PhD Student, Divinity School
Derrida and Chinese Grammatology: from writing as supplement to the surplus of wen 文
Time: January 26th, 3-5pm
Location: Center for East Asian Studies 319 (1155 E. 60th St)
Abstract:
Jacques Derrida’s 2001 visit to China was overshadowed by one of his controversial remarks: “China does not have any philosophy, only thought 中國沒有哲學，只有思想.” This statement, coupled with his exclusion of Chinese writing from the history of philosophy in Of Grammatology, incited a substantial and ongoing debate regarding the “legitimacy of Chinese philosophy.” Simultaneously, there has been a growing scholarly inclination to disengage Chinese philosophy and language from the influences of post-structuralism, exploring new approaches to the decentering of Sinology and Chinese philosophy beyond the “Chinese/West distinction” (Klein 2022). If not rooted in the “Chinese/West distinction,” what defines the decentering of Chinese philosophy? To explore this central question, this paper begins with the problems exposed in Derrida’s treatment of China: what is exactly problematic with Derrida’s approach to Chinese writing and how does it impede a positive, constructive understanding of Chinese philosophy and language?
This paper unfolds through the trajectory of “Chinese grammatology,” a concept introduced by Yurou Zhong (Zhong 2019), which denotes a positive science of Chinese writing, concurrently resonating with Derrida’s grammatology while criticizing it. In line with Zhong’s effort to provide an alternative to Derrida’s idea of writing as “originary supplement,” this paper ventures into the realm of “the surplus of writing” in the evolution of Chinese characters. It delves into the history of Chinese grammatology, epitomized through the critical lineage of three crucial figures: Xu Shen 許慎, Zheng Qiao 鄭樵, and Tang Lan 唐蘭. In doing so, this paper uncovers pathways for understanding history and metaphysics through a grammatology that endorses a recursive progression of the xuan 玄, encompassing both Derrida’s grammatology and Chinese grammatology under a mysterious and decentered version of sino-logy and zhong-guo philosophy.
Presenter: Yeti Kang is a second-year PhD student at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His work aims to contribute to the ongoing discussions in philosophy, religion, and media & technology studies by exploring how different cultural and philosophical traditions have approached issues of writing, intelligence, and communication.
Discussant: Tyler Neenan is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Tyler’s work, which is first and foremost comparative, is concerned with both convergent and divergent figures of negativity and paradox (弔詭思想)—from Zhuangzi through Song Dynasty Buddhist thought, from Kant and Hegel through Freud, Deleuze and Lacan. He is in the earliest stages of writing a dissertation tentatively entitled “Paradox and its Defenses in the Thought of Jingjue Renyue 淨覺仁岳,” the once fiercely loyal disciple of Siming Zhli 四明智禮—turned patricidal renegade, who one day “awoke as if from a dream” (恍如夢覺) and “suddenly denounced his every prior conviction” (向之所學皆非).
