Abstract

In Heinrich Rombach’s structural thought the phenomenological tradition has been extended to an intercultural dimension. In Rombach’s opinion the idea of structure has been developed in the East much earlier and much further than in the West. In the following paper I will show from an Eastern perspective that the philosophy of Confucius in terms of “Ren” or “concrete humanity” has an affinity with the Structural Phenomenology, which strives toward the living situations as the original aim. The Structural phenomenology concepts here the “human person” (menschlicher Mensch): people should live with the return back to the life-world, in the origin of the construction of interpersonal relationships, “I” melts in the concrete life history, and the special relationship between people will be placed before the entity or personal “I”. This idea highly matches the concept “Ren” in the Confucian philosophy. Through the understanding of structural thought, we can get a new dimension of comprehension for the Confucian concept “Ren”. By this comparison, we can see the phenomenology and its latest development trends are included in the potential of linking eastern and western cultures. This potential does not come from the single texts, but from the fundamentalrecognition and understanding in the inter-cultural interaction.