Michel PUECH University Paris-Sorbonne, France Department of Philosophy ETOS (Éthique, Technologie, Organisations et Société / Telecom SudParis) [email protected]

The Four Cultures: Hybridizing Science and Humanities, East and West (Topic : International/Global Ethics) C.P. Snow’s seminal article on the “two cultures” epitomizes a kind of analysis that is universally approved and that has changed almost nothing in the real world as of yet. Today, we can address the issue of cultural fragmentation and its drawbacks in a situation where a globalized communication network and a globalizing way of life blur the boundaries of human activities. In the present state of affluence, material and informational, the problems we face in applied ethics, philosophy of technology, and sustainability are consequences of our thinking in a determined and closed cultural system. The lines of fragmentation are Science/Humanities and East/West. During the first modern (industrial) period, this fragmentation certainly functioned as a fueling device for competition. In the post-modern and globalized world this fragmentation is the major impediment to the culture we need, a culture that I would describe as wisdom, neither science nor humanities, neither eastern nor western, but at the same time rational, humanistic, caring, and efficient. This fragmentation of disciplines, professional skills, cultures, methods, and credibility is no match for the globalization of issues: climate change, world trade, nuclear weapons, development, bioethics, nanotechnologies, etc. My point is: not only is hybridizing culture now a politically correct option, a sort of folklore-synthesis sub-discipline, it is the overall and new fundamental need of thought; what deserves to be thought, as Heidegger would have put it. Simultaneously a philosopher of fundamental issues (metaphysics) and a philosopher of technology, a European classical scholar and an admirer of Gandhi, an academic and a life-long Japanese martial arts adept, I consider this quest for a new wisdom as a personal affair and a professional vocation. This paper will explore paths and bridges to intensify the hybridizing process according to the following picture :

- Heidegger - philosophies of the self and of care

Science

- medicine - technology

West

East

- R.W. Emerson - H.D. Thoreau Humanities

- philosophy of technology - applied ethics

- Buddhism and Zen - Gandhi - martial arts

Bibliography SUZUKI Daisetz Teitaro, Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series (1927), Second Series (1933), Third Series (1934), New York: Grove Press, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc. NISHIDA Kitarô, L'éveil à soi, Paris, CNRS, 2004 SNOW Charles P., The Two Cultures and a Second Look, Cambridge U.P., 1993 NAKAMURA Hajime, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples. India, China, Tibet, Japan, revised English translation P.P. Wiener, Honolulu, Hawaii U.P., 1964 MORISHIMA Michio, Why Has Japan 'Suceeded'? Western Technology and the Japanese Ethos, Cambridge U.P., 1982 PARKES Graham, ed., Heidegger and Asian Thought, Honolulu, 1987 MAY Reinhard, Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on his Work, trad. G. Parkes (Ex Oriente Lux. Heideggers Werk unter ostasiatischem Einfluss, Stuttgart, Steiner, 1989), London, Routledge, 1996 PACEY Arnold, Technology in World Civilization. A Thousand-year History, MIT Press, 1990 MAXWELL Nicholas, From Knowledge to Wisdom. A Revolution for Science and the Humanities, (Oxford, Blackwell, 1984), 2nd ed. London, Pentire Press, 2007 PUECH Michel, Homo Sapiens Technologicus. Philosophie de la technologie contemporaine, philosophie de la sagesse contemporaine, Paris, Le Pommier, 2008