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Abstract:
Reviving Confucianism with evolutionary and medical conceptual tools in the British Straits Settlements before the Pacific War, the Straits Chinese philosopher, physician, reformer, and revolutionary Lim Boon Keng (1869–1957) pathologized Eurocentrism as a disease under his innovative but also troubling system of medical Confucianism. According to Lim, Eurocentrism was caused by certain (Christian) metaphysical pathogens—speciesism and dualism in human nature—and its pathogenesis involves insensitivity and maladaptation to one’s environment at individual, national, and even ‘racial’ levels. For Lim, the signs and symptoms of individuals, nations, or ‘races’ suffering from Eurocentrism manifest as immoralities and injustices (commonly understood by contemporaneous theorists of evolution as atavism)—such as unjust wars—and degeneration in traits, physical or otherwise—such as indolence. In his attempt to overcome Eurocentrism in fin-de-siècle philosophical theories and practices, Lim’s medical Confucianism presents to us one of the earliest, systematic examples of a comprehensive Anglo-Chinese hybrid philosophy, attempting to tread a thin line between Eurocentrism and Sinocentrism by creating a new centre at imperial peripheries. However, Lim’s problematic, inherited conceptions of race and eugenics also present a cautionary tale of a doctor relying too much on his master’s tools in diagnostics and treatment.Comment: Considers a historical example of comparative philosophy, its promises and pitfalls. Can be a good basis for debate over the aims and content of comparison; first systematic articulation of Straits Chinese philosophy.
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Added by: Clotilde TorregrossaAbstract:
In cases where structural oppression conditions the broader public sphere, the democratic ideal of a receptive public may be threatened by at least two possible outcomes which appear to undermine its stated goal of increasing understanding of counterhegemonic ideas amongst mainstream, oppressive groups. Either (a) counterhegemonic ideas are defanged to make them sufficiently palatable to a new audience, or (b) counterhegemonic ideas are taken up intact, and as a result the extant networks of publics which depend on oppressive structures and hierarchies will be destroyed. As we will argue, in certain cases of colonialism such as the Straits Philosophical Society in colonial Singapore, the conditions which receptive publics are supposed to ameliorate: (i) the social costs of speech, (ii) inequality of epistemic labour, and (iii) the antagonism between groups, are not only an irreducible feature of counterhegemonic efforts, but are in fact increased in the attempt to maintain receptive publics. However, this may be more a feature than a bug: receptive publics need not be seen only as communicative intermediaries for oppressed groups, but as a possible dialectical step towards new modes of socio-material life.
Comment: Uses discussion in a historical philosophical society to discuss the limits of anti-oppression practices; can be a good example of the role of history in philosophy.
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Added by: Tammo LossauAbstract:
The pluralism of The Shadow of God invites us to also consider ‘non-Western’ ways of ‘coming to terms with the world’ in historical immortality and the project of reconciliation. I offer two methodological notes for any such undertaking. The first note elaborates on Rosen’s point that ‘“non-Western’ cultures have been heavily influenced by Western ones—even in their opposition to the West” by examining the forgotten Straits Chinese philosopher, Tan Teck Soon, in the context of fin-de-siècle British colonial Singapore. The second note concerns a commitment to anthropocentrism in such considerations and how it might condition our search for ‘non-Western’ ways out of the ‘spiritual situation of the West’, even if we are to find ‘non-Western’ cultures uninfluenced by ‘the West’ such as the early Daoist text of the Zhuangzi, which Tan based his version of historical immortality and attempt at the project of reconciliation uponComment: Discusses the limits of comparative lenses for discussing philosophical topics, given colonialism; can be used for debates on the universality of philosophical questions.