Title: Immanent Transcendence in the Chinese Tradition -- Remarks on a Chinese (and Sinological) Controversy
Lecturer: Karl-Heinz Pohl (Professor of Sinology, Trier University)
Chairperson: Paul D’Ambrosio (Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University)
Date: 1 pm, November 1st, 2018 (Thursday)
Venue: Room 3102, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
In Confucianism, a metaphysical connection to a transcendent Heaven (tian), responsible for the ethical functioning of the universe, does play a role. But Confucius explicitly refrained from discoursing on this topic, hence we find little in Confucian literature that discusses the nature of Heaven. In recent neo-Confucian discourse, the topic immanent transcendence has become an issue, but this is to be understood quite differently from its treatment in modern Western philosophy. Rather, the idea behind it is: Although there is a supreme good in Confucianism (attributed to a transcendent Heaven as the metaphysical origin of a fundamentally ethically good human nature), this highest good is not considered to be outside the ways of man but immanent. The paper explores the controversy that arose about the idea of “immanent transcendence” in Chinese and Western Sinological circles.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
Karl-Heinz Pohl, professor of Sinology from Trier University (Germany). He has a Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from the University of Toronto (1982). From 1987-1992 he was professor of Chinese Literature and History of Ideas at Tübingen University. From 1992-2010 he had the chair of Chinese Studies at Trier University. He retired in 2010. His fields of research are: Chinese History of Ideas; Literature and Literary Theory; Ethics and Aesthetics of Modern and Pre-Modern China; Intercultural Communication and Dialogue between China and the West. He is author of numerous articles and books concerning Chinese aesthetics, philosophy and literature, such as: Cheng Pan-ch’iao: Poet, Painter and Calligrapher, 1990, and Aesthetics and Literary Theory in China -- From Tradition to Modernity,2006 (in German and Chinese translation: 2010).He is editor of Chinese Thought in a Global Context: A Dialogue Between Chinese and Western Philosophical Approaches, 1999, andChinese Ethics in a Global Context. Moral Bases of Contemporary Societies, 2002. He has translated Tao Yuanming’s complete collection of poetry into German (1985). 1992 appeared his German translation of Li Zehou’s The Path of Beauty. A collection of his articles has been published 2003 as a book in Chinese (Intercultural Dialogue with China); his introductory book Discovering China appeared 2016 in Chinese.