This book explores how the concept of relationality can offer a strong basis for cross-cultural dialogue between Western and non-Western traditions of moral and political philosophy.
As addressed in this book, the implications of relationality go beyond a Eurocentric binary of Western individualism and non-Western collectivism. Instead, the contributors seek to establish an appropriate discursive stance for understanding and deliberating over relationality across cultural boundaries. Through an investigation of the theoretical and practical meanings of relationality across East and West, it offers possible frameworks for reconciling the emphasis on individual choice in modern Western social and political philosophy with the amorphous dynamics of relational morality in non-Western philosophical discourses.
Examining relationality in practical forms and culturally situated contexts, rather than positing an essentialist view of the relational self, this book will be of interest to scholars in political philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary political theory, and Northeast Asian regional studies.
This book explores how the concept of relationality can offer a strong basis for cross-cultural dialogue between Western and non-Western traditions of moral and political philosophy.
1. Introduction: Relationality across Western and Non-western Cultures
2. Reconceiving Agency for Relationally-Constituted Human Becomings
3.
Relational Autonomy: Individual and Collective
4. The Young Marx and an
African Ethic: Two Relational Views of Self-Realization
5. Confucian
relationality in dysfunctional family relations: challenging oppression and
self-centered individualism
6. Individuality with Relationality:
Transvaluation of Confucianism with Mutual Love
7. The Relational Dimensions
of Need
8. On Thick Confucian Relationality from the Perspective of
Contextual Individuality
9. Relationality as Human Condition: On Aidagara or
Betweenness against Totalitarianism
10. Public Institutional Action:
Individuality, Collectivity, and Interrelatedness
Jun-Hyeok Kwak is Yixian Professor of Philosophy (Zhuhai) at Sun Yat-sen University, China. His research interests lie at the crossroads of political philosophy from Socrates to Machiavelli, contemporary political theory, and comparative philosophy.
Ken Cheng taught at the School of International Studies at Sun Yat-Sen University, China, from 2020 to 2023. He specializes in European intellectual history, with a particular emphasis on nineteenth-century revolutionary thought.