Critical Asian Studies最新文献

{"title":"Being Between","authors":"F. Heubel","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.15-25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.15-25","url":null,"abstract":"This essay argues that comparative and transcultural philosophy are interdependent, and so opting for only one of the two is an impossibility. The comparative approach persists as long as we distinguish identities and make differences. As long as people do not speak only one language, the need to move between different languages and to translate, and thus the need to relate and compare different possibilities of philosophical articulation, will remain. Any attempt to free oneself from the problem of cultural identity is doomed to failure, as it leads to further entrapment in the very same problem. Comparative philosophy works with more or less fixed identities, transcultural philosophy transforms them and thereby creates new identities. Those two approaches combined constitute what I call intercultural philosophy.\u0000In this essay I try to explain the relation between comparative and transcultural philosophy by connecting François Jullien’s “comparative” and Martin Heidegger’s “transcultural” understanding of “Being” (Sein) and “Between” (Zwischen). In part 1 I argue that by turning Between and Being into opposing paradigms of Chinese and Greek thinking, respectively, Jullien causes both to become more or less fixed representatives of different cultural identities within a comparative framework: Greek thinking ossifies into traditional metaphysics, and Chinese thinking ossifies into the non-metaphysical thinking of immanence. Part 2 argues that Heidegger takes a decisively different direction. He explores the Between in Being, and even makes an attempt to think of Being as Between. Heidegger’s invocation of “Greekdom” is undoubtedly Eurocentric. But, ironically, Heidegger’s “Greek thinking” is less Eurocentric than Jullien’s “Chinese thinking”, because he discovers the “Chinese” Between in the midst of “Greek” Being. Part 3 touches upon the task of speaking about European philosophy in Chinese terms. While modern Chinese philosophers frequently speak about Chinese philosophy in European terms, Heidegger’s work points to the possibility of speaking about European philosophy in Chinese terms. Because Jullien and Heidegger both connect Greek and Chinese thought, it seems to me that the discussion of their different approaches is helpful in clarifying perspectives for intercultural philosophy between China and Europe.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77313781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Deleuze and the Kyoto School II","authors":"J. Hetrick","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.139-180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.139-180","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this paper is to bring Gilles Deleuze and the Kyoto School into an imaginary conversation around the idea of philosophy as a way of life, or what I call ethico-aesthetics. I first show how ethico-aesthetics in the Kyoto School modernizes the traditional notion of geidō, or ways of art, through the language of continental philosophy. Even though the discourse they construct in this respect remains less rigorous than that of the other domains of philosophy with which they engage, the ethico-aesthetic concepts of Nishida Kitarō, Nishitani Keiji, and Ōhashi Ryōsuke provide a starting point from which we might begin to piece together Deleuze’s seemingly random, but persistent and ultimately significant references to East Asian art and philosophy. I argue that Deleuze’s references to the Zen sage and poet-painter—in addition to his uses of the Stoics, Spinoza, and Nietzsche—are necessary to fully understand the immanent goal of his ethico-aesthetics. I conclude by demonstrating that, although there is no evidence that Deleuze was familiar with the Kyoto School, he unwittingly offers more complete and contemporary solutions to the ethico-aesthetic issues presented by some of its key thinkers.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86382128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Gadamerian Discourse in China and the Fusion of Aesthetic Realms","authors":"Jana S. Rošker","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.299-316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.299-316","url":null,"abstract":"Based on comparative philosophical methodology, this paper presents a new hermeneutic method for interpreting Chinese (especially ancient Chinese) texts. It first introduces the rich tradition of Chinese hermeneutics and then analyses its possible dialogues with European hermeneutic methods, especially Gadamer’s “fusion of horizons”. It identifies some methodological problems inherent in this method and, on this basis, proposes the application of a new hermeneutic method that may be more suitable for the interpretation of traditional Chinese metaphysical and literary texts. It is based on the traditional philosophical-aesthetic notion of jingjie 境界. The author preliminarily refers to this method as a “fusion of aesthetic realms”.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91185506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Martin Heidegger and Kitayama Junyū","authors":"E. Nelson","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.27-50","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.27-50","url":null,"abstract":"Heidegger’s early philosophical project was identified with a nihilistic philosophy of nothingness after the 1927 publication of Being and Time—with its depiction of the radical existential anxiety of being-towards-death—and his 1929 lecture “What is Metaphysics?”—with its analysis of the loss of all orientation and comportment in the face of an impersonal self-nihilating nothingness. Heidegger’s philosophy of nothingness would be contrasted in both Germany and Japan in the 1930s and 1940s with “Oriental nothingness” by authors such as Kitayama Junyū, a neglected Japanese philosopher active in Germany and an early interpreter of Heidegger and Nishida. In this contribution, I trace how Heidegger’s reflections on nothingness and emptiness (which are distinct yet intertwined expressions) become interculturally entangled with East Asian discourses in the early reception of his thought, particularly in Kitayama and the introduction of Nishida’s philosophy into Germany, and their significance in Heidegger’s “A Dialogue on Language”.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90323828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Xu Fuguan’s Methodology for Interpreting Chinese Intellectual History","authors":"Téa Sernelj","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.335-351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.335-351","url":null,"abstract":"The article examines the research methodology of Chinese intellectual history developed by the Modern Confucian Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1904–1982). His novel methodological approach differed significantly from the methodology advocated by Fu Sinian 傅斯年 (1896–1950), the founder of the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica in 1928, who advocated a rigorous adoption of Western scientific methodology in historical research, based exclusively on a philological perspective. Fu Sinian’s methodological approach, however, prevailed among Chinese historians in mainland China in the first half of the 20th century and in Taiwan after 1949. Xu Fuguan was highly critical of such an approach, considering it inadequate and inappropriate because it did not allow for conceptual interpretations on the one hand, and disregarded the contextualization and historical development of concepts and meanings on the other. Xu’s methodology is based on the application of the hermeneutic circle, which Xu calls dynamic and structural holism from a comparative perspective. In his methodology, a method of seeking embodied experience (zhui tiyan de fangfa 追體驗的方法) and intersubjectivenes (zhuti jianxing 主題間性) play a crucial role as they enable actualization of and communication with ancient thinkers in present times. However, Xu’s methodological approaches are also strikingly similar to Gadamer’s method of the fusion of horizons and Schleiermacher’s hermeneutic circle, which begs the question whether his critique of Fu’s adoption of Western methods was not based upon hypocritical grounds.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74265065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Plotinus and Wang Yangming on the Structures of Consciousness and Reality","authors":"D. Bartosch","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.91-135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.91-135","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, particular key aspects of the philosophies of Plotinus and Wang Yangming have been analysed comparatively on the basis of important passages of their works. The method used for this investigation can be defined as that of transversal comparative induction, in which the focus is more on working out the details of affinities and similarities. As this means a first step in an encompassing systematic context, differences will be introduced more briefly. The present investigation aims to provide a foundation for a more differentiating and therefore complementing second part, which will consider other contents and topics in both philosophies. The present analysis is performed in three systematic steps and with regard to three basic philosophical ideas: (1) the idea that human consciousness is a central medium in the universal process and interrelatedness of (biological) life as a whole; (2) the idea that the self-unfoldment of reality represents a meta-cognitive process beyond the limits of subjectivity and finite consciousness; and (3) the idea that it is our major task to perfect and know ourselves by means of a “return” to the highest underlying foundation of this universal process. In their own ways, Plotinus and Wang Yangming both show that by enfolding human reflexivity toward the ineffable source of all reality in thought, feeling, human activity, and natural processes, namely by actively pursuing the path of moral and intellective perfection, we become fulfilled mediators of a universal process and of that which all of it represents.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78998181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Comparison of Nishida’s basho from his Middle Period with Plato’s chóra and the One of Plotinus","authors":"Marko Uršič","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.71-90","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.71-90","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, the principal question is the following: How and to what extent can Nishida’s basho (“place”), as it is outlined in his famous treatise Basho (1926), taken together with the “adjoining” essay The Unsolved Issue of Consciousness (1927), be understood and interpreted from Plato’s and/or Plotinus’ (i.e. Neoplatonic) philosophical viewpoint—and, possibly, also vice versa? What do Nishida’s conception (or rather intuition) of basho on the one hand, and Plato’s quite “vague” concept of chóra in Timaeus and/or Plotinus’ first hypóstasis “the One” on the other, have in common? The main formal similarity between basho and “the One” is that they cannot be “predicated” (in the Aristotelian sense) by anything else—or, to put it in Platonic terms, both are absolutely transcendent. However, there are also several important differences, mainly because of the different frames of thought, which are discussed in this paper.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90686350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Gottlob Frege and Gongsun Long in Dialogue","authors":"N. Dolcini, C. Penco","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.267-295","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.267-295","url":null,"abstract":"This work addresses the critical discussion featured in the contemporary literature about two well-known paradoxes belonging to different philosophical traditions, namely Frege’s puzzling claim that “the concept horse is not a concept” and Gongsun Long’s “white horse is not horse”. We first present the source of Frege’s paradox and its different interpretations, which span from plain rejection to critical analysis, to conclude with a more general view of the role of philosophy as a fight against the misunderstandings that come from the different uses of language (a point later developed by the “second” Wittgenstein). We then provide an overview of the ongoing discussions related to the Bai Ma Lun paradox, and we show that its major interpretations include—as in the case of Frege’s paradox—dismissive accounts that regard it as either useless or wrong, as well as attempts to interpret and repair the argument. Resting on our reading of Frege’s paradox as an example of the inescapability of language misunderstandings, we advance a similar line of interpretation for the paradox in the Bai Ma Lun: both the paradoxes, we suggest, can be regarded as different manifestations of similar concerns about language, and specifically about the difficulty of referring to concepts via language.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86386686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Humean Elements in the Teachings of Itō Jinsai","authors":"Marko Ogrizek","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.181-205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.181-205","url":null,"abstract":"The present article juxtaposes selected elements of the Humean position on moral motivation with the ethical teachings of the Edo period Japanese Confucian scholar Itō Jinsai—especially the latter’s critical reading of the notion of structural coherence li, his defence of human feelings as the fundamental ground of moral motivation and his views on the origins of moral sentiment. In doing so, the article aims to show that there is an interesting line going through Jinsai’s work that might be argued to bear, within the philosophical project of Confucian ethics, similarities to certain of Hume’s more famous positions, which it actually predates.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89700296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Semantic Field of 性 in Ming Neo-Confucianism","authors":"Qian Jin","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.353-380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.353-380","url":null,"abstract":"This article will focus on the interpretation of a key concept in Chinese Neo-Confucianism of the Ming dynasty, namely that of xing 性. The concept is commonly translated as “nature” in Western languages, but this text will point out that there is a gap between the meaning of the Western concept “nature” and the Chinese concept 性. The main contribution of this paper is therefore to suggest a new method of interpreting Chinese philosophical concepts that bridges this gap. The method takes its inspiration from the hermeneutic theory of F. Schleiermacher. It consists, firstly, in re-placing the concept in its historical context—i.e. in the original “language area” where it assumes a meaning; secondly, in identifying the conceptual network which surrounds it, and thirdly, in determining the meaning of the concept in question by its relations to other concepts within the network. The end product of such a method is what we call the “semantic dictionary” of a concept. This article will give an example of how part of the meaning of 性 can be determined by its relations to another key Neo-Confucian concept, li 理.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84336126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}