Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy PDF
Preview Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy
Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy Edited by Stephen R. Palmquist De Gruyter ISBN 978-3-11-022623-2 e-ISBN 978-3-11-022624-9 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Cultivating personhood : Kant and Asian philosophy / edited by StephenR.Palmquist. p.cm. ProceedingsofaconferenceheldinMay2009inHongKong. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-3-11-022623-2(hardcover:alk.paper) 1.Persons(cid:2)Congresses. 2.Philosophicalanthropology (cid:2)Con- gresses. 3.Kant,Immanuel,1724(cid:2)1804(cid:2)Congresses. 4.Philoso- phy,Asian(cid:2)Congresses. I.Palmquist,StephenR. BD450.C85 2010 128(cid:2)dc22 2010036203 BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutsche Nationalbibliografie;detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternet athttp://dnb.d-nb.de. ”2010WalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin/NewYork Printingandbinding:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen (cid:3)Printedonacid-freepaper PrintedinGermany www.degruyter.com To Philadora Grace A genuine union of East and West Preface Chinese philosophy first came to my attention in the early 1980s, not long after I read Kant’s three Critiques in March of 1981. Even at that early stage, I felt instinctively that Kant is deeply Chinese in his think- ing, with close parallels (in very different ways) to both Confucian and Daoistphilosophers.SoonaftercomingtoHongKongtoteachin1987, I learned of Mou Zongsan and his intriguing challenge both to his own Chinese tradition (to take Kant more seriously) and to Western Kant scholars (to make use of Chinese philosophical resources to fill gaps in philosophical wisdom left by Kant). I gradually became convinced thatamajorinternational conferencewasnotonly possible,butincreas- ingly urgent as a path to forge in cross-cultural philosophy, given the rising place of China on the world scene. Belonging to a department uncommonly blessed with scholars well-versed in Kant’s philosophy gave me confidence to believe that my own university would make an ideal venue for such a ground-breaking event. Yet it took over six- teen years to get past the idea stage. Not until May of 2007, when Prof. Cheng Chung-ying visited the Departmentof ReligionandPhilosophyatHongKongBaptistUniver- sity as a scholarly consultant and gave his resounding approval to the idea,didtheplanningprocessforthe“KantinAsia”conferenceactually begin. On a return visit later that year, Prof. Cheng suggested that the conference focus on the unity of personhood, a theme that was eventu- ally adopted when the conference Organizing Committee held its first meeting in January of 2008. On the first day of the Chinese Year of the Rat, a preliminary Call for Papers was sent to Kant scholars around the world, and the response was so overwhelming that the Committee kept needing to increase the planned number of participants. The assis- tanceofnumerousphilosophicalsocietiesaroundtheworldwasessential inpromotingtheconferencesoeffectively.Intheendover200abstracts were submitted. With funding kindly promised by the Department in March of 2008and bytheUniversity afewmonths later,weeventually invited three distinguished keynote speakers and 94 paper presenters, from over 30 different countries. As the Year of the Ox drew near (early 2009), almost as if to insure that our ideals of unity could not be realized too fully, the Organizing VIII Preface Committee began experiencing something like a Kantian “conflict of the faculties” first hand. Procedural tensions eventually led a minority ontheCommitteetostageamutiny,castingashadowovertheDepart- ment’sinvolvement.Fortunately,themajorityofmycolleagues,togeth- er with a team of over 20 students, stuck with their commitments, pro- vidingmuch-needed assistanceintheweekspreceedingthelong-await- ed event. With the many challenges we faced together in the days lead- inguptothe conference,thesecond of thetwosentencesquoted atthe beginning of the Editor’s Introduction became the motto for the major international conference that took place from 20–23 May 2009. “Kant in Asia: The Unity of Human Personhood” was a great success by all counts, even regarded by some participants as instigating a sea change in global Kant studies. Not longaftertheconference, WalterdeGruyter offered topublish the proceedings. The present volume includes revised versions of the three kenote lectures, followed by 64 out of approximately 80 contrib- uted papers that were submitted after the conference. In editing these essays I have sought to strike a balance between unity of form and di- versity of content. Certain stylistic and grammatical standards have been applied to the essays, and I would like to thank each contributor for her or his forbearance in putting up with the requirements of the chosen conventions, even when these conflicted with the author’s own preferred usages. Several features, however, proved so distinctive ofdifferent cultural approaches to the issuesbeing discussed that I elect- ed not to impose a common standard. Perhaps the best example is the use of Chinese (and other Asian) names. As the form of these names, when expressed in European languages, can vary widely, and as names are among the most personal of all words, I have allowed each author to name both him/herself and others in whatever manner she or he prefers. The same goes for names of philosophies or traditions (e.g., “Daoism” vs. “Taoism”), except that I have ensured that all such names are capitalized. A brief biographical sketch of each contrib- utor can be found at the end of the book. Following this Preface is an explanation of the referencing system used throughout the book. I would like to thank some of the many persons who, following Prof.Cheng’scrucialinitialsupport,madethisprojectpossible.Without the backing of Kwan Kai Man, my Department Head in 2007–2008, the conference never would have materialized. The colleagues who joined me on the Organizing Committee (Jonathan, Leo, William, Kwok Kui, and Ellen) each made crucial contributions in shaping the Preface IX program as it developed over a period of more than a year; despite the conflict that arose, I will always cherish the collegial trust we six devel- opedduringthoseinitialmonthsofplanning.ForencouragingtheUni- versity to provide a substantial additional grant, shortly after the confer- ence first became a Department event, and for continuing their support by appearing as honored guests at the Opening Ceremony, I thank HKBU’s Arts Faculty Dean, Chung Ling, and Vice President for Re- search and Institutional Development, Tsoi Ah Chung. Cheung Ping- ling helped design the poster and secured last minute sponsorship, in the hope that we would not need to utilize Department funds. Thanks alsotoDeanChungforpersuadingthenewDepartmentHeadtodothe rightthingbyprovidingfundsfromaDepartmntaccounttocovermost of the shortfall that remained after the conference. The list of students who assisted during the conference is too long to reproduce here, but a special thanks is due to the four who led teams of other students to look after virtually all the details of actually running the event itself: without the unflinching assistance of Bosco (Wu Wing Keung), Can- dies (Lo Kwan Yuk), Coey (Hui Ka Yu), and Ringo (Cheung Siu Ko),theconferencecouldeasilyhavedescendedintochaos.Ialsodeep- lyappreciatedthecolleaguesnotontheOrganizingCommittee,andthe numerous scholars from other institutions in Hong Kong, who assisted bychairingoneormoreof theconference’s36concurrentsessions.Ob- viously,thescholarswhosubmittedpapers,tookthetroubletocomeall thewaytoHongKongfortheconference,andespeciallythosewhore- submitted revisedversions for thispublication, deservecredit for actual- ly making the conference so successful. But most of all, for the care and attention she paid to so many aspects of the planning, implementation, and aftermath of the conference (e.g., processing literally thousands of emails sent to the kantinasia gmail account), including this publication (e.g., helping to prepare the index), and for encouraging me to move forward with this long-standing dream even before Prof. Cheng did, my wife, Natalya (Lok Yuen Ching), deserves credit for the success ofboththeconferenceanditspublishedproceedings.Togetherweded- icate this book to our daughter, whose energetic disposition is a source of constant good cheer, engendering ever-renewed faith inthe possibil- ity of the unity of personhood. Stephen R. Palmquist Hong Kong, 11 October 2010
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