Abstract

Often one experiences a tension between doing justice to the 'otherness' of (the philosophies of) other cultures on the one hand and claiming universal validity for one's own standards of rationality on the other. Therefore a plea for the acknowledgement of the intercultural dimension of philosophy and the necessity of intercultural dialogue seems to involve the rejection of universalistic claims. In my paper, I argue that this view is as indefensible as the universalistic one. Both views are characterized by a common, but often unnoticed presupposition, viz. that one is entitled to claims to truth and universal validity if one is able to justify one's claims rationally, and if not one's claims are no more than a personal, subjective and relative opinion. I argue that the claims of our basic beliefs which are regulative for our 'way of life' are scarcely justified rationally, although they are often of a rather universalistic character