Abstract for the Kant in Asia International Conference

at Hong Kong Baptist University

20-23 May 2009

Fabian Heubel, “Trans-cultural Explorations into Contemporary Philosophy of Cultivation: On the Critique of Kant in Mou Zongsan and Foucault”

In the preface of his book Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy Mou Zongsan bluntly states, that the whole of Chinese philosophy would have been in vain if the possibility of intellectual intuition could not be proved. Mou tries to affirm the modern significance of the Chinese philosophy of cultivation by exposing it to the challenge of critical philosophy (represented by Kant) and to reconstruct the traditional model of spiritual cultivation under modern conditions. This attempt stands in sharp contrast to the experimental research into self-cultivation undertaken by the late Michel Foucault. His idea of aesthetic cultivation assumes the criticism of a transcendent subjectivity which has dominated traditional concepts of spiritual cultivation. The philosophical correspondence between Mou Zongsan and Foucault gains the character of a trans-cultural constellation through their shared relationship to Kant. Two radically different philosophical endeavors are interconnected by a shared problem: the possibility of a contemporary philosophy of cultivation.

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