Francois Jullien’s Unexceptional Thought: A Critical Introduction

Although the French philosopher, Hellenist and sinologist Francois Jullien has published more than thirty books, half of which have been translated into English, he remains much less known in the English-language universe than many of his fellow French philosophers , which may be due to his work being perceived as within the limits of sinology. This book attempts to rectify this, highlighting Jullien’s work at the intersection of Chinese and Western thought and drawing out the unthought-of in both traditions of thinking. This ‘unthought-of’ can be seen as the culture that conditions our thought, lessening our capacity for new ways of thinking and understanding. This notion of ‘unthought-of’ is at the core of Jullien’s methodology, operating in what he calls the ‘divergence of the in-between’. Written in an engaging style, Arne de Boever offers an accessible introduction to Francois Jullien’s work, in the process emphatically challenging some of the core assumptions of Western reasoning.