Truth, Practice, and Philosophy of Culture

The paper offers a glimpse at the diversity of what is labelled Philosophy of Culture, and then brings out some important issues concerning culture (aristocratic vs democratic vision, genealogical unification vs respect of heterogeneity, relevance vs irrelevance of social and historical approach). The first section expounds etho-analysis as a way of doing philosophy of culture, introducing the notions of solicitator, sensance and ethos. It also gives an idea of how its program has been conducted with respect to love or truth. Etho-analysis describes the ideal part of culture, interpreting it as revealed by concrete practice. The second section discusses whether and how far etho-analysis embraces the cause of truth and validates the scholastic tradition which has provided tools for it. Etho-analysis claims to formulate true descriptions. It understands meaning as unfolding its complication thanks to traditional tools, and recognizes the ethical significance of the community of science.