The Two Cultures Problem

Many post World War II thinkers have been perplexed by the problem of how or even whether people from different cultures can understand each other. The problem arose when we started to think of culture as formative of language and thought. The main solutions to this problem have followed either Noam Chomsky's approach or W. V. O.Quine's and Nelson Goodman's approach. Chomsky's approach is to think of language and thought as fundamentally universal because they are based on innate and deep linguistic structures. Quine's and Goodman's approach is to think of language and thought as fundamentally variable. For Chomsky, all people have an ability to understand each other regardless of language and culture because all languages are based on the same set of deep grammatical rules. For Quine and Goodman, people from different cultures cannot understand each other because culture and language constructs reality. In both cases, the problem of how people from different cultures can communicate dissolves. In the case of Chomsky, the problem dissolves because the difference is not fundamental. In the case of Quine and Goodman, the problem dissolves because cross-cultural understanding is impossible: understanding and reality are relative to cultures and can only occur within cultures.

The common assumptions are that language is fundamental to thinking and culture; and language, thought, culture or humanity is a natural product of biological evolution. Two other philosophers Karl Popper and Michael Polanyi who are seen as diametrically opposed both independently criticize those assumptions. Moreover, both provide alternative theories of humanity (i.e. culture, thinking, and language) whereby cross-cultural understanding is a real problem th...

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...ientific and humanistic; and so, these problems transcend cultures. The more widely they are discussed, the more chance is there for us to solve them.

Third, the common goal in our technology imbued post-modern society of both technology users or humanists and technology developers or technoscientists is to become smarter: to create knowledge and use knowledge. Given that the two cultures have a common goal, this provides a direction for conversation among the members of the two cultures. Technology developers must listen to technology users when they mention the failures of specific systems. Technology users must attempt to be specific about the failures of specific systems.

Fourth, since most people to some degree are knowledge creators and knowledge users, we are steeped in both cultures and have a tacit ability to understand people from the other culture.