Title: "A Reappraisal of Tianxia (All under Heaven) with Non-domination" Abstract: Within the confines of Chinese political philosophy, Tianxia (All under Heaven) has frequently been regarded as an alternative to Eurocentric international relations. Currently, more and more Chinese intellectuals have written about Tianxia as a way of overcoming world problems that have been situated in the very nature of the nation-state system since the Westphalian treaties. This paper tackles the Chinese-style cosmopolitanism that is a currently dominant view among those ideas espoused by the traditional notion of Tianxia. Specifically, this paper is composed of three main parts. First, examining the Chinese-style cosmopolitanism driven by the reinterpretation of Tianxia, I claim that it retains the very fallacy that can be found from Sino-centrism that fails to provide us with a regulative principle that can guide democratic deliberation between countries. Second, analyzing the notions of Tianxia in the other countries surrounding China, I explore a conception of non-domination in which all countries are placed on an equal footing without any center. Finally, I will suggest reciprocal non-domination as a regulative principle under which we can establish a discursive stance without a central hegemon among states, placing the periphery notion of Tianxia into the contemporary debate about global justice. Short-bio: KWAK Jun-Hyeok is 100 Talented Professor of Philosophy (Zhuhai) at Sun Yat-sen University in China. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2002. Before joining Sun Yat-sen University in 2016, he taught at various universities including Korea University, Kyungpook National University, University of Bologna, and the University of Chicago. His research interests lie at the crossroads of political philosophy from Socrates to Machiavelli and contemporary sociopolitical theories. He has published numerous articles on Machiavelli, republicanism, patriotism, and global justice in various languages, including “Republican Patriotism and Machiavelli’s Patriotism” (Australian Journal of Political Science, 2017). He is currently serving as the General Editor of the Routledge Series, Political Theories in East Asian Context.
When
Thu Mar 21, 2019 4am – 5:30am Coordinated Universal Time
