University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-1998 The ethnicities of philosophy and the limits of culture. Joseph S. Yeh University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Yeh, Joseph S., "The ethnicities of philosophy and the limits of culture." (1998). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 2310. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/2310 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE ETHNICITIES OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE LIMITS OF CULTURE A Dissertation Presented by Joseph S. Yeh Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 1998 Department of Philosophy © Copyright by Joseph Steven Yeh 1998 All Rights Reserved THE ETHNICITIES OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE LIMITS OF CULTURE A Dissertation Presented by Joseph S. Yeh Approved as to style and content by: Robert John Ackermann, Chair & Ann Ferguson, Member i Robert Paul Wolff Member Lucy Nga[yen. Member Johr^Robison, Head Department of Philosophy ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my family, who have given the me most unqualified and unswerving support. I owe a debt of tremendous proportions. My brother and fiiture neurosurgeon/pilot. David John Yeh. was kind enough to grant me the use of the space and technology required for a work this of scope. My brother. Jonathan Yeh. violinist and dear friend, provided me with access to the research materials needed for the final phases of the writing. To my mother and lather (both of whom are proof positive of the permeability of cultural space), who taught an unruly child to speak Chinese, the debt is beyond repayment and the requirements of filial piety. This work is dedicated to them. Bob Ackermann has given me insights into philosophical thinking which I could scarcely imagine when I began my studies with him. Ann Ferguson has given me the privilege of working with her and has sustained me, intellectually and emotionally, far more than I deserve. Robert Paul Wolff gave me the benefit of the doubt, the honor of working with him. and the Critique ofPure Reason. Gareth Matthews has been a philosophical companion and good friend. Lucy Nguyen graciously agreed to serve on my committee despite the demands of her schedule and for this I thank her. To my first mentor, who first instilled within me a passion for things philosophical Jack Furlong, I offer my thanks for his encouragement and support. Certain exigencies compel me to leave out the names of my dear friends who have helped me through the dissertation process. I hope they can forgive the omission. n IV ABSTRACT THE ETHNICITIES OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE LIMITS OF CULTURE FEBRUARY 1998 JOSEPH S. YEH, B.A., TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY Ph-D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Robert J. Ackermann The cultural difference between the philosophies of West and East has been assumed for so long that it has attained the status of a fact. Recent developments in social and political theory have undermined this facticity by pointing toward the processes which produce such tw facts,” convincingly arguing that there are vested social and political interests which lie behind the designation of cultural “others.” The presumption of the fact of cultural difference is thus hardly innocent observation. The critique of Orientalism, as instigated by Edward Said, is useful but limited in this regard, and this dissertation is an attempt to further the critiques of Orientalism by investigating the central but previously unexamined, concept of culture which underpins such critiques. This dissertation specifically examines the presumed split between Western and Chinese philosophy by carefully tracing part of the history of how Chinese philosophy comes to be understood as Chinese. For this purpose, it analyzes the work of a sampling of prominent and divergent “Western” thinkers on the “problem” of China, demonstrating that what lies behind the history of the Westem/Chinese “difference” is a process of Western self- identification concomitant with a certain cultural desire. The assertion of a difference in philosophies ultimately speaks more about Western cultural desires than about the "nature of v Chinese culture and thought. The results of this line of thought are then applied to the concepts of democracy and gender, played out against the tableau of the presumed “cultural difference’' between the West and China. This dissertation can thus be seen as arguing against the notions of culture and cultural difference as they appear in their current manifestations in liberal multiculturalism. Although seemingly opposed, the insights of Foucauldian theories of discourse and Lacanian analyses of subjective desire are utilized for this analysis. The conclusion, an argument for an understanding of culture and cultural difference which adequately captures the deep interfusion of human populations and its agonistic quality, is an attempt to escape some of the deadlocks faced by contemporary multiculturalism and to point to the directions which the ongoing diminishment of global distance compels our self-understanding as “cultured” subjects. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv ABSTRACT 1. NOTE ON ROMANIZATION ix Chapter 2. PRELIMINARIES 1 1.1 Multiculturalism and Philosophical Purity 1 1 .2 The Racial Ground of Culture 3 1 .3 Against Liberalism, or Agonistic Multiculturalism. 8 3. CULTURE, DISCOURSE, DESIRE 12 2.1 The Status of Culture 12 2.2 Orientalism and the Discursive Trap 21 2.3 Subjects of Discourse 33 4. 2.4 Lacanian Culture 39 2.5 Desire, Cultural Identity, and the Cultural Fantasy 48 2.6 The Permeability of Cultural Space 55 THE LOCATION OF DIFFERENCE 65 65 3.1 The Cultural Problem 68 3.2 The View from the Outside 77 3.3 Foucauldian Laughter 83 3.4 Nietzsche’s “Asiatic” Eye . 95 3.5 Interlude: Chinese Essences 104 3.6 Hybridity and the Problem of Other (Chinese) Minds. THAT GODLESS, OTHER TIME 115 4.1 Intercultural time 118 4.2 A Certain Blindness 121 4.3 The Terms of Assimilation. 125 4.4 The Difference of the Chinese ; Leibniz and the Chinese 134 4.5 The “Pre-Established Harmony” between vii 1 191 4.6 The Groundwork of the Conceptualization of Chinese Philosophy 1 4 4.7 Between the Two Hegels ' 4.8 The Hegelian Chinese I 48 4.9 The Stalled Ontology 4.10 States of Decay: the Asiatic “Mummy" 157 4 . 1 The Chinese Ideology j ^5 5. CHINESE PROMISES 169 5.1 The Others Borders ^9 5.2 Dewey’s Chinese Mission. \ 75 5.3 Cultural Difference and the Instantiability of Democracy 181 5.4 The “Delicate Enjoyment” of the Chinese 1 88 5.5 What the Chinese Need \ 93 5.6 The Chinese Orientation. 200 5.7 culture/Culture 205 5.8 Homo(hetero)geneity 210 5.9 The Confucian Orientation Reoriented 214 5.10 Cultural Integrity. Broken Promises 2 1 6 . SEXES AND CITIZENS 222 6 . 1 The Social and the Political 222 6.2 . .and this good news” 224 6.3 Freedom, Terror, Power 228 6.4 The Voting Machine 235 6.5 The Mobius Band 242 6.6 In the Delivery Room. 244 6.7 The Gaze of the Other 246 6.8 Zhaole: The Distance of the Other 25 6.9 Our Sexes and Theirs 253 6.10 Escape from the Law of the Father 256 6.11 Cultural Interfusion. 265 BIBLIOGRAPHY 267 viii NOTE ON ROMANIZATION There are many methods of rendering Chinese words into alphabetic orthography. A brief glance at the historical documents (written in European languages) which contain romanized Chinese words will show that there is no consistent, singular system for doing so. The two most predominant methods of romanization at present are the Wade-Giles and Pinyin methods. The two are fairly similar on certain sounds, but jun zi in Pinyin would be chun tzu in Wade-Giles. Names also change significantly: Chiang Kaishek (Wade-Giles) becomes Jiang Jieshi (Pinyin). Rather than impose one singular method on all texts and names, I have opted to simply follow the following rules: 1 ) The names of authors are preserved as they have been found. 2) Names familiar in Wade-Giles have been left as such. 3) All Chinese words used by me are in Pinyin. 4) Romanizations which are neither Pinyin nor Wade-Giles have been noted. With these guidelines, I do not expect the encounter with Chinese terms in English to be too confusing or complicated. After all, I believe that there are certain English philosophers (such as Hume) whose texts remain in their original orthographic format. IX CHAPTER 1 PRELIMINARIES 1.1 Multiculturalism and Philosophical Purity Ever since Plato attempted to rescue philosophical praxis from the clutches of sophism (on the “other side of the world,” Mencius spoke out against words which would “show animals the way to devour 1 men” ), it has been possible to discern, beneath the official facades and disclaimers, the traces of a meticulous and unceasing effort to preserve the sanctity and purity of the “queen of the sciences.” Although this effort is most often upheld as a necessary theoretical consequence of the unassailable desire for knowledge and truth, we might do well to remember Nietzsche’s dictum that: “Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hiding-place, every word 2 also a mask.” Thus, regardless of what philosophy professes to be in search of, this earnest declaration of nobility of purpose is itself always grounded by other concerns and assumptions which are rarely questioned.