Somaesthetics and Chinese Philosophy: Between Unity and Pragmatist Pluralism

Abstract

Responding to three articles in a symposium dedicated to my research in somaesthetics, this paper explores a variety of themes connecting my theories with classical Chinese philosophy. The symposium topics discussed here range from the ontology of body-mind and world to the ethics of somaesthetic self-cultivation, and then to the somaesthetic meanings of our practices of erotics and of eating. The paper shows how the pragmatist orientation of somaesthetics reconciles values of unity with those of difference and how key ideas of somaesthetics intersect, in different ways, with both Confucian and Daoist thought.

Keywords

somaesthetics / soma / unity / difference / pragmatism / pluralism / self-cultivation / erotics / food / Confucianism / Daoism

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Brill