Transdisciplinary research in the cooperation between intercultural philosophy and empirical sciences

This article will examine how philosophy and empirical sciences can cooperate in research. It is presupposed that in philosophy and in the empirical sciences different types of discourses are used. This difference causes a large gap between them, which has to be bridged. Intercultural philosophy is understood as a specific approach to philosophy as a whole. It is necessary to make philosophy fit into a world in which exchanges are happening on a global level in many fields. In the dialogues between the philosophies of different cultures, support is needed from certain empirical sciences for the understanding of the philosophy, which is based on the the participation of philosophers in everyday life and everyday language. Therefore, in addition to the the support by empirical sciences, living in a foreign culture, participating in its life, is necessary for intercultural philosophers

The world of spirits and the respect for nature: towards a new appreciation of animism

The belief in spirits has diminished in Western thought since Enlightenment. But it has not disappeared totally. In the subconscious of people and in different subcultures and also in literature and art it is still alive. Derrida, before his death, worked out a new spectrology in which the status of reality of spirits is interpreted as absently present. In Sub-Saharan African thought this belief is broadly present and deeply rooted. It is the core of traditional African religions. Also intellectuals, although they may have taken over Christian or Islamic convictions, mostly stick to this belief. An important aspect of the African belief in spirits is that they also dwell in nature. In principle they can choose for all natural things to dwell in them, and there is a special inclination for trees. The spiritual conception of reality as a whole is called animism. This important religion has been devaluated in connection with colonialism. Recently the respect for nature which comes forth from this religion is highly appreciated by ecological philosophy