RT Article
T1 Chinese Processual Holism and Its Attitude Towards "Barbarians" and Non-Humans
JF Sophia
VO 60
IS 4
SP 941
OP 964
A1 Xiang, Shuchen
LA English
PB Springer Netherlands
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1782511164
AB This paper argues that the "processual holism" of Chinese metaphysics explains its characteristic attitude towards non-humans such as animals and demons. As all things are constantly in process and form a continuum, it follows that ontological distinctions between "species" become impossible to delimit. The distinctions one makes are instead understood as perspectival and provisional. These metaphysical assumptions explain the lack of interest in the Chinese tradition for classifying the distinctions between humans and non-human. We see many examples of the different schools of philosophy espousing the view that the distinction between humans and non-humans is tenuous, precarious and subject to change. A key implication that follows is that the Chinese worldview saw no ontological distinction between those considered as "Chinese" and as "non-Chinese." The unavailability of ontological distinction (in the strong sense that ontological distinctions accurately represent the divisions of reality) as an explanation for the existence of difference means that phenomena that are perceived as anomalous, such as ghosts and spirits, are attributed to the perspective of the human agent; anomaly/difference is not understood as ontological.
DO 10.1007/s11841-020-00781-w