Theory and Asian humanity: on the question of humanitas and anthropos
Theory and Asian humanity: on the question of humanitas and anthropos
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理论与亚洲人性：关于人性与人类问题
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发表时间：
2010
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Naoki Sakai
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Naoki Sakai
什么是亚洲理论？这个问题是一个明显的矛盾修饰法，还是一些智力异常？这一调查的关键根本不是亚洲的特征。相反，把亚洲和理论放在一起的做法之所以有些奇怪，是因为我们假定理论是我们通常对欧洲或西方的期待。（欧洲和西方必须在历史和地缘政治上加以区分，但由于篇幅的原因，这两个名称在本文中几乎可以互换。与其他文明一样，欧洲也生产知识，但它与其他文明的区别在于其独特的知识生产运作模式。直到最近，欧洲还为自己对理论--或广义上的哲学--的承诺感到自豪，因为它是根据理论的次要或衍生模式来决定自己的：它不断地反思、批判和改造自己的知识生产方式。欧洲人认为自己是一种特殊的人类，能够进行理论研究，他们称自己为humanitas，与其他类型的人类相比，即anthropos：那些生产知识的人，但不能反思和批评他们在知识生产中的工作方式。然而，这篇文章的中心议题不是人道主义和人类学的二分法，它仍然塑造了今天的人文科学的学科结构，而是通常被称为欧洲人文危机。这场危机源于这样一个事实，即维持西方或欧洲人性的例外主义概念越来越困难。本文通过对欧洲人性危机的考察，讨论了理论的地位对我们今天亚洲人性的潜在意义。
What can an Asian theory be? Is the question a blatant oxymoron, or some intellectual anomaly? What is at stake in this enquiry is not the character of Asia at all. On the contrary, what makes the pairing of Asia and theory somewhat strange is our presumption that theory is something we normally expect of Europe or the West. (Europe and the West must be differentiated historically and geopolitically, but for reasons of space the two designations are treated almost interchangeably in this article.) Just like any other civilization, Europe produces knowledge, but it is distinguished from other civilizations by its unique mode of operation in knowledge production. Until recently, Europe was proud of its commitment to theory—or philosophy at large—in the sense that it determines itself in terms of the secondary or derivative mode of theory: it is constantly reflecting upon, criticizing, and transforming its own manner of knowledge production. The Europeans regarded themselves as an exceptional kind of humanity capable of theory, and they called themselves humanitas in contrast to other types of humanity, namely anthropos: those who produce knowledge, but are incapable of reflecting upon and criticizing their modus operandi in knowledge production. However, the central topic of this article is not the dichotomy of humanitas and anthropos which still shapes the disciplinary configuration of human sciences today, but rather what has been generally referred to as the crisis of European humanity. This crisis stems from the fact that it has been increasingly difficult to sustain the exceptionalist notion of the West or European humanity. Through an examination of the crisis of European humanity, this article discusses what the status of theory might potentially mean to us in relation to Asian humanity today.