Author: Xiao Yingying (Associate Professor, College of Literature, Nanjing Normal University)
The "other" was one of the most important themes of Continental philosophy in the 20th century. When the thinking subject no longer sees himself as his origin, it is necessary to find an other who can truly talk and reflect on himself by looking at each other. As the poet Valery said, what we see in each other's eyes is a self that we cannot see. It is in this sense that the task of contemporary philosophy becomes an attempt to understand "heterogeneity" rather than construct "identity." It was from this vein of thought that François Julian, who was still a student at the Paris High School, glimpsed his future research path, and saw the possibility of establishing a theory between philosophical unthinking and "heterotopia" China, that is, to reflect on sinology with philosophy.
However, the appearance of Julian that year caused a lot of commotion in the French philosophical circles and sinology circles, including the philosopher Alain Badio and the sinologist Wang Demai, who applauded him loudly, praising him for "opening up a new road" for both French sinology and philosophy, and some sinologists Xie Henai and Bilaid believe that he actually took a shortcut, which triggered a continuous pen war. In 2006, Bilde published a book called Against François Julian, arguing that he regarded Central Europe as a distant "counter-heel", looking at each other from the outside, pandering to the Imagination of the French elite on China since Voltaire, "lacking universal feelings and critical spirit".
And Julian responded with his usual research ideas: the so-called universality is only the universality of Europe, not only india and the Arab world do not have similar concepts, but also Japan, which is close to China, does not have it. Chinese thought is neither similar nor distinct from European philosophy, but is entirely outside the Framework of Europe. If we look at China from the inside, we can only see the tensions and ruptures dismembered by epistemology; but from the outside we can see the characteristics that make up Chinese thought, and thus obtain the fundamental difference between this quality and the logic that forms the basis of European reason, so that Chinese thought and European philosophy can have a relatively fair dialogue. This idea has received much support, such as the 2007 compilation of European, American and Chinese philosophers and sinologists, "Courage to Construct for François Julian", the 2013 "The Possibility of Thought", and the 2017 conference on Julian's works at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, which can be seen as a response to many oppositional voices.
From the titles of Julian's books over the years—"The Value of Innuendo", "Ode to Plainness", "Potential: China's View of Effectiveness", "Speechless", "The Sage Unintentional", "Silent", "Elephant Invisible", etc.—it can be seen that the author tried his best to find an entrance to Chinese thought on the edge of European philosophical discourse. For example, "Silence" is based on the author's perception of the invisible passage of time as a wedge, thus introducing the "transformation" in the Chinese. "Transformation" has become one of the basic modes of thinking and action of Chinese since the era of the I Ching and the Book of Poetry: the Three Hundred Poems speak of indoctrination, the I Ching speaks of flexibility, and the opposites are precisely interchangeable. Why has "transformation" never appeared in European philosophy? If we trace back to the source of the problem, we will find that China's "transformation" is an "ambiguous behavior" without an exact subject, without a specific form, and without dividing the stages of change. This must have been rejected from the outset by European philosophy, which uses "logos" (reason) as a tool of reasoning. Since the ancient Greek era, the "change" discussed in European philosophy has clearly pointed to the different states from A things to B things, but ignores the process of change of the intermediate state that China's "transformation" focuses on. Therefore, when Aristotle encountered "gray", a color that is not black and white, it is difficult to define. Therefore, European philosophy before the 20th century focused not on living, continuous "life" and "life", but on "existence" beyond this process. And this existence must also choose the path of philosophy and theology. Like many dualistic propositions, when existence is highlighted, death is necessarily placed on the opposite side of existence. Kant and Hegel tried to solve the insoluble question of "life or death" with "transcendence" and "absolute spirit" respectively, but in the end they failed to get out of the ontological quagmire.
Therefore, in Julian's view, it is no longer appropriate to look at Chinese thought from the perspective of "intellectual-rational" thinking, just as understanding Chinese culture from the starting point of a European philosophical concept is actually a trap of predetermined thinking. For example, comparing the concept of "subject" in Central Europe, there is no discussion of "subject" in traditional Chinese thought, and Chinese thought does not use concepts to promote logic and expound ideas. The use of ready-made concepts of European philosophy is indeed the most effective and clear way to demonstrate the value of discourse, but the result is inevitably to place Chinese thought under the European philosophical system and become its vassal.
How to jump out of this "comparison" may still have to start from reason itself. If reason is no longer limited to a given, absolute, transcendental category, but an active and extensible intelligible mind that develops with experience and experience, the greater the space between solitary rational thoughts, the more room for exploration and mutual enlightenment. If we take it a step further, not to regard this pullable "between" as a meaningless interval limited to separating the two ends, to no longer think that only the two ends can be defined, and to provide meaning in the definition to make one touch the essence, but to realize that everything actually happens "between", then we will not be so attached to the "essence" and the "absolute", and make a new examination of possibility, validity and intelligibility.
Julian always talks about "between" and "spacing" together, and these two concepts are actually directly inspired by the "space" in Chinese. The glyph "間" in the golden text is between two doors at the moon. The "Explanation of Words" also says: between, gap also, from the door from the moon. As this etymology implies, the moonlight leaks through the crack of the door and is expandable, so this "room" can be infinitely large or infinitely small, which is a very important aesthetic concept in Chinese culture, from which we can glimpse the way Chinese see and express the world. For example, Chinese painting is not limited to the real form of things, but adheres to the spirit of the things painted, which is not real concrete or general abstraction; for example, Chinese opera, does not necessarily reproduce the truth, but expresses the perception of reality, so the simple table and two-chair set on the opera stage can allow actors to travel arbitrarily between different time and space: Chinese art does not imitate reality as the key, and it is inseparable from reality, but thus unfolds as an invisible channel of "inter-room". At this point, the "inter" and "tao" are homogeneous. Rather than "between", "spacing" is a concept of "disturbance or agitation": in this agitation, the original order is disrupted, so that other perspectives emerge, and once the different perspectives of various cultures appear, the real dialogue can begin.
In an interview with reporters, Julian pointed out that after the elite 1960s and 1980s, the contemporary French philosophical community was inevitably a little lonely. But the silence also hints at an era of constant surge, resurgence and reintegration of ideas, and this refers in particular to the mutual initiation of different ideas at the farthest distances.
Guangming Daily (2022-03-10, 13th edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily