Chinese Processual Holism and Its Attitude Towards "Barbarians" and Non-Humans
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" becom...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Netherlands
2021
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| In: |
Sophia
Year: 2021, Volume: 60, Issue: 4, Pages: 941-964 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | 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. |
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| ISSN: | 1873-930X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sophia
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11841-020-00781-w |