刘纪璐在分析哲学的语境中转化中国哲学Liu_Analytic-Chinese.pdfVIP

Converting Chinese Philosophy into the Analytic Context JeeLoo Liu Department of Philosophy California State University at Fullerton The Shalem Center, Jerusalem, Israel October 2009 § Background: Is Chinese Philosophy A Philosophy or Religion? Chinese philosophy has its roots in religion, and has spread to the general Chinese public as a mixture of attitudes in life, cultural spirit, as well as religious practices. However, Chinese philosophy is not just a collection of wisdom on life or a religious discourse on how to lead a good life; it is also a form of philosophy. And yet its philosophical import has often been slighted in the Western philosophical world. Two hundred years ago, Hegel remarked that there is no separation between philosophy and religion in the East: “That which we call Eastern Philosophy is more properly the religious mode of thought and the conception of the world belonging generally to the Orientals and approximates very closely to Philosophy.” (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. 1) Under this conception, Hegel’s attitude with Chinese philosophy was completely dismissive. He described Confucius as “only a man who has a certain amount of practical and worldly wisdom — one with whom there is no speculative philosophy,” and “it would have been better had [his works] never been translated.” With Laozi’s conception of ‘dao,’ Hegel commented: “to the Chinese what is highest and the origin of things is nothing, emptiness, the altogether undetermined, the abstract universal,” and “if 2 Philosophy has got no further than to such expression, it still stands on its most elementary stage. What is there to be found in all this learning?” (Ibid.) He