Ernest Wolf-Gazo
Dr. Wolf-Gazo is currently Professor of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo. He holds his PhD from Bonn University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, and has been Visiting Professor at ISTAC, Kuala Lumpur, Lovain University, and Middle East Technical University.
The Rise and Fall of Civilization is a classic theme in European historiography, ever since Gibbon's published his famous Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon's "Rise and Fall" turned into a paradigmatic scheme to be followed by many historians and philosophers of history. The idea of a dialogue of civilizations would have been too vague, since civilizations were considered to be classical, i.e., excellent and dead, or only one civilization would be considered the one which is alive and the ruling empire. In that sense a dialogue was never possible for the simple reason that civilizations were not considered to be equal. To have a dialogue it takes two equals: that situation Is a novelty in the 20th, and certainly, in the 21st century. The acknowledgement is that there are varieties of civilizations, old and new, those have their own style and their own respective qualities to offer history. Thus, there is a rejuvenation of the old philosophy of history in a new form. Be it ancient Egypt, Classical Greece, Rome, Ottoman, Persian, British, French, Dutch, not to say the least, Islamic civilizations, the dialogue in the long run will extend into discourses between civilization in such a way that the cultural ramification of each civilization will be scrutinized on equal basis, but with qualitative difference. There are thing Islamic civilization can offer us to improve our quality of life in a different way, say, from ancient Egyptian civilization, which offers qualities that would supplement, if not enhance our understanding of the universe at large. Having said this, we are now ready to embark upon the theoretical frameworks of thinkers such as Spengler, Ortegay Gasset, or Toynbee, steeped in Gibbon, in order to see to what extent the treatment of "Rise and Fall" of civilization had influenced the general mentality of the educated public in the 20th century. This presentation wants to show that we are in a transitional phase from the "Rise and Fall" model to the "Dialogue" model, if not the "Discourse" model of civilizations. The implications are far reaching, not the least, a new understanding of civil society, cultural achievements by human beings of different nationalities and cultural manifestations.