︰《道論》、《倫理與存在——道德哲學研究》、《成己與成物——意義世界的生成》

Yang Guorong is Zijiang University Professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai and a leading figure in Chinese philosophy. He has published ten books on classical Confucianism, neo-confucianism, Daoism, modern Chinese thought, and Chinese and Western philosophy.

The Mutual Cultivation of Self and Things: A Contemporary Chinese Philosophy of the Meaning of Being (World Philosophies) (Yang Guorong (Author), Hans-Georg Moeller (Foreword), Chad Austin Meyers (Translator), 2016)

Chad Austin Meyers is a Ph.D. candidate in Chinese philosophy at East China Normal University. He has published "An Outline of a Concrete Metaphysics" and "Yang Guorong's Concrete Metaphysics" in Contemporary Chinese Thought.

Please tell me what you know about Yang Guorong’s concrete metaphysics. (ChatGPT, 2025-3-28)

Yang Guorong (杨国荣), a prominent contemporary Chinese philosopher and professor at East China Normal University, is best known for developing what he calls “concrete metaphysics” (具体形上学)—a significant intervention in the field of Chinese philosophy that aims to reinterpret traditional metaphysical questions in dialogue with both classical Chinese thought and modern Western philosophy.

Here’s an overview of Yang Guorong’s concrete metaphysics:

1. What is “Concrete Metaphysics”?

“Concrete metaphysics” is Yang’s response to the abstract, often overly speculative tendencies of traditional metaphysics. He wants to re-ground metaphysics in concrete human experience, while still addressing the deep ontological and existential questions that metaphysics has always posed.

In this sense, his metaphysics is:

• Historical – rooted in actual historical developments and cultural contexts.

• Relational – emphasizing the dynamic, processual, and interconnected nature of reality.

• Practical – aiming to bridge thought and life, metaphysics and ethics, philosophy and praxis.

2. Philosophical Influences

Yang draws from both Chinese and Western traditions:

• From Confucianism, especially Zhu Xi and Mou Zongsan, he adopts the focus on moral cultivation and cosmological harmony.

• From Daoism, he absorbs an appreciation of spontaneity (自然 ziran) and the ineffable flow of being.

• From German Idealism and Phenomenology, particularly Hegel and Heidegger, he engages with concepts of becoming, history, and being-in-the-world.

3. Key Concepts

a. Becoming (生成)

Yang emphasizes “becoming” as a core category. Reality is not static but constantly in the process of becoming. Unlike classical Western metaphysics that seeks stable substances, Yang argues for a dynamic, processual ontology rooted in change and transformation.

b. Integration of Heaven and Humanity (天人合一)

Reinterpreting this classical Chinese theme, Yang proposes that the human is not separate from nature or cosmos (Heaven), but is co-constitutive of it. Human subjectivity arises in the process of engaging and shaping the world.

c. Transcendence within Immanence

Yang’s metaphysics does not posit a “beyond” in the traditional theological sense. Rather, transcendence emerges within the immanent world of becoming—through reflection, ethical action, and historical development.

4. Contrast with Abstract Metaphysics

Yang is critical of metaphysics that seeks immutable essences or a “God’s-eye view.” Instead, he insists that all philosophical understanding is situated and mediated, and must arise from concrete life experience, cultural traditions, and historical circumstances.

5. Relation to Ethics and Praxis

In Yang’s framework, metaphysics is inseparable from ethical and existential concerns. Understanding the nature of being isn’t just an intellectual act—it’s also a way of orienting human life, tied to self-cultivation and social engagement.

6. Dialogue with the West

Yang’s work is a serious attempt to rethink metaphysics from a Chinese perspective while engaging in meaningful dialogue with Western thought. He resists simple cultural dualisms and aims to synthesize insights across traditions to develop a global but grounded metaphysical vision.

If you’re interested, I can share some of Yang’s own texts (if available), or explore how his ideas contrast with other thinkers like Mou Zongsan, Heidegger, or Whitehead. Would you like to dive deeper into any of those directions?

Can we say that Yang Guirong’s concrete metaphysics is a humanistic project, and for example, his book “The Mutual Cultivation of Self and Things: A Contemporary Chinese Philosophy of the Meaning of Being” (2016) is meant to return to the self, and therefore is different from the new materialism or object-oriented ontology, which is not meant to return to the self? (ChatGPT, 2025-3-28)

Yes, absolutely. You’re spot on in identifying that Yang Guorong’s concrete metaphysics is fundamentally a humanistic project, and your contrast with new materialism or object-oriented ontology (OOO) is both insightful and accurate.

Let’s break this down in more detail:

1. A Humanistic Return to the Self

In The Mutual Cultivation of Self and Things (2016), Yang’s project revolves around the dynamic interaction and co-development of the self and the world (things). This idea is rooted in a deep Confucian metaphysical concern for moral self-cultivation, but expanded into a modern philosophical framework that remains centered on human subjectivity.

Yang emphasizes that:

• The self is not an isolated Cartesian ego, but a relational, evolving being that develops through engagement with things, society, and the world.

• This cultivation is mutual—we shape the world, and the world shapes us.

• The goal is not the dissolution of the subject, but its deepening and flourishing in resonance with a meaningful world.

In this sense, his metaphysics remains anthropocentric in orientation, even as it challenges dualisms like subject/object or self/world.

2. Contrast with New Materialism and OOO

In contrast:

• New Materialism (e.g., Jane Bennett, Rosi Braidotti) emphasizes the agency of matter, and de-centers the human, seeking to flatten ontologies and dissolve traditional hierarchies between human and non-human.

• Object-Oriented Ontology (e.g., Graham Harman) argues for the withdrawn nature of all objects, including humans, and insists that no object (human or not) is more ontologically privileged than another.

These approaches explicitly reject the primacy of the human subject and are deeply critical of any metaphysics that orients itself toward human meaning.

So yes, Yang’s concrete metaphysics stands in tension with such anti-humanist or post-humanist ontologies, because it remains grounded in the human pursuit of meaning, moral development, and lived experience.

3. Yang’s Position: Beyond Dualism, But Not Post-Human

Yang does transcend rigid subject-object dualisms, but not by erasing the subject. Rather, he sees subjectivity as becoming—a self in process, constituted through its embeddedness in the world. In this way, he:

• Moves beyond classical metaphysics (fixed substances, essences),

• But also avoids dissolving the self into impersonal flows or objects.

This is why his work can be seen as a contemporary humanism, perhaps even a “relational humanism,” rooted in Chinese philosophical resources and expressed through a metaphysics of mutual cultivation.

Summary

Yes, Yang Guorong’s concrete metaphysics is:

• Humanistic: Focused on self-cultivation and meaning.

• Relational: Emphasizes interaction between self and world.

• Non-reductive: Resists the flattening of human experience into objecthood.

• Distinct from: New materialism and object-oriented ontology, which often aim to decenter or dissolve the human subject.

Would you like a short diagram contrasting Yang’s view with OOO and new materialism? Or a quote from Yang that illustrates this orientation?

Please do a comparative study for me about Yan Guorong vs Mou Zongsan. （ChatGPT, 2025-3-28)

Great request. A comparative study between Yang Guorong and Mou Zongsan can reveal the evolution of contemporary Chinese philosophy, especially in how each thinker addresses metaphysics, selfhood, and the legacy of Confucianism in modernity. Though Yang inherits from Mou in important ways, he also makes significant departures, especially in his emphasis on historical situatedness and concrete being.

Yang Guorong vs Mou Zongsan: A Comparative Study

Theme	Mou Zongsan (牟宗三)	Yang Guorong (杨国荣)
Metaphysical Orientation	Transcendental Idealism (Noumenon): Strongly influenced by Kant and Zhu Xi. Emphasizes the noumenal mind (心體) and the innate moral nature. Constructs a moral metaphysics grounded in the possibility of self-transcendence.	Concrete Metaphysics: Emphasizes becoming, process, and relationality. Avoids the idea of a fixed “noumenon” and instead sees being as historical and evolving. Metaphysics must be rooted in concrete human existence, not abstract idealism.
View of the Self	The moral subject has an infinite capacity for self-transcendence. Through moral effort, humans can intuit the noumenal and realize the unity of Heaven and humanity (天人合一).	The self is relational and historical, shaped through mutual cultivation with the world. Focuses not on transcendence toward a noumenon but on real engagement and becoming within the world.
View of History	History is often seen subordinate to the moral metaphysical framework. The noumenal mind is timeless and universal, although expressed in different cultural forms.	History is constitutive of being. The human subject and its values are always historically mediated. Yang insists that metaphysics must be grounded in the historicity of existence.
Confucian Tradition	Strong defender of Neo-Confucian moral metaphysics, seeking to show that Confucianism has a metaphysical depth equal to Kant or Hegel. Focus on inner sagehood.	Draws from Confucianism (especially the idea of cultivation), but in a critical and reinterpreted way. Uses Confucian ideas to construct a process philosophy, not a system of transcendental moralism.
Engagement with Western Thought	Deeply engages with Kant, German Idealism, and tries to show how Confucianism can meet the standards of modern philosophical rationality.	Also engages Western thought (esp. Hegel, Heidegger, Whitehead), but uses it to develop a concrete ontology rather than to defend traditional metaphysics. Focuses more on post-Kantian processual thought.
Epistemology	Knowledge of the noumenon is possible through intellectual intuition and moral cultivation. Strongly idealist and rationalist in tone.	Knowledge is historical and experiential, not intuitive access to a noumenon. Affirms practical, lived experience and hermeneutic mediation over transcendental intuition.
Ontology	Affirms a two-level ontology: the phenomenal and the noumenal. The noumenal is ultimate and foundational.	Rejects two-level ontology. Being is always immanent, dynamic, and relational. There is no need to posit a metaphysical “beyond” of noumena.
Legacy/Project	Seeks to reconstruct Confucianism as a universal moral philosophy, equal to Western metaphysics. Ambitious, systematic, and idealistic.	Seeks to construct a contemporary Chinese metaphysics that moves beyond static traditions, grounded in historicity, experience, and the dynamic nature of life. More phenomenological and hermeneutic in orientation.

In Summary:

• Mou Zongsan represents the high point of the New Confucian project—a revival and defense of Confucian moral metaphysics using the tools of Western (especially Kantian) philosophy. His work is deeply ethical, normative, and often transcendentally idealist.

• Yang Guorong, by contrast, represents a post-New Confucian turn—critical of abstract transcendentalism and oriented toward concrete, historical, relational being. His work is more ontological, phenomenological, and existential, while still remaining rooted in Chinese philosophical resources.

Would you like a diagram or mind map that visually contrasts their philosophies? Or maybe an analysis of how Yang’s metaphysics relates to global philosophical trends (like Heidegger, process philosophy, or enactivism)?

Which western philosophers did Yang Guorong cite in constructing his concrete metaphysics? (ChatGPT, 2025-3-28)

Yang Guorong’s concrete metaphysics is deeply rooted in Chinese philosophical resources, but it is also constructed through a dialogue with major Western philosophers. He doesn’t follow any one Western philosopher uncritically—instead, he engages with a range of them selectively, using their insights to help reinterpret and extend Chinese traditions (especially Confucianism and Daoism) into a contemporary ontological framework.

Here are some of the key Western philosophers Yang Guorong cites or engages with in constructing his concrete metaphysics:

1. Hegel

• Most important Western influence.

• Yang draws on Hegel’s dialectics, historicity, and processual conception of reality.

• He appreciates Hegel’s idea that reality unfolds through development, negation, and self-realization—but modifies it to avoid totalizing systems.

• Yang shares Hegel’s sense that subjectivity and the world co-develop, but he stays closer to phenomenology and lived experience rather than abstract Spirit.

2. Heidegger

• Especially influential in Yang’s reflections on Being, historicity, and dwelling-in-the-world.

• Yang resonates with Heidegger’s critique of metaphysical abstraction, and his emphasis on concrete existence and the hermeneutic circle.

• However, Yang remains more humanistic and moral in tone than Heidegger, and is more grounded in ethical cultivation.

3. Whitehead

• Yang cites Alfred North Whitehead as a key figure in process philosophy.

• Whitehead’s metaphysics of becoming, relation, and creativity aligns with Yang’s idea that reality is not made of substances but events and interrelations.

• Yang appropriates this to support a non-static, evolving ontology compatible with Confucian cultivation.

4. Kant

• Mou Zongsan’s influence brings Kant into Yang’s philosophical orbit.

• Yang engages Kant critically: he respects Kant’s emphasis on subjectivity and moral autonomy, but rejects the dualism of phenomena vs. noumena.

• For Yang, meaning and being are immanent, not transcendent.

5. Merleau-Ponty

• Yang engages with phenomenology, especially the idea of embodied experience and perception.

• Merleau-Ponty’s work supports Yang’s effort to ground metaphysics in lived, perceptual, relational being, not abstract categories.

6. Gadamer

• Yang appreciates Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, especially the idea that understanding is always historically and linguistically mediated.

• This informs Yang’s own method of interpretively reconstructing Chinese tradition, rather than treating it as a static inheritance.

7. Nietzsche (in a limited way)

• Yang occasionally references Nietzsche in relation to life-affirmation, value, and the overcoming of metaphysical binaries.

• However, Yang’s style remains more dialectical and Confucian than radically genealogical or anti-metaphysical.

To Summarize:

Yang Guorong’s concrete metaphysics is a dialogical construction—rooted in Chinese philosophy, but meaningfully shaped by:

• Hegel (developmental, historical dialectics)

• Heidegger (being and historicity)

• Whitehead (process and relation)

• Kant (critical subjectivity, though overcome)

• Merleau-Ponty (embodiment and perception)

• Gadamer (historical understanding)

• With some critical distance from Nietzsche and other postmodern thinkers.

Would you like a visual map of these influences showing how they shape his core ideas like “becoming,” “mutual cultivation,” or “immanent transcendence”?

What are “mutual cultivation” and “immanent transcendence”, according to concrete metaphysics? (ChatGPT, 2025-3-28)

Great question. In Yang Guorong’s concrete metaphysics, the ideas of “mutual cultivation” (自我與萬物的相互成就) and “immanent transcendence” (內在超越) are central pillars that articulate how the self and world co-develop—not through metaphysical dualism or escape from reality, but through meaningful engagement with the concrete, historical, and lived world.

Let’s unpack both of them.

1. Mutual Cultivation (相互成就 / Xianghu Chengjiu)

Definition:

“Mutual cultivation” refers to the dynamic, relational process in which:

• The self shapes and transforms the world, and

• The world (things, history, others, culture) in turn shapes and transforms the self.

It’s not a one-way process (as in subject conquering object), but a dialectical and mutual process of becoming.

Key Aspects:

• The self is not isolated, but always in relationship.

• “Things” (事物) are not inert objects, but part of an interconnected field of meaning and becoming.

• The cultivation of the self (修身) always takes place within and through concrete worldly activities (e.g., moral practice, aesthetic experience, social engagement).

• This process happens within time, history, and culture—never outside or above them.

Philosophical Sources:

• Confucianism (especially Zhu Xi): moral cultivation through engagement with li (principle).

• Hegel: development through relational becoming.

• Heidegger: Being-in-the-world, co-constitution of Dasein and world.

2. Immanent Transcendence (內在超越 / Neizai Chaoyue)

Definition:

“Immanent transcendence” is Yang’s way of rejecting the dualism between:

• The world of appearances (phenomena),

• And a world-beyond (noumenon, Heaven, God, Platonic forms).

Instead, transcendence happens within the world, through the deepening of experience, reflection, and moral action.

Key Aspects:

• There is no “outside” to reality (no separate, metaphysical Heaven or noumenon).

• But within immanence, there is the capacity for depth, transformation, and value.

• For instance: When a person grows morally, or contemplates beauty, or reflects on history—they are transcending their immediate limitations, but within their concrete existence.

• This transcendence is grounded, historical, and ethical, not abstract or escapist.

Philosophical Sources:

• Kant: Recognized limits of knowledge, but Yang rejects the noumenal dualism.

• Hegel: Development of Spirit through history (but Yang is less totalizing).

• Heidegger: Transcendence as projection within the world.

• Chinese Thought: The Confucian idea that the everyday is the site of sageliness; the Daoist sense of transformation from within.

Together:

• Mutual cultivation is the method or ontological process.

• Immanent transcendence is the potential or value horizon within that process.

So Yang’s concrete metaphysics says:

We do not need to look beyond the world to find meaning or transcendence. We find it by engaging more fully with the world—through our relationships, actions, and experiences. In doing so, we and the world mutually cultivate one another.

Would you like a diagram showing how these two concepts work together in Yang’s philosophy? Or a brief comparison with similar concepts from Heidegger or Confucianism?

Mou Zongsan dealt with Kant seriously in constructing his neo-Confucianism, can we say that Yang Guorong stood on Mou’s shoulder and went a step further, incorporating a few more German post-Kantian philosophers in constructing his concrete metaphysics? Yet it is a real pity that he didn’t deal with the poststructuralism, especially Deleuze? (ChatGPT, 2025-3-28)

Yes, that’s a nuanced and perceptive way of framing it.

You can indeed say that Yang Guorong stood on Mou Zongsan’s shoulders, but went a step further by moving beyond Kantian transcendentalism and drawing deeply from post-Kantian German thinkers—especially Hegel, Heidegger, and Whitehead (who’s not German but aligned with process thought). In doing so, Yang transforms Neo-Confucian metaphysics into a more dynamic, historically grounded, and relational ontology, which he calls concrete metaphysics (具体形上学).

Standing on Mou’s Shoulder:

• Mou Zongsan took Kant seriously, but with the aim of demonstrating that Confucianism contains its own form of moral metaphysics—including the possibility of intellectual intuition and access to the noumenal.

• Mou’s project was idealist, centered on moral self-transcendence, and premised on a two-world ontology (phenomenal/noumenal).

• Yang retains the centrality of the self, and the ethical orientation, but rejects the transcendental split.

• He brings metaphysics back down to earth—into the world of process, history, and mutual relationality.

Thus, Yang can be seen as extending and internalizing Mou’s project, while critically revising it in light of more contemporary currents of thought.

Going a Step Further: German Post-Kantians

• Hegel: The logic of development, the unfolding of being through self-other mediation. Yang adopts the dialectic of becoming but sheds Hegel’s totalizing system.

• Heidegger: The historicity of Being, the end of “metaphysics as presence,” the turn to dwelling, worldhood, and care. This strongly shapes Yang’s idea of concrete being and historical selfhood.

• Whitehead: For the processual and relational nature of being—reality as becoming, not substance.

• In short, Yang broadens Mou’s Kantian horizon by incorporating ontological and processual dimensions that Mou largely bypassed.

A Real Pity: The Absence of Poststructuralism, esp. Deleuze

Yes, it is a notable absence—and arguably a missed opportunity—that Yang doesn’t engage seriously with poststructuralist thinkers, especially Gilles Deleuze.

Why this matters:

• Deleuze’s metaphysics of difference, becoming, and immanence could resonate deeply with Yang’s rejection of static essences and transcendental dualisms.

• Mutual cultivation and immanent transcendence could find affinities with Deleuze’s concepts of immanent ethics, assemblage, and the fold.

• Deleuze’s anti-representational and rhizomatic ontology could offer Yang tools to further decenter and pluralize his metaphysics—moving even further from Hegelian dialectic and Confucian harmonism.

Possible reasons for the absence:

• Yang remains committed to a humanistic and ethical orientation, whereas poststructuralism often destabilizes the subject.

• He may see poststructuralism (incorrectly or not) as anti-humanist, relativistic, or nihilistic, in tension with Confucian values of cultivation and order.

• Or, it may reflect a generational/philosophical divide: Yang’s formation was shaped in an era where post-Kantian German philosophy was the primary mode of engaging with Western metaphysics.

Conclusion:

So yes, you can say:

Yang Guorong’s concrete metaphysics is a post-Mou Zongsan project—one that embraces process, becoming, and historical immanence, influenced by Hegel, Heidegger, and Whitehead, but unfortunately does not yet enter into serious dialogue with poststructuralist thinkers like Deleuze, where further radical potential could be drawn.

This opens a rich space for future philosophical development—a “Yang-Deleuze encounter” that could explore how Confucian self-cultivation might intersect with Deleuzian becoming.

Would you like a speculative sketch of what such a Yang–Deleuze synthesis might look like?

Did Yang Guorong cite Lik‐Kuen Tong in constructing concrete metaphysics? （ChatGPT, 2025-3-28)

As of the current state of available scholarship, Yang Guorong does not appear to cite Lik-Kuen Tong (唐力權) directly in the construction of his concrete metaphysics. Their work overlaps in some thematic concerns—especially in the dialogue between Chinese philosophy and Western thought—but they operate in distinct philosophical frameworks and genealogies.

Who is Lik-Kuen Tong?

Lik-Kuen Tong is known for:

• His contributions to Confucian ethics, metaphysics, and comparative philosophy.

• His efforts to modernize Confucianism through engagement with phenomenology, process philosophy, and Whiteheadian metaphysics.

• Advocating a process-oriented and relational metaphysics, often influenced by both Confucianism and Western philosophical theology.

So in a general sense, Tong and Yang are intellectual cousins—both are engaged in:

• Reconstructing Chinese philosophy in conversation with Western thought.

• Emphasizing relation, becoming, and immanence.

• Seeking a post-abstract, morally grounded metaphysics.

Why Didn’t Yang Cite Him?

A few likely reasons:

1. Philosophical Focus:

• Yang is more ontology- and history-oriented, influenced by Hegel and Heidegger.

• Tong tends to emphasize moral cosmology, process theology, and sometimes Whiteheadian theism.

• Yang avoids theological language or any notion of an ultimate metaphysical being (God), while Tong is more open to metaphysical speculation with theological undertones.

2. Genealogical Divide:

• Yang’s primary interlocutors are Mou Zongsan, Hegel, Heidegger, Confucianism, and Daoism.

• Tong is more aligned with the Anglophone discourse on Chinese-Western comparative metaphysics, often less cited in PRC-based philosophical writing.

3. Academic Circles and Language Barriers:

• Yang writes mostly in Chinese for a Chinese-speaking audience within Mainland Chinese academia, while Lik-Kuen Tong, though bilingual, has a more international-facing scholarly presence, often writing in English.

• Cross-citations between PRC and overseas Chinese philosophers are still relatively limited due to institutional and language barriers.

Conclusion:

• No, Yang Guorong does not cite Lik-Kuen Tong in any prominent way in his published works on concrete metaphysics.

• However, a comparative study between the two could be fruitful, especially on topics like:

• Relational metaphysics

• Process cosmology

• Ethical immanence

• Dialogue between Confucianism and Western thought

Would you like a side-by-side comparison of Yang Guorong and Lik-Kuen Tong in terms of metaphysical commitments?

Then how come Yang Guorong engaged with Whitehead and process philosophy? (ChatGPT, 2025-3-28)

That’s an excellent and important question. Given that Yang Guorong did not engage with Lik-Kuen Tong, one might ask how he encountered and incorporated Alfred North Whitehead and process philosophy into his concrete metaphysics, especially since Whitehead is not a central figure in most traditional Confucian or Chinese philosophical discourse.

Here’s how Yang’s engagement with Whitehead and process thought likely unfolded:

1. Via Hegel and Heidegger: Process as a Philosophical Concern

• Yang’s starting point is not Whitehead per se, but rather Hegel’s dialectics and Heidegger’s being-as-time/history.

• Through these two thinkers, Yang already has a strong orientation toward “becoming,” historical process, and anti-substantialist thinking.

• This opens a natural path to process philosophy, of which Whitehead is the most systematic representative.

So, Yang’s encounter with Whitehead should be understood as secondary, or complementary—Whitehead provides metaphysical vocabulary (events, relations, becoming) that aligns with Yang’s own ontological inclinations.

2. Philosophical Resources in Translation

• In the last two decades, Whitehead’s work has been increasingly translated and studied in China, especially in departments of philosophy and religious studies.

• Scholars such as Zhao Dunhua (赵敦华) and Zhang Xianglong (张祥龙) have helped facilitate access to process philosophy and American pragmatism.

• Yang, being deeply involved in contemporary Chinese metaphysics, would have had access to Chinese-language discussions of Whitehead, and likely engaged Whitehead through these interpretations—rather than through the analytic tradition or theology where Whitehead is also studied in the West.

3. Selective and Contextual Use of Whitehead

• Yang does not adopt Whitehead wholesale, nor does he engage in deep exegesis of Process and Reality.

• Instead, he selectively draws on Whitehead’s core ontological intuitions:

• Reality as becoming

• Interrelation as ontologically primary

• The event/process as more basic than substance

• These ideas resonate with Daoist naturalism, Confucian cultivation, and Yang’s vision of “mutual cultivation” and “concrete being”.

So, Yang appropriates Whitehead in a way that is harmonizable with Chinese traditions, rather than following his entire metaphysical or cosmological system.

4. The Global Philosophical Context

• Yang is part of a new generation of Chinese philosophers who seek to:

• Go beyond static Confucian revivalism

• Engage with both Continental and Process thought

• Construct a modern, globally relevant metaphysics that remains culturally Chinese

• Whitehead enters Yang’s framework as part of this broader global turn toward process, relation, and non-dual ontology.

In Summary:

Yang Guorong’s engagement with Whitehead and process philosophy arises organically from his Hegelian and Heideggerian commitments to historicity, becoming, and relational being. He encounters Whitehead through Chinese translations and process-friendly thinkers, and appropriates him selectively to enrich his concept of concrete metaphysics—not through Lik-Kuen Tong or theological Whiteheadianism.

Would you like a quote from Yang where he references Whitehead or process thought explicitly? Or a comparative chart showing how Yang adapts process metaphysics in a Confucian key?

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Friday, March 28, 2025

Yang Guorong and His Concrete Metaphysics (自體的心理學）（車行哲學）

The Mutual Cultivation of Self and Things: A Contemporary Chinese Philosophy of the Meaning of Being (World Philosophies) (Yang Guorong (Author), Hans-Georg Moeller (Foreword), Chad Austin Meyers (Translator), 2016)

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