Transcendence, Immanence, and Intercultural Philosophy

Transcendence and immanence have enjoyed a long history of conceptual analysis in Western philosophy. This edited volume is unique because it focuses on specifically intercultural aspects of transcendence and immanence. Chinese philosophy has often been characterized as particularly immanent type of philosophy. This has led to significant intercultural debates about how Western scholarship, often saturated by concepts of transcendence, influences and arguably misinterprets Chinese texts and traditions. Part of this volume is devoted to detailed discussions from some of the leading sinologists and intercultural philosophers in the world today, who, in various ways, argue for and against the priority of immanence in Chinese philosophy. The second part of this volume is devoted to boarder intercultural debates surrounding transcendence and immanence, including discussions of apophasis, critical theory, post-secular conceptions of society, phenomenological approaches to transcendence, possible-world debates, as well as questions of practice and application. This volume has evolved out of an initial conference on transcendence and immanence in intercultural philosophy. 

Nahum Brown is a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Programme at the University of Macau, China. His current research focuses on historical and contemporary philosophies of possibility, and he is also interested in alternative conceptions to the law of non-contradiction, especially in Hegel and Deleuze.

William Franke is Professor of Comparative Literature at Vanderbilt University, USA, and from 2013 to 2016 Professor of Philosophy, as well as program head of Philosophy and Religious Studies, at the University of Macao, China. He is a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, a senior fellow of the International Institute for Hermeneutics, and has been Fullbright-University of Salzburg Distinguished Chair in Intercultural Theology and the Study of Religions.