Hegel entseelt: Probleme der chinesischen Hegel-Rezeption

Abstract

Apart from the Marxist Fathers of the Cliurch, Hegel remains the Western philosopher who holds the most lasting attraction on modern mainland Chinese thought. By examining the translation of his "Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik" (recently completed by the famous scholar Zhu Guangqian), we gain an insight into an important standard text serving as a basis for the Chinese preoccupation with the German philosopher and his contemporaries. Moreover, the hermeneutic tradition of aesthetics in some currents of the German classical period, and the Chinese need for an unpolitical focus of several different, yet interrelated discussions as reflected in the present debate on aesthetics, both Chinese and Western, seem to be partly convergent. For a detailed analysis of the translation's quality, two questions have to be asked: 1. Does the translation enable the Chinese reader to follow precisely the train of Hegel's thought? 2. Is there any attempt at rendering the terminological and syntactical complexity of Hegel's language by congenial expressions comparing the original - Hegel's introductory section on natural beauty - with the Chinese translation (the latter is throughout followed by a re-translation into German), both questions can only partly be answered in the affirmative. There is a strong Marxist bias towards reducing the multidimensional Hegelian thought process to simplifications or even misinterpretations in a "materialist" way. Some terminological renderings do match the original quite aptly, but there are few consistencies in using them. Furthermore, the translation tends to replace verbal constructions expressing movement in the association of ideas by fixed noun constructions, so that "Being" takes the place of "Becoming". Several misleading interpretations may also be due to a traditional intellectual bias towards the Marxist impact in some cases. In conclusion, it must be said that the present translation does not entirely do justice to the original. So the Chinese reader may well get some abstract idea of the Hegelian system, but it will still remain difficult to grasp the spiritual intensity of his thinking.