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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
This paper discusses crisis from the standpoint of philosophical ideas. It argues that philosophy, as a structure of our deep understanding of the world, has been derailed by metaphysics of things for a long time, and claims that a philosophical turn to a metaphysics of facts might be a useful tool to rethink the problems of the world. It considers ‘‘relational rationality’’ as a key theoretical feature to change human coexistence, and conceives coexistence as prior to individual existence. It finally discusses the relations between human duties or obligations and rights.
1. In Chinese the word “事” means factum, what is done, while the word “物” means res, the thing.
2. The Habermasian deliberative or argumentation theory has been well discussed in his books, especially in Between Facts and Norms and The Inclusion of the Other, both published by Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 1997 and 1998.
3. Lao-tzu: Tao-de-ching, ch. 5.
4. Cf. Zhao Tingyang (2005) 天下体系. Nankin: 江␣教育出版社.
5. Zhao Tingyang (2009) “A Political World Philosophy in terms of All-under-heaven”, Diogenes 56(1): 15.
6. I mean the “single” categorical imperative: “act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become universal law”. See Kant (1989) Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Section II, tr. Lewis White Beck. London: Macmillan.
