APA Newsletters

APA Newsletters Volume 01, Number 2 Spring 2001 NEWSLETTER ON ASIAN/ASIAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS AND PHILOSOPHIES WORDS FROM EDITORS, VRINDA DALMIYA AND XINYAN JIANG PART I: ON IDENTITY DAVID HAEKWON KIM “Asian American Philosophers: Absence, Politics, and Identity” PART II: ASIAN/ASIAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS CHARLES PARSONS “Hao Wang and Mathematical Logic” MARY EVELYN TUCKER “Weiming Tu: Confucian Humanism and Dialogue of Civilization” BRYAN VAN NORDEN “Relativism or Pluralism? – A Brief Introduction to David B. Wong’s Work” JOSEPH MARGOLIS “J. N. Mohanty on Husserl” JONARDON GANERI “Bimal Krishna Matilal: Comparison, Confrontation, and Conversion of Cultures” ANDRE CHAPUIS “Anil Gupta on Truth” CHANG-SEONG HONG “Jaegwon Kim: Conscience of Physicalism” © 2002 by The American Philosophical Association ISSN: 1067-9464 LINDA MARTIN ALCOFF “Can Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Speak to Philosophers?” CHARLES GUIGNON & NAN-IN LEE “A Phenomenological Dialogue between East and West—Kah Kyung Cho’s Major Works and His Contribution to Philosophy” XIANGLONG ZHANG “Thinking in Surfs—A Brief Introduction of Kenneth Inada” PART III: REVIEWS OF SOME BOOKS BY ASIAN/ASIAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS Uma Narayan: Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third-World Feminism REVIEWED BY KEYA MAITRA Bina Gupta: The Disinterested Witness: A Fragment of Advaita Vedánta Phenomenology REVIEWED BY MATTHEW D. MACKENZIE Bimal Krishna Matilal and Arindam Chakrabarti, Eds.: Knowing from Words: Western and Indian Philosophical Analysis of Understanding and Testimony. Vol. 230, Synthese Library: Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy in Science REVIEWED BY STEPHEN PHILLIPS Kwong-loi Shun: Mencius and Early Chinese Thought REVIEWED BY CHENGYANG LI Charles Chihara: The Worlds of Possibility REVIEWED BY GREG RAY Cheng Chung-ying: New Dimensions of Confucian and Neo-Confucian Philosophy REVIEWED BY JAY GOULDING APA NEWSLETTER ON The Status of Asian/Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies Vrinda Dalmiya & Xinyan Jiang, Co-Editors Spring 2002 Volume 01, Number 2 WORDS FROM EDITORS PART I: ON IDENTITY Vrinda Dalmiya and Xinyan Jiang Asian American Philosophers: Absence, Politics, and Identity To a large extent this issue of our Newsletter is about breaking stereotypes and boundaries. We would like to underscore David Haekwon Kim that Asians have worked on much more than Asian or comparative philosophy––on logic, ethics, epistemology, This essay considers some aspects of Asian American identity metaphysics, phenomenology, philosophy of language, post- through a critical reflection of why there are virtually no Asian colonial and feminist theory; and that Asian philosophy, in Americans in philosophy. So I address a matter of some turn, can be deeply metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, importance to the APA, namely the historical absence of Asian phenomenological or post-colonial. Without pretensions of American philosophers, and show how some of the factors exhaustiveness, what we attempt to present here is a sample involved are precisely the sort that configures contemporary of this wide philosophical spectrum. Asian American identity. The issue consists of three parts. One part focuses on the Absence contributions of some philosophers who happen to be “Asians” and “Asian Americans” while another introduces I would wager that most philosophers of Asian descent in the some of the recent books written by them. But the APA are Asian international scholars visiting or residing in the 1 philosophers whose works are featured here have very little U.S. Their growing presence in American universities is hardly in common. They might not even want to self-identify as surprising given the present vitality of trans-Pacific ties, and “Asians” at all. A self-reflective moment on the fragmented their participation is so much to the good on a number of and ambiguous configurations of an Asian identity thus seems different fronts, including ethnic, national, racial, and to be in order. We begin with David Kim’s ruminations on the philosophical diversity. It is a mystery, however, that the APA invisibility of Asian Americans in philosophy which brings in has so few Asian American philosophers, those who self- yet another layer of signification to the concept as a marker identify as such in virtue of being “homegrown”, having roots for identity. in, say, Phillie, Chicago, L.A., Frisco, or NY, instead of, say, Tokyo, Beijing, Bombay, Manila, Saigon, or Seoul.2 Though I We sincerely thank all our contributors. cannot yet be certain, my sense is that there are fewer than 20 such philosophers affiliated with the APA. If this estimate The Committee on the Status of Asian & Asian-American is roughly correct, then Asian Americans constitute a Philosphers and Philosophies percentage of the membership barely more than zero. Some philosophy departments are larger! So in spite of the fact that Chair: Asian Americans comprise a small proportion of the overall Xinyan Jiang (2002) population, there has got to be some explanation of their virtual non-existence in the profession. This absence is Members: dramatically more conspicuous in light of two further points. Douglas Allan (2004) First, consider the subset of the overall populace that is Yoko Arisaka (2002 most immediately relevant for the development of the Vrinda Dalmiya (2002) philosophical profession, namely college students. In many Yong Huang (2004) state and elite universities, Asian Americans have a numerical Craig Kei Ihara (2003) presence that far exceeds their representation in the general populace. In some California state schools, they even David Haekwon Kim (2003) approach or exceed 50% of the student body, which is why a (Terms expire June 30 of the year in parentheses) school like UCI (i.e. U. of California, Irvine) has been dubbed the “University of Chinese Immigrants” and UCLA (i.e. U. of California, Los Angeles) the “University of Caucasians Lost among Asians.3 — APA Newsletter, Spring 2002, Volume 01, Number 2 — Second, other theoretically abstract disciplines in the fully human or less than fully acceptable members of the humanities have attained a critical mass of Asian American national community in virtue of possessing certain of a cluster scholars sufficient for critical reflection on the collective of traits: being alien, inscrutable, inassimilable, exotic, experience of Asian Americans. In the field of Asian American emasculated or hyper-feminine, servile, and so on – and all Studies, which serves as a meeting ground for such scholars, these, we might add, in that “oriental sort of way”. Some some of the most outstanding theoretical work has been aspects of this ideology may sound antiquated – especially produced by literary critics.4 So Asian Americans do have a references to “Orientals”, “hindoos”, and “Asiatic hordes” – 9 A presence in culture-making/assessing, theoretically rich but it has maintained an active presence in the U.S. Witness, SIAN disciplines – just not in philosophy. for example, the racialized character of the DNC’s campaign Consequently, a substantial recruitment base has been finance scandal, the incarceration of Wen Ho Lee, and the /A supplied by the large Asian American presence in universities, eruption of anti-Asian sentiment in the wake of the U.S. spy plane incident on Hainan Island.10 In fact, a 2001 survey, SIAN and neighboring disciplines have already been relatively successful in recruitment and retention. And so I ask again: conducted prior to the spy plane incident, on American views Why are there almost no Asian Americans in philosophy? I of Asian Americans generally and Chinese Americans in A think this question is not only fair; it is important since there particular reveals that 68% of respondents stated some MERICAN are now only a handful more Asian Americans in our measure of dislike toward Chinese Americans, and of that profession than there were some 150 years ago when Asian 68%, 25% had “very negative” attitudes towards them. And American careers were more or less confined to sugar cane 24% of respondents disapproved of marriage with an Asian farming and railroad construction. American, a percentage surpassed only by African Americans (at 34%). Interestingly, the survey also reveals that respondents Politics who oppose minority leadership were the most I think the prevailing explanation of the absence combines “uncomfortable” with the idea of an Asian American, over some facts about demographics and some conjectures about any other minority group representative, as President of the culture: The few Asian Americans that might enter philosophy U.S., a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and a supervisor at end up pursuing more lucrative jobs pushed on them by their work.11 immigrant parents (e.g. law and medicine) or jobs that do not require complete English fluency (e.g. business and Identity engineering). Now, I don’t reject these considerations. Many These considerations suggest that in spite of the peculiar students, I’m sure, have longed to pursue a major and even valuing of the “Asian intellect” or “Asian work ethic” in recent graduate work in philosophy but felt compelled in the end to decades, there are other significant realms of evaluation in choose a more “practical” career path. I question, however, which Asian Americans continue to undergo identity the sufficiency of the explanation as it is applied to Asian derogation. For example, Asian American students and American students as a collective. Specifically, it suffers from professors

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