Transphilosophies
Symposium organized by Northern Lights Confucius Institute and Institute of Philosophy at the University of Iceland, April 23, 14-17.
Location: Háskólatorg 101.
Philosophies in different parts of the world are in a state of transition. Internally, philosophies are enriched by a greater sense of plurality of directions and approaches that also opens up a more diversified understanding of the past history of philosophies. Externally, a globalized world forces philosophies to view themselves in light of their cultural “others”, also understanding how they themselves are “others” to them. Internal and external encounters of this sort are a resource for philosophies to transform themselves. Transphilosophies are in a state of inventing and reinventing themselves with the goal of standing up to philosophy´s role as field of knowledge of wisdom. The lecturers in this conference represent efforts within Eastern and Western philosophies to be Transphilosophies.
Programme:
14-14.05: Magnús Björnsson: Welcome.
14.05-14.45 Robin R. Wang: “Yinyang Gender Dynamics: A Dialogue Between Chinese Classical Texts and Western Feminist Thought”
14.45-15.25 Geir Sigurðsson: “Ontologies, ‘Daologies’ and Quantum Physics: The Contemporary Relevance of Chinese Cosmology”
15.25-15.40 Coffee
15.40-16.20 Livia Kohn: “Daoism and Femininity”
16.20-17.00 Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir: “Philosophy of Transing and Transformative Knowledge”
Abstracts and Presenters:
Robin R. Wang: “Yinyang Gender Dynamics: A Dialogue Between Chinese Classical Texts and Western Feminist Thought”
For the people too have their own constant inborn nature. To be clothed by their own weaving [women’s work], fed by their own plowing [men’s work]—this is what is called their shared Virtuosity. (彼民有常性，織而衣，耕而食，是謂同德)
Zhuangzi
The Human species is composed of two genders. Originally, the Greek word genos signified both gender and generation…Man does not become man all by himself. And to appeal to the gods, or a God, does not suffice for the accomplishment of such a task. The relation with other part of humanity---mother, lover, daughter, goddess—is essential.”
In The Beginning, She Was (Luce Irigaray)
Health of body and tranquility of mind are the twin goals of philosophy’s quest for a blessed life.
Epicurus
A well-known linguistic problem in the translation of English term “gender” into Chinese is the difficulty to find a matching Chinese word for it. The “gender” in Chinese is defined as “xingbie,”性別 the combination of two terms: xing 性 (sex) and bie 別 (difference, distinction). However the word xing can refer to a noun of biological sex, the verb of sexual activity, and a modifier of sexual organs and sexual feelings. The distinction or difference of this xing is taken as gender. This intricacy of Chinese translation provides a good case for the performativity of gender. Based on a careful reading of the early Chinese texts this essay will focus on how gender dynamics manifests in the ancient practice. First, the sex is not a thing but an effect of discourse of different forces, such as, masculinity/ femininity or yin/yang. There is a discursive construction of sex. Second, male/female, man/woman, masculinity/ femininity or yin/yang are not fixed entities or essential elements. Rather these polarities can be considered as like an internal space-time structure in a lived body, in which yin and yang mark points in relations across a spectrum and field. Third, there is a primal fluidity of self-identity and the rhythm of interplaying feminine and masculine within a gendered body, mind and spirit. It is “a sexuate identity,” using an expression by Luce Irigaray, contemporary Western feminist. This view challenges the gender asymmetry where the masculine poses as a disembodied universality while feminine gets constructed as a disavowed corporeality. The femininity is not based in exclusion of the masculine or the masculinity is a rejection of feminine. There is no feminine outside of masculine and there is no masculine outside of feminine. This prescribes a developmental and dynamic process that defines an original fullness of the ultimate reality and human being.
Robin R. Wang is Professor of Philosophy, and Director of Asian Pacific Studies at Loyola Marymount University. She is the author of Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2012); the editor of Chinese Philosophy in an Era of Globalization, (SUNY Press, 2004) and Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period to the Song Dynasty (Hackett, 2003). She has published articles and essays and regularly given presentations in North America, Europe, and Asia. She has also been a consultant for the media, law firms, museums, K-12 educators, and health care professionals, and was a credited Cultural Consultant for the movie Karate Kid, 2010.
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Geir Sigurðsson: “Ontologies, ‘Daologies’ and Quantum Physics: The Contemporary Relevance of Chinese Cosmology”
Having failed to produce anything comparable to the scientific revolution in Europe, the assumption made by the vast majority of Euro-American and Asian intellectuals, at least since G.W.F. Hegel and until recently, has been that Chinese philosophy has little to offer of scientific (and even philosophical) value. The relatively recent wave of scholarly interest in classical Chinese thinking, however, seems to suggest a revision of this time-honoured assessment. Scholarly advocates for the contemporary value of Chinese philosophy, however, tend to focus on its social and ethical teachings as well as its skepticism with regard to the scope of science and technology. Some, however, have ventured further than this and argued for a meaningful parallelism between Daoist/Neo-Confucian/ Buddhist ‘ontologies’ – here subsumed under the heading ‘daologies’ – and an emergent worldview proceeding from quantum physics. This paper seeks to go beyond mere comparisons by arguing that not only do ‘daologies’ present a pragmatically viable view of both inter-human and human-nature relations in the world, but also, considered from the point of view of quantum physics, a fully realistic account of the phenomenal world.
Geir Sigurðsson (PhD philosophy, University of Hawaii) is Associate Professor in Chinese Studies, School of Humanities, University of Iceland. In his research, he focuses predominantly on comparative Chinese-Western philosophy with an emphasis on Confucianism and Daoism.
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Livia Kohn: “Daoism and Femininity”
The feminine in Daoism is the cosmic force or power of yin as opposed to yang, the quite, resourceful, storing energy of the universe. It manifests variously in divine representatives, from the great mother goddess to the arbiter of fate and the bringer of children.Femininity is also closely connected to earth as element and as potent presence. In this context, it relates to the negative magnetic pole and the parasympathetic nervous system. In Daoist practice, femininity as the calming, steadying power is activated variously, notably in physio-meditative techniques such as daoyin, qigong, and taiji quan. Five core principles apply here, including relaxation, verticality, centrality, empty stepping, and easy wrists. Overall Daoists see the feminine as superior and more enduring than the masculine and use it pervasively to establish balance and harmony throughout.
Livia Kohn, Ph. D., graduated from Bonn University, Germany, in 1980. After six years at Kyoto University in Japan, she joined Boston University as Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies. She has also worked variously as visiting professor and adjunct faculty at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, the Stanford Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, and San Francisco State University. Her specialty is the study of the Daoist religion and Chinese long life practices. She has written and edited thirty books, as well as numerous articles and reviews. She has served on numerous committees and editorial boards, and organized a series of major international conferences on Daoism. She retired from active teaching in 2006 and now lives in Florida, from where she runs various workshops and conferences, and serves as the executive editor of the Journal of Daoist Studies.
Her books include Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques (1989), Daoism Handbook (2000), Cosmos and Community (2004), Meditation Works (2008), Sitting in Oblivion (2010) and—most recently—A Source Book in Chinese Longevity (2012). Besides English, she is fluent in German, Chinese, and Japanese. For more, see www.liviakohn.com; www.threepinespress.com.
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Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir: “Philosophy of Transing and Transformative Knowledge”
The concept of transing refers to the idea of transition and for how late modernity is a state of a constant process of change. Habermas describes this state as caused by a rupture with a historical past insofar modernity is characterized by continuously having to invent and reinvent itself rather than defining itself in light of a past (Habermas 1990). In times of globalization we have to define ourselves anew in a diversified world. Transing is a descriptive category for late modernity´s processes of becoming on personal, social, political and global levels. Western philosophy is no longer the center, but one center of many. Philosophy of transing can be intercultural philosophy. The notion of transing is however a broader and more general concept of philosophizing, involving an idea of philosophical knowledge generated by transing. Transing entails an encounter in which one sees onself as an other, through the eyes of the other. Transing is a transformative encounter that yields transformative knowledge about oneself, for both (or all) parties in the encounter. The state of transgender identity can be seen as a metaphor for the philosophical disposition of transing. Philosophy of transing consists in a deconstruction of binaries or oppositional thinking that has dominated much of philosophical thinking and political polemics.
Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir (Dr. phil., Humboldt Universität Berlin) is Professor of Philosophy, University of Iceland. She is a Nietzsche scholar, and has published on feminist philosophy, environmental philosophy and philosophy of embodiment. She is one of the initiators of the United Nations University Gender Equality Studies and Training Program.