Rites and Rights. A Comparative Phenomenology of Confucianism and Kantianism

Lezione del prof. Günter Zöller (Universität München) dal titolo "Rites and Rights. A Comparative Phenomenology of Confucianism and Kantianism" per Colloquium "Philosophy & Global Affairs", organizzato dal prof. Luigi Caranti nell'ambito del corso di laurea magistrale in Global Politics and Euro-Mediterranean Relations (Dipartimento di Scienze politiche e sociali, Università di Catania).

Abstract

This talk proposes an original comparison between the Western and the Eastern philosophical traditions viewed from the perspective of phenomenology. First, it addresses the phenomenological tradition with a reconsideration of the ancient distinction between phenomena and noumena. Then it takes up the comparative perspective of phenomenology East and West with a look at the Western major divide between antiquity and modernity. Finally, it proposes to place the two chief representatives of traditional Eastern and modern Western philosophy, Confucius and Kant, into the previously developed framework of the "quarrel between the ancients and the moderns". Throughout the talk a special regard is devoted to issues of law and politics, which serve to bring out neatly and clearly the specific differences between ancient and modern as well as between Eastern and Western ways of thinking.

Günter Zöller

Günter Zöller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Munich. His studied at the University of Bonn, where he took his Ph.D. degree, the Ecole normale supérieure, Paris, and Brown University (Providence, USA). He taught philosophy for 15 years in the USA, serving as Full Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. From 2014 through 2017 he also serves as Guest Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, P.R. China.