In this book, his first to appear in English, French sinologist
Francois Jullien uses the Chinese concept of shi-meaning
disposition or circumstance, power or potential-as a touchstone to
explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate structure
underlying Chinese modes of thinking. In this strikingly original
contribution to our understanding of Chinese philosophy, Francois
Julien, a French sinologist whose work has not yet appeared in
English, uses the Chinese concept of shi-meaning disposition or
circumstance, power or potential-as a touchstone to explore Chinese
culture and to uncover the intricate and coherent structure
underlying Chinese modes of thinking. A Hegelian prejudice still
haunts studies of ancient Chinese civilization: Chinese thought,
never able to evolve beyond a cosmological point of view, with an
indifference to any notion of telos, sought to interpret reality
solely on the basis of itself. In this groundbreaking study,
prejudices toward the simplicity and "naivete" of Chinese thought,
Hegelian and otherwise, are dismantled one by one to reveal the
intricate and coherent structure underlying Chinese modes of
thinking and representing reality. Jullien begins with a single
Chinese term, shi, whose very ambivalence and disconcerting
polysemy, on the one hand, and simple efficacy, on the other, defy
the order of a concept. Yet shi insinuates itself into the ordering
and conditioning of reality in all its manifold and complex
representations. Because shi neither gave rise to any coherent,
general analysis nor figured as one of the major concepts among
Chinese thinkers, Jullien follows its appearance from one field to
another: from military strategy to politics; from the aesthetics of
calligraphy and painting to the theory of literature; and from
reflection on history to "first philosophy." At the point where
these various domains intersect, a fundamental intuition assumed
self-evident for centuries emerges, namely, that reality - every
kind of reality - may be perceived as a particular deployment or
arrangement of things to be relied upon and worked to one's
advantage. Art or wisdom, as conceived by the Chinese, lies in
strategically exploiting the propensity that emanates from this
particular configuration of reality.
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