This dissertation examines the issue of intercultural understanding. I explore the role played by language in constituting human subjectivity in accordance with the common insights of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, in order to: (1) affirm the complexity and fragility of the process of building understanding in fight of our immersion in specific cultural-linguistic worldviews; and (2) demonstrate that human beings are ontologically predisposed to achieve understanding, and that this ontological predisposition is enhanced by a constant and inescapable process of crossing "language boundaries" in daily life. I argue that the very manner of human induction into cultural-linguistic worldviews suggests the means by which intercultural understanding might best be fostered: through the bestowal of recognition and the cultivation of dialogical relationships. / I assemble key elements of an assortment of different theories of intercultural understanding in which these techniques are assigned a central role; this exercise generates a Wittgensteinian "perspicuous representation" of the process of crafting intercultural understanding itself, and reveals the unique strengths of two convergent approaches in particular. Both the contemporary reinterpretation of the traditional ideal of intercultural understanding of the Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en First Nations of northwestern British Columbia, and the recent writings of Charles Taylor on the subject of international human rights standards comprise variations of what I call the "shared horizons" paradigm. The great advantages of this paradigm are its ability to address the distortive effect exercised by power inequalities upon efforts to create intercultural understanding (demonstrated through a case study of the Gitzsan-Wet'suwet'en land claim), and its amenableness to a variety of distinct culture-specific normative justifications. The shared horizons approach does not offer a blueprint for achieving intercultural understanding, but rather, a modest and adaptable set of principles that can serve as the foundation for efforts to work toward the resolution of intercultural disagreements.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.35035 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Oman, Natalie Benva. |
| Contributors | Taylor, Charles (advisor), Tully, James (advisor), Kunz, Frank (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Philosophy.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001615142, proquestno: NQ44539, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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