Approaching Identities: Hybrid Identity and Cross-Boundary Identity

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

This panel aims to contribute to the methodology of studying Asia in the global age. It has become problematic to describe Asia as a unanimous area, in which various factors, such as physical and intellectual migrations, fusions, overlaps, and conflicts, have created tensions among different traditions and societies. The problem of modernity has complicated matters further by the Asian interactions with Europe, America and other areas. When one asks how a certain national, ethnic, cultural identity is constructed, it is necessary to also reflect on identity-formation in light of the process of exclusion and assimilation. The institutionalized “philosophy” in East Asia has testified these complex encounters within Asia and with Europe. The invention of a Chinese philosophy, for example, is a modern product based on extra- and intra-Asian translations. The debate on the legitimacy of Chinese philosophy never ends; the problem lies not only on the Chinese identity, but also on philosophy itself. It is easy to locate Eurocentrism inherent in a definition of philosophy historically coming from Greece. The same can be said of Korean Buddhist philosophy, which, besides its Korean reception, has combined an Indo-European source and a Chinese transmission. As for Confucianism, widely accepted in East Asia, can it strip off its Chinese or Asian identity and be received as universal wisdom? Or does Daoism imply Asiacentricity? It is the time to provide a model for answering these questions by emphasizing the hybridity in philosophy itself and recognizing the unstable boundaries in its Asian versions.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing-Diaspora

Session Organizer

• Kuan-Min HUANG, Academia Sinica

Chair

• Chen-te YANG, Academia Sinica

Individual Presentations

• Philosophy, Migration, and Identity: Formation of Buddhist Philosophy in Korea and Japan - Jin Y. Park, American University

• Is Philosophy intrinsically Occidental? Europe and Asia in Husserl and Heidegger - Eric S. Nelson, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

• Decolonizing Comparative Philosophy through the concept of (Cultural & Noetic) Hybridity - Jean-Yves Heurtebise, FU Jen Catholic University

Discussant

• Kuan-Min HUANG, Academia Sinica