Transcultural sublation of concepts and objects through the lens of Adorno and Gongsun Long

Rošker, Jana S. (author)

The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate a new approach to transcultural postcomparative philosophy, which may be tentatively called “the method of sublation,” using the example of Adorno and Gong Sunlong’s respective views on the relationship between concepts and objects. The term sublation is a neologism commonly used to translate Hegel’s idea of Aufhebung. It is derived from the Latin term sublatio, for its original meaning covered all three crucial connotations of Hegel’s Aufhebung – to lift up, to preserve and to eliminate. The method thus encompasses all three of these three notions that are crucial to any process of creating something new from the interactions between two or more distinct discourses. In this philosophical sense, it has the three meanings of producing, eliminating, and preserving arguments, propositions, or ideas. Moreover, unlike “synthesis” the term “sublation” refers to a process rather than a stage. The sublation method aims to develop new forms of transcultural philosophizing and to overcome the impasses of traditional comparative approaches through procedures of “conceptual comparison” rather than relying only on the “comparison of concepts”. It starts from similarities and differences identified in the basic paradigms of different culturally and semantically defined frames of reference, and uses the method of discursive translation to transfer meanings across different languages and ideational traditions. Through a contrastive analysis of the similarities and differences between Adorno’s and Gongsun Longs conceptions of concepts and objects (or names and realities, respectively), the paper demonstrates the importance of considering different culturally conditioned paradigms and frames of reference in order to gain new, more complex, and more pluralistic philosophical insights.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy, sublation, Adorno, Gongsun Long
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 129-159
• Numbering: Vol. 6, iss. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-152600
• UDC: 1(510)
• ISSN on article: 2196-5897
• DOI: 10.1515/yewph-2023-0023
• COBISS.SI-ID: 156489475
• Publication date in RUL: 30.11.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Yearbook for Eastern and Western philosophy
• Shortened title: Yearb. East. West. philos.
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• ISSN: 2196-5897
• COBISS.SI-ID: 54985987

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: kitajska filozofija, primerjalna filozofija, sublacija, Adorno, Gongsun Long