Phenomenology and Intercultural Understanding

Kwok-ying LAU, born and educated in Hong Kong, received his Doctor in Philosophy at the University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, in 1993 with a dissertation entitled Merleau-Ponty ou la tension entre Husserl et Heidegger. Currently Full Professor and Director of MA in Philosophy Program at the Department of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, he is the founding editor-in-chief since 2004 of the Journal Phenomenology and the Human Sciences (in Chinese), Director of the Edwin Cheng Foundation Asian Centre for Phenomenology (since 2010). He is one of the founders of the East-Asian research network P.E.A.CE. (Phenomenology in East-Asian Circle) since 2002, and has organized the Symposia Phaenomenologica Asiatica, Master Class in Phenomenology for Asian Scholars held every summer in The Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2007 to 2014. He has translated writings of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Lévinas, and Ricoeur into Chinese. He has recently published Husserl's Logical Investigations in the New Century: Western and Chinese Perspectives (ed. with John J. Drummond, series "Contributions to Phenomenology", Springer, 2007,) Identity and Alterity: Phenomenology and Cultural Traditions (ed. with Chan-Fai Cheung and Tze-Wan Kwan, series "Orbis Phaenomenologicus Perspektiven", Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, 2010) , Phenomenology and Human Experience, eds. with Chung-chi Yu, series "Libri nigri", Nordhausen: Verlag Traugott Baut GmbH, 2012), and Border-Crossing: Phenomenology, Interculturality and Interdisciplinarity, eds. with Chung-Chi Yu, Series "Orbis Phaenomenologicus Perspektiven", Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, 2014). His authored books include Traces of French Phenomenology: From Sartre to Derrida (in Chinese, Taipei, forth coming), Kant: Thinker of Perpetual Peace (in Chinese, Taipei, 1999). He has edited or co-edited 15 other volumes philosophical works inChinese and is the author of about 100 papers written in Chinese, English or French on phenomenology, contemporary French philosophy, postmodernism and intercultural understanding.

This book approaches the topic of intercultural understanding in philosophy from a phenomenological perspective. It provides a bridge between Western and Eastern philosophy through in-depth discussion of concepts and doctrines of phenomenology and ancient and contemporary Chinese philosophy. Phenomenological readings of Daoist and Buddhist philosophies are provided: the reader will find a study of theoretical and methodological issues and innovative readings of traditional Chinese and Indian philosophies from the phenomenological perspective. The author uses a descriptive rigor to avoid cultural prejudices and provides a non-Eurocentric conception and practice of philosophy. Through this East-West comparative study, a compelling criticism of a Eurocentric conception of philosophy emerges. New concepts and methods in intercultural philosophy are proposed through these chapters.  Researchers, teachers, post-graduates and students of philosophy will all find this work intriguing, and those with an interest in non-Western philosophy or phenomenology will find it particularly engaging.

Provides a non-Eurocentric conception and practice of philosophy in an East-West comparative study

Author's Preface.- Introduction: Cultural Flesh and Intercultural Understanding: A Phenomenological Approach.- Para-deconstruction: Preliminary Considerations for a Phenomenology of Interculturality.- To What Extent Can Phenomenology Do Justice To Chinese Philosophy? Attempt at a Phenomenological Reading of Laoz.- Husserl, Buddhism and the Crisis of European Sciences.- Jan Patocka: Critical Consciousness and Non-Eurocentric Philosopher of the Phenomenological Movement.- Patocka's Concept of Europe: an Intercultural Consideration.- Disenchanted World-view and Intercultural Understanding: from Husserl through Kant to Chinese Culture.- Self-transformation and the Ethical Telos: Orientative Philosophy in Lao Sze-Kwang, Foucault and Husserl.- Lévi-Strauss and Merleau-Ponty: from Nature-Culture Distinction to Savage Spirit and their Intercultural Implications.- The Flesh: from Ontological Employment to Intercultural Employment.- Bibliography.- Index of Names.- Index of Terms.