Intellectual challenge at the millennium
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Based on Ninian Smart (1999)
World Philosophies; Routledge;
ISBN 0 415 18466 5
"It is a fact of life that the global world is shrinking in thought and communication. In the future none of the traditions will stay apart but all will be more or less mutually interpenetrative."

Globalisation brings cultural interpenetration and new modes of, and reactions to, unequal power relations.

 This is in a world in which we observe the:

  • collapse of orthodox Marxism
  • growth of non-Marxist Far Eastern societies and a growth of interest in their traditions
  • Islamic revival
  • fading of Hindu federalism
  • spread of Buddhist ideas
  • creation of the concept of Africa and of Greater Africa
  • evolution of Latin American identity
  • emerging self consciousness of small-scale societies
  • spread of social democratic thinking
  • eruption of new nationalisms
  • growth of transnational entities and relations
  • domination of Western higher education and the creation of world intellectual institutions
  • heightened sense of finitude of our planet

The future requires new myths to live by. These must tell the human story in a whole and comprehensive way and so illumine the lives of our many ancestors. This will involve the creation of an intellectual environment which includes:

  • a world vocabulary for the social sciences drawing on differing philosophical and cultural traditions
  • an intellectual theory growing out of inter cultural dialogue (based on an emerging philosophy of world views)
  • a greater ability to be self critical and sensitive to the points of view of other people
  • a world ethic which allows equitable dealing with single-globe issues
  • the preservation of difference and thus avoidance of a homogenized globe

"We are here treating philosophy in the widest possible way – to cover worldviews which are both collective and individual, traditional and critical, religious and ideological, affirmative and skeptical. Such a wide embrace is important so that we may preserve some sense of the plural character of human thinking."

"We shall float on the many minds of the world, through many streams that in due course … become the single wide river."

We may preserve some sense of the plural character of human thinking

We shall float on the many minds of the world

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