유럽중심주의 비판: 동서문화의 동등한 만남을 위하여

Abstract

This article deals with the problems of Eurocentrism through the perspective of intercultural-philosophy for the equality of the East and West cultures. If the centrism is the result of a violent and one-way relationship between Europe and non-Europe/East, the discourse should focus on Eurocentrism, and criticism of Eurocentrism should be a necessary condition for the equality of the East and West cultures. First, I will examine the concept for civilization, culture, and interculturality. And then I will discuss the criticism of centrism of Franz Martin Wimmer. I will clarify the concept of interculturality through the various concepts of culture and civilization. Europeans distinguished European civilization from the oriental barbarism based on the concept of civilization which has been used as a tool to justify Europeans’ colonial conquests. Franz Martin Wimmer‘s criticism of Eurocentrism contains four centrism: the expansionary centrism, integrated centrism, pluralistic or separate centrism, and tentative centrism. Among these, the expansionary and integrated centrism are the two typical types of Eurocentrism in the modern colonial era. Multilateral or separate centrism came from the relativism of postmodernism which was concurrent with decolonization movements of the Non-European/East historically. Wimmer’s three types of criticism, (criticism on the expansionary, integrated, and pluralistic/separate centrism) are the key criticism of Eurocentrism, and they lead to the 'equality' of cultures and offer conditions for bilateral dialogue. Of the four types, the criticism of the tentative centrism is about the critique of the subject itself. The criticism of the tentative centrism is meaningful because it deals with the subject’s openness which enables inter-cultural relationships. The subject can accept the other’s culture and can give up or change his/her own only through the subject’s openness. The criticism of the tentative centrism reveals the characteristic of Wimmer’s criticism effectively. Thus we can reflect on the two conditions, 'equality' and subject’s openness, which lead to the equality of different cultures.