Table Of Contenti
Carl Schmitt and Leo
Strauss in the Chinese-
Speaking World
Carl Schmitt and Leo
Strauss in the Chinese-
Speaking World
Reorienting the Political
Edited by
Kai Marchal and Carl K. Y. Shaw
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
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For the cover photos: Carl Schmitt, © Carl-Schmitt-Gesellschaft e.V.; Leo Strauss,
courtesy of Jenny Strauss Clay.
Copyright © 2017 by Lexington Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Marchal, Kai, editor. | Shaw, Carl K. Y., 1961- editor.
Title: Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in the Chinese-speaking world : reorienting the
political/[edited by] by Kai Marchal and Carl K.Y. Shaw.
Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016050832 (print) | LCCN 2017000751 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781498536264 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781498536271 (Electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Schmitt, Carl, 1888-1985—Political and social views. |
Strauss, Leo—Political and social views. | Schmitt, Carl, 1888-1985—
Influence. | Strauss, Leo—Influence. | Political science—China—Philosophy. |
Political science—Taiwan—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC JC263.S34 C38 2016 (print) | LCC JC263.S34 (ebook) |
DDC 320.0951—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050832
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Kai Marchal and Carl K. Y. Shaw
PART I: CRITIQUE OF LIBERALISM FROM A
TRANSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE 15
1 Three Strategies for Criticizing Liberalism and Their Continued
Relevance 17
Harald Bluhm
2 Toward a Radical Critique of Liberalism: Carl Schmitt and Leo
Strauss in Contemporary Chinese Discourses 37
Carl K. Y. Shaw
PART II: CARL SCHMITT IN THE CHINESE-SPEAKING
WORLD 59
3 From “Carl Schmitt on Mao” to “Carl Schmitt in China”:
Unsettled Issues and Unsettling Continuities 61
Thomas Fröhlich
4 The Tyranny of Values: Reflections on Schmitt and China 81
Mario Wenning
5 Reading the Temperature Curve: Sinophone Schmitt-fever
in Context and Perspective 103
Charlotte Kroll
v
vi Contents
6 Carl Schmitt Redux: Law and the Political in Contemporary
Global Constitutionalism 121
Han Liu
7 Carl Schmitt in Taiwanese Constitutional Law: An Incomplete
Reception of Schmitt’s Constitutional Theory 137
Shu-Perng Hwang
PART III: LEO STRAUSS IN THE CHINESE-SPEAKING
WORLD 149
8 Leo Strauss’s Critique of the Political in a Sinophone Context 151
Christopher Nadon
9 Modernity, Tyranny, and Crisis: Leo Strauss in China 173
Kai Marchal
10 On Leo Strauss as Negative Philosopher 197
Jianhong Chen
11 Mirror or Prism for Chinese Modernity? A Reading
of Leo Strauss 211
Kuan-Min Huang
12 Toward a Taiwanese Cultural Renaissance: A Straussian
Perspective 231
Chuan-Wei Hu
References 243
Index 269
About the Contributors 279
Acknowledgments
This volume is the result of the “International Conference on Political
Philosophies across National Contexts: Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in the
Sinophone World,” organized by and held at the Center for Political Thought,
Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Academia Sinica
in September 2014. Apart from Charlotte Kroll’s contribution, all chapters
collected in this volume were presented at that conference, though Kroll also
participated in the conference and acted as a discussant.
We would like to express our appreciation to the Academia Sinica and
the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, ROC, for their generous
financial support of the conference. We are also indebted to Heinrich Meier
who, though unable to attend our conference in persona, wrote a splendid
Grusswort in German to express his philosophical support for our trans-
cultural endeavour and offered his personal perspective on this issue. Many
colleagues partook in the conference in various capacities or provided help-
ful advice for the organization of our volume and deserve to be mentioned
here: Stephen C. Angle, Tongdong Bai 白彤東, Kang Chan 詹康, Hans
Feger, Fabian Heubel, Ethan Kleinberg, Qing Liu 劉擎, David J. Lorenzo,
Christoph Menke, Eske Møllgaard, Robert B. Pippin, Christoph Thonfeld,
and Ying-wen Tsai 蔡英文. All the chapters going back to the conference
have undergone substantial revision; we are indebted to Christopher Reid,
PhD, and Kent Suarez for meticulous English editing, as well as to Fu-to
Chiang 蔣馥朵 for her painstaking work of reformatting the manuscripts and
editing the references.
vii
Introduction
Kai Marchal and Carl K. Y. Shaw
The history of globalization is almost as old as history itself. Yet we are
witnessing a distinctively new phenomenon today, almost thirty years after
the end of the Cold War: the economic, political, and cultural domination
enjoyed by the West for several centuries over the rest of the world seems to
be coming to an end. Our present is characterized by a number of profound
transformations, such as the global dissemination of digital technology,
the biotechnological revolution, and immense socioeconomic changes. We
have, nonetheless, reason to believe that the increased questioning of the
supremacy of the West might be as dramatic as any of these. If current trends
continue, the shifting of the economic center of gravity from North America
and Europe to other parts of the world (especially East Asia) may result in
even more radical social and cultural transformations and possibly lead to a
new form of modernity, one that is “global” as well as “polycentric.” In such
a future, non-liberal political regimes and alternative forms of capitalism
and social organization will coexist, as non-Western forms of life and world
views assert themselves in increasingly self-conscious, but also fragmented
ways.1 It can be expected that these geopolitical shifts of power and influence
will introduce a new sense of indeterminacy in Western politics, but also in
Western self-descriptions and cultural visions more generally.
It is unclear whether political thinking in the West is poised to address
such a post-Western global order. Influenced by thinkers like Immanuel Kant
and John Rawls, political theory in the Western academia is often understood
as a highly abstract inquiry into the normative requirements of a just and
well-ordered society. Many contemporary political theorists are convinced
that they need to develop an ideal theory of rights and justice that all rational
agents across national borders and cultural spheres will recognize. However,
it has been contended that these normative theorists are unwilling to think
1
