Classical chinese thought and the sense of transcendence

Abstract

A crucial focal point in debates today on intercultural philosophy is the question of transcendence versus immanence. Particularly with regard to Chinese philosophy, Western scholars have very often stressed the lack of transcendence and the inappropriacy of importing Western metaphysical concepts into this realm of thought. However, the exclusion of transcendence has become problematic, too, in recent research. Itself a typically Western maneuver, such an exclusionary gesture contradicts the holistic thinking characteristic of Chinese classical thought. I employ negative theology as a method of mediating between the two traditions without totalizing either one but rather opening each to the other and to the unlimited possibilities for thinking in between all definable paradigms.