ENGLISH

The Book of Beginnings

By Francois Jullien , Jody Gladding

Book information

Publisher
Yale University Press
Year
2015
ISBN
0300204221, 9780300204223
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
691 kB (707748 bytes)
Series
The Margellos World Republic of Letters
Edition
First Edition
Pages
152\148
Scanned
yes
Time added
2015-07-30 01:10:38
General History Criticism Literature Fiction Compa

Description

How can a person from a Western culture enter into a way of thinking as different as that of the Chinese? Can a person truly escape from his or her own cultural perspectives and assumptions? French philosopher François Jullien has throughout his career explored the distances between European and Chinese thought. In this fascinating summation of his work, he takes an original approach to the conundrum of cross-cultural understanding.   Jullien considers just three sentences in their original languages. Each is the first sentence of a seminal text: the Bible in Hebrew, Hesiod’s Theogony in Greek, and the Yijing (I Ching) in Chinese. By dismantling these sentences, the author reveals the workings of each language and the ways of thought in which they are inscribed. He traces the hidden choices made by European reason and assumptions, discovering among other things what is not thought about. Through the lens of the Chinese language, Jullien offers, as always, a new and surprising view of our own Western culture.

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