’ universalism

Huntington is a ‘cultural relativist’. The West is perhaps ‘unique’, but represents no ‘universal’ culture (Huntington 1996, p. 513).

Whoever seeks to defend universalism will be confronted with a variety of reproaches. These will extend from scientific theoretical ignorance all the way to cultural intolerance. In this respect, the representatives of ‘relativism’ are also altogether ambivalent. In day-to-day discussions, people who represent the argument ‘other cultures, other morals’ suddenly understand that they give up the possibility of a cross-border cultural and moral understanding. Science theorists who declare metasciences, such as philosophy, to be superfluous then regret that a real exchange between the individual scientific disciplines is thus impossible. However, the regret of such consequences is no argument against the truth of an existent matter of fact.

Any defense of universalism must therefore be practiced on the theoretical as well as the practical level. Any sort of truth-theoretical discussion would go beyond the limits of this paper. For this reason, the following statements are based upon an epistemic concept of truth. Truth is the case, independent of insight or acceptance. At the same time, rational beings should be in a position to recognize portions of such transcendentally perceived truths, and to show their validity intersubjectively. Consensus constitutes no truths in itself, but can enhance the probability of truthful and justified opinions in the form of a non-hierarchical dialogue, by way of the maximization of information. Wittgenstein’s or Foucault’s difference between ‘being true’ and ‘being in the truth’, is nothing more than the difference between truth with or without recognition.

The following statements occupy themselves with the defense of a ‘soft’ universalism. An attempt is made here to show that (A) a participation in epistemic oriented discourses is culture-independent, and that (B) generally binding values can be achieved during such discourses.

A culture-independent participation in an epistemic discourse (A) is a matter, of course, in discourse theory, and has experienced concrete form in philosophical didactics. According to Martens, philosophy is an elementary cultural technique of human life. As a result, not every culture, but every human being can participate in the philosophical search for truth. Philosophy and/or philosophizing is a ‘cultural technique’ because it is a characteristic of human culture in general, and of the Greek-European culture in particular (Martens 2003, pp. 30 –31). Its etiology may well be strongly European influenced, but its essence is not. Philosophy as ‘cultural technique’ means craftsmanship or artistry, as well as knowledge of suitable materials and theories. A cultural technique is teachable and learnable for every human being. Philosophizing is thus a cross-cultural act of intellectual orientation. All people are equipped with the capability of abstracting themselves from cultural influences via pure reason. A discourse on concrete moral questions is seldom realizable without cultural influences and misunderstandings. Such, however, is not valid for the transcendental criterion of ‘good’. An intersubjective discourse on the circumstances of the possibility of being able to say whether an action or a motive is ‘good’ can be adopted by any human being whose reason is able to differentiate between reality and norms. A cross-cultural participation in epistemic discourses is therefore possible of consistent thinking. For this purpose, it is not necessary to raise oneself independently into the position of an intelligible person. It is sufficient to provide, adopt and verify justifications. A universal perspective can either be promoted by the rules of discourse or by experiments like Rawls’s ‘veil of ignorance’.

The same could apply for the possibility of generally binding topics (B). Verities (even the normative type) tend to go beyond the context in which they are discovered. In the descriptive sciences, the differentiation between claim and etiology is a matter of fact. Many mathematical principles were defined in the Maghreb sphere without losing their validity in Europe. Architectural principles are valid on all continents independent of the cultural sphere of their proponents. It is rather more a fact of life that numerous inventions and knowledge have been discovered and recognized independently of each other at various locations of the Earth concurrently—a fact to indicate ‘multi-genre’ verities.

In fact, the epistemic, normative and emotional confusions inherent in the modern have led in many places to a Renaissance of ‘closed’ concepts and world outlooks. Huntington interpreted this development as a withdrawal into the cultural identity and the cultural sphere. Such analysis, however, does not indicate that cultural relativism is without alternatives. Just because we find it difficult to redeem our epistemic self-pretension does not mean that this has to be given up. Authorities such as Wittgenstein, Lyotard or Zygmunt Bauman may have lastingly destroyed the hope of a final justification of ethical standards, but this does not mean ‘anything goes’, like Feyerabend suggests. We can still differentiate between the quality of arguments (Tetens 2004, p. 23), or between sophisticated and unreflected self-interest (Gosepath 1992, p. 49). Whoever undertakes such efforts ends up like Tugendhat—in no final certainty, but in a thick tissue of motives and reasons (Tugendhat 1993, p. 89). Martha Nussbaum mentions a vague but strong and resilient concept of ‘good’ (Nussbaum 1993, pp. 323–363). The possibility of an ‘overlapping consensus’ (Rawls 1971, p. 340) is thus not bound to an expansion of a cultural sphere. It is rather more dependent on the extent to which self-discipline, social background and education enable anyone to approximate to the viewpoint of an intelligible person.

The option of procedure-ethical universalism is demonstrated by different theories. One is Otfried Höffe’s justification for human rights. The claim to ‘human rights’ can today no longer be taken for granted. In February 2014, a flyer was passed from hand to hand among the student community in Berlin, in which human rights were described as the ‘European centrist concoction of a post-colonial system of repression.’ Huntington would probably disapprove of such a vulgar, Marxist background of the student authors—but at the same time, similarities can be recognized. According to the student authors then, human rights would be a ‘product of the West’. They are unique, but not universal. Such an assessment has been resisted by numerous authoritative authors. One of the more important contributions originates from Höffe and was published in 1996, the same year as the book version of Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations.

Although the ethics behind human rights may pose no final justification, they are certainly not arbitrary or imperialistic. Höffe builds his argumentation upon a minimalistic anthropology. It matters not how independent and divergent our cultural ‘imprint’ may be; we can certainly agree that we are bodily, purely rational, social and political beings. Any intervention into such necessities will restrict our ‘freedom of action’, and will thus prevent us from realizing our understanding of a successfully led life. Any build-up of differentiality presupposes the capacity to act. Since human rights seek to protect such a ‘capacity to act’, they become a guarantee for diversity and disparity (Höffe 1996, p. 67). This has nothing to do with the ‘imperialism’ of an ‘American way of life’, but instead with the circumstances of the possibility of a diversity. Höffe mentions a ‘transcendental exchange’ that, similar to Rawls’s ‘veil of ignorance’, constructs an intelligible decision-taking situation:

Transcendentality is that which one implicitly affirms, provided that one always seeks what one wills; transcendental means the circumstances, that one can have and pursue normal interests. (Höffe 1996, p. 77)

To put it another way, whoever claims the entitlement to be otherwise in society, must also claim ‘human rights’. The concept propounded by Höffe should not be seen as a final justification. Nevertheless the criteria of reciprocity (as propounded by Forst) and of intersubjective communicability are fulfilled.

Transcendental tolerance education

In 1995, two years after the first appearance of Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, UNESCO published its explanation of tolerance:

Article 1: Meaning of tolerance

1.1 Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. It is fostered by knowledge, openness, communication and freedom of thought, conscience and belief. Tolerance is harmony in difference. It is not only a moral duty, it is also a political and legal requirement. Tolerance, the virtue that makes peace possible, contributes to the replacement of the culture of war by a culture of peace. (UNESCO 1995)

In this definition, UNESCO lays great hope upon school education in general, and philosophical teaching in higher education in particular. This was underscored by the publication of the UNESCO program ‘Philosophy, a School of Freedom’ (UNESCO 2007). Even in the curriculums in the schools of many European countries, ‘tolerance’ is recognized as an educational objective in philosophical schooling (Bruening 1998). The representatives of the subjects for school curriculums themselves even promoted such expectant behavior. The possibility is emphasized of bringing together young people of various cultures and origins in a mutual, normative discourse.

But, what exactly can philosophy education and the cultivation of tolerance contribute to society? Essentially, two forms of tolerance education can be differentiated: the first model represents ‘tolerance educational content’, in which a ‘canon’ of behavior and forms of life to be tolerated and accepted is communicated; and the second model can be designated as ‘transcendental tolerance education’. The latter concept provides no obligatory content, but attempts to promote the circumstances of the possibilities of discernment and tolerance. Basically, the matter revolves around a ‘reorientation’ of attitudes and thinking, understood as an explanation of terminology and categories, as well as any non-preconceived results of the discussions of individual queries.

A contextual education in tolerance, understood as a presentation of explicit norms, may be indispensable. This applies to instructions in legal and statutory affairs, as well as to integration in already existing social and cultural circumstances. Philosophical reflection is, however, a priori unbiased. In ‘teaching methodology’, this difficulty is, however, described as a ‘values communicative dilemma’ (Tiedemann 2015, pp. 23–29).

“We love people who say straight out what they mean, provided they think on lines like us”. This was said to be propounded by Mark Twain and shows that it requires several mutes to conduct real philosophic education. Philosophy is not the administrator of a selective level of ideas: it is the call to thinking for ourselves, and the cultivation of that habit. The radicalism of the philosophical sapere aude manifests itself in its principle of incompatibility with normative targeted goals. This also applies to the issuance of legislative and constitutional texts.

Whoever postulates that philosophical reflection leads to a primacy of democracy, human rights and humanism is in error. Of course, antidemocratic drafts can be convincingly justified and many philosophers were definitely not democrats. Is Plato’s idea of the philosophical tyrant inacceptable because it is antidemocratic? Should a school pupil who, after thorough reconstruction and critical reflection, aligns him- or herself with Plato, receive a ‘bad’ grade? Certainly not. The dogmatic communication of a basic-value canon and the naturalness of philosophical education are contradictorily opposed. A philosophical accomplishment can be measured by the quality of its argumentation and not by compliance with ‘political correctness’.

What effect, therefore, does transcendental tolerance education produce? Let us commence with the explanation of categorical terminology and differentiations. An example might be the differentiation propounded by Immanuel Kant between ‘knowledge, opinion and faith’. Even the understanding of this differentiation alone can cultivate the circumstances for the possibility of tolerance. Whoever has perfectly understood that the essence of faith is the fact that it is sufficiently credible for the faithful, without requiring any form of substantiation by others, obtains a strongly effective dogmatism prophylaxis.

It is also possible that for an understanding of tolerance itself, philosophical education can provide valuable perceptions. The initial benefit is the possibility of being able to counteract the inflationary, non-binding and thus worthless application of the term ‘tolerance’. Its derivation from the Latin root tolerare shows the necessity of having to bear or suffer an unliked issue. Therefore, tolerance must be justified. It is the same for both those who claim tolerance, and those who reject tolerance: both have to explain their reasons in discussion. Only those arguments that can be communicated reciprocally or intersubjectively will be acknowledged. ‘We always did it like that’ or ‘I do not want that’ are, in fact, no arguments at all. Provided that the arguments are sufficiently convincing, the dispute is then settled. In the case of tolerance, a tendency to a rejection of the disputed issue remains. The argument is in itself acceptable, but not its claim.

Of particular relevance in this respect, is the unbiased discussion of concrete cases of conflict: May a hijacked aircraft be shot down? Is the circumcision of boys and youths inacceptable without medical indication? Are burkas a sign of cultural diversity or an attack on a liberal society? Should ‘consuming embryonic research’ be permitted? Should a liberal democratic nation state be allowed to impose obligatory healthcare insurance upon its citizens? How voluntary may marriages be? Are honor and respect benefits that need to be earned, or is everyone entitled to them? When and where can public religious ceremonies be tolerated? How much tolerance should a state-run school system display for immigrant traditions and customs? May an individual be a dual citizen of both a democratic and an undemocratic nation state? Queries such as these can be explained, analyzed and interpreted between parties of different cultural and religious traditions.

Within the context of a multi-cultural society, philosophical teaching in the curriculums of schools obtains a quite particular significance for the arbitration of conflicts. How can the voluntary action of an individual way of life and collective integration be guaranteed? How can incursions be hindered? Does not history show that political and cultural communities tend to bind their members to themselves all too often by the selection and manipulation of information or by primitive compulsion? Who is going to protect the individual from his own community? Pascal Bruckner reproached those representatives of a naïve multiculturalism for being anti-racist racists. Bruckner speaks of a ‘paradox of multiculturalism’, in which all the various communities are granted the same treatment, but not their members, because they refuse them the freedom of renouncing their own traditions (Bruckner 2007, p. 58).

Indeed, an example of negative dialectic looms at this point. The heart of racism is to reduce the individual down to its affiliation to an ethnic or cultural sphere. There is also a differentiation between ‘persecution racism’ and ‘neglect racism’. Recent German history produced an example of the cruelest persecution racism in form of the Holocaust. The human rights of millions of individuals were trampled on, because of a reduction to members of a target group of hostility. The rule of persecution racism says: ‘We infringe upon your human rights, because you belong to a certain group of people’. In order to prevent such barbarism from ever again raising its head, meticulous efforts are made, especially in Europe, at not discriminating against racial or cultural groups. This is quite right and desirable, as the primacy of individual rights may not be relativized. Otherwise, ‘neglect racism’ is encouraged, which again reduces an individual down to his affinity to a group. The rule of neglect racism says: ‘We will not protect your human rights, because you belong to a certain group of people’.

Even UNESCO takes up the position that tolerance and multicultural cohabitation should be subjected to binding rules and regulations. In its Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, the following is pronounced:

1.2 Tolerance is not concession, condescension or indulgence. Tolerance is, above all, an active attitude prompted by recognition of the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms of others. In no circumstance can it be used to justify infringements of these fundamental values. (UNESCO 1995)

Nevertheless, such a proclamation is far from being a legitimization. The indication that numerous nation states had voluntarily obligated themselves to complying with such principles is, of course, a proper contractual argument—but it loses its binding quality with the arrival of every new generation after the ratification, who did not personally and actively politically ratify the voluntary obligation. The binding effect of human rights may be quite natural for some, but it is unfortunately not self-evident. “Reasonable people have no doubt about certain things”. Julian Nida-Ruemelin used this citation from Wittgenstein at the end of his speech to the Congress of the German Philosophical Society in 2014. But even if this remark can be applauded as a position of ‘ethical realism’, the problem is far from being resolved. Do not reasonable people reveal their reasonableness by providing accountability for their decisions and values, and seek to reach others with the unconstrained constraint of a better argumentation? Should not perhaps pure reason be developed and trained?

In this sense, philosophical education is the communication of an elementary ‘cultural technique’ of human way of life (Martens 2003). The teaching of philosophy and ethics are forums for training of ‘giving and taking reasons’. Their aims are not to indoctrinate values, but to negotiate these on the basis of reciprocal argumentation. In this aspect, ethics are more important for the Dalai Lama than religion (Dalai Lama 2015).

For the representatives of a conservative communication of values, all this may well be too little. From the aspect of didactical theory, transcendental tolerance education remains without an alternative. The nurturing of attitudes and philosophical education are not compatible with one another. In addition, the outlook on success far exceeds even speculation: the previously mentioned ‘moral judgment test’ of Georg Lind measures the willingness and capability of appreciating arguments that are directed against one’s own standpoint. On this basis, numerous empirical studies were able to show that the aforementioned capabilities were able to be significantly enhanced (Lind 2003). In the teaching of philosophy and ethics, exactly this happens. The school pupils justify their position and then explain what arguments of the counterparty they can accept or reject. With a little good fortune, an attitude is formed that Voltaire called ‘the philanthropy of intelligence’. The way in this direction leads philosophical education towards being a form of transcendental tolerance education.

The hope and adumbration of UNESCO is anything but unjustified. Philosophical education by itself cannot stop the ‘clash of civilizations’—but its contribution is, however, indispensable. Without any critical analysis of a dominant paradigm, without a defense of universalism and without any education of discernment and transcendental tolerance, a further induration of the clash of cultures is not to be avoided.

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