•  440
    Abstract: This paper examines two fundamental claims by Michel Henry on his philosophy’s relationship with classical phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger) and Christianity. It shows in what way Henry’s phenomenology is the radicalization and absolutization of classical phenomenology: pure phenomenological truth is the identification of appearing and what appears rather than the separation of the two. According to Henry, his notions of life and truth is fully in accordance with Christianity’s Rev…Read more
  •  108
    Is Mozi a utilitarian philosopher?
    Frontiers of Philosophy in China 1 (3): 382-400. 2006.
    In this essay I argue that Mozi's philosophy is anything but utilitarianism by way of analysing four ethical theories. Utilitarianism is an ethics in which the moral subject is an atomic individual human being, and its concern is how to fulfill the interests of the individual self and the social majority. Confucian ethics is centered on the notion of the family and its basic question is that of priority in the relationship between the small self and the enlarged or collective self. Opposite to t…Read more
  •  56
    Lao-Zhuang and Augustine on the issue of suspension in the philosophy of religion
    Frontiers of Philosophy in China 6 (1): 75-99. 2011.
    This paper addresses the question why the issue of reason and evidence as the central concern in the mainstream contemporary philosophy of religion has to be displaced by the issue of suspension according to Lao-Zhuang and the Augustine of Hippo. For both Lao-Zhuang and Augustine, in making room for the Other to appear at the core of the self’s being, it shows that there is an inseparable relationship of the self to the Other. In suspending its own understanding, admitting its own ignorance in h…Read more
  •  56
    Wu-Wei and the Decentering of the Subject in Lao-Zhuang
    International Philosophical Quarterly 46 (4): 445-457. 2006.
    This essay attempts to provide an alternative approach to the philosophy of religion through a new interpretation of Daoist philosophy in light of Husserl’s phenomenology. I argue that Lao-Zhuang’s wu-wei should be understood as a reduction of our existential and conceptual beliefs about the reality of this world. In Lao-Zhuang, wu-wei is related to the theme of decentering of the subject. In order to be a true self, we have to make space at the core of our being for Dao to appear. The authentic…Read more
  •  55
    In this essay I offer an interpretative reading of the first chapter in the two canonical works, the Zhuang-zi and the Lao-zi, and argue that there is an inner connection between the first chapters of the two books. My presupposition is that what Zhuang-zi has argued in "Xiao Yao You" is the theme of the relativity of the position of the human world, which is in accord with the mystery of Dao presented at the beginning of the Lao-zi. Therefore, there are two opposite directions running in the Da…Read more
  •  16
  •  3
    Ke Xue Yu Zong Jiao de Dui Hua = (edited book)
    with Melville Y. Stewart
    Beijing da Xue Chu Ban She. 2007.
  • Wu-Wei and the Question of the Other
    Dissertation, Fordham University. 2002.
    In the dissertation I have presented a historical, comparative, and systematic study on the issue of the relation between aesthetic subjects and ethical subjects by focusing on the philosophers Lao-zi, Zhuang-zi, Mencius, Tu Wei-ming, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, and Levinas. By "aesthetic" I mean "amoral" in the Kierkegaardian sense, and by "ethical" I mean care and compassion for others in the Levinasian sense. The dissertation is correspondingly divided into two parts: "Part : Aesthetic Subj…Read more