The Courage of Blandness: Xi Kang and Critique in Chinese Literati Aesthetics

Philosophy and Culture 37 (9):141-154 (2010)
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Abstract

Of course, plain and nature-related. But plain and criticism it? Relationship between the two ideas do not seem to involve the possibility. This criticism by the French philosopher, scholar Julien Kang Ji interpretation of the initial states that "natural flat" critical. Potential criticism of plain face in contemporary critical thought under the context of specific issues emerged: "internal thinking" how could generate criticism? For even, the Chinese literati thought and aesthetics to the inherent nature of absolute, they have been "Heaven" in response to the binding doctrine, and infer a lack of critical literary concept of harmony, but also "There is no utopia value." The question is, is already the face of contemporary European thought is not the collapse of the absolute transcendence of it? Not reflect the intrinsic nature of the absolute lack of it? How not to be commenced within the contemporary situation of the critical problems plagued it? This paper attempts to criticism by the relationship between the plain and into the exploration of cross-cultural dynamics. In Chinese aesthetics "blandness" is related to nature and the natural spontaneousness of artistic activity. But can blandness be related to critique? This seems to be an impossibility of thought. This essay, nevertheless, tries to reveal the critical significance of "natural blandness "by undertaking a close reading of the interpretation which French philosopher and sinologist François Jullien provides of Xi Kang's thought and aesthetics in his book Vital Nourishment. I suppose that the critical significance of blandness emerges from specific problems which contemporary critical thought faces when trying to deal with the possibility of critique within the realm of a philosophy of immanence. For Jullien, thought and aesthetics of the Chinese literati is characterized by an absolutization of immanence, leading to an overall conformism connected to the idea of ​​a harmony between men and heaven. Jullien concludes that the idea of ​​harmony developed by Chinese literati is fundamentally uncritical and thus lacks any "utopian value". But is the dissolution of absolute transcendence not a crucial issue of modern and contemporary European thought? What about the discussions on the insufficiency of absolute immanence? And is not the relation between immanence and critique at the center of reflections on the possibility of critical theory today? This essay tries to enter the transcultural dynamics of immanence as a contemporary problem through relating blandness and critique

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