Engaging in Our Time

Abstract

Gongsun denounced artificial intervention based on ideas and reasons. He could debate the liberal global governance as he did Confucianism because his criticism of the Confucian ritual and would-be criticism of the liberal due process could rest upon the same sensibility toward individualized condition. Gongsun and post-Western quest are in line with each other in that they shared alert to any overarching claim of legitimacy for interventionary action. However, Gongsun was not interested in detecting the geo-cultural root as the “objective” foundation — and thus, legitimacy — of a declared distinctive hybridity. For him, a distinctive claim based on sited objectivity could be either redundant or dangerous because of various manipulative purposes that such a claim is meant to achieve. He was suspicious toward the naming of any claimed hybridity.