The 10th International Conference of Eastern Philosophy at Unicamp

The 10th International Colloquium on Oriental Philosophy at Unicamp is entitled “Chinese Philosophy in the 21st Century” and it is a part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Brazil and China.
In general, Chinese philosophy in the 20th century was guided by a great concern with assimilating elements of modern and contemporary Western philosophy, without, however, clearly expressing its philosophical origins, without clearly expressing its visceral links with Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. The main Chinese philosophers of the 20th century were systematically classified based on their Western “influences” and thus, recurrently, called “Kantians”, “Hegelians”, “Wittgensteinians”, “Marxists”, etc., in other words, they began to be named based on their Western dialogues.
On the other hand, the main exponents of 21st century Chinese philosophy, such as Zhao Tingyang, Robin Wang, and Yuk Hui, adopt different positions: they start from the conceptual references of classical Chinese philosophy to engage in dialogue with the crucial issues of modernity. Without disregarding Western philosophy, they point out original possibilities for thinking about politics, ethics, science and technology, logic, and identity issues based on their own historical/philosophical references.
This movement that occurs in 21st century Chinese philosophy presents some unmistakable similarities with what occurred in 20th century Japanese philosophy, starting with the emergence of the Kyoto School, which is the dialogue with Western modernity based on its own references and, in doing so, it presents us with other possibilities for understanding subjectivity, the other, the world, democracy, and politics.

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