Böcker av Margus Ott

​This book "resonates" the work of Chinese and Western philosophers, developing ontological ideas that are neither purely Chinese nor Western. In so doing, it argues that Deleuze's idea of "resonance" offers a model for a new way of doing comparative philosophy in which the comparison actualizes the virtual and counter-actualizes the actual in both compared traditions. More particularly, Neo-Confucian thinkers Zhang Zai (1020-1077), Zhu Xi (1130-1200), and Wang Yangming (1472-1529) are resonated with Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Husserlian phenomenology, and Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995). The three Chinese thinkers represent three distinct currents of Neo-Confucianism: the school of veins (li) of Zhu Xi, the school of energy (qi) of Zhang Zai, the school of mind (xin) of Wang Yangming. The method of resonance is used to discuss the following topics: dichotomy of veins and energy, temporality and subjectivity, self-cultivation, all-embracing energy, dichotomy of primary ability and primary knowledge.

This book analyses some of the seminal texts of the Chinese tradition in light of the embodied tradition: the Analects of Confucius, the Zhuangzi, and the Treatise on Music. Margus Ott's study shows how they exemplify aspects of embodiment theory while highlighting others that have been neglected in contemporary work. Ott also develops far-reaching possibilities of an embodied philosophy.The embodied understanding did not go unchallenged in Ancient China. There were important counter-currents, most notably the Mohists and the so-called Legalists. It has been argued that this challenge set the Chinese philosophical tradition in motion. By using embodiment theory Ott demonstrates how these ideas can be seen as a decontextualizing tendency of thought that plays an important role in human affairs.