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Article Excerpt
Zhang, W. (2006). Heidegger, Rorty, and the Eastern thinkers: A hermeneutics of cross-cultural understanding. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
In Heidegger, Rorty, and the Eastern Thinkers: A Hermeneutics of Cross-Cultural Understanding, Wei Zhang takes up the challenging and relevant task of exploring whether there is a possibility for greater understanding between East and West. Her analysis comes at a most appropriate time. Disciplines such as psychology are being compelled to open up their traditional perspectives to the demands of the increasingly global and multicultural world around them. Though there is a growing body of cross-cultural and comparative work in these fields, complex social, historical, and theoretical considerations still remain.
In analyzing various instances of the "encounter" between Eastern and Western thinkers, Zhang presents some of the challenges inherent in any attempt at cross-cultural understanding--for example, the problems posed by language and communicating across seemingly disparate historical traditions. However, in focusing on particular examples of cross-cultural encounters, such as Heidegger's dialogue with Japanese philosopher Tezuka, and then on her own conceptual dialogue with Heidegger's primary text on hermeneutics, the author points us towards a possible way of achieving a positive mode of cross-cultural understanding. In the end, she suggests that the question of an East-West relation should not be seen as a problem to be solved, but as a hermeneutic riddle, resembling a Zen koan which "constantly engages the listeners who are listening to its moral message; as each time it speaks, it speaks anew" (Zhang, p. 7).
The book is presented in a lovely hardbound copy, with an intricate...
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Books received., September 22, 2007
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