This response to Asger S?rensen?s paper From Ontology to Epistemology: Tong, Mao and Hegel is made on the basis of a reflection on the author?s intellectual development with special reference to the idea of?dialectics?. This development is mainly composed of three periods, in which the author formed his strong antipathy toward dialectics as a mere tool of power, learnt to understand the importance of?dialogical logic? in providing conceptual tools for human knowledge of a type of reality which is both objective (...) and subjective - human practices - and attempted to understand the?dialectics of rationalization? by integrating?dialectics? in the Western tradition of Critical Theory with the Chinese tradition of?dialectics? systematically interpreted by Feng Qi since the 1990s. (shrink)

Many people show great interest in the idea of “overlapping consensus” proposed by John Rawls. On the basis of a careful reading of different understandings of this idea, or the “overlapping consensus” on the idea of “overlapping consensus,” we can say that there are three levels of “overlapping consensus.” At the first level, people with different positions treat each other in the same reasonable attitude. At the second level, people holding different values support the same norms on the basis of (...) their respective values or by taking each other’s perspectives in the moral discourse. At the third level, people who currently hold different “moral sources” of the shared norms are never-the-less ready to be engaged in a common learning process that aims for a “fusion of horizons” in the future. Overlapping consensuses at all these levels should not only be discussed in political philosophy, or discovered in political culture, but also constructed in political practice. (shrink)

Universalism can be religious or secular; within the category of secular universalism, a distinction can be made (especially in China) between universalism focused on ‘universality’ or the universal validity of certain ideas and universalism focused on ‘generality’ or the general extension of certain ideas. Within the category of universality-based universalism, ‘value universalism’ holds one or some values to be universally valid and ‘culture universalism’ holds a certain culture or a certain way of ranking various values to be universally valid. Within (...) the category of ‘value universalism’, a distinction can be made between ‘dialogue-oriented universalism’, which argues for the priority of the right to communication over other rights and ‘monologueoriented universalism’, according to which one subject can unilaterally decide what is of universal validity for all. Not only ‘monologue-oriented universalism’, but also ‘dialogue-oriented universalism’ can be understood in a Euro-centrist way; there is thus a distinction between West-centrist and non-West-centrist varieties of universalism. The key to avoiding West-centrist universalism while upholding universalism is to make a distinction between essentialist universalism and constructivist universalism, and to see what is universally shared by all relevant parties as something to be constructed through the process of ‘Verkehr’ in Marx’s sense that is informed by the process of ‘Kommunikation’ in Habermas’s sense. (shrink)

The identity issue involves not only the issue of "who are we?" but also the issue of "who should we be?" These two issues are not simply factual issues, they are also issues of values and norms. In recent years, moral philosophy and legal philosophy have once again become major subjects of study in the West. Issues of ethics and law are increasingly drawing serious attention from all strata of society and these issues constitute an important vantage point for understanding (...) contemporary Western society. (shrink)

On May 1, 1995, there was an exceptional amount of activity in Bergen, a city in the western part of Norway. It had been raining for several weeks on end, but on this day the sky was unusually clear and cloudless. In this city with a population of only some two hundred thousand, there were thousands of people who had gathered to hold their annual protest-type assembly and parade. At eleven in the morning, the assembly started in the city's central (...) plaza. Afterward, everyone sang the "Internationale" and set out on the parade route on the theme "Nei Til EU." Nei means no, and EU stands for the European Union. The people singing the "Internationale" were, in fact, demonstrating against Norway's participation in the European Union—the international union comprised of the countries of Europe or at least most of Western Europe. (shrink)