Gongsheng Across Contexts A Philosophy of Co-Becoming

This open access book sheds light on the term gongsheng/kyōsei, which is used in Chinese and Japanese to not only translate “symbiosis” in biology but also broadly deployed in philosophical, social and political contexts.

“This excellent collection of essays explores the notion of gongsheng/kyōsei as a conceptual ground for developing novel pathways in our age of crisis. It shows how cutting-edge contributions from contemporary Chinese and Japanese philosophy offer accounts of deep relationality that allow us to think the co-becoming not only of all humans on our planet but rather the entanglement of humans and the complex non-human systems in which they are embedded. A must read for anybody interested in identifying avenues of planetary cooperation in philosophy and science beyond the narrow confines of merely local traditions.”

—Markus Gabriel, University of Bonn, Germany

“This anthology assembled a cohort of distinguished scholars to provide cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives on an ecological way of thinking about the human experience in all of its parts. In our own historical moment when the zero-sum thinking we associate with a foundational individualism has proven to be woefully inadequate, gongsheng thinking might usher in the gestalt shift in our values, intentions, and practices needed to bring humanity back from the brink.”

—Roger T. Ames, Peking University, China

This open access book sheds light on the term gongsheng/kyōsei, which is used in Chinese and Japanese to not only translate “symbiosis” in biology but also broadly deployed in philosophical, social and political contexts. It is a cross-contextual attempt to study the foundation of gongsheng/kyōsei as a philosophy of co-becoming, with exploration of its significance for thinking about the planetary challenges of our times.

Bing Song is a Senior Vice President of the Berggruen Institute and Director of the Institute’s China Center. She has been leading projects under the research theme of Frontier Science & Technology and East Asian Philosophies and edited Intelligence and Wisdom: Artificial Intelligence Meets Chinese Philosophers (CITIC Press 2020, Springer 2021).

Yiwen Zhan is Lecturer at Beijing Normal University. He mainly works in metaphysics and epistemology. Recently, he is interested in exploring the question-sensitive structures in epistemology, decision theory, and how it might affect our understanding of modality and existence.