12/06/2024

Videos

China and the West: Resources of the Past

François Jullien (born 1951) is a distinguished French philosopher and a scholar of Chinese thought and culture. In celebrated books that have been translated into many languages, Jullien has sought to bring the West into dialogue with Chinese intellectual traditions and to explore the Western legacies in philosophy, art, and religion anew. In this roundtable, we will introduce Jullien’s project and discuss two of his most important books. In Resources of Christianity (2021), Jullien asks how Western culture can continue to draw upon its unique Christian legacy – even when faith in Christian doctrines has been lost. And in On the Universal (2014), he asks whether „the universal” is just a Western concern, or rather, whether China has its own idea of „the universal”. In both books, Jullien is trying to help China and the West find the resources of their past – so as to build a more harmonious future.