François Jullien's 'Entrer dans une pensée' Proposes a New Way to Approach Chinese Thought

In his essay 'Entrer dans une pensée' (Gallimard), philosopher François Jullien argues for redefining cultural difference not in terms of identity but of fecundity, advocating for exploring the gaps between systems of thought rather than relativizing them. He critiques both essentialism and a soft humanism that flattens all cultures into equivalence. Jullien insists on the importance of translation and developing a 'polyglot intelligence' to access the 'possibles de l'esprit' (possibilities of the mind). His method involves entering a thought from within, akin to a novelist inhabiting characters, exemplified by his reading of the first line of the Yijing (I Ching), which consists of strokes rather than words. He contrasts traditional translations of Confucian texts with his own literal renderings to highlight the radical otherness of Chinese language and thought. Jullien also raises the question of what became of this thought under Mao, during the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square events, and whether its hybridization with Marxism-Leninism and later liberalism produced a catastrophic grafting. The essay is part of a broader project that includes 'Cinq Concepts proposés à la psychanalyse' (Grasset).