Study On The China-West Comparative Strategies Of Francois Jullien

Since the beginning of the 20th century, inspecting into the traditional Chinese culture, we find that China-west comparison is unavoidable. However, due to the more or less inadequate methods of seeking common ground or maintaining differences, some issues about China and the west have not been made clear, which in turn results in the somewhat incompetency of Chinese thoughts in the present academic discussion. Among all the scholars who seek China-west cultural interchange, the French sinologist and philosopher, Francois Jullien brings different strategies and views.Jullien introduces a "detour" research strategy. As a sinologist, he considers the studies of Chinese thoughts as not the aim itself. They can work as the tools of researching for philosophical thinking needs to be introduced into sinology. As a philosopher, he thinks the western thoughts based on ancient Greek philosophy has been constricted to the old prejudices and is not open to other new sources. The fresh blood should be gained outside the existing frame. Since Chinese thoughts are "indifference" to the west, they just provide as the best "other" of the west that can ignite the energy of western theories. By "detour", Jullien means to adopt a strategy of detouring to the back of western theories to deconstruct them from outside. Meanwhile, due to the "unrelatedness" between China and the west, instead of being compared directly, they must be "categorized" through redesigning our categories. Besides, "detour" also refers to the fact that when using the Chinese tools, Jullien starts from indirectness of ancient Chinese way of signaling and studies Chinese thoughts from some non-philosophical categories. Though controversial worldwide, Jullien's studies manifest understanding and particular views towards Chinese thoughts and offers a brand new angle to inspect ourselves and the west.Altogether, this dissertation includes three parts on Jullien's research methods. The first chapter analyzes the inspiration of the former studies to Jullien; the second discusses the details of practicing the "detour" strategy; the third focuses on Jullien's three literatures, i.e. Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece, Traitéde l"efficacité, Un sage est sans ideé: ou l'autre de la philosophie, and discloses how they compare Chinese and western cultures indirectly and to what degree the comparison promotes the thinking about their own problems by each part.