Challenges of Cultural Relativism in Oswald Spengler’s History-Oriented Thought
Subject Areas : Comparative studies in the field of history of philosophy
1 - Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, Farabi College, University of Tehran, Qom, Iran
Keywords: Spengler, comparative paradox, singularity of cultures, relativism, comparative morphology,
Abstract :
Spengler places great emphasis on the uniqueness of cultures in the comparative morphology of cultures. From his perspective, cultures are independent and self-sufficient because each culture possesses a specific spirit and symbol, and its reflections can be observed in religion, politics, economics, and art. In other words, each culture has its own birth, death, growth and, generally, its own laws. Consequently, cultures exist in isolation, and their comparison is impossible. Accordingly, he considered most comparisons superficial, illusory, and baseless. On the other hand, cultures, like any organic and living entity, inevitably go through similar stages of birth, youth, old age, and death and decline. Precisely because of this, any stage of a culture's development can be compared with a similar stage of another culture because “contemporaneity” here means being at the same stage, not being synchronous. In other words, emphasizing the self-sufficiency of cultures means opposing any systemization and universal law, as well as accepting the relativity and incomparability of cultures. Conversely, the comparative morphology of cultures implies an acknowledgement of a trans-historical and trans-cultural law applicable to all cultures. Some have referred to this contradiction as the paradox of comparison and have tried to resolve it in some way. In this paper, in addition to clarifying the two aforementioned viewpoints, an attempt has been made to find a common ground and reconciliation between them, rather than sacrificing one for the other.
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