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Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought Also available from Bloomsbury: Comparative Philosophy without Borders, edited by Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralph Weber Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse, Wai-ying Wong Doing Philosophy Comparatively, Tim Connolly The I Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text, Geoffrey Redmond The Public Sphere from Outside the West, edited by Divya Dwivedi and Sanil V Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought Eric S. Nelson Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Eric S. Nelson, 2017 Eric S. Nelson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-0255-5 ePDF: 978-1-3500-0257-9 ePub: 978-1-3500-0256-2 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 Cover design: Catherine Wood Cover image © Wang Dongling Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. 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.