Talk: Chinese Philosophy’s Hybrid Identity
15/01/2016 Tana Dluhosova Events, News, Taiwan
Abstract
Historically, Chinese thought has been most profoundly influenced by two external intellectual traditions: disciplinary-based Western thought and Indian Buddhist thought. Western thought began to be introduced into China by the Jesuits about four centuries ago; disciplinary-based Western thought began to be introduced from Japan about one century ago. In contrast, Indian Buddhist thought was first introduced into China two thousand years ago.
From medieval times onward, Chinese philosophy—both Sinitic Buddhist and Neo-Confucian— has been irrevocably shaped by ideas and constructs derived from Indian Buddhism. Nodal developments in Chinese philosophy from the Six Dynasties though to the Song dynasty and beyond have drawn on these constructs for inspiration and renewal, even as these constructs became naturalized/Sinicized/Sinified and their Indian “genetic markers” became effaced (but not erased) over time.
This legacy has provided Chinese philosophy (and indeed East Asian philosophy) with a wealth of sophisticated ideas about identity and difference, constancy and change, transcendence and immanence, one and many, monism and dualism, that provide new resources for philosophy as a global enterprise today, even if they remain largely untapped by philosophers outside East Asia. In this paper I will argue that foundational constructs in Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 (1130-1200) philosophical writings are in fact particular expressions of hybrid constructs developed in the context of the early and sustained engagement of Indian Buddhist philosophy with Chinese Buddhist philosophy.
Speaker:
Prof. John Makeham (Australian National University))
Moderator:
Oliver Weingarten (Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Venue:
January 15, 2016, 10:00–12:00
Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Researcher Building, Conference Room 701.
歷史語言研究所研究大樓701會議室
About the speaker:
John Makeham is Professor of Chinese Studies in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific. Educated at ANU, he has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington, University of Adelaide, National Taiwan University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and ANU. He is currently an ARC DORA Research Fellow. A specialist in Chinese intellectual history from premodern times until the contemporary period, he has a particular interest in Confucian philosophy and, in more recent years, the influence of Chinese Buddhist philosophy in traditional and modern Chinese philsophy. He is recipient of the Special Book Award of China (2015) and of the Joseph Levenson Book Award (Association for Asian Studies [USA], 2005).
backwards
