This presentation examines the development of philosophy as a global discipline, focusing on the early 20th-century integration of Indian philosophy into Japan and China.
Date & Time: 2024/03/29 (Fri), 16:00-17:30
Location: Faculty of Letters, Lecture Room 2
In this presentation, Lisa Zhang will delve into some aspects of the historical conditions that have shaped the academic discipline we now recognize as philosophy. Specifically, she will explore a couple of crucial factors that led to the initial articulations of Indian philosophy in Japan as Indo tetsugaku and in China as Yindu zhexue at the turn of the twentieth century. By doing so, she aims to shed light on how the modern conception of philosophy emerged within a global context, while arguing that it is precisely by uncovering these kinds of histories, that we can truly come to terms with writing a “history of philosophy without any gaps”. Although the trajectory of how philosophy was translated from Dutch into Japanese as tetsugaku and then into Chinese as zhexue in the late nineteenth century is relatively well-documented, the interconnected story of how non-European thought were philosophized, particularly Indian thought, remains underexplored. One significant outcome of this travelling of Indian thought was the notable influence Buddhism had in shaping perceptions of Indian philosophy in East Asia, a legacy still evident today. This stands in sharp contrast to what was the predominant narration of Indian philosophy in Europe at the time, where it was primarily associated with Hinduism.
Lisa Zhang is a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University. Her current research focuses on Chinese and Japanese Buddhist exchanges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She has broad research interests in intellectual history, transcultural studies, and China-India relations. Having received her training at University College London, Fudan University, and the University of Copenhagen, Zhang defended her PhD dissertation titled Re-thinking Indian Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century China at Heidelberg University in 2023.