Subjectivity and Infinity

This book formulates a new theory of subjectivity in the context of the claimed “death of the subject” in the post-modern and post-human age. The new theory is developed against the conception of the subject as a transcendental ego whose constitutive roles, recognition, and representation lead to the objectivization and totalization of the world and denial of its inner infinity and heterogeneity. Critically scrutinizing ideas from Bergson, James, Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, Zen Buddhism, and Chinese Zhuangzi, and through an analysis of time and temporality, this book advances a number of new concepts, including “primal sensibility” and “pure experience,” and proposes a porous structure of subjectivity with an ex-egological and ex-subjective zone that allows nothingness and absence to ground presence. Such a theory of subjectivity provides the basis for an understanding of thinking as imagination and self-identity as narrative presentation in the intersubjective world.

“Guoping Zhao’s (2020) Subjectivity and Infinity: Time and Existence is a magnificent book seeking to point with words toward the ineffable mystery. … Guoping and I do differ, but reading her book has helped educate me.” (Jim Garrison, Studies in Philosophy and Education, Vol. 41, 2022)

“Subjectivity and Infinity (2020) is a wonderful and complex book. Ambitious in its scope and sweeping in its analysis, Zhao brings east and west together in her creative exploration of the inextricable relationship between subjectivity and temporality.” (Clarence W. Joldersma, Studies in Philosophy and Education, Vol. 41, 2022)

“This elegant and thoughtful phenomenological essay demonstrates convincingly how subjectivity and narrative self-presentation are bound up inescapably with temporal existence. Calling us to attend to forgotten, overlooked and unrecognizable aspects of our lives, and drawing illuminating comparisons between Western phenomenology and non-Western schools of thought, Guoping Zhao offers a spiritually enriching meditation on self-recognition that is urgently necessary in confused and aggressive times.”
–Seán Hand, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Europe), University of Warick, UK

 

“Guoping Zhao addresses the existential questions post-humanism leaves unanswered. Recognizing that the mystery of human existence is the mystery of time, she interrogates some of the finest Western philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Finding them all insightful, but insufficient, Zhao presses forward drawing off of Eastern thought until she arrives at her own original understanding. It is an impressive achievement.”
—Jim Garrison, Professor in the Foundations of Education program, Virginia Tech, USA

 

“This is a bold book making a timely and enticingly novel contribution to the philosophical discussion on subjectivity. With insightful analysis and creative originality, Zhao turns the traditional discussion on its head. Drawing on both Eastern and Western traditions, her innovative description of subjectivity as primal sensibility and pure experience breaks new ground in this conversation.”  
–Clarence Joldersma, author of A Levinasian Ethics for Education’s Commonplaces

 Guoping Zhao is Professor and Research Fellow at Oklahoma State University, USA.