Billeter vs. Jullien: Retrato de uma disputa sobre a influência da China tradicional em sua contemporaneidade

Billeter vs. Jullien: Portrait of a dispute over the influence of traditional China in its contemporaneity

Abstract

This article analyzes the virulent debate from 2006 to 2008 between French-speaking sinologists François Jullien and Jean-François Billeter along a tripartite line of contrast: the relationship between Chinese thought and the Chinese State; the idealization of Chinese thought and its reification; and the question of translation and language when dealing with the Chinese texts. If on the one hand we find several points of agreement between the two authors despite their rhetoric of opposition, on the other hand we point out profound differences in their conceptions of philosophy, language and the China thought. This contrast, we argue, is directly related to the intrinsic contradiction of comparative philosophy, which carries in the background the problem of alterity, and its arguments and dicussion bear a profound impact on the way we practice sinology and understand philosophy.