Aligning Confucian Cultivation and Kant’s Categorical Imperative as a Method of Reason

Abstract

This paper introduces a methodological approach and a methodical reading of philosophical texts across Eurasia, namely classical Chinese and German arguments for integrity of thought, as a human experience of understanding. The main focus is performatively on the hermeneutical approach, which elucidates how the method intrinsically relates to the content of an argument and the language of its presentation. This follows from two main considerations, first the importance of philosophical language and second the reading of both schools of thought, as methodological rather than dogmatic or doxical (in the sense of Kant’s “scholastisch” or the “philodox”). According to Kants “World-Concept” of philosophy, this means to exercise the Wissenschaft (knowledge-creation) of the ultimate purposes of human reason, because “This noble and practical concept gives philosophy dignity”. It also includes the task to focus on reason-guided judgement and the expression of normative arguments in different cultural languages. Kant, however, did not elaborate a theory of language or translation. In this regard, I refer to Hans Julius Schneider’s (Schneider, H. J. 2009. “Transposition - Übersetzung - Übertragung. Das Bild vom Transport‚ semantischer Gehalte’ und das Problem der interkulturellen Kommunikation.” In Philosophie der Schrift, edited by Birk und Schneider, 145–59. Max Niemeyer.) interpretation of the later Wittgenstein, Gadamer’s hermeneutics and Georg Steiner’s (Steiner, G. 1977. After Babel: Aspects of language and translation. Oxford University Press.) explorative interpretation of literature, as initial steps into, what I perceive of as an unfinished, open, trans-cultural philosophical enquiry, as the methodology that is holistically driven by understanding (philo-sophical hermeneutics). The methodological turn in Kant’s Transzendental -Philosophy and the Confucian Dao-Philosophy can be read as frameworks to exercise trans-dogmatic and trans-comparative investigations into the characteristics and ultimate purposes of human reason.