Asia-Arab Inter-regional Philosophical Dialogues
Background
Dialogue is essential for developing a better understanding of not only others, but also ourselves. In recent times the teaching of philosophy in almost all regions of the world has included core components with a predominance of Western philosophers. This relates to the predominance of published works in European languages, and to the higher output of postgraduate degrees in philosophy in North America and Europe, in the past two centuries.
In order to strengthen local, regional and global awareness of the rich philosophical traditions of many regions of the world, UNESCO Social and Human Science Sector's program in philosophy has launched programmes on inter-regional philosophical dialogues in 2004.
The most recent conference was held 15-17 October 2011 in Manila, Philippines: UNESCO Asia-Arab Interregional Philosophical Dialogues on "Human Dignity, Justice, Fairness, Youth, Democracy and Public Policy". The conference agenda and abstracts are available in English and French. The report is being prepared, and a statement was agreed, that will soon be available.
Previous meeting reports are available to download [PDF]:
- Asia-Arab Inter-Regional Philosophical Dialogues "Asia and the Arab World", 16-17 November 2004, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France;
- Asia-Arab Inter-Regional Philosophical Dialogues "Democracy and Social Justice in Asia and the Arab World", 28-29 November 2005, Seoul, Republic of Korea;
- Asia-Arab Inter-regional Philosophical Dialogues "Encounters of Asia and the Arab Regions with Modernity", 15-18 November 2006, Rabat, Morocco;
- Asia-Arab Inter-regional Philosophical Dialogues Conference "Philosophy and the Crisis of Civilization", 28 – 30 May 2009, Bangkok, Thailand [PDF - Conference Agenda; Abstract book and List of participants]
- Asia-Arab Inter-regional Philosophical Dialogue Conference "Culture of Peace and Human Dignity", 14-17 May 2010, Port Dickson, Malaysia [Conference Agenda - pdf].
Conference proceedings and published books [PDF]:
- Darryl R.J. Macer. Ed., 2011. Bangkok. Asian-Arab Philosophical Dialogues on Culture of Peace and Human Dignity. UNESCO Bangkok, 260 p. ISBN 978-92-9223-378-5 (print version), ISBN 978-92-9223-377-8 (e-version).
- Darryl R.J.Macer and Souria Saad-Zoy (Editors). 2010. Asian-Arab Philosophical Dialogues on War and Peace. Bangkok, Regional Unit for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP), UNESCO Bangkok. v + 119 p. ISBN 978-92-9223-316-7.
- Darryl R.J. Macer and Souria Saad-Zoy (Editors). 2010. Asian-Arab Philosophical Dialogues on Globalization, Democracy and Human Rights. Bangkok, Regional Unit for Social and Human Sciences in Asia and the Pacific (RUSHSAP), UNESCO Bangkok. v + 119 p. ISBN 978-92-9223-314-3.
Inwon Choue, Samuel Lee and Pierre Sané (Editors). 2006. Democracy and Social Justice in Asia and the Arab World. Published by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. CPO Box 64, Seoul, Korea.
Working group meetings were also held in Seoul, Korea at the time of the World Congress of Philosophy (30 July – 5 August 2008) and a meeting in Hiroshima, Japan (25-27 July 2008).
At present we have five working groups in the project, and reports of the 2006 and 2008 sessions can be downloaded here. You can find more information that is updated on the individual webpages:
- Human dignity and philosophy;
- Environmental ethics and philosophy.
The War and Peace working group and 2008 conferences also has issued statements on A Proposal for a Declaration on Perpectual Peace [here] and Depleted Uranium [here].
We plan to publish further volumes of papers that will be useful resources for philosophy teaching on these topics, and to include papers from individual philosophers as well as papers the result of dialogue between members of the groups. These dialogues are expected to continue for some years in order to add the richness of traditions found in many civilizations to the mainstream of philosophical tradition.
We are also open to suggestions of cooperation with other networks, and hosts to hold meetings of working groups. We also hope to use modern communication technology to enable dialogue.
More information on the principles of Dialogue, Working groups and objectives is available here.
There is a yahoo listserve:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsiaArabPhilosophicalDialogues
Inquiries to: rushsap.bgk[at]unesco.org
Page updated: 7 December 2011.
