A situated gaze, yet restless and adventurous
Our approach to Chinese philosophy is necessarily tinged with concepts from American and European traditions. It is important to be aware of this because they are our conceptual tools and are quite malleable, enough to allow us to construct a perspective that, like any perspective, is always situated. However, this location is not a boundary but a starting point from which to establish an interpretation.
Anyone can understand the difficulties underlying such an endeavor: a different, ancient, extremely rich culture expressed in a language belonging to a different language family than English and its sister languages, which are part of the Indo-European family. Chinese, in fact, belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family and constructs its characters based on principles quite different from those that allow us to string together these words. This doesn't mean that translation is impossible, but rather that translation has its limits, and part of the task we undertake when studying texts is to identify these limits and sometimes push them a little.
Even when we choose not to translate and already have many Chinese philosophical terms incorporated into our language (tao, yin yang, feng shui), when it comes to explaining them, we rely on English. Here we can already identify a first problem: which terms to translate and which to preserve in the original language. A fundamental aspect of this problem is what the original language means since, for example, dào is not a character of the original language but a phonetic transcription that belongs to a system developed in the mid-20th century. That's why it is common to encounter the term "tao," which follows a previous transcription system used in Europe and America.
"Philosophy"?
If we focus solely on the term "philosophy" and unravel its history from there, we must consider that it was a Greek invention from the 6th century BCE (or perhaps two centuries earlier if we trace it back to the works of Homer and Hesiod) and developed in European territory from that moment, acquiring different characteristics and accompanying the expansion of its culture through often violent means. Strictly speaking, the concept of philosophy did not exist in China until the late 19th century when the Chinese adopted the term 哲学 zhé xué, which had been coined by the Japanese philosopher Nishi Amane during the Meiji period. He was responsible for introducing European philosophy into Japanese education. In that century, many Chinese students were educated in Japanese universities, leading to the introduction of the term in China.
However, the Eurocentric perspective hides the problem of the relationship between the term and what it designates. A thinker who wonders what makes a man or a woman wise, how to advise a ruler to seek the happiness of their people, or what difficulties arise when trying to persuade them to follow advice is engaging in an activity that can be considered philosophical, regardless of the term used to designate it.
Having clarified this issue of the dual meaning of the term "philosophy" (as a European product extending to other regions or as a fundamental human activity that distances itself from the world and itself to forge a space for questioning), the first thing we can note is that Chinese philosophy has permeated and continues to permeate Chinese culture in a fundamental way. It represents the spirit of the nation and is the basic element of its cultural identity. For example, Confucius is studied in history, philosophy, and literature from a very young age. His values are still disseminated and known, his works are commented upon, and new movements recognize him as a precursor.
If we consider America and Europe in general, Chinese philosophy is
not usually included in the philosophy curriculum. When it does exist,
there are often departments of Oriental studies in general, not
specifically focused on philosophy.
Dangers and opportunities
In the previous words, there are countless opportunities for understanding and expanding cultural horizons, but there are also dangers: assimilation, the failure to perceive differences, the rush to understand that which requires openness, patience, and perseverance. To overcome them, we will use the same tools to think about what is different, and sometimes we will traverse the reverse path and employ Chinese concepts to think about those from our own traditions.
Pondering Chinese philosophy is a journey that, as the Dào Dé Jīng affirms, begins with the first step. And how could a work whose key concept, dào, precisely means "path" not understand the journey:
千里之行，始于足下
Qiān lǐ zhī xíng, shǐ yú zú xià
A journey of a thousand lǐ begins with the first step.
(Dàodéjīng, 64)
Originally published in Spanish: Cómo pensar la filosofía china
Díaz, M. E. & Torres, L. N. (5 July, 2020). How to approach Chinese philosophy. China from the South. https://chinafromthesouth.com/2024/06/how-to-approach-chinese-philosophy.html
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