This is a subtle but powerful book which slowly builds within 159 short pages to unfold a questioning of the entire basis of (most) Western thought -- or, at least, a questioning of any Western thought which necessarily presupposes substance/identity/non-contradiction over-and-above process/fluidity/transformation. In his treatment of Chinese thought (and thus of "Eastern" thought more generally, by implication) Jullien is careful to avoid simply advocating for an "exotic window" (p. 126) into another way of thinking, an ultimately empty and condescending multicultural gesture.* (As he notes in another book: "The purpose of dialogue between cultures is not to attach labels indicating what belongs to what, but rather to create new opportunities, to give philosophy a fresh start"; and on p. 154 here: "I would challenge such a culturist point of view just as much as I would our easy universalism...") At the same time he is also clearly aware of the short-shrift Western intellectual culture has by and large given Chinese and Eastern thinking, commonly relegating it to "the flourishing genres of zen, 'well-being' and 'personal development' (in the form of non-books) that prosper from the renunciation of any construction of thought" (p. 146). What he's actually after is to create a "lever to move what has become immoveable within our philosophical questions, and, still more, in their preconceptions" (p. 126). In other words, the aim is not to save the honor of some Western or non-Western "other" (nor to apply an "other" back onto Western thinking as a facelift), but to actually find routes into more insightful ways of thinking (and, hopefully, into more wothwhile ways of acting, also).
What makes this book especially valuable is Jullien's nuanced knowledge of both the Western and Chinese sources -- he easily moves from analyzing Plato and Aristotle's constitutive inability to conceptualize transformation in-itself to applying these same formal insights right back onto contemporary Western life (re: Jullien's re-characterization of Western, globalized media as "spectacle," p. 131; Chapter 9's reading of Alain Badiou's prioritization of "the event" as symptomatic of the mis-recognition of the silent transformations which, from another perspective, actually make "events," and eventuality in general, possible to begin with).
Although he deals with Henri Bergson briefly, Jullien tends to avoid addressing head-on some of the (minor but already existing) trends within Western traditions which are closer to his own emphasis -- some varieties of pragmatism, Whitehead's process philosophy, etc. This omission could be seen as a fault, or else as an intentional decision to streamline his main argument. An expanded version of this sort of analysis could definitely benefit by including more material on the variations within the respective traditions, as well (which Jullien does at least acknowledge, p. 25: "We know that every culture is plural, as much as it is singular..."). Moving seamlessly from various metaphysical debates and/or missed exchanges to their relevant social and political correlates is no small feat, though.
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*For example, Jullien explicitly avoids the temptation of claiming to "correct" Western thinking by just shuffling or re-prioritizing various subject positions or categorical hierarchies (as opposed to rethinking lousy presuppositions and categories altogether):
< blockquote>"It would be wrong, I think, to consider the diversity of cultures from the perspective of difference. This is because difference relates to identity as well as to its opposite and, as a result, to the demand for identity — we can see well enough how many false debates are pursued today. To consider the diversity of cultures on the basis of their differences leads to their being attributed with specific features and it encloses each of them within a unity of principle" (pp. 25-26).
< blockquote>"...There is another example I hardly dare advance since the determinisms in this case seem so ideologically fixed, defended as they are by good conscience. This is the 'untouchability' by which (as is proved to us every day?) so-called 'subaltern' categories or once scorned social groups are equally able to prevail: more effectively than anyone they can (like civil servants) claim from the outset to be understaffed, overworked, exploited, lacking respect and so on, and on principle to be so badly off that we are always afraid of bothering them and that any action on their behalf appears to be a service . . . They make themselves a rampart, rendering themselves impregnable, from the spectacle of their 'weakness'; indeed have a hold over others by retaliation under cover of this determination....Still more, we tend to engage with these determinations as solid blocks upon which our beliefs and convictions depend, without seeing how, under cover of their fixity, the situation could be radically changed with all the more impunity for its not having been announced" (pp. 95-96).