Yes, we can say that—but with a crucial nuance.
Yuk Hui’s project of Cosmotechnics is not a conservative attempt to “recover” Chinese cosmology, nor is it a romantic return to some essentialized tradition.
Rather, it is a philosophically rigorous effort to re-think technology from within other cosmological frameworks, of which Chinese cosmology is a key example.
Let’s unfold this carefully.
1. Not a Salvaging of the Past, but a Re-Individuation of Thinking
Hui argues that modern technology is not neutral, but is deeply embedded in Western metaphysical assumptions—chiefly, the separation of technics from cosmos, of means from ends.
He sees Chinese cosmology—especially as found in Daoism, Confucianism, and the Yijing tradition—as offering a different ontological and ethical relation between:
- Human and Heaven (天人合一)
- Ritual and Nature
- Action and Non-action (為而不有, 無為而治)
So yes, we can say that Hui seeks to re-inscribe these cosmological intuitions into the question of technics.
But he is not nostalgic. He does not believe we can simply retrieve “Chinese cosmology” as it once was. That would be to mythologize or fossilize it.
Instead, he proposes that we must reactivate the philosophical potential of such cosmologies in dialogue with contemporary technics—including AI, algorithms, and automation.
“To think cosmotechnics is not to return to the past, but to confront the future with concepts that are not predestined by Western metaphysics.”
2. Salvage from Oblivion, Not from Purity
In The Question Concerning Technology in China, Hui explains how Chinese cosmotechnics were interrupted—not by their own decay, but by:
- The collapse of the Qing dynasty
- The May Fourth movement’s attack on tradition
- The importation of Western techno-science as a total system
- And later, the violence of Communist modernization
So yes, his work does salvage, in the sense of bringing back into thought those cosmological assumptions that were disqualified, ridiculed, or forcibly erased.
But Hui also critiques “cultural essentialism” or the idea of an untouched, authentic Chinese essence.
Cosmotechnics is always situated, always historically individuated. So any “Chinese cosmology” we think with today must be:
- Post-traumatic
- Cross-pollinated
- Invented through the ruins
3. Chinese Cosmology as One Among Many Technodiversities
Hui’s real aim is planetary thinking, not cultural revivalism.
Chinese cosmology, in this light, becomes:
- A non-Western schema of relating to technics,
- A model of immanence and rhythm,
- A contrast to European instrumentalism.
But it is not the answer. It is one node in a wider proposal: to think technodiversity, the possibility that each culture’s cosmology could shape a distinct ethical-technical future.
In this sense, Hui’s thought is radically contemporary, not archaic.
In Summary
Yes, we can say:
Yuk Hui’s cosmotechnics salvages Chinese cosmology—but not as a return, rather as a provocation.
He re-individuates it through philosophical reconstruction, not preservation.
He brings it back not to glorify it, but to make it speak again, in the face of the planetary crisis where technics has lost its ethical and cosmological anchoring.
If you’d like, we can trace how Hui’s engagement with Daoism and the Yijing might illuminate a post-Leninist metaphysics for Chinese thought—perhaps a way forward beyond both KMT and CCP inheritances.