François Jullien's Unexceptional Thought: A Critical Introduction
Arne De Boeverthose works that Slingerland does not consider, it is in part in
response to criticisms he has received, and one would do well to
take into account the historical development of Jullien’s work on this
count. It is rather one-sided, for example, to rely on Billeter’s short
book against Jullien without considering Jullien’s response to it in the
form of a longer book. Recognizing, as I have done at length in this
chapter, some of the problems that Slingerland as well as other
critics of Jullien have uncovered—and acknowledging also (without
using this as an excuse) that Jullien writes for a different audience
than many of the scholars to whom he is compared; he is obviously
not a historian like Michael Nylan or Anne Cheng—it also seems that
a more-nuanced conversation is needed, one that would seek to be
as attentive to Jullien’s work and developing thought (which far
exceeds what is quoted in Slingerland’s book) as it is to the early
China that it studies.
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