Table Of ContentChinese and Buddhist Philosophy
in Early Twentieth-Century
German Thought
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Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy
in Early Twentieth-Century
German Thought
Eric S. Nelson
Bloomsbury Academic
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© Eric S. Nelson, 2017
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-0255-5
ePDF: 978-1-3500-0257-9
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nelson, Eric Sean, author.
Title: Chinese and Buddhist philosophy in early twentieth-century
German thought / Eric S. Nelson.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017010074 | ISBN 9781350002555 (hb) | ISBN 9781350002579 (epdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy, German–20th century. | Philosophy, Chinese. |
Buddhist philosophy. | Buddhism and philosophy.
Classification: LCC B3181 .N45 2017 | DDC 193–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017010074
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To my parents, Lydia and Richard Nelson
Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
1 A Peculiar Journey: Confucian Philosophy in German Thought 13
2 The Problem of Life in China and Europe: Zhang Junmai,
Eucken, and Driesch 43
3 Resentment and Ressentiment: Nietzsche, Scheler, and
Confucian Ethics 77
4 Technology and the Way: Daoism in Buber and Heidegger 109
5 Heidegger, Misch, and the “Origins” of Philosophy 131
6 Phenomenology, Eurocentrism, and Asia: Husserl and Heidegger 159
7 Encounter, Dialogue, and Learning: Martin Buber and Zen Buddhism 201
8 Nothingness, Language, Emptiness: Heidegger and Chan Buddhism 225
Conclusion: Toward an Intercultural Philosophy 253
Notes 261
Bibliography 310
Index 336
Acknowledgments
A work by a single author is a collective and social effort relying on a relational
context of support and encouragement without which it could not arise. The
biographical context of a work, too often dismissed by philosophers as irrelevant
to theory, binds it to the lives of others without which what is said could never
have been nor become again a saying and listening in dialogue with others. An
author’s words do not stand in isolation from the world of contact, encounter, and
engagement, in which they echo and are adopted, consumed, or lost. I could not
have begun and completed this book without the inspiration and assistance of so
many teachers, family members, friends, and colleagues, all of whom cannot be
named here, and it would not be the same work without the historical denial and
continuing resistance to the claim that philosophical—whether understood as
conceptual, existential, or critical self-reflective—thinking happens in a variety
of unique ways across different epochs and cultures.
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Roger Ames, Emilia Angelova,
Youngsun Back, Charles Bambach, Bettina Bergo, Robert Bernasconi, Jeffrey
Bernstein, Andrew Bowie, Javier Cha, David Chai, Lulu Chai, Shirley Chan,
Dingdan Chen, Meilin Chinn, Chung-ying Cheng, Christian Coseru, Dan
Dahlstrom, Bret Davis, William Edelglass, Owen Flanagan, Martin Gak, Namita
Goswami, Saulius Geniusas, Linyu Gu, Jean-Yves Heurtebise, Kuan-Min Huang,
Yong Huang, Patricia Huntington, Marzenna Jakubczak, Tao Jiang, Halla Kim,
Hyeyoung Kim, Lucas Klein, Livia Kohn, Michel Kowalewicz, Sai Hang Kwok,
Karyn Lai, Anita Leirfall, David Michael Levin, Chenyang Li, Xiang Liu, Ronnie
Littlejohn, Xiaogan Liu, Christine Lopes, Dan Lusthaus, Rudolf Makkreel,
Amnon Marom, Bill Martin, John McCumber, Hans-Georg Moeller, Bent
Nielsen, Stephen Palmquist, Yuhan Pan, Ann Pang-White, Jin Y. Park, Graham
Parkes, Franklin Perkins, Diane Perpich, Lauren Pfister, François Raffoul,
Shaireen Rasheed, Frank Schalow, Martin Schönfeld, Brian Schroeder, Bongrae
Seok, Iain Thomson, Kirill Thompson, Ranie Villaver, Mario Wenning, Christian
Wenzel, Jason Wirth, Liu Yang, Dongming Zhao, and Krzysztof Ziarek.
Almost all of the chapters have a pre-history as lectures in East Asia, Europe,
and the United States. Robin Wang was instrumental in the undertaking of
this project through her invitation to speak at Peking University, where I first
Acknowledgments ix
formulated the research project that became this book, and Hongmei Qu, who
invited me to Jilin University to give five lectures on the German reception of
Chinese philosophy that became the initial draft of this book. I appreciate the
comments and questions from the audiences at these and other occasions where
the chapters of this work were presented and developed. These exchanges helped
me reconsider and rephrase a number of points.
I want to express my gratitude toward the support and encouragement of
my colleagues at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology for their
kindness, openness, and professionalism. Particular thanks are owed to Charles
Chan, Kim-chong Chong, Ilari Kaila, James Lee, Jianmei Liu, Billy So, Simon
Wong, Shengqing Wu, and Kamming Yip. I have more gratitude than can be
expressed toward those colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Lowell who
sustained my spirits during a challenging period and encouraged my research in
the intersections of Asian, Continental European, and intercultural philosophy:
Christa Hodapp, R. Eugene Mellican, Bassam Romaya, and P. Christopher Smith.
I have great appreciation for the students in my postgraduate courses at
HKUST on Phenomenology (fall 2014), Philosophy of Religion: East and West
(spring 2016), and Fundamentals of Comparative Philosophy (spring 2017).
Some of the ideas presented in this work were further developed in dialogue
and conversation with them. I also thank Xiaoran Chen in helping to create the
bibliography, and David, Yuxue Fang, and Mengying Zhang for helping with the
manuscript.
I am also grateful to my family for their being there and their toleration of
my philosophical and other eccentric inclinations, in particular Rick, Jenny, and
Dean Nelson.
This book could not have become what it is without Bloomsbury Press and its
editors. I am grateful to Colleen Coalter, Jason Ceo, Andrew Wardell, and many
others for assisting to bring this work into print. The missteps and mistakes
occurring in this work are my own responsibility.
Earlier versions of the following chapters and chapter sections appeared in
print in the following publications:
The first half of Chapter 3 draws on: “The Question of Resentment in
Western and Confucian Philosophy,” in Jeanne Riou and Mary Gallagher
(eds.), Re-thinking Ressentiment: On the Limits of Criticism and the Limits of
its Critics (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2016), 33–52; the second half of the
chapter draws on “Recognition and Resentment in the Confucian Analects.”
Journal of Chinese Philosophy 41.2 (2013): 287–306.
