305
Chinese Philosophy, “Postcomparative” 
Approaches and Transcultural Studies:  
A Reply to Vytis Silius
Jana S. ROŠKER*
16
In the previous issue of Asian Studies (May 2020), Vytis Silius published a paper 
entitled Diversifying Academic Philosophy: The Post-Comparative Turn and Trans -
culturalism, in which he dealt with some basic, significant and hitherto still un -
solved questions regarding the so-called “post-comparative shift” in Chinese and 
intercultural philosophy (see Silius 2020). The paper is well written, topical and 
very relevant. In spite (or all the more because) of the fact that it contains some 
controversial issues, it represents an important contribution to the present debates 
in the field. In this light, I would like to challenge the author (and his readers) by 
addressing the following issues, with which I aim to expose some of the minor 
problems contained in the paper on the one hand, but also propose some further 
general considerations of the delineated problems, on the other.
In the first part of the paper, the author provides a very thorough and coher -
ent critique of the Eurocentric and Orientalist nature of Western philosophy, 
especially regarding its current institutionalisation and historical consolidation. 
He explains why he does not think that the various discriminatory tendencies 
and attitudes within the Western academic institutions against the inclusion 
of non-Western discourses are racist, but rather a result of “inertia”. I am not 
sure what might actually be the qualitative difference between “stubborn racism” 
and “inertia”, which is usually defined as a tendency to do nothing or to remain 
unchanged. First of all, racism is not something limited to a “stubborn” (and, 
hence, voluntary) maintenance. It is an inherent, almost essential part of the 
very discourse of Western philosophy, which relies on the reality of the concept 
of “race” as a “substance”, that is, among other, characterized by determinism, 
hypostatization, and reification, and rooted in a paradigm in which the being 
precedes the becoming (Xiang 2019, 2). And secondly, inertia is a tendency to 
do nothing about a current state of affairs; it is a mechanistic, non-reflective 
and uncritical attitude, which lacks any kind of autonomy, and is conservative 
* Jana S. ROŠKER, Professor of Sinology, Department of Asian Studies, 
Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. 
 Email address: jana.rosker@ff.uni-lj.si
DOI: 10.4312/as.2020.8.3.305-316
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306 Jana S. ROŠKER: Chinese Philosophy, “Postcomparative” Approaches...
by its very nature. In this sense, inertia (of racism) is by no means better than a 
“stubborn racism” would be, for they both can, in principle, contribute equally to 
the continuation of racism, which is still present in academic institutions. I guess 
that what Vytis Silius tried to say in this respect was that the present situation is 
not a consequence of ideologically manifest and consciously implemented dis -
crimination, but rather a result of the non-reflective and unconscious preserva -
tion of racism. However, a latent (and unconscious) racism might be even more 
dangerous (and more persistent) than a conscious one, for (almost) no educated 
person would nowadays still openly advocate racism. Hence, these latent forms 
of racism (which manifest themselves in what the author calls “inertia”) are, in 
fact, even more harmful precisely because they are difficult to grasp, to point out, 
and hence to fight against. This difference between manifest and latent racism is 
structurally linked to Said’s notions of the relation between latent and manifest 
Orientalism (see Said 1979, 206ff ).
Already in the abstract, the author exposes a rather bold supposition, according 
to which “universal knowledge, i.e. a knowledge which transcends cultural par -
ticularities” belongs to the elementary tasks (or tenets) of philosophy. This sup -
position belongs to the fundamental, however little questioned or proven basis of 
Silius’ argumentation; in other words, it belongs to the central common threads 
of the entire paper. In my view, this assumption is rather problematic, since the 
question of the possible existence (let alone the function) of “universal knowl -
edge” has never really been clarified. It is of course true that, as the author points 
out, “one of widely held agreements is that all types of philosophy strive for a uni -
versal type of knowledge” (Silius 2020, 261). It certainly holds true that in their 
work most philosophers and scholars of philosophy aim to generate universally 
valid insights. However, these are not necessarily “universal types of knowledge”, 
since they do not pertain to one single, all-embracing universal knowledge, but 
rather to forms and types of knowledge which can be constructed and created 
within particular disciplines, methodologies or paradigms. Can we really think 
of knowledge (or philosophy) completely separated from the particular discrete 
culture in which it was created?
1
 Is this, on the other hand, truly something we 
should wish for? 
Later on in this paper, Vytis Silius tries to relativize such a notion of universalism 
by complementing (or additionally explaining) it with Rein Raud’s idea, accord -
ing to which philosophy seeks “to clarify the nature of things on the most abstract 
1 Besides, in this regard we can also not forget the element of subjectivity. Philosophy is always the 
product of human beings. And, can we really think––even in pure theory––of an isolated, universal 
human being, without her embeddedness in a concrete language, discrete experiences, histories, 
narratives and biographies? 
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307 Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 3 (2020), pp. 305–316
level” (Raud 2006, 621). Particularly due to the fact that we are dealing here with 
Chinese philosophy, it is even easier to see the problematic nature of such a claim. 
As we all know, Chinese philosophical traditions are rooted in the paradigm of 
immanent transcendence
2
 or the so-called one-world-view. Due to the dynamic 
paradigms in which they were developed, they do not establish fixed and static 
boundaries between the concrete (empirical) and the abstract (rational) notions. 
This implies that not only the general idea of universality, but even its somewhat 
relativized form of “clarifying the nature of things on the most abstract level” 
would necessarily exclude traditional Chinese philosophy from such a notion of 
universal or general philosophy. 
Hence, if we could agree with this definition, we would necessarily be forced to 
exclude most of the Chinese philosophical traditions from a “universal philoso -
phy”, except for its rare parts that could be interpreted through the lens of “clari -
fying its objects on the most abstract level”. 
It seems as though Vytis Silius is somehow aware of the inadequacy of pure uni -
versalism, for he is repeatedly trying to mitigate the notion. However, in spite of 
all such attempts to relativize the idea of the “universal thrust”, the problem itself 
still remains open: the very concept of universal knowledge is, even when based 
upon some (not sufficiently clarified) modes of relativity, still an abstraction that 
is very much alien precisely to immanent traditions like the Chinese one. Hence, 
such a “striving for universality” is, in itself, an essentially Western idea. It is an 
idea that is alien and in contradiction with the basic paradigms defining Chinese 
philosophies, for it can only be established in the framework of a philosophy of 
transcendence, which is, above all, trapped into a static and unchangeable frame -
work of eternal validity. In this respect, we should definitely ask ourselves whether 
by advocating a seemingly “democratic” idea of a universal philosophy, one is not 
reproducing the same old patterns of discrimination that have enabled or led to 
the exclusion of all non-Western forms of thought from the “sacred realm” of 
philosophy?
Nevertheless, it is certainly true that the structure of the relation between uni -
versality and particularity belongs to the core issues which lie at the very grounds 
2 From the viewpoint of Western philosophies, this notion is controversial and problematic in itself, 
since in the referential frameworks that prevailed in the Euro-American intellectual traditions, 
transcendence and immanence exclude one another. However, in the dynamic methodological 
framework of traditional Chinese philosophies, this is not necessarily the case. Nevertheless, in 
order to avoid possible misunderstandings, it might be better to choose another, less controversial 
term to express this idea. Here, we could point to the concept of the one-world-view, or rather 
describe it as a model that is similar to the pantheistic form of transcendence in immanence.
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308 Jana S. ROŠKER: Chinese Philosophy, “Postcomparative” Approaches...
of the current search for genuine intercultural philosophical inquiry.
3
 Precisely 
because of this reason, we should even more eagerly strive to liberate it from the 
realm of standardized universalism. In this context, Silius attempts to propose a 
different understanding of philosophy, namely as “knowledge that incorporates 
contingencies into the bigger picture”. This is a proposition which obviously ar -
gues for the implementation of deductive approaches, and has hence to be seen 
in connection with Silius’ advocating the more intensive inclusion of empirical 
sciences into contemporary “postcomparative” transcultural methods of intercul -
tural philosophical work, an issue that will be shortly elaborated upon later in 
this text. 
In my view, our treating of the relation between universalism and particularism 
should not remain limited to induction and deduction, respectively, even though 
the two methods are (much too often) seen as the two allegedly only possible, and 
hence exclusive, forms of structuring this relation. In this respect, we need to seek 
a form that would allow for an easier and smoother inclusion of traditional Chi -
nese philosophy (as one of the contingent discourses) into the relation between 
contingencies and the “bigger picture”. I believe that regarding intercultural (and 
especially transcultural) philosophy, the relation between universality and particu -
larity should be based upon the principle of dynamic complementarity.
Let me exemplify this issue by an analogy with the inseparable connection be -
tween language and thought: although the ability or the potential to create lan -
guage and thus linguistic communication is universal, each individual language 
and the grammatical structures by which it is defined are culturally conditioned. 
Langue and parole do not refer to the same linguistic entity. The same holds true 
for philosophy as a general system of thought which opens and develops “ques -
tions of deep human concern while proving the ideas they contain with rational 
arguments” (Defoort 2001, 403) on the one hand, and Chinese philosophy as a 
specific “type or genre” (ibid.) of philosophy with a specific, unique methodol -
ogy
4
 on the other. As with all philosophies, it is a form of human thought. In 
other words, like all other philosophies, Chinese philosophy has also arisen from 
the essential human need to philosophize. This need or this feature of human 
3 Even the so-called “post-comparative turn”, (provided, of course, that we can truly denote Hans 
Georg Moeller’s critical analysis of the current state of intercultural philosophy as a post-compar -
ative “turn”), an idea that is highly praised by the author, in fact chiefly proposes nothing else than 
precisely a restructuring of the very relation between universality and particularity.
4 Thus the expression “Chinese philosophy” does not refer to a geographic dimension of this uni -
versal term, but is rather an expression of the cultural conditionality which defines a certain form 
of philosophizing, or of a certain system of philosophical thought with a typical paradigmatic 
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309 Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 3 (2020), pp. 305–316
thought and sentiment is something universal, precisely the same as the human 
ability to generate language. 
I think we all agree that the exclusive establishment of a universal, overall valid 
language would not only kill off all other manifold ways of understanding, ex -
pressing and interpreting reality, but also reduce the latter to only one, mono -
lithic linguistic construction of the world. In a similar manner, a construction of 
“universal philosophic truths” would (in spite of its comfortable and comforting 
nature) likewise impoverish our manifold, innumerable ways of understanding 
reality. 
But just as there can be no langue without parole (and vice versa), because they are 
interdependent and continuously enrich and complete one another, the relation 
between general and particular philosophies should also be seen as complemen -
tary and co-relative, similar to the Chinese binary category of ben 本 and mo 末.
5
 
Hence, trying to squeeze the two oppositional notions into a relation that is evalu -
ated exclusively by induction or deduction is rather inadequate. If we operate with 
induction, i.e. if we conclude from (well-known) particularities to the existence 
of an universality, our analysis will necessarily result in a conclusion which deter -
mines the predominant position of a certain particular philosophical approach. 
In other words: we universalize a certain kind of particular approach, which then 
automatically serves as the only valid reference point for evaluating all existing 
particularities. All traditional Eurocentric prejudices regarding the value (and the 
very existence) of all non-European philosophies were constructed in this way. 
Vytis Silius is well aware of such problematic biases and attempts to correct them 
by proposing a deductive mode of universal and particular philosophical systems. 
He suggests avoiding the weakness of the alleged universalism described above, 
which, in reality, is nothing but a “Eurocentric hegemony posing as universalism” 
(Silius 2020, 262), by surpassing the existing isolation of philosophy from the 
empirical sciences, which currently prevails in universities. He criticizes the fact 
that at Western academic institutions philosophy is being taught as a discourse in 
which the empirical data is not respected enough, for it is often subordinated to 
the neat systemic “grand picture” of “pure” philosophy. However, in my view, such 
subordination is not necessarily a flaw. Firstly, empirical data is (as Silius himself 
5 For those readers who are not familiar with Chinese philosophy or Sinology, let me explain the 
basic nature of this traditional Chinese binary category: in short, the term ben refers to the elemen -
tary, common root (the universal threat) of any entity, whereas mo denotes the manifold specific, 
discrete branches (particularities) arising from it. Unlike the Hegelian model, in which the root 
of a plant is in contradiction with its stem, which negates it, the characteristic nature of this bina -
ry-oppositional pair is complementary, since the root ( ben) without branches ( mo) is dead, while the 
latter can neither exist without the former.
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310 Jana S. ROŠKER: Chinese Philosophy, “Postcomparative” Approaches...
rightly recognizes) not always objectively reliable, just as the notion of objec -
tivity itself is questionable. The problem would occur in cases when they would 
be ignored or even falsified by pure speculations, as is for instance the case with 
some dogmatic and monotheistic theologies. It is, to be sure, not too good if the 
“grand picture” of rational speculation is in open contradiction with the collected 
data. However, it is equally questionable whether it would be reasonable to take 
empirical data as a basis of the rational model.
6
 Indeed, this is a question that 
needs to be clarified in the future development of global philosophy or philosophy 
“as such”. Its overall complexity includes the general question about the relation 
between empirical and rational methodologies, and hence it demands a wide and 
interdisciplinary debate.
7
 Therefore, it is a bit too early, in my view, to criticize 
the “subordination” of the empirical data to philosophy. Philosophy is speculative 
by nature, and the elimination of its rationality (or its complete dependence on 
empirical data) would imply the end of philosophy as an academic discipline, for 
it would, in fact, become redundant. But on the other hand, it is quite clear that 
empirical and philosophical sciences have to cooperate in order to obtain relevant 
new knowledge that could really have some significance for the contemporary 
world. However, the empirical sciences mostly do not take into account philo -
sophical insights, and if they do, then they always treat these as elements that are 
subordinated to their own paradigmatic network. And I think by doing so, they 
are acting sensibly and in their own right, as it is equally right for philosophy 
to subordinate to its own rational work the results of empirical investigations. 
When criticizing traditional philosophy in this respect, Silius also claims that 
“the respect for data is much more binding in other academic disciplines of the 
humanities and social sciences” (ibid., 263). Here, we must ask ourselves which 
humanities exactly he has in mind, notwithstanding the fact that social sciences 
are, to a great extent (maybe with the only exception of the sociology of culture), 
empirical by nature anyway. In this context, he also mentions that “psychologists, 
anthropologists, sociologists are more confined by empirical data” (ibid., 262), 
which is of course true. However, we have to point out that all these disciplines 
are, to a great extent, likewise empirical sciences. Two rather explanatory examples 
of academic, highly theoretical disciplines, which truly belong to humanities, are, 
for instance, literary and aesthetic theories. Do such disciplines, for instance, have 
to accept hard-core empirical data in order to be seen as sciences in the sense of 
6 The vast majority of the sub-disciplines of mathematics, which is, in its essence, also a rational 
science, are likewise completely separated from the empirical data; however, nobody finds it 
necessary to question such a basic framework of mathematics. 
7 A very interesting and promising starting point for such debates could be provided, for instance, 
by applying in this context Li Zehou’s notion of “transforming empirical into the transcendental” 
(Rošker 2020, 182). 
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311 Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 3 (2020), pp. 305–316
Wissenschaft? All these questions relate to the problem of the relation (or propor -
tion) between subjectivity and objectivity and to our basic understanding of hu -
manities as such, as well as their true significance and value. This does not imply, 
however, that philosophy as a discipline could not (or should not) enter a fruitful 
interrelation with empirical sciences: albeit it is, as mentioned above, a speculative 
science at its very heart, philosophy as such is also not a monolithic construction, 
and it is most important that it includes fields such as experimental and cognitive 
philosophy. But in this context I would also like to relativize Silius’ belief that the 
biggest incentive for diversification of academic philosophy will not come from 
the discovery or creation of theoretical grounds, but rather from the intensified 
practice of actual philosophizing. Perhaps both, the theoretical grounds and the 
practical philosophizing, are equally important and have to function in a mutually 
complementary fashion.
Nevertheless, the article is most significant precisely because it raises questions 
linked to intercultural or transcultural philosophy in the context of its academ -
ic institutionalization. The author addresses this problem from several different, 
albeit interconnected, aspects. This is important, for in spite of many critiques 
and discussions led by scholars and students working in the respective field of 
research, and even by the wider public, it has still not been satisfactorily resolved. 
Hence, the last thing I intend to do with my questioning of certain aspects of his 
presumptions is to diminish the significance and value of Silius’ analysis. On the 
contrary, even those parts in which I cannot agree with his opinion are still highly 
inspirational and therefore valuable. 
Among others, this also applies to the supposition, which lies in the core of his 
critique of the current situation in academic philosophy, and with which I can -
not completely agree. Vytis Silius claims that “at the contemporary university 
the dominant mode of teaching philosophy at undergraduate and graduate lev -
els takes history of philosophy as the main framework of teaching philosophy” 
(Silius 2020, 260). This does not apply to my own university and nor to several 
other universities I collaborate with. Philosophy is mainly taught through its 
sub-disciplines and topics. Hence, I think we have to strongly relativize this as -
sumption. To my knowledge, the history of philosophy is just one topic among 
many others, even though I think it is also an important ideational background, 
which helps the students to rationally structure their knowledge on particular 
contents and currents, concepts and categories. Hence, I think (and I am sure 
that Vytis Silius would agree with me on this point) that the history of philos -
ophy as such should also be “globalized”. As the author himself acknowledges, 
the ideational history is an introductory step in the process of acquiring phil -
osophical knowledge. This must not necessarily change. What has to change, 
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312 Jana S. ROŠKER: Chinese Philosophy, “Postcomparative” Approaches...
though, is the scope and very structure of this historical discourse. It has to be 
cleansed of its racist foundations, deconstructed and re-structured by re-includ -
ing the Asian, Indian and Arabic pioneers of written philosophy, and by weaving 
into its fabric other, hitherto unknown thinkers. Therefore, I also cannot agree 
with Silius’ presumption that the reason for the Orientalist and Eurocentric 
nature of traditional comparative philosophy as a field of academic research lies 
in its reliance on the history of philosophy as the main mode of teaching and 
researching. Besides, I am convinced that for philosophy its history is equally 
important, as it is for the integral distinctiveness of every human being, and 
every society. History, of course, is history only because it has to function in and 
serve the societies it is written for and the people who live in them. Therefore, 
as Vytis Silius claims, “historical and cultural contextualization, which can be 
adequately achieved only through a rigid study of the history of ideas … has to 
be complemented by actual reconstruction, reinvention, and reformulation of 
the inherited philosophical classifications and technical philosophical termi -
nologies” (Silius 2020, 267). However, with regard to the non-European phi -
losophies there is also another important foundation which has to be mastered, 
for it is indispensable for their proper and coherent understanding, namely their 
underlying methodologies which include frameworks of reference or paradig -
matic networks (Rošker 2015, 56–62) that have to be learned in order to allow 
an adequate understanding.
In Silius’s view, another important reason for the prejudices linked to Chinese 
philosophy as an academic discipline lies in the colonial tradition of Sinologists, 
who were the first transmitters of Chinese thought to the Western world. In 
his view, most of these scholars did not identify themselves as philosophers, 
and therefore, such research “did not have the ‘universalistic thrust’ character -
istic and indispensable for philosophy, and it did not attempt to challenge and 
change Eurocentric orientation of academic philosophy” (Silius 2020, 265). I 
think that we ought to be careful when evaluating the contributions of such pio -
neers of intercultural mediation. Even though for many of them this accusation 
holds true, we cannot overgeneralize these aspects, for in spite of their non-re -
flective nature and the lack of any proper methodology, numerous Sinologists 
have made great contributions not only by translating and introducing Chi -
nese philosophy to Western audiences, but also by providing the first innovative 
analyses and interpretations of the crucial works.
8
 Their emphasis on language 
and linguistic structures does not always necessarily imply the neglecting of 
philosophical questions. On the contrary, it was often more than valuable for 
8 Alfred Forke and Wolfgang Bauer, for instance, have contributed many valuable insights into the 
genuine nature of Chinese philosophy, even though they were Sinologists.
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313 Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 3 (2020), pp. 305–316
obtaining a thorough and more autochthonous understanding of specific con -
cepts, categories and specific paradigms that cannot be found in Western (nor 
the alleged “universal”) philosophy. 
Because I don’t want this reply to become longer than the article to which it refers, 
I will abstain from discussing the numerous interesting methodological questions 
raised by Vytis Silius with regard to (intercultural) comparative philosophy. His 
study provides a brilliant analysis and coherent critique of the traditional compar -
ative methods in intercultural philosophy, summarizing all alternative approaches 
(such as the philosophy of fusion, or post-comparative philosophy
9
) under the 
umbrella term “postcomparative philosophy”. Such a philosophy should, in his 
view, surpass the narrow boundaries of the “correct exposition” of philosophical 
views and positions we already know of. It could thus overcome the limitations of 
“seemingly static and historically settled philosophical cultures, traditions, think -
ers, texts, and concepts” (Silius 2020, 270). It could furthermore offer us new 
ways of using ideas and views from all over the world as inspirations for our 
own philosophizing, and allow us to solve “hitherto unsolved problems possibly 
raising issues never raised before anywhere” (Chakrabarti and Weber 2016, 22). 
Irrespective of the fact that by constructing the term “postcomparative” Silius has 
made a somewhat unlucky choice
10
, his ideas developed under this title are very 
significant and more than worthy of our exhaustive consideration. 
In this context, his elaborations on the future possibilities of transcultural philos -
ophy are especially valuable. Silius exposes the importance of transcultural studies, 
and elaborates in detail on its future possibilities. Even though he also laments that, 
unfortunately, “the term transcultural (transculturality) is virtually absent from 
philosophical—including comparative philosophy—discourse” (Silius 2020, 273), 
this is not entirely true. Transcultural philosophy is a long-standing discourse, 
though one with continuously changing and developing paradigms. Transcultural 
philosophy has been an important field of philosophical investigation for at least 
half a century, starting with Eduardo Valera’s construction of its methodological 
bases (Valera 1972a; 1972b), and developing further more or less continuously in 
the decades since (see for instance Fredericks 1988; Nielsen 1995; Siegel 1999; 
9 See Chakrabarti and Weber 2016, and Moeller 2018.
10 Similar to the original term “post-comparative”, its modification into the single compound “post -
comparative” is likewise problematic. These terms say nothing except that we are dealing here with 
something which comes after the era of the domination of comparative methods. It does not say 
anything about the concrete ways of these new methods, nor about the reasons for the elimination 
of comparative approaches. Besides, such terms are problematic because of the open and all-en -
compassing relativization of reality and the methods of its interpretation. In this sense, they are 
similar to the term post-modernist. 
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314 Jana S. ROŠKER: Chinese Philosophy, “Postcomparative” Approaches...
Wang 2002; 2020; Rošker 2005; Hashi 2007; 2016; Obert 2011; Heubel 2011; 
2019; Lee 2013; Pajin 2015; Bartosch 2017; Dai 2020 and many others).
Last, but not least, I would like to point to the highly interesting fact that trans -
cultural studies proceed from a framework of reference which is very similar to the 
one defining traditional Chinese philosophy. This means that Chinese philosophy 
can provide much more solid bases for transcultural philosophizing than its West -
ern counterpart. This is not surprising, for––similar to transcultural philosophy, 
classical Chinese philosophical discourses are also rooted in a dynamic relational 
onto-epistemology, which does not operate with essential concepts that lead to 
the notion of “being”. If we therefore aim to apply the basic paradigms of trans -
cultural studies to Chinese-Western intercultural philosophy, we might achieve 
better (and more “objective”) results if we start from the Chinese, instead of the 
Western model, because dynamic representations can integrate the static ones, but 
not vice versa. Only in this way can philosophizing across borders, languages and 
horizons be intensified and gradually reach the point of a Kuhnian paradigmatic 
shift. This brings us back to another consideration, which is above all linked to the 
question of existing power relations in the contemporary world. 
It is not enough to simply state that a new transcultural philosophy is necessary. In 
order to work towards the best possible interaction and syntheses among diverse 
philosophical traditions, insights and approaches, we need to ask ourselves about 
the reasons that are lurking behind such endeavors. In other words: diversification 
of different philosophical approaches and methodologies is not only unavoidable 
due to the increasingly intensive existing practices of contemporary active philos -
ophers (Silius 2020, 277). These practices––as all practices––are chiefly a result 
of the present state of the present global situation. What is more important is the 
purpose, or the final cause of these practices, the origin of which lies in the fact 
that the global economy, global politics, and the network of corresponding modes 
of communications (including academic ones) necessitate new approaches for ex -
plaining reality. A diversified approach is not only the most “democratic” one, but 
also the one that allows us to gain genuinely new insights and further develop 
existing theoretical paradigms. However, what needs to be considered in this re -
spect is also the question of whether these new (and doubtless more “democratic”) 
trends are not–– inter alia––also linked to the fact that today global economic and 
political power is being transferred from the Euro-American to the East Asian 
region. Let us hope that the so-called “New Type of Great Power Relations” that 
has been established in the framework of such developments will allow us to cre -
ate a more equal, less violent and less biased paradigm of intercultural philosophi -
cal dialogues. In my view, this is precisely the main agenda of our future work, and 
also the main message of Vytis Silius’ article. I sincerely hope that this remarkable 
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315 Asian Studies VIII (XXIV), 3 (2020), pp. 305–316
paper will represent the beginning of new, topical and important debates on the 
theme, and one of the first steps on the long and winding road leading towards a 
new Politeia of transcultural philosophies. 
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