In Cross-Cultural Existentialism, Leah Kalmanson uses the question of meaning to reimagine the divides that have long puzzled Western philosophers. Understanding what is meaningful, however, does not seem possible without returning to the debates that require philosophers to make sense of the relationship between the objective and subjective. Rationalists and empiricists have taken their turn arguing for the epistemological priority of the subjective and objective realm respectively. Phenomenologists enter the fray by creating a matrix that allows for an emphasis on that which appears while also recognizing the facticity of the world. Terms such as “subject” and “object” seem out of place within this philosophy because individual beings or minds and the knowledge of the external world are no longer the focus. Understanding a more general being thrown into the world becomes the central theme that drives phenomenological analysis (17).

The abstraction of phenomenologists converge with the more accessible question sets of existential philosophers. Martin Heidegger works to understand the meaning of existence by uncovering the human capacity to grapple not only with their own being but with the nature of being in the world. The conceptual difficulties seemingly built into Heidegger’s phenomenology, however, have corollaries in Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist philosophy that inch closer to providing more digestible answers pertaining to the question of meaning. Parallels between Heidegger’s thrownness and being-towards-death and existential hallmarks abound.

In addition to facticity and authenticity, existentialists such as Sartre gives form to bad faith, anguish, despair, and forlornness. By replacing concerns that center on the atomized being with the presence of being, questions about existence emerge and appear. With existential philosophy, the analysis of being can take account again of the individual and the particular societies in which they lived. That “existentialism is a humanism,” as Sartre proclaims, allows human subjects to determine and create meaning in a world into which they were simply thrown. Existentialism is a humanism because the meaning of one’s life comes after existence and through the process of human value creation. Sartre, championing the existential worldview, argues that human freedom and the anguish with knowing that we have no God to depend upon or blame are two sides of the same coin. Although “freedom” often carries a positive value in neoliberal society, freedom also necessarily entails accountability and anxiety. Sartre believes meaning-making is only possible because there is no predetermined course set by God or indelible morality by which one must live. Such meaning-making seems, however, to invite despair and anxiety.1

In addition to challenging the subject/object divide that frustrates Western philosophers, Kalmanson’s turn to Classical Chinese and Buddhist thought reveals a different—one might dare say more positive—list of emotions to counterbalance existential dread and absurdity often found in Sartre’s work. The element of practice that connects life energy and the power of transformation gives rise to solicitude and seriousness, just to name a couple. Kalmanson analyzes traditions of the Chinese literati (Ruism), Daoism, and Buddhism to provide a more productive framework and positive set of feelings. The Classical Chinese idea of qi allows that the subjective and objective world or the individual and the social are not mutually exclusive. Likewise, Buddhist philosophy allows for the sharing of merit between people and even the dead. These economies circumvent the dualistic systems that create barriers between the subjective and objective.

Ruists, Daoists, and Buddhists ground their philosophies in the primordial force of qi, though they disagree as to whether qi sprung from a void or if it has always existed. They further diverge as to whether qi is chaotic or ordered (79). Although there are no definitive answers to these existential questions that share similarities with Western concerns about cosmology and divine order, the concept of qi transcends dualism. Kalmanson further explains, “The term qi refers to the matter-energy matrix of fluid and congealed forces . . . , which is to say, the types of things and processes that exist, how they arise, how they interact, and how they can be manipulated” (72). Not only is there no distinction between mind and matter but there is no strict barrier between the mind of the individual and society or the cosmos. Qi is a primordial and vibrant life force. As the wellspring for all existence, the dynamism of life is inherent within it. The interaction between mental and material relays, in part, the movement of this energy that reveals the connection of all life.

These philosophical traditions uphold practices such as meditation and memorization to draw forth a calm that can transform the world and the cosmos for the better and for the betterment of all living beings. Through meditation and memorization, the practitioner has the capacity to affect greater change within the society and the world. Words of the sages encapsulate lessons that reflect the workings of the cosmos. By committing to learning those words verbatim, the practitioner is also entering a space akin to meditation. Memorization and recitation require calm, not to mention a connection to thoughts transcribed by others. “Meditative practices for settling the mind do not simply enable a student to correctly interpret the meaning of a particular text; they allow the student to be in synchrony with the ‘order,’ ‘coherence,’ or ‘structure’ that a classical text transmits” (76). Classical texts continue to hold value in East Asian cultures precisely because they capture the organization of the cosmos and reveal paths for students and practitioners to align themselves with the superstructure that orders life and the multiverse inherent within East Asian philosophies. These structures (li), much like qi, do not only belong to the mental or the material realm. Instead, they traverse both. The mental practice required to memorize a text also brings greater unity and harmony between students and the cosmos. Qi and li work together, according to Kalmanson, to tap into and promote the power to transform (de). The life energy (qi) is channeled through practice (li) and contributes power to the process of transformation of the individual and beyond. “Here, power (de) refers to this transformative alignment that allows the effects of self-cultivation to reverberate up and down microcosmic and macrocosmic levels” (78).

While meditation may entail silence, it does not lead to quietude. To the contrary, silent meditation or quieting the mind are recognized paths for generating greater good. As with Sartre, such philosophers require no personal God and no singular communion but, rather, a means to engender harmony among all living beings. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche offer still different readings of the religious. One cannot, even according to Kierkegaard—a Christian existential philosopher, blame God for the choices one makes or beliefs one has. We, humans, alone must navigate the possibilities in our lives and take responsibility for our actions. Abraham, according to Kierkegaard, served as the paradigm of religious faith because he answered the singular call of God to him over the easily recognizable duties that a father has towards his son, Isaac. In Kierkegaard’s interpretation, Abraham resisted the temptations of the ethical, which the community determines. He opted, instead, for the singular over the common, knowing that his choices would not be understood by the many. Precisely because Kierkegaard believes that religious acts of faith allude to those who remain tethered to the communal and rule-oriented ethics, he questions whether the singular actions of an individual can or should transform society. Kierkegaard recognizes that it would be horrifying if Abraham became the social model of fatherhood. Would we not be compelled to stop fathers who want to make an offering of their sons to God? Through the lens of Kantian ethics, Abraham’s willingness to kill Isaac seems like the opposite of care for the other that can be universalized. His actions seem to be more akin to that of a madman, lacking all reason, than that of a religious leader. Yet the Bible compels Christians to revere Abraham. It is seemingly a further absurdity compounded by Kierkegaard’s existential narrative of Abraham binding Isaac and riding up the mountain in silence. What, after all, could Abraham say to Isaac or to anyone to make them understand?2 Nietzsche, on the other hand, is famously critical of religious types because they are sheep that cannot break with herd mentality. Most are unable to create values for themselves precisely because they would prefer to live according to the slave morality of the Christian religion.3

Kalmanson’s cross-cultural analysis of Ruism, Daoism, and Buddhism provides a model that has so far been lacking in existential thought: the religious woman who can create values to transform society for the better. Kalmanson fills in this gap by highlighting the life of Kim Iryop. Although she was a feminist activist and author before becoming a Buddhist nun, she did not turn her back on society or give up on social change. Dedicating her life to the practice of meditation was, rather, an extension of her social activism. Meditation, she believed, had the power to enact change within society by transferring the positive thoughts and deeds to others. More to the point, her philosophy is the only one that addresses existential concerns while also circumventing the subject-object problem. Kalmanson argues that this view of meditation would not be possible without a syncretism of Ruist, Daoist, and Buddhist thought. In other words, Iryop was a trailblazer in thinking cross-cultural existentialism.

Thanks to Iryop’s idiosyncratic and imaginative interpretations of meditation for instance, Kalmanson suggests that Iryop’s philosophy taps into the artist-creator motif that runs through Nietzsche’s philosophy and East Asian texts that connect the sage and the artist (6, 65, 122). Although Kalmanson does not expressly mention the role of the artist in Nietzsche’s philosophy, she links his work on value-creation to support the view of Iryop as an existential thinker. Perhaps Kalmanson forgoes the “artist” persona for value-creator because Nietzsche ties the artist, albeit in a positive manner, to falsity. The artist—unlike the priest, scientist, or philosopher—does not gain power and influence by claiming to be the exclusive progenitor of the truth.

Although artists and creativity are linked in Nietzsche’s thought, there are reasons for Kalmanson to focus on value creation rather than the figure of the artist. For him, the artist stands in contrast to the religious person. Nietzsche presents the artist as one who can develop meaning and value in something other than truth. Because Nietzsche believes that artists have the audacity to value falsity and that which is not real, there is a tendency to reinforce a dichotomy between truth and falsity.4 Precisely because the split between subjective and objective realms serves as a preoccupation for Western philosophers, they may view the concept of qi—which blurs the boundaries between subject and object—as superstition, fanciful thinking, or simply false.

Because Westerners may be tempted to dismiss Iryop’s philosophy, which allows for the interconnection between subjective/objective and mental/material realms, as antithetical to what is real and true, there is a danger in emphasizing the artistic in Nietzsche when developing Iryop’s profile. An in-depth analysis of Iryop as an exemplar of the sage-artist, however, would allow for a fruitful contrast of Kim Iryop to the readings of the religious in Sartre, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Iryop can push Western existentialists to reconsider the power of a religious woman to create values through artistry and bring about social change.

When I picked up Leah Kalmanson’s Cross-Cultural Existentialism (CCE), I found in it many resources that would benefit my teaching as well as my research and writing. As someone who teaches philosophies of existence and existentialism, her book affords me the opportunity to broaden and deepen my approach to these subjects, which admittedly tilts heavily toward the West. As someone who has written about contemporary speculative philosophy and has tried to think about human agency in non-dualist terms, her book offers a wealth of concepts and arguments that I can readily mobilize, adopt or adapt, in my own attempts to articulate the internal relation between embodied subjects and the so-called “external” environment. Kalmanson has made all of this quite easy by presenting her material in remarkably clear, reader-friendly prose that an amateur student of East Asian philosophy like myself can digest with little trouble at all.

While searching out specific points of interest in CCE for the purpose of this symposium, I found myself pulled in two directions. On the one hand, since I was coming off a semester teaching existentialism and phenomenology, I was especially attuned to the book’s criticism of these two philosophies for their deficiency in the way of practice or “spiritual exercise,” to use Pierre Hadot’s term (CCE, 2). Moreover, I was preparing to teach ancient Greek philosophy, so I was thinking quite intensively about philosophy as a way of life (and reading Hadot), as transformative practice and not just as an intellectual endeavor. Since I think about some ancient Greek philosophy, especially Socrates and the Hellenistic schools, as antecedents to twentieth-century Western existentialism, I found myself eminently receptive to Kalmanson’s assertion that “effective existential philosophy must be a practice as much as it is a theory” (1).

Furthermore, as someone who has written about recent developments in speculative philosophy, I found my interest piqued by Kalmanson’s promise to develop a “speculative existentialism” that would take a cue from recent developments—speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, new materialism—but would build itself from a comparative perspective that utilizes both Western and East Asian resources. In my view, she is absolutely right to develop work that “pushes back against the resistance to metaphysics characteristic of contemporary phenomenology and existentialism” (5). In other words, I am delighted to discover a new direction in speculative philosophy, and I was doubly enthusiastic because this new direction seemed to recommend so much to my own thinking about the relation between metaphysical speculation and the self. There is nothing gratuitous in this brand of speculation; indeed, it is grounded and careful, as practically-oriented as it is intellectually provocative.

My scholarly and pedagogical attractions to CCE find a common cause in one of the book’s specific aims: to show that “East Asian discourses help us redefine ‘speculation’ itself not as the interior ruminations of a subject looking out on the world but rather as a dynamic activity that transforms both selves and their environments” (5; italics in original). It is here, in the idea that speculation could be transformative, even spiritually transformative, and that this transformation must be relational, that I focused my reflection. Personally, my most impactful encounter with this idea came from reading two Western philosophers: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas. Kalmanson’s book promised me an expanded repertoire of conceptual and practical tools for thinking the dynamic relationship between the subject and its environment, and to do so beyond the bounds of two intractable “restricted” Western-philosophical economies: subject-object dualism and the idealism-realism debate.

Kalmanson deploys Bataille’s opposition of general and restricted economies in her compelling analysis of karmic merit and karmic transformation (CCE, ch. 2). A restricted economy places an artificial limit on our general existential situation by directing thought and action toward specific ends that dictate the operations and values available to us. In short, it “budgets” and “instrumentalizes” human existence. Consequently, it constrains human existence, but at the same time entails its inevitable self-destruction under the excessive weight of existence as such (42–44). Examining the karmic system against this theoretical backdrop, Kalmanson performs efficient critical work that unsettles the restricted Western understanding of causality in order to demonstrate that “karmic causality is rarely, if ever, a matter of a single agent, a single action, and a single result” (46). She performs the same kind of comparative critical work in her analyses of qi, ritual, and other concepts.

It seems to me that the comparative form of her criticism is not only useful for getting us beyond the restrictions placed on these concepts by restricted Western philosophical and scientific economies, but that she points the way to a more generalized deconstruction, as it were, of the very framework of Western philosophy. If Western philosophy often presents the subject-object and realist-idealist dualities as if they were generalized, which is to say universal, forms of thought, then demonstrating that these forms of thought are in fact restricted philosophical economies is necessary work. I present this proposition not as a comparative philosopher, for whom the point is probably obvious, but as someone who is attempting to be sensitive to the insights provoked in him by Kalmanson’s work, and to give expression to those insights in an effort to take stock of how her work is transforming him.

Considering the prospect that reading and scholarly study, not to mention metaphysical speculation, could induce a form of “spiritual” transformation, the chapter on rituals (CCE, ch. 4) is especially instructive. Here Kalmanson deploys a “qi-based existential terminology” (116), already introduced in previous chapters, to unpack what I think she would call her processual (or process-oriented) approach to existential transformation and meaning production. If I understand correctly, Kalmanson draws upon Ruist, Buddhist, and Daoist traditions to offer a “performative” (101) account of ritual, one that supports the “strong claim that actions constitute entities, or that the self ‘is,’ in concrete terms, what it ‘does’” (102). If this is the case, then reading, meditation, study, hiking, and speculation are all equally capable of transforming the subjects who perform them. All of these practices could be counted among Hadot’s “spiritual exercises,” and could therefore be made part of the existential-philosophical way of life. I, for one, would love to read more of what Kalmanson has to say when she writes: “I am interested in contextualizing Nietzsche’s hiking practice as a part of a larger regimen. This is to say, I am interested in thinking through concrete exercises that better enact the values and non-dualist commitments of existentialism and thereby rethinking how we understand the term ‘practice’ in a philosophical context” (99).

I should confess that at this point in my reflection I worry that I may be conflating some of the traditions and distinctions that Kalmanson works so hard to differentiate. For instance, the distinction between ritual and practice. If I am, this is no fault of the author, whose book is an example of clarity and organization. Kalmanson clearly knows her audience and how to communicate to them. Any conflation made here is my responsibility. I am trying to balance my willingness to be transformed by Cross-Cultural Existentialism with my desire to put the text to work for my own idiosyncratic philosophical project.

In my book The End of Phenomenology, which Kalmanson references (38), I try to argue that the existential phenomenology of Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, and the like never gets us beyond the restricted economy of realism v. idealism, and that phenomenologists would rather argue that phenomenology, when it is forced to choose sides, is closer to realism than idealism.1 I, furthermore, make the case that, if it is realism that we want, then we are better off with speculative realism than we are with phenomenology. In response, Kalmanson proposes a form of speculation that leaves the idealist-realist duality behind and promises to deliver an existential philosophy that offers “lessons in the practice of making meaning” (39). Unlike her, I could not leave the idealist-realist duality behind in my comparison of existential phenomenology and speculative realism, and I offered no practical lessons.

In Plastic Bodies, which appeared the year after The End of Phenomenology, I try to develop an understanding of embodied subjectivity that is transactional and dynamic, with a view to the practical implications of this perspective.2 It has traces of processual thinking, but my argument is effectively realist in its framework. I draw constructively upon a number of influences, including phenomenology, speculative realism, object-oriented philosophy, new realism, Deweyan pragmatism, and Spinoza’s metaphysics. Which is to say, I utilize some of the same resources cited by Kalmanson in CCE in my attempt to think against the restricted economy of idealism-realism, but I do not do so from a comparative perspective and I end up defending realism against idealism. I also do not offer concrete practices for existential transformation, although I endorse a kind of “technology of the self” informed by Foucault, Dewey, and Spinoza as the practical outcome of my theoretical investigations. All of this is to say that, like Kalmanson, I would like to conceive of a non-dualist metaphysics of subjectivity that foregrounds the co-constitutive, dynamic relation between the self and its environment. She points the way out of some of the impasses I have met in my efforts so far.

In particular, I am interested in the process of individuation from an aesthetic standpoint, or what I call “aesthetic identity.” I introduce and explore this concept to some extent in Plastic Bodies and some subsequent writings. In the latter I have begun to incorporate some insights from Japanese aesthetics, primarily as presented in the writings of Yuriko Saito. Like Saito’s work offers reflections, some of them speculative, on the meaning of non-Western practices/rituals like the tea ceremony and gardening that I have found useful for thinking through the transformative nature of these aesthetic endeavors and others.3 Kalmanson’s analyses of the karmic economy and the qi matrix likewise indicate paths that promise to enrich my attempt to think of aesthetic experience in an expanded sense which is too often neglected by Western philosophical frameworks that dismiss speculative philosophy, including speculative aesthetics, as frivolous or overly vague.

Accordingly, the section on sincerity (cheng) and authenticity in the fourth chapter of CCE struck a particularly resonant chord for me as I continue to think about aesthetic individuation and aesthetic identity. Kalmanson attempts to make sense of the controversial decision by philosophers Roger Ames and David Hall to translate cheng as “creativity” instead of “sincerity” or “integrity.” What Kalmanson shows is that Ames and Hall’s rationale induces us to consider that “a qi-based philosophy . . . gives us a world of ‘ontological parity’ where creativity is always ‘transactional and multidimensional,’ and therefore self-cultivation can be seen as a co-creative activity involving self, societies, and whole environments” (166). In this discussion of cheng I find a fascinating attempt to think about subjectivity and creativity in terms of process, multiplicity, and transformation rather than something like genius, originality, and talent. I find not only a provocative link between creativity and sincerity, but the suggestion that creativity is a dynamic relationship between the creator and their creation, the maker and the made. There is much truth here.

Kalmanson’s speculative project promises much as I try to make sense of the dynamic nature of aesthetic identity. It is clear to me that I will have to think more seriously and determinedly about the meaning of cheng and the extent to which it is “the enactment—the making real or making true—of new order in the world” (119) and what this means from the aesthetic standpoint. If it is true that “the psychic energies of human thoughts and emotions can, at times, extend beyond the borders of the body” (118), then it seems eminently possible to argue that, not only is the aesthetic environment the product of human creativity, but that the aesthetic environment is capable of shaping our sensory experience such that the aesthetic environment must be regarded as constitutive of who we are. That, at any rate, is my own scholarly concern. Kalmanson has ensured that this concern will be enriched and strengthened through a comparative perspective. Now I just need to figure out for myself the concrete steps necessary to enact the scholarly transformation I must undergo to carry out my research and teaching in the richest possible way. Fortunately, Kalmanson has offered a number of useful lessons.

Leah Kalmanson’s Cross-Cultural Existentialism: On the Meaning of Life in Asian and Western Thought brings contemporary Western philosophy into conversation with Chinese religions, arguing that religious practice offers a break from the discontents of the Western self, opening a possibility of transformation. Here, I will suggest how two practices that I study, African American Buddhism and the Catholic idea of merit, represent the kind of break from the tragic cycle that Kalmanson describes.

Kalmanson directly addresses the tragic cycle in which the Modernist (roughly 1890–1950) self, in which the subject is suspended at an exhausting, “uncrossable border” at which nothingness is “conflated . . . with the limit of a certain type of phenomenological interiority.” There, “death becomes a stand-in for all manner of trans-egoic experiences” (133–34).

The repetition of extreme experiences and an eternal return into the “old skin again and again” (134) characterize this self, Nietzsche’s “objective man” who is a “tool” and a mirror,1 submitting in a banal madness. In Nietzsche, et. al., as Ihab Hassan argues, we find the moment at which philosophy aims at reconstituting the radical subject that represents “the community of the disappointed,”2 that faces a revulsion against the Western self3 that was constituted by reason that inaugurated colonialism, scientific experimentation, and categorization to meet progress’s ends. This violence reinforced division: what Du Bois called “the color line.”4 We might add the gender, the immigrant, the species, and the political lines as well.

Slavoj Žižek’s reading of the tension between Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault over Descartes’ cogito helps illuminate this modern self. While Foucault excluded madness from the domain of reason, Derrida relates the cogito to its “shadowy double, the pharmakon, which is madness.”5 Therefore, “Whether I am mad or not, Cogito, sum . . .” Žižek, using this, sees Hegel as the moment at which philosophy goes “‘mad,’ explodes in a ‘crazy’ pretense to ‘Absolute Knowledge.’”6 If, as Derrida suggests, absolute knowledge is not “outside the text” of Enlightenment, there may be a “dark core of madness at the heart of the cogito.” This madness leads to extremity7 as a way of “fixing” the modern self—but with no “fingers and handles.”8 This madness is the “creativity” of the West that those colonized and enslaved “underwent” as they were twice-created9—the madness that drives what bell hooks calls patriarchal white supremacist capitalist culture10 and rationalizes atrocities.

In light of this, Kalmanson asks if religious practice may address the “terror of history” and its discontent.11 Religious practices, like offering merit, align us with an energy that can transform our minds, lives, and worlds. Change, therefore, can be made, as Kalmanson suggests: “the person of perfect cheng . . . is a co-creator of worlds” (120). This echoes what Herbert Fingarette called the “magical” element of Ruism: that social gestures are not empty, but potentially aligned with the Dao, as the human being makes herself a “Holy Vessel,” to be filled with Dao in “participation with others in ceremony,” in rites (li) that distinguish what is human and communal.”12 I will say more about the emphasis on making in my remarks. Kalmanson led me to think through efficacious action in two areas: African American Buddhism in its alignment with Civil Rights and commitment to social justice and Catholic thought on merit.

African American Buddhism

African American Buddhists practice Buddhism to heal the Black self, certainly, but also as a skillful means to making social justice. Toni Morrison mused on the task of making in an interview about Beloved:

For purposes of exorcism . . . celebratory rites of passage . . . things must be made, some fixing ceremony . . . some memorial . . . some thing, some altar . . . somewhere . . .13

Morrison suggests, like Kim Iryŏp, that it us up to us to erect some site, generate some ritual, make some transforming “thing.” For Morrison, the thing is the novel and writing is the practice, highlighting, as we will, the importance of reading. African American Buddhists utilize and adapt Buddhist practices as “things” to address the dukkha, generated in the Middle Passage, ongoing in African American life—dukkha, as Lama Rod Owens writes, still “triggers disembodiment,” the pathological “thing-making” of the slave system in which diaspora Africans fulfilled the intentions of a racist and capitalist imagination.14

Black Buddhist both engage in traditional practices and make new ones that turn to the fractured self in ways other than white, Western ones. These practices generate, as Michelle Clinton puts it, the strength to hold the pain of racism as one sits and to participate in “simple humanness while holding the harsh gaze of history.”15 The goal is to turn inward and, then, outward to address white supremacy and violence—like the murder of George Floyd. For Alice Walker, for example, such practices are “technologies of the self” that not only heal one in the present moment, but also heal our ancestors and connect us to their wisdom.16 We see this in her first dharma talk, in which she invites the participants to meditate collectively to send healing across time and space to all those involved in the murder of a young black man, George Slaughter—from his white father to the horse he was riding—to heal the personal and collective trauma and to reconfigure the past, to set conditions to live in the future otherwise.17

Merit

Merit opens the possibility to live otherwise, as well. It operates in Catholic culture as an alternative “karmic economy” (48ff.). One, in a state of grace,18 acquires merit, “a claim to supernatural reward” from God, through charity,19 not as a debt payment, but as a “loving cooperation between God and the soul.”20 A Christian freely doing a morally good act,”21 may be rewarded with merit’s sanctifying grace. This means that human beings may act as “active, meritorious collaborators in the work of redemption”: “We are not just along for the ride.”22

Merit is the “Treasury of the Church,” including Jesus’s merit23 and that of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints (CCC, 1476–77). Merit, circulating in the Divine Economy, may be applied, offered, to others in the church, living and dead: forming a powerful “interpersonal and transgenerational ‘spiritual communion’” (141).[footnotefootnote] Merit flows from love, from “‘a heart which sees’” and acts,24 is treated—for example, in offering it for the souls in Purgatory25—“just as if the [souls] had themselves performed the work.”26 Catholics, in addition, “offer up” personal suffering as energy in the work of redemption, uniting us with Christ’s life and passion (CCC, 1505).

Redemptive suffering was a key part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s thought, as he understood the suffering one underwent in nonviolent resistance almost as a form of merit, “offered up” to heal American racist society27 through generating energy28 that is healing, redemptive, and transformative.29

Some Concluding Thoughts

King links Black Buddhist thought and, for me, merit to Kalmanson’s thesis. Charles Johnson puts King’s work in relation to Buddhism, arguing that the “black experience in America, like the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, begins in suffering” and that the Beloved Community, which was King’s goal is a “sangha by another name.”30 I see the merit of non-violent resistance, the suffering of the practitioner, as being offered to bring violent actors to consciousness, into community. Non-violence is wu-wei, a non-doing that does! King also practiced prayer as a spirituality “consistent with his understanding of the well-ordered, active, productive, and complete life.”31 He is a strong example of a “speculative existentialism” that “takes seriously the power of self-cultivation, sustained by daily commitment [that can] enact existential transformation” (130), aligning “life energy” (136), the capacities of the mind, with the tendencies of things in the world” (114). This can facilitate entry into the “ongoing structural tendencies in the matter-energy matrix of existence itself” (142).

King, along with Black Buddhists and practicing Catholics, exemplify Kalmanson’s argument that practitioners can engage energy in ways that make “some thing” that may undo hegemonic power. Kalmanson and I agree, I think, that, as I have suggested, “practices . . . constitute [a] counterforce to . . . violence and destruction. It is the praying, meditating, kneeling and bowing, fasting, chanting, walking, dancing people who generate enough healing power to keep us from tearing this world apart.”32

Reading also is a practice that, directing attention, teaches us to embrace complexity, and, perhaps, breaks the tragic cycle in which the Modern autonomous “self” is trapped, in which objective judgment is really only someone [else’s] subjective will.33 Reading, Kalmanson and I agree, is revolutionary, creating an intimacy with the self that makes intimacy with others possible.34 Reading may be the first step out of “life force” that leads to atrocities,35 the monstrous repetition in the eternal return to transformative energy, to practitioner’s access life forces that that binds us (religio), generating community and creating more just and free alignments with reality.

In the twentieth century, one most significant development of Christian thought was contributed by Paul Tillich, who defined religion existentially as “ultimate concern,” and centered his systematic theology upon the pneumatology of “spiritual manifestation” rather than the traditional Christology. In light of Paul Tillich’s existential Christian theology, two distinctive points of what Leah Kalmanson has accomplished in the study of existentialism and Asian thought [particularly Ruism (Confucianism)] in this book lead to my vision that Kalmanson has cleaved the path for a paradigmatic change in existential studies in the English-reading academia.

Firstly, similar to Tillich’s method of “correlation” which employed traditional Christian sources to respond to issues of human conditions raised by existential philosophies, Kalmanson distinctively draws upon Ruism to furnish a cross-cultural response to existentialism. As a result, Kalmanson proposes new solutions to existential questions, which is exemplary of the central commitment of the book to the creation of new values.

Secondly, similar to Tillich’s final pneuma-centric theology, Kalmanson endorses a qi (vital energy, 氣)-based philosophy of Ruism. However, while prioritizing neither a mindset nor an attitude towards existential issues, Kalmanson distinctively focuses upon the practical aspect of ancient Ruism, and therefore, demonstrates the crucial role played by varying “philosophical practices” such as meditation, Yijing (the Classic of Change, 易經) divination, and ritual performance in a Ruist (Confucian) way of grappling with existential puzzles. The transition of foci from mentality to practice in existential studies marks nothing less than a paradigmatic change, especially when being considered in a cross-cultural context.

As when a pioneer steps into any unchartered territory, newly cleaved paths succumb to trial and error. With a persistent and collaborative heart, we would eventually set afoot in a hopeful land. In the following, I will raise several points to potentially perfect Kalmanson’s thesis in her existential treatment of varying practices in Ruism, and hence, join her ranks for the same destination.

Firstly, since the philosophical practices in question are qi-based, Kalmanson advocates a cross-cultural “speculative existentialism” to counteract Western existential philosophers’ suspicion towards metaphysics. In order to recover a favorable connotation of “speculative” as such, Kalmanson largely takes on a pragmatist approach: since it contributes to Asian philosophical practices which are thought of as being more adequate to tackle existential issues, the metaphysics of qi is not groundless, and hence, not “speculative” understood derogatively. Nevertheless, the derogative sense of “speculative” started to be developed in Western philosophy significantly earlier than existential philosophies. That’s when British empiricism critiqued Descartes’s metaphysical speculation, and these critiques culminated in Kant’s dismissal of the cognitive value of metaphysics as solely pertaining to the unknowable things-in-themselves. Clearly, without a robust response to the Kantian dismissal, Kalmanson’s recourse to Asian philosophies for her advocacy in speculative existentialism would sound unconvincing to existential philosophers. In one of my recent works,1 I try to argue that Kant’s dismissal does not do justice to the role played by metaphysical thinking in the development of modern science. Comparative metaphysics is actually a scientific endeavor if we understand metaphysical assumptions as belonging to the kernel of varying scientific “research programs” (Imre Lakatos) and hence, being susceptible of testing together with more peripheral hypotheses in the programs. More importantly, if we take the qi-based Ruism as a novel resource for metaphysical thinking, we will find the scientific nature of Ruist metaphysics also consists in how a metaphysical discourse facilitates the practice of personal transformation. This indicates a standard of scientific truth which complements the normally held ones of consistency and correspondence. In a word, I hope this work of mine can be utilized to strengthen Kalmanson’s argument for Ruist speculative existentialism.

Secondly, Kalmanson asks captivatingly whether the spiritual exercises of ancient Greek philosophy identified by Hadot can be understood as “rituals” in the Ruist sense, yet with no certain answer (160). Hadot himself is very clear that not until the second century CE, had ancient Greek philosophers such as later Neoplatonists incorporated religious rites such as “ablutions, sacrifices and invocations using ritual words”2 into their practice under the influence of Christianity. Hadot is also clear that these ritual performances are “wholly different” from earlier Greek philosophers’ spiritual exercises in that although not prioritizing theoretical argumentation as their goal, those spiritual exercises never abandoned it. Nevertheless, in their practice of rites, the later Neoplatonists abandoned theoretical philosophy, and succumbed human intelligence entirely to the initiative taken by gods for securing the efficacy of purifying rituals.3 In a word, for Hadot, philosophical spiritual exercises cannot be understood per a ritualistic model because in his mind, the model pivots upon a human attitude of submission towards the divine agency of personalistic gods or God.

Nevertheless, the Ruist ritualistic model does not rest upon a theistic cosmology; rather, as Kalmanson so eloquently argues, the metaphysical foundation of Ruist rituals is the all-pervading cosmic qi, and hence, non-theistic. This would make the dynamic between human agency and the transcendent cosmic power, which rituals are intended to mediate, appear in a way wholly different from the one assumed by Hadot in the Western case. In general, I believe Kalmanson has not paid sufficient attention to this subtle difference between the Ruist philosophy of ritual and Hadot’s Western ritual theory, and if rectified on this specific point, her project will be advanced in the two following ways: firstly, philosophical spiritual exercises in ancient Greece can and need to be expanded to include seemly religious ritual performances because (1) these seemingly religious rituals, such as the Yijing divination, sacrifices4 and meditation in the Ruist case, can be compatible with a persistent philosophical mindset of demanding human understanding of what one experiences in rituals; and (2) the cross-cultural study of seemingly religious rituals enriches the repertoire of philosophical spiritual exercises, and discloses novel methods of personal transformation. Secondly, deeper philosophical dimensions of Ruist rituals would also be uncovered. For instance, if she more realizes the seamless match of philosophy and religion in Ruist rituals, Kalmanson would focus upon the feeling of “joy” concerning the mourning ritual that was once broadly discussed by Ru philosophers in the Song and Ming period, rather than merely highlighting the “solicitude” aspect of it (108).

Last but not least, Kalmanson discloses candidly her methodological approach to the book in its final chapter: “In articulating this project, I have spoken as a reporter, not a practitioner” (130). The statement is striking because (1) I am amazed by her ability of accurate understanding of Ruism despite her exclusive reliance on reports; and (2) a nonpracticing approach to a project to which practice is pivotal seems counterintuitive, and this leads to my further concern: would those reports, which are mostly provided by analytical scholars working in the English-writing academia, have taken the same existential and practical approach to their interpretations of Ruism?

Let me use one instance to indicate why I am concerned as such. Kalmanson has taken a successful strategy to introduce readers to Ru spirituality through depicting the shared Ruist-Buddhist-Daoist cultural milieu of ancient East Asia, since Buddhist and Daoist sources are more known to Western readers. However, she has not yet done equally well in delineating the subtle differences between the three Asian traditions, particularly the one between Ruism and Daosim in ancient China. In reliance upon the scholarship of a comparative philosopher, Jeeloo Liu, who is trained and writes in the style of analytic philosophy, Kalmanson endorses a view that while sharing the same type of qi-based metaphysics, Ruism is different from Daoism merely regarding the moral attitude towards one’s social responsibility (135). I have offered my critique to Jeeloo Liu’s thought on this point elsewhere,5 and in the context of Kalmanson’s cross-cultural speculative existentialism, I need to reemphasize that metaphysical thinking matters in ancient Chinese thought precisely because the minutiae of variations in it correlate with the differences of how one practices one’s way of life in the mundane world. In other words, it is highly improbable that varying ethical attitudes towards social responsibilities are based upon the same metaphysics, since as elegantly argued by Kalmanson through the book, practical implications are intrinsic to Asian metaphysical thought. In a broad stroke, let me put the difference between Ruism and Daoism from the perspective of a practicing Ruist scholar as follows: while practicing meditation and other contemplative exercises, both Ruists and Daoists intend to regather their life energy via retreating into the quiet root of human existence continuous with the all-encompassing and constantly generating cosmic power of qi. However, because (1) Ruist metaphysics emphasizes the non-temporal generic traits of things in the world, including human existence, here and now, while Daoist metaphysics attends to the unfolding of the cosmic Dao in a temporal sequence of generation and cessation to which the status of human civilization is subordinated, and (2) the genuine distinction of humanity from non-human natural beings are cherished by Ruism while being taken with a grain of salt by Daoism, Ruists and Daoists react quite differently when they walk out of their meditation retreat. Ruists tend to proactively employ or invent appropriate civilizational means (which are “rituals” understood in the broadest sense) to sustain and harmonize human civilization so as to manifest the cosmic Dao in a distinctively human way. In this sense, civilization for Ruists is natural to humanity. However, Daoists tends to maintain a non-assertive lifestyle of meandering and malleability in face of what are de facto in the human world lest the complications imposed by human civilization upon the non-human nature intrude into the quiet root of human existence.

The three critiques I offered above are based upon my grateful acknowledgement of the paradigmatic change of existential studies that Kalmanson has amazingly carved out in this book. As elaborated in the beginning part of the book, what remains essential to the paradigmatic change is Kalmanson’s pondering over the ontological status of “meaning” and “value”: is the meaning of life merely subjective to human perceptions, or does it represent anything real outside of human subjectivity? While refusing the dualistic assumption of object-subject held by traditional and contemporary philosophical discussions on this question, Kalmanson highlights the non-dualistic approach of existential philosophies. In existential terms, since its “existence precedes essence” (Sartre), human living is always involved in a mode of “being-in-the-world” (Heidegger) before any awareness of object-subject arises. Therefore, values are neither ready-made to possess from outside nor imposed to realities by given human preferences from inside. Instead, while engaging the world, humans can renew themselves as the “creators of new values, new conditions, and new worlds” (Nietzsche) (31).

Nevertheless, the most significant question Kalmanson asks, which I believe will reverberate in the field of existential studies for a long time, is as follows: given all the remarkable non-dualistic insights of existential philosophies, “How do we do any of this?” (36). Since they intend to perfect Kalmanson’s analyses of Asian philosophical practices, my above critiques can also be seen as a response to this intriguing question. Particularly in light of the third critique, my final appeal to Kalmanson’s project would be: If a philosopher can perform rituals without ceasing to be a philosopher, why not let us practice rituals together while philosophizing, rather than merely philosophizing in reliance upon reports?