International Lectures on Nature and Human Ecology
 
 

François Jullien

François JullienFrançois Jullien studied at the École Normale Superieure de la rue d’Ulm and at the universities of Beijing and Shanghai.

He was President of the Collège International de Philosophie until 1998. He is currently Professor at the Université Paris VII – Denis Diderot and Director of the Institut de la Pensée Contemporaine.

Shifting from general philosophy to Chinese thought, his study and research found in the philosophy of the Far East a way to bridge different cultures, and forms of understanding through which one can question the certainties of Western rationality.

Far from any exoticism, Jullien shows how Chinese “heteropy” becomes the perfect point of observation from which to put the European tradition back into perspective and to contribute to a reconfi guration of human thought.

november 7th / OF NATURE IN GREEK AND CHINESE THOUGHT

The ancient Greeks perceived nature as being opposed to man’s action, ultimately generating a conception that conferred to the action of both man and nature a teleological quality. The Chinese, on the other hand, never developed a concept of nature because they thought of nothing else: Heaven, Heaven-Earth, the “Way”, Tao, sponte sua. They considered human conduct as a path within the greater process of the world.
Chinese thought likens history to the growth of a plant, and views it as a “silent transformation”. The latter, unlike action, is global, and its intelligence is revealed over time; we don’t perceive it directly, but we witness its consequences. Couldn’t the shaping of a mountain, the ageing of an individual, or global warming be explained just as well starting from this other intelligence?

D I S C U S S A N T S
Orlando Franceschelli / is a philosopher, currently teaching the course Politics and the theory of evolution at the Università La Sapienza in Rome. He contributes to various journals and magazines and has written several books, including his recent La natura dopo Darwin. Evoluzione e umana saggezza (Donzelli, Roma 2007).

Paolo Fabbri / teaches semiotics and the semiotics of art at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice, where he also directs the Laboratorio Internazionale di Semiotica. He has written and translated many articles and essays on the problems of language and communication. He is a member of the scientific boards of numerous Italian and international publications and institutions.