China Social Science Review

No.3, 2024

The Philosophy of Homelessness and the Confucianism of Homesickness

(Abstract)

Chen Jianhong

“Family philosophy” has been a very important topic in Chinese studies in recent years. Zhang Xianglong criticized the “homelessness” of Western civilization and its influence on modern China, and proposed the idea of restoring the Confucian “family” as a salvation idea. Heidegger and Rudolf Otto’s explanation of the weirdness of human shows that philosophy and belief are indeed homeless in their original sense. Zhang Xianglong regarded Heidegger as an important interlocutor in the revival of the Confucian “family,” but in fact, Heidegger’s philosophy is very different from or even contradictory to Confucian “family” thought in terms of purpose. On the whole, the contemporary revival of the Confucian “family” lacks sufficient attention to the differential order structure, institutional repression and intergenerational contradiction of the “family.” Freud’s psychoanalysis provides an opposing perspective, analyzing the social norms and civilizational repressive functions of paternal status and the family system from the other end.