The Question Concerning

Technology in China
An Essay in Cosmotechnics

Yuk Hui

Heideggers critique of philosophers such as Feng

modern technology and its Youlan, Mou Zongsan, and
relation to metaphysics has Keiji Nishitani, sheds new light
been widely accepted in the on the obscurity of the
East. Yet the conception that question of technology in
there is only oneoriginally China. Why was technics never
Greektype of technics has thematized in Chinese
been an obstacle to any thought? Why has time never
original critical thinking of been a real question for
technology in modern Chinese Chinese philosophy? How was
thought. Yuk Hui argues for the traditional concept of Qi
the urgency of imagining a transformed in its relation to
specifically Chinese philosophy Dao as China welcomed
of technology capable of technological modernity and
SERIES Mono
responding to Heideggers westernization? In The
Forthcoming Dec 2016
challenge, while Question Concerning Technology
ISBN 978-0-9954550-0-9
problematizing the affirmation in China, a systematic
Paperback: 12.50
of technics and technologies historical survey of the major
as anthropologically universal. concepts of traditional
This investigation of the Chinese thinking is followed by
historical-metaphysical a startlingly original
Yuk Hui is currently question of technology, investigation of these
Research Associate drawing on Lyotard, questions, in order to ask how
at ICAM, Leuphana Simondon, and Stiegler, and Chinese thought might today
University of introducing a history of contribute to a renewed,
Lneburg, he is the modern Eastern philosophical cosmotechnical questioning of
author of On the thinking largely unknown to globalized technics.
Existence of Digital Western readers, including
Objects (University
of Minnesota Press,
2016)
In this remarkable book, Yuk Hui draws on the major
thinkers of both the West and the East to elaborate an
original reflection on the nature of technology. He has
enlarged the philosophical horizon for the
Anthropocene age.

- Andrew Feenberg