1. We understand by culture the encompassing myth of a society in a given space and time. Myth is the horizon of intelligibility where all of our perceptions of reality make sense. Myth gives us the frame for our worldview, it is what makes possible and shapes any interpretation of reality. Therefore we are not fully conscious of our own myth, of those beliefs on which a given worldview is constructed. We become conscious of our own myth when somebody else shows it to us, or once we have abandoned it, at least in part.

2. Culture is not objectifyable. We can only approach the knowledge of a culture by somehow participating in its myth. Each culture is a galaxy, containing the experience and the perception of the world out of which emerge the selfunderstanding of that culture and its particular questions, which will specify what is significant for that society: criteria for truth, goodness and beauty, as well as the limits of the world and our place in it.

3. We can distinguish between nature and culture, but in human beings they cannot be severed. Culture is the way in which human nature is expressed. We are naturally cultural beings. Culture is the field on which we consciously walk towards our destination, towards full experience of life. Every person exists and is actualized in a given culture.

4. Cultures are mutually incommensurable. As all of us are part of a culture -at least-, there cannot be any outside "neutral" standpoint from which to value or judge another culture; we are always dependent of the language and the criteria for truth of our culture. Therefore, there is no way to establish a hierarchy of cultures, nor to pretend that the values of a culture can be always applied to others, that is, there is no way to absolutize or universalize our own values. We can only speak of human invariants, that is, those invariants common to all humanity, like thinking, speaking, believing, loving..., which nevertheless are interpreted by each culture in different and specific ways.

5. Cultures are not folklore, they cannot be reduced to accidental ways to see life and to live it. They are not species of a purported genre "universal culture" that would include all peoples and epochs. But there are some transcultural values at some given moments in history, for instance some ethical norms for peace, justice and human welfare.

6. Each culture has its own values, but these cannot be absolutized. All values are relative. But this does not imply relativism. Relativism destroys the possibility of believing in anything. Relativity, on the other hand, means that every worldview and every assertion are relative to their contexts. Nobody has a complete and absolute view of reality, a reality that, far from being valueless, is constituted by indivisible network of the cosmic, divine and human dimensions. Every human being, as well as every culture, is a knot in this net, it is a centre in the reality and so it has intrinsic value, it is truly unique. Cultural relativity gives us the message of the crucial importance of every culture and every being. At the same time, it makes obvious the impossibility to absolutize them.

7. The believe in the universality of one's own cultural contents is the essence of colonialism. Cultures are incommensurable, but they are not incommunicated, this woud be solipsism. Interculturality stands at the middle way between the absolutization of a culture and the absolute incommunication between cultures.

8. Interculturality describes the dynamic situation of the person who lives consciously and, being conscious of the existence of other people, values and cultures, knows that isolation is not possible. Intercultural dialogue is an imperative for our world today. Interculturality springs from the consciousness of the limitations of every culture, from the relativization of all that is human; it manifests itself as an intrinsically human, and therefore cultural, feature.

9. All cultures are the result of an ongoing mutual fecundation. Cultures, like reality, are not static: they are in a process of ongoing transformation. Dialogue between cultures, as well as the philosophical task of trying to be conscious of one's myth, to question and transform it, and to find equivalents among diverse cultural discourses, are a process through which every human person and every culture contribute to the destiny of humanity and of the universe, which, to a great extent, is in our hands. This is the human dignity and responsibility.

Raimon Panikkar* (Catalunia, Spain)

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