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  • Huiying Sangde’er ji qita 回應桑德爾及其他 (A response to Michael Sandel and other matters) by Li Zehou
  • R. A. Carleo (bio)
Huiying Sangde’er ji qita 回應桑德爾及其他 (A response to Michael Sandel and other matters). By Li Zehou 李澤厚. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press (China), 2014. Pp. 192. Hardcover $88 HKD, isbn 978-019944521-9.

Do not be misled. Despite its title, Li Zehou’s Huiying Sangde’er ji qita 回應桑德爾及其他 (A response to Michael Sandel and other matters) only rarely engages the thought of its supposed object, Michael Sandel. Rather, this informal text, which takes the form of an interview or dialogue (that Li has written himself), appropriates Sandel as a means of discussing and critiquing the modern Western philosophical tradition in general. Rather than examining the Harvard professor’s actual arguments, Li brings up the hypothetical moral quandaries and discussions Sandel works with (generally leaving out Sandel’s conclusions) as a means of asserting his own ideas and correcting what he sees as flaws in Western philosophical discourse, and especially the liberal tradition.

Li Zehou is among the most influential living philosophers in mainland China. His ideas, while often representative of and drawing from Chinese tradition, are complex and heavily incorporate Marxist and Western thought, historical materialism in particular. The backbone of his philosophy is a historicist view of the development of human psychology through the interaction of the personal and social. Li, like many other Chinese thinkers, sees environment (including social context and ideas) as shaping the individual, and individuals in turn as creating their environments. This interaction emphasizes the inextricability of personal existence and social circumstance. One of the main focuses of Li’s argument here lies in his use of the term qing 情 to refer to both emotions (qinggan 情感) and environmental circumstance (qingjing 情境). This stresses the fundamentally emotional—and not purely rational—nature of human relationships with the external world, which for Li is also part and parcel of the fundamentally relational nature of human existence.

While these concepts are major pillars of traditional Chinese thought, Li innovatively uses them to challenge and reform contemporary philosophical ideas. At the same time, Li also uses Western philosophical concepts to promote traditionally Chinese ideas. For example, his Marxist historicism also serves to draw attention to concrete human existence, which pushes against the predominance of abstract rational thought in traditional Western philosophical discourse. This point is very closely related to his emphasis on the role of emotions/emotional circumstance (qing), but is made in a principally Western rather than Chinese philosophical vocabulary. These [End Page 1027] major themes—the integration of emotions/emotional circumstance with rationality in human psychology and the subsequent need for consideration of particular circumstance in regard to moral judgment (especially the concept of justice)—are continuously returned to and emphasized throughout the book. Li draws heavily on his interpretation of classical (pre-Qin) Chinese texts, but presents his ideas in the terminology of contemporary Chinese and Western philosophy.

The arguments herein are sometimes quite complex, and Li does not explicate his ideas (given in other books) at length. However, enough context is given for those unfamiliar with his thought to follow his points, albeit with some effort. Rather than reiterating explanations of ideas put forth elsewhere, Li directs these ideas at modern Western philosophy and contemporary philosophical issues, especially those that Sandel brings up. By pushing Li’s philosophy into direct discourse with other philosophical positions and contemporary issues, this volume puts forth previously unpublished views of this important thinker while also covering a wide range of his thought.

The body of the book is composed of two main sections (“Individualism and Guanxism” and “Discussing Human Psychology as well as Good and Evil through Kant”) bookended by two smaller sections (“Rationality and Emotional Reason” and an epilogue). An appendix follows, composed of a 1999 essay comparing Legalist rule by law with Confucian use of ritual as the principal means of normative enforcement. The structure of the discussion throughout the dialogue is loose but effective, with ideas often brought up, put aside, and continuously returned to. Any one issue is rarely dealt with for more than a page or two, which serves well in making points that...

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