Author Affiliation: College of Foreign Languages, Shenzhen University;School of Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at Dallas
摘要
This essay attempts to probe into one question: Because of historical reasons for which the East and West are not equal in terms of power, politics, economy, science, and culture, can the East and West still meet on equal terms in intellectual thought? A fresh reading of Rudyard Kipling's "The Ballad of East and West" in relation to some Western thinkers' encounter with China opens up a new perspective on this question. Rather than attempting to offer an in-depth study of the chosen thinkers, including Leibniz, Hegel, Heidegger, and Derrida, this essay is a general reexamination of their intellectual encounter with Chinese thought with a focus on the role of Eastern philosophy in influencing and helping the restructuring of Western metaphysics. With insights from the reexamination, it reflects on the obstacles to and preconditions for bridging the divide between Eastern and Western thought.
目次
The Meeting of Intellectual (Un)equals 327 The Fusion of East-West Metaphysics 330 The Cultural Unconscious: The Hidden Barrier to East-West Meeting 340 For Mutual Intellectual Empowerment 344
