Papers on Philosophy IV

Concepts
Thursday
2:00 pm – 3:45 pm
Room 5

  • Chaired by Bart Dessein
  • Xinyu Wang, “The Odes of Qin and Zhu Xi’s Conception of History”
  • Alexandra Fialkovskaya, “Meeting of Languages and Minds: Problems and Specifics of the Translation of the Terminology of Jungian Psychology into Chinese”
  • Patrycja Pendraskowa, “The Reception of Hegel in China: Key Aspects and Challenges”

Xinyu Wang, “The Odes of Qin and Zhu Xi’s Conception of History”

As one of the most significant theorists in traditional China, Zhu Xi was renowned for his philosophical thinking. Zhu Xi’s conception of history, however, was only implied but had a considerable presence in his various works. In his annotation of the Book of Odes, Zhu Xi used his understanding of historical figures and incidents, especially for the portion of Ballads from the States (guofeng 國風). As for Qin (221 BC–207 BC), which is a controversial dynasty in Chinese history, several of its typical features could also be found in the poems, and Zhu Xi’s interpretation must be considered a splendid monument in terms of its extensive explanatory work. Following the thread of his thought allows us to excavate his conception of history, such as the roles ‘Principle’ and ‘Tendency’ in history, or rectifying customs. These ideas showed a new attitude to the Qin Dynasty as well, which had a great influence on Chinese historical and philosophical studies in later generations.

Alexandra Fialkovskaya, “Meeting of Languages and Minds: Problems and Specifics of the Translation of the Terminology of Jungian Psychology into Chinese”

The problem of translation of terminology is a question that always becomes valid when one speaks about the transfer of knowledge. When it comes to Western psychology being transferred to China, it is obvious that the problem of the translation of the basic terms is one of the first to be solved. Since the field of Jungian psychology in China is still rather new, some problems relating to the translation of the “new” terms appear.
Firstly, the majority of translations of works by Jung and about Jung are done from English translations, not from original works in German. This means that if the English translation is inadequate, the Chinese translation will most likely also be incorrect. The second problem that appears is the translation variations between the Mainland and Taiwan. Finally, the absence of standardised terminology in Chinese works on Jungian psychology makes researchers spend more time on actual interpretations of the terms and can sometimes lead to confusion in interpretations of what the authors wanted to say.
This paper intends to study two questions. The first question is what are the current strategies of translating Jungian terms into Chinese? The second question is what the goals of these strategies might be? Do these translation strategies aim at showing that Jungian terminology is alien to Chinese culture or do they try to incorporate the foreign terminology into the traditional Chinese views on psychology?
Hopefully, the intended research will outline which translation strategy(-ies) might be optimal for this particular field.

Patrycja Pendraskowa, “The Reception of Hegel in China: Key Aspects and Challenges”

Hegel has been regarded as one of the most influential Western philosophers after 1949 in China. The aim of this presentation is to analyse how Hegel’s reception in China developed after the founding of the PRC and what were the most crucial factors shaping the research on Hegel. Key research questions of this presentation are related to the following aspects: How the Chinese Communist Party influenced the reading of Hegel since 1949? How to treat books written by Chinese philosophers on Hegel, that are actually a manifesto of dialectical materialism and Marxism-Leninism?
The answer will be given based on the analysis of the works on Hegel written by four generations of Hegel scholars. Firstly, He Lin 贺麟, Wang Jiuxing 王玖兴. Secondly, Ru Xin 汝信 and Wang Shuren 王树人. Thirdly, from the generation born in the 1950s and 1960s including Zhang Rulun 张汝伦 and Deng Anqing 邓安庆 and the youngest generation, who researches Hegel at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Beijing University. It is important to notice, that 1978 became a symbolic date for the reception of Hegel. Between 1949-1978 Hegel was mostly read through the Lenin/Marx/dialectical materialism lense. After 1978 new narrations on Hegel emerged, i.e. Zhang Shiying’s works that combine Neoconfucianism with the Phenomenology of Spirit. In the book, 天人之际:中西哲学的困惑与选择, Zhang Shiying offers an interesting comparative perspective on the relations between subject and object, and the reading of Hegel’s subjectivity (zhutixing 主体性).

Event Timeslots (1)

Room 5
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Concepts