Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.7, 2020

From Phenomenology as General Philosophy to the Phenomenology of the Chinese Language

(Abstract)

Wang Jun

Husserl’s phenomenology contains the unity of two dimensions: one is general philosophy possessing absoluteness and unity, the general study of consciousness or existence; the other is the description of intuitive, current and living practical experience. This unity integrates the tension between integrity and diversity, universality and particularity, and identity and difference. This phenomenology, which is not ready-made but historical and open, underlies a cross-cultural philosophy, and makes it possible to combine phenomenology with the tradition of thought in the Chinese language. Today’s phenomenology of the Chinese language has become one of paradigms for the phenomenology of the world and the philosophy of the Chinese language in the sense of cross-cultural understanding and “co-creation” of Chinese and Western intellectual resources. On the one hand, the resources of thought in Chinese language employ the phenomenological method to express things “as they are” in themselves, thus opening up a new space for interpretation; on the other hand, the phenomenological tradition has realized the ideal of “continuing to speak” in the Chinese context, and Chinese phenomenology has inherited the important task of the original development of the whole phenomenological movement. Future phenomenology can and should be Chinese speaking.