1. What Intellectual Shift Do We Need in a Time of Planetary Risks? Inspirations from Symbiosis in Life Sciences and the Notion of Gongsheng/Kyōsei
Bing Song
2. The Re-engineering of Gongsheng: On the Methodology of this Volume and its Philosophical Implications
Yiwen Zhan
PartII: Gongsheng/Kyōsei in Classical Philosophies
3. Introduction on the Ethical “Doctrine of Gongsheng” based on Song-Ming Confucianism’s “Unity of Consummate Persons and Things”
Genyou Wu
4. The Concept of Gongsheng in Daoist Philosophy: Examples from Laozi and Zhuangzi
Jun Gong
5. “If Humans are Free of Disease, then Tian is Free of Disease” – Ecological Civilization and the Daoist Concept of Gongsheng
Xia Chen
6. Co-dependent Origination and the Doctrine of Gongsheng: A Buddhist Perspective on The Harmony of Humanity, Nature, and Civilizations
Jun Gong
7. The Gap of Wen and the Edge of Chaos: From the Conundrum of Kyōsei to the “Cosmic Hope”
Tsuyoshi Ishii
PartIII: Gongsheng in Contemporary Contexts
8. How to Understand Symbiosis? – The Conflict and Integration of Two Pictures of Life
Shijian Yang
9. The Microbiome is Redefining What it Means to be Human
Liping Zhao
10. Gongsheng in Ecological Anthropology
Weijia Zhou, Jun He
11. Yaoshi Tongyuan: The Symbiotic Practice in Traditional Medicines
Lili Lai, Judith Farquhar
12. The Gongsheng School of International Relations: China's Experience
Xiao Ren
Part IV: Resonance
13. Origins and Theoretical Foundations of Convivialism
Alain Caillé
14. Ontology, Conviviality and Symbiosis or: Are there Gifts of Nature?
Frank Adloff
Index
Bing Song is a Senior Vice President of the Berggruen Institute and Director of the Institute’s China Center. She has been leading projects under the research theme of Frontier Science & Technology and East Asian Philosophies and edited Intelligence and Wisdom: Artificial Intelligence Meets Chinese Philosophers (CITIC Press 2020, Springer 2021).
Yiwen Zhan is Lecturer at Beijing Normal University. He mainly works in metaphysics and epistemology. Recently, he is interested in exploring the question-sensitive structures in epistemology, decision theory, and how it might affect our understanding of modality and existence.
“This excellent collection of essays explores the notion of gongsheng/kyōsei as a conceptual ground for developing novel pathways in our age of crisis. It shows how cutting-edge contributions from contemporary Chinese and Japanese philosophy offer accounts of deep relationality that allow us to think the co-becoming not only of all humans on our planet but rather the entanglement of humans and the complex non-human systems in which they are embedded. A must read for anybody interested in identifying avenues of planetary cooperation in philosophy and science beyond the narrow confines of merely local traditions.”
—Markus Gabriel, University of Bonn, Germany
“This anthology assembled a cohort of distinguished scholars to provide cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives on an ecological way of thinking about the human experience in all of its parts. In our own historical moment when the zero-sum thinking we associate with a foundational individualism has proven to be woefully inadequate, gongsheng thinking might usher in the gestalt shift in our values, intentions, and practices needed to bring humanity back from the brink.”
—Roger T. Ames, Peking University, China
This open access book sheds light on the term gongsheng/kyōsei, which is used in Chinese and Japanese to not only translate “symbiosis” in biology but also broadly deployed in philosophical, social and political contexts. It is a cross-contextual attempt to study the foundation of gongsheng/kyōsei as a philosophy of co-becoming, with exploration of its significance for thinking about the planetary challenges of our times.
Bing Song is a Senior Vice President of the Berggruen Institute and Director of the Institute’s China Center. She has been leading projects under the research theme of Frontier Science & Technology and East Asian Philosophies and edited Intelligence and Wisdom: Artificial Intelligence Meets Chinese Philosophers (CITIC Press 2020, Springer 2021).
Yiwen Zhan is Lecturer at Beijing Normal University. He mainly works in metaphysics and epistemology. Recently, he is interested in exploring the question-sensitive structures in epistemology, decision theory, and how it might affect our understanding of modality and existence.