This chapter sets out to explore the potential decolonial politics at stake in two recent novels by Edna O’Brien and Colum McCann. These novels, set outside Ireland (in Palestine and Israel in the case of McCann and Nigeria in the case of O’Brien), raise uncomfortable questions about interculturality, empathy, and the notion of care. My central consideration is whether these well-meaning narratives of the fallout from violence and conflict in turn produce a form of epistemic violence which belies the poetics of care they strive so hard to foreground. Ultimately, I contend that notwithstanding these authors’ evident wish to foster empathy, their novels potentially function as aesthetic smokescreens, dissimulating structural inequalities on a local, national, and global scale, and indulging in a depoliticized form of interculturality which impedes a robust criticism of coloniality.

The chapter addresses the relation between post-Gricean pragmatics and intercultural pragmatics. As such, it addresses meaning in relation to intentions and inferences and provides an overview of the main developments in this tradition, placing them in the context of the utility they have for understanding cross-cultural communication, and specifically the acquisition of pragmatic competence. Section 1.2 introduces the concept of pragmatic universals and moves to discussing how Grice’s account of cooperative conversational behavior can be viewed as such pragmatic universal principles. After pointing out some problems with Grice’s original account as it is seen from the perspective of several decades, Section 1.3 proceeds to post-Gricean approaches to linguistic communication, focusing not so much on the traditional debates concerning the number and scope of the necessary maxims or principles (covered briefly in Section 1.3.1) but rather on the semantics/pragmatic boundary and the related question of the truth-conditional content that opened up interesting contextualist pursuits (Section 1.3.2). Section 1.4 addresses different versions of contextualism and places them in the context of the debates between minimalists and contextualists. Section 1.5 concludes with comments on the utility of post-Gricean pragmatics for intercultural communication, stressing the significance of pragmatic universals.

Peter Casarella presents the themes in Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s reflection on conscience. An important part of Benedict’s theory is his theology of culture. Current ideas about conscience and culture minimize truth. Benedict posits that conscience is a law on the heart and is not merely consciousness. He submits that culture points to the unveiling of a Redeemer. He proposes “interculturality,” the meeting of cultures in which their hope for Advent is kept. Regarding truth and conscience, Benedict works with Newman and Socrates. He concludes that conscience is the voice of truth in the subject. Benedict’s theory of conscience hews the Thomistic line between synderesis and conscience as an act of judging upon a good. Benedict guards against relativism by suggesting that synderesis can be known by the Platonic idea of anamnesis: memory of the true and good. This is tied to Benedict’s anthropology, namely humans’ reliance upon God and capacity for dialogue with Him. Though social circumstances can be sources of moral knowledge, the person should consult God’s will. Consciences are formed through Scripture, the Holy Spirit, the magisterium, beauty, and identification with Christ.

This chapter discusses the diverse terminology used to describe contact situations between two or more cultures by focusing on Welsch’s discussions of multi-, inter- and transculturality. The anthropological and psychological dimensions of cultural concepts are shown to arise from the need of human beings as pattern-building and storytelling animals to position themselves by defining identities and alterities in a diverse environment which makes essentialist ontological self-definitions impossible. Using topical and historical examples, the chapter argues that conceptualization of the world as increasingly hybrid and transcultural has very concrete material, social and political consequences. The chapter then explores the connections between notions of cosmopolitanism and different conceptualizations of difference, particularism and universalism. Finally, the ethical dimensions of different ways of categorizing cultures and their implications for developing inter- and transcultural competence as the basis for constructing a peaceful and dialogic future of togetherness in difference are discussed.

This chapter analyses four intercultural emblems of violence constructed by indigenous and Spanish artists in New Spain and Peru in the sixteenth century, when the region was under imperial Spanish rule. These highly stereotyped and conventional images combined the conventions of indigenous and European visual arts to present summarised and eloquent images of their violence, and this in turn facilitated Spain’s victory over the Aztec and Inca rulers, and also the imposition of Christianity over pagan religion. The detailed analysis of the contents, style and many layers of meaning of these emblems allows us to understand the diverse, even contradictory, cultural meanings of violence in this colonial situation.