Existential Questions

Beschreibung

Like many of his contemporaries, Chan-Fai went to Europe to study philosophy, drawn to Germany by the work of Heidegger. Heidegger’s influence is felt in many of these essays, especially the concept of Existenz, which contrasts with a concept of essence found in both Chinese and Western traditions. There is also an essay on boredom which owes a lot to Heidegger. But Chan-Fai’s overriding preoccu¬pation in these essays is with a concept that does not figure importantly in Heidegger’s thought: love. He examines love from every angle, from the love of God and the love of truth through friendship and romantic love to the erotic and the sexual. He reflects on the ancient Western notions of eros, philia and agape, and notes that the Chinese tradition has no corresponding distinction. He concurs in the widespread view among experts that romantic love, so important in the literature and art of the West, has no counterpart in the Chinese tradition, at least until recently. At the same time he finds examples of erotic and even porno¬graphic depictions in older Chinese pictures and texts. The collection closes with very personal meditations on death, on the representation and symbolism of hell, and on utopia.

Autor*in

Chan-Fai Cheung
Chan-Fai Cheung received his education in philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (BA, MPhil) and at Freiburg Univer¬sity (Dr. phil.). His major research interests include phenomenology (especially Husserl and Heidegger), the philosophy of love, death, and happiness, utopian thought, the idea of the university, theories of general education, and the philosophy of photography. In 2012 he retired from the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he had worked as a professor and former chairman of the Department of Philosophy and as the director of the department of General Education, the Edwin Cheng Foundation Asian Centre for Phenomenology, the Research Centre for General Education, and the Leadership Development Program. Writing extensively in both English and Chinese, he is the author of four book-length monographs published in the course of the last decade: Another Place, Another Time (2018), Life, Love and Death (in Chinese, 2016), Earthscape (2013) and Kairos: Phenomenology and Photography (2009). He has held more than ten solo photography exhibitions in Hong Kong and abroad. He is also a regular radio presenter about culture and philosophy at Radio Television Hong Kong.

Themen in »Existential Questions«

Martin Heidegger Tang Chun-i death in Chinese and Western philosophy hell in Chinese and Western thinking love in Chinese literature utopia

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