ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that hermeneutico-dialogical thinking can provide a productive new response to the problems arising from the postWinchian debate about cultural rationality, and thereby enhance the prospects for mutually enriching interaction across cultures. It discusses the potential of the dialogical approach to overcome the problem of 'invidious comparison', which has beset the debate about cultural rationality since its inception. In particular, the dialogical model calls for an altogether different attitude to intercultural inquiry from that which animated the original debate. The chapter argues that the dialogical approach constitutes a productive basis for moving beyond the polarized alternatives of an ethnocentric universalism and a radical cultural relativism, which, post Winch, have posed well-nigh insuperable barriers for standard attempts to grapple with this problem. It concludes with a reflection on the need to overcome possible barriers to implementation given the challenges posed by the pressures of contemporary coexistence.
