After the Second World War, especially since the 1960’s, there has been a great upsurge throughout the world of discussions regarding problems of modernization. These have evoked a strong response in philosophical circles.

The concept of "modernization" has various meanings ac-cording as it is seen from different angles. Some emphasize the significance of economic development and take modernization as industrialization with a high level of science and technology. Others attach more importance to changes in socio-political systems and connect modernization with their reform. The philo-sopher’s field of vision should be more broad for, beside the above elements, philosophers attend also to the condition of democratic consciousness, to moral and axiological principles, and to the full range of spiritual and cultural elements. Each country has its own special historical background, cultural heritage, political system and level of economic development. Together these lead peoples to different understandings of modernization, different ways to its realization and different standards according to which to evaluate it. As conditions differ greatly between developed and developing countries, the people’s understanding, needs and attitudes differ as well. This so complicates the discussions on modernization that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for peoples from different countries to reach a common understanding.

Such divergence does not reduce the theoretical and practical importance of these discussions, however, for they promote under-standing with regard to the hopes and strivings of peoples and countries with different views and attitudes. Also they help to draw worthwhile ideas and even inspiration from the views of others, for despite some conflicts, views generally are not absolutely exclu-sive one of the other, but rather complimentary and mutually rein-forcing.

Each theory of modernization requires some theoretical foundation and can be analyzed philosophically from multiple points of view. Compared with economics, sociology, law and other humanities, as well as natural sciences and technology, philo-sophy may at first seem far from the realities of people’s practical social life, and therefore far from the real movement of moderni-zation. In the past, philosophy, especially in its abstract and analytic modes, has not directly addressed the concrete questions now being treated in terms of modernization. This may be a reason for the neglect of philosophy, consciously or unconsciously, in the

present efforts at modernization in many countries.

A deeper analysis, however, shows philosophy to be even more closely involved with modernization than other disciplines. For modernization is a movement which human beings undertake for their own purposes. But how people set goals and how one can understand and realize them are cardinal questions for philosophy as an activity of human self-reflection and self-transcendence. Hence, philosophy is centrally important to the effort of people to set their goals in the present historical period; without philosophy -- without reflection and self-transcendence -- modernization would fall blind and fail.

Efforts at modernization in China have travelled a very long and tortuous road, but now are entering a new stage which promises great success. In the special conditions of Chinese culture moderni-zation is imbued naturally with characteristics which differ from other, especially Western, countries. But attention to culture is now part of the historical course of modernization throughout the world, both developed and developing. Thus, studies of the problems of modernization in China, while based on the unique conditions of China, must be situated also within the overall world process. Con-versely, studies on the modernization of China should be of value for other countries, which may be the main reason why many West-ern scholars have become increasingly interested in studies on China.

Though there are many differences between Chinese and Western scholars about how philosophically to analyze moderni-zation, these differences should be considered not as obstacles to cooperation and exchange, but, on the contrary, as enriching and rendering discussions fruitful. Only through discussions between different views and ideas can people make use of experience and be mutually inspired.

The professors of the Department of Philosophy of Fudan University, Shanghai, consistently have been concerned to develop cooperation and exchange with Western philosophical circles. In 1991, Professor George F. McLean, Secretary of The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP) and of The International Society for Metaphysics (ISM), visited Fudan University for a fruitful discussion on academic interchange and cooperation. In April, 1992, an international conference on ontology and moderni-zation was held at Fudan University, of which this volumes is an outcome.

The volume consists of two parts. The first treats more directly questions of modernization itself, mainly in China, while the second part deals with the philosophical foundations of mo-dernization. The division is not absolute as the papers presented in this volume sometimes treat a number of aspects.

Part one begins with the paper of Mo Weimin, "Two Aspects of Modernization," in which the author takes modernization as a dynamic process with two separate aspects: the one material, the other spiritual. He sees Chinese efforts at modernization as indul-ging in the material aspect to the neglect of the spiritual, which, he suggests, is an important reason why for a long time Chinese mo-dernization made no real progress. The paper "Modernization and the Copernican Transformation of the Relationship between Individuality and Totality" by Professor Yu Wujin indicates some of the contents of such development in spiritual civilization. Chinese society was built on village communities with natural blood-relationships where all was controlled by leaders. They so symbolized the whole that individuals had little freedom to express their creativity. With the process of modernization in China, indivi-duality has begun to rise while the focus upon clans and village communities has been prone to decline. At the same time the tradi-tional ethical spirit has made place for a new spirit, namely, that of law. These elements of the spirit are seen as keys to the process of modernization in China.

But will such spiritual changes be at the cost of Chinese iden-tity; or how can Eastern and Western elements be related? Wang Xinsheng in "Overcoming Nihilism and the Modernization of China" argues that the main reason for the earlier failure of modernization movements in modern China has been that the leaders of these movements fell into nihilism with regard to Chinese civilization. Their focus solely on foreign elements and their failure to integrate Western elements into the dominant Chinese pattern condemned their movements to minority status. The chapter, "External Influences as Driving Forces in China’s Modernization" by Professor Li Jizong, stresses that modernization as a revolution had to be imported from the West, but that the concept: "Chinese ends by Western means" fettered economic development in China. It is necessary now to re-evaluate capitalism and to dare to learn modernization therefrom.

In "Western Philosophical Trends and Chinese Modernization," Professor Liu Fangtong studies directly the key questions of how to evaluate the role of the Western model of modernization, especially its philosophical trends, and how to relate them to the modernization of contemporary China. He analyzes the historical experience and lessons from Western trends in the modernization of China and discusses the relation between modernization and Westernization, as well as between Western modernization and its philosophical foundations. On this basis, he points out that in order to promote the development of the economy and of science and technology in China it is necessary to study and use Western philo-sophy and other spiritual cultures as a reference.

From Part I it can be concluded therefore that in order to understand the philosophical, including the metaphysical, foun-dations of Chinese modernization it is necessary to understand the relation between traditional Chinese, Western and Marxist philo-sophies for these constitute the fundamental content of the modern and contemporary philosophical experience of China.

Part II undertakes this task. The first paper of this Part, presented by Professor Huang Songjie, provides a synthetic study of the relation of these three philosophies, which he describes it as the "great triangle." Among them, Marxist philosophy plays a leading role, but as it originated from the West both theoretically and academically and it is closely linked to other Western philo-sophies. As a philosophy foreign to China, Marxist philosophy must be brought into combination with Chinese social practices and traditional Chinese culture, including its philosophy. Hence, the triangle or matrix of the philosophical foundation is not static or fixed, but moving and developing.

In his paper "Tradition, Modernization and Human Exist-ence," Wang Ping deals with the problems of tradition and mo-dernization from the point of view of human existence which he considers to be the only criterion by which they should be weighted. The historicity of human existence has determined the tradition and delineates the present needs for its transformation and renewal.

What this attention to existence will mean, however, is the subject of a debate which occupies the remainder of the volume. For some it means desconstructing the content of philosophy. Thus She Biping’s "The Tao of Difference: Zhuang Tzu’s Decon-structionism" discusses the correspondence between the ancient Chinese philosopher, Zhuang Tzu, and the contemporary French philosopher Jacques Derrida. But while this is seen as liberating the human spirit it does so by undermining the meaning of life and removing the principles for the orientation of human action. Li Guangcheng writes in similar terms on "Rorty: from Philosophy to Post-Philosophy". He sees the result as leaving even philosophy itself dependant upon facts and popularity, which is to reduce it to the relativism not of cultures as extensive patterns of human life and learning, but of ephemeral surface interests.

Rorty would call this a pragmatism, but Professor Liu Fangtong provides a much richer sense of what pragmatism has meant in the past, its deep democratic commitments and the history of related interest in China. In "The Sixty-year Samsara of Studies on Pragmatism and the Road of Cultural Development in China," Professor Liu Fangtong describes the historical course of the introduction and spread of American pragmatism in China; its coi-cidence, differences and even conflicts with Chinese traditional culture; its political and ideological implications; and its positive and negative influences upon the development of contemporary China. At the end, Professor Liu Fangtong suggests how to draw upon the experiences and lessons from the past studies of prag-matism and how to use these and other Western philosophical trends to promote the modernization of China.

This provides a real start for reviewing the Chinese process of modernization. But there are crucial additional steps to be taken. For if one wishes to build a life upon concrete experience it must include not only an account of facts but a determination of values and a framework for relating the two. This challenge is undertaken by Professor Li Guancheng in his chapter, "An Inferential Con-ception of Meaning and its Applications in Terms of Values," where he studies the logical patterns of involved.

But beyond these the crucial metaphysical issue remains. There has been general agreement in the previous chapters in jettisoning a priori ideals in favor of existence and life, but these were shown to have such little meaning that the resulting philo-sophy came down to nihilism and/or fads. Hence to take up Pro-fessor Liu Fangtong’s work of learning from experience and Professor Li Guangcheng’s effort to extend this from fact to value requires renewal of the ontological concerns which have always been fundamental to the Chinese tradition.

But modernization is not only the human being’s pursuit of good living conditions; it is also a search for a pattern of human self-understanding and the delineation of a peoples hopes and fears which enables them to construct a life that has meaning and which satisfies because it is good. As the following two papers show, this makes ontology central to the issue of modernization. In the chapter, "The Ontology of Contemporary Confucianism and Mo-dernization," Professor Shi Zhonglian shows that contemporary Confucianists use ontology and its exploration of being as the major premise for their philosophy of life and culture, their ethics and political theory. This partiality for ontology is a crucial and sane reaction of Chinese traditional philosophy to the nihilising factors in modernization. Detailed analysis of the relevant theories, their successes and failures point to Confucian ontology as central for overcoming the crisis of spirit and meaning in modern society. Professor Gao Guoxi’s chapter, "Ontology and the Foundation of Ethics," extends to ethics this exploration of the reach of ontology. He shows how ethics draws upon ontology for: (a) its criterion of values, (b) its primary principle of action, and (c) its primary me-thod of moral enquiry. On the basis of its ontology then the Chinese philosophy of development can avoid an abandonment of meaning under the banner of "life", and become a new unfolding of a sense of life that is rich in the wisdom of tradition and vital in its response to present challenges.

Throughout, this volume has focused on its task of analyzing philosophically the issue of modernization. It has noted that this means primarily the rationalization of life begun in the West. It has been possible to identify the contributions of reason, but some uneasiness remains. To cite but two, on the one hand, from within Western philosophy one hears a note of skeptician regarding the project of modernization bordering on the despair of a post-modern willingness to consider nihilism; on the other hand, one encounters a perduring fear that if modernization means Western rationa-lization then it is available to China only at the cost of its soul. But then "What does it matter if a man obtains the whole world but suffers the loss of his very soul?"

Hence, at the end of the millennium new agenda items have begun to occupy center stage. Culture is now of central importance, as are diversity, environment, women and minorities; a new agenda is in the making. Reason, while important, no longer seems self-sufficient for directing human life; new dimensions of human awareness such as the aesthetic must be added in order to carry forward and indeed more beyond the project heretofore called modernization. In the place of simple Westernization the present call is for globalization, both horizontal in terms of opening to all cultures and vertical in terms of entering more deeply into the human spirit and into being itself.

Some of these notes are suggested also by papers in Part II which point to the need for ontology to bring the rich Chinese vision fully to bear upon the challenges of the future. Some papers of visiting professors which were particularly suggestive in this regard make up Part III of this volume. The first by George F. McLean points out how Kant’s third critique of aesthetic judgment in integrating his first two critiques on science and freedom sug-gests the way in which Confucius’s aesthetic doctrine of harmony can help in the thusfar elusive task of integrating science and democracy. The chapter of Ghislaine Florival "Perception and Value: the Affective Basis of an Ethics of Encounter" matches this new dimension of awareness with a phenomenological study of the essentially relational character of the human person. Other related papers were presented also in the joint colloquium of the RVP with the Institute of Philosophy of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. This is published under the title: Beyond Modernization: Chinese Roots for Global Awareness, edited by Wang Miaoyang, Yu Xuanmeng and George F. McLean (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1997). Effectively, it constitutes Part II of the present study.

By the term horizon Husserl designates the openness of meaning which makes possible unification in a single totality of all the profiles constituting the appearance of what is given perceptually. By the expression horizon of the horizons he designates the unity of understanding of the whole of the beings. This unity is not effective, but is implied in the sense of the life world which always is already there as a primordial donation. In the concrete the experience of this horizon is the condition of possibility of experience as such. It is the field of possibilities which gives meaning to our present experiences in our intercourse with things and people. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty underline the fact that the world becomes a universal frame for all experiences only in as much as it is for a being already there who explains him or herself with others. Things pertain to the world because I seize them as possible means for the realization of my possibilities. In this sense the world is the horizon of my possibilities and thus the measure of the process of temporalization, rather than the pole of a concrete universality. There is then no life world as a universal basis, but a plurality of life worlds, "each one of which contains a component which cannot be seized." That component is the mystery of the world, which, as a whole, embraces and penetrates all historical worlds; this mystery never gives itself as present in the flesh, but always as that which has to be projected from the present world. Thus primitive cultures, for example, are worlds which have the form of myth because we interpret them from our present world.

If so, does the philosophy of Husserl itself fall once again into the perspective of an universal rationality which precisely he had wanted to avoid? Must we believe that such an attitude toward universality is immanent to Western rationality, which tries always to understand and dominate everything?

Conversely, Gadamer seizes in the dimension of horizon "a fusion of horizons", in as much as they delimit each other in the historical repetition and overcoming of their reciprocal interpretations. This is no longer a unitary ideal, underlying universality and subtending its forms, but the reversibility of singular cultural structures which constitute the difference and the sense of history. Thus, every culture measures itself with respect to the horizon of all the others, reflecting itself in them as singular, autonomous expressions.

We have tried to reflect on the sense of a philosophy which is not based on a universality of transcendental reason, but meets the event of existing beings as being-at-the-world. The ontology of M. Merleau-Ponty has helped us to understand the dimension of reversibility; this exceeds the sensible as "sense or differentiation" and "flesh" of the world. It is along that axis of "vertical Being", the sense of sense, that the human experience of bodiliness reveals itself to us. Bodiliness itself is already taken as cultural interrelation, and more originally as arising out of a personal appropriation in the sexed difference.

This contribution of a phenomenology open to the hermeneutics of meaning is articulated in a new ontology which understands Being as "difference which makes sense". That new ontology invites us to live a proper existence as "ex-ist" or event of presence.

1. Patocka, Liberté et sacrifice (Grenoble: Millon, 1990), pp. 14f.

2. Idem., p. 23.

3. M. Heidegger, "La question de la technique", in Essais et conférences (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), pp. 9-48.

4. This remains the position of F. Van Steenberghen (Louvain) in his Anthropologie philosophique (Montréal, 1990).

5. M. Merleau-Ponty, Bulletin de Psychologie (Cours de Sorbonne, 1964), pp. 747f.

6. M. Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l‘invisible (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), p. 18.

7. H. Maldiney, "Chair et verbe dans la philosophie de M. Merleau-Ponty", M. Merleau-Ponty, le psychique et le corporel (Paris: Aubier, 1988), p. 59.

8. M. Merleau-Ponty, op.cit., p. 211.

9. M. Heidegger, L‘etre et le temps (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), ch. 72.

10. E. Levinas, Humanisme de l‘autre homme (Fatamorgana, 1992), p. 47.