Reading the Zhongyong in Times of Climate Crisis: Four Theses

Parallel session

Parallel session 3

Presentation slot

Track

Track 5: Towards a Hybrid Ethics of Technology; Bridging Ethics of Technology and Intercultural-Comparative Ethics

Presenter

Elias König is a graduate student at the University of Twente and an associate fellow at ESDiT. Elias works on justice and legitimacy in the global ecological crisis, fossil imperialism, and on global Gen Z protests. He holds an M.A. in Philosophy and China Studies from Peking University and a B.A.in Philosophy and Political Science from the Free University of Berlin. Prior to joining UT, he was a justice scholar at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) in Potsdam, Germany, where he conducted research within and about the climate strike movement.

Type of presentation

Single paper

Room

Momentum 1

Abstract

A growing number of scholars recognize potential of Chinese philosophy to provide important intellectual resources in making sense of one of the most pressing issues facing humanity today: the climate crisis. This paper is an attempt to think through the climate crisis from the vantage point of the Zhongyong 中庸, one of the central texts in the Confucian tradition. More specifically, it argues that the notion of tian 天 as it is found in the Zhongyong is associated with several correlations and connections that are still productive in thinking about the current moment. For such connections are: (1) Tiandi 天地 and the cosmic embeddedness of tian 天; (2) the inseparability of tian 天 and ren 人 (天人合一); (3) the morality and politics of tian 天; and (4) the apophatic nature of tian 天. In helping us draw these connections between climate, ontology, politics, ethics, faith, the Zhongyong provides important arguments against climate solutionism – the idea that the climate crisis is a problem to be “solved”—and for a more holistic understanding of the climate crisis as a predicament that calls for a fundamental reconfiguration of many areas of life.