Negative Hermeneutics and 'Scriptural Reasoning'

Abstract

This article argues that ‘Scriptural Reasoning’ within the context of China differs from its Anglo-American counterpart by presuming no positive metaphysics at its base, whereby reasoning is deployed towards a positive understanding of difference -- that is, differences are predicated upon positive claims about our respective faith traditions -- but rather by allowing for a more disruptive understanding of what constitutes and drives religion and the literatures that arise out of their cultural contexts. This disruption is pursued in terms of negation and negativity, common notions within Chinese religious and philosophical traditions, but which, in the Western philosophical tradition of modernity, find their expression especially in Hegel’s notion of Aufhebung- itself an untranslatable term -- and the way it has been recently appropriated by Jean-Luc Nancy towards a critique of Western religion