Abstract

The writings of François Jullien are an indispensable starting point for those hoping to eschew the provincialism hampering many forms of art theory today. In the first instance, his writings help identify the limitations of aesthetic theory fashioned according to the European model. These "limitations" refer to both the practical limits that prevent such theory from taking account of the different forms of artistic production in our world more generally, as well as to the constitutive limits that define European thought in its specificity. Jullien allows us to approach our own thought as we might another culture, namely as a group of historically contexualized ideas deprived of their sense of self-evidence. In...