Search results for ""Author François Jullien""
£22.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd There Is No Such Thing as Cultural Identity
As people throughout the world react to globalization and revert to nationalism, they are proclaiming distinct cultural identities for themselves. Cultural identity seems to offer a defensive wall against the homogenizing effects of globalization and a framework for nurturing and protecting cultural differences. In this short and provocative book, François Jullien argues that this emphasis on cultural identity is a mistake. Cultures exist in relation to one another and they are constantly mutating and transforming themselves. There is no cultural identity, there are only what Jullien calls ‘resources’. Resources are created in a certain space, they are available to all and belong to no one. They are not exclusive, like the values to which we proclaim loyalty; instead, we deploy them or not, activate them or let them fall by the wayside, and each of us as individuals is responsible for these choices. This conceptual shift requires us to redefine three key terms – the universal, the uniform and the common. Equipped with these concepts, we can rethink the dialogue between cultures in a way that avoids what Jullien sees as the false debate about identity and difference. This powerful critique of the modern shibboleth of cultural identity will appeal to anyone interested in the great social and political questions of our time.
£11.24
The University of Chicago Press The Great Image Has No Form, or On the Nonobject through Painting
In premodern China, elite painters used imagery not to mirror the world around them, but to evoke unfathomable experience. Considering their art alongside the philosophical traditions that inform it, "The Great Image Has No Form" explores the "nonobject" - a notion exemplified by paintings that do not seek to represent observable surroundings. Francois Jullien argues that this nonobjectifying approach stems from the painters' deeply held belief in a continuum of existence, in which art is not distinct from reality. Contrasting this perspective with the Western notion of art as separate from the world it represents, Jullien investigates the theoretical conditions that allow us to apprehend, isolate, and abstract objects. His comparative method lays bare the assumptions of Chinese and European thought, revitalizing the questions of what painting is, where it comes from, and what it does. Provocative and intellectually vigorous, this sweeping inquiry introduces new ways of thinking about the relationship of art to the ideas in which it is rooted.
£36.04
Seagull Books London Ltd This Strange Idea of the Beautiful
An exploration of what it means when we say something is beautiful. Bringing together ideas of beauty from both Eastern and Western philosophy, François Jullien challenges the assumptions underlying our commonly agreed-upon definition of what is beautiful and offers a new way of beholding art. Jullien argues that the Western concept of beauty was established by Greek philosophy and became consequently embedded within the very structure of European languages. And due to its relationship to language, this concept has determined ways of thinking about beauty that often go unnoticed or unchecked in discussions of Western aesthetics. Moreover, through globalization, Western ideals of beauty have even spread to cultures whose ancient traditions are based upon radically different aesthetic foundations; yet, these cultures have adopted such views without question and without recognizing the cultural assumptions they contain.Looking specifically at how Chinese texts have been translated into Western languages, Jullien reveals how the traditional Chinese refusal to isolate or abstract beauty is obscured in translation in order to make the works more understandable to Western readers. Creating an engaging dialogue between Chinese and Western ideas, Jullien reassesses the essence of beauty.
£13.18
Seagull Books London Ltd The Philosophy of Living
This volume asks poignant questions about what it means to be alive and inhabit the present. Living holds us between two places. It expresses what is most elementary—to be alive—and the absoluteness of our aspiration—finally living! But could we desire anything other than to live? In The Philosophy of Living, François Jullien meditates on Far Eastern thought and philosophy to analyze concepts that can be folded into a complete philosophy of living, including the idea of the moment, the ambiguity of the in-between, and what he calls the “transparency of morning.” Jullien here develops a strategy of living that goes beyond morality and dwells in the space between health and spirituality.
£13.18
Sage Publications Ltd From Being to Living : a Euro-Chinese lexicon of thought
This new English translation of François Jullien’s work is a compelling summation of his thinking on the comparison between Western and Chinese thought. The title, From Being to Living, summarises his essential point: that western thinking is obsessed by – and determined as well as limited by – the notion of Being, whereas traditional Chinese thought was always situated in Living. Organized as a lexicon around some 20 concepts that juxtapose Chinese and Western thought, Jullien explores the ways the two have historically evolved, and how many aspects of Chinese thought developed in complete isolation from the West, revealing a different way of relating to the world. Translated by Michael Richardson and Krzysztof Fijalkowski, this text explores Chinese thinking and language in order to excavate elements from them that reveal the fault lines of western thinking. This is an important book for students, scholars and practitioners alike across the Social Sciences.
£33.64