The paper explores what it might mean to think ‘beyond Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism’ in Europe today.
By framing Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism in Europe as movements arising within a characteristically Rousseauist conception of history, a conception that understands history as both the alienation of ‘natural man’ and the progressive de-alienation of ‘rational man’, we distinguish four logically possible variations on the theme of thinking beyond Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism. The central argument of the paper aims to show that none of these four variations is able to maintain the necessary conceptual stability required effectively to think beyond the old Rousseauist conception – but in combination suitably modified versions of two of them are. With reference to Jacques Derrida’s understanding and qualified endorsement of Paul Valéry’s conception of ‘ideal’ ‘cultural capital’, the paper concludes that, with this combination in view, there is a coherent and compelling way to retain both the aspiration to universality internal to the old ‘modern’ European cultural ideal and to remain decisively opposed to both the Eurocentrism and the anti-Eurocentrism that has marked its formation hitherto.
Cristóbal Garibay-Petersen is Fellow in European Philosophy in the European Institute at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳. He received his Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Essex where he worked on Kant’s metaphysics of time. His current research is primarily focused on the metaphysics and ontologies of different forms of idealism, but he has also worked on later nineteenth and twentieth centuries European philosophy. While he has taught mostly on logic and the metaphysics of Modernity, his broader interests include the history of thought/reason and the histories of ideas.
Hjalte Lokdam is ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Fellow in International Political Economy in the Department of International Relations at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳.