• Thursday, December 17, 2020
• Program 19:00, Close 20:00 (HK Time / GMT +8)

When looking into the history of the East and West, there has always been different enlightenment periods – from the West’s Age of Enlightenment to the East’s Hundred Flowers Campaign. What shared behind these two periods is to reimagine what the leading idea is and what can be done to address various issues. The difference between the East and West has often led to conflict between these ruling bodies throughout our world’s history in ideas, individuals, and societies. Unfortunately, this conflict continues to trail us in the modern day. However, exploring its similarities, complementary, and also contrasting philosophies are key to navigating and understanding what our shared future holds, and what can bring out more progress.

Join the Asia Society Hong Kong Center to hear Susan Neiman, American moral philosopher and Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, and Wang Gungwu, University Professor at the National University of Singapore and Professor Emeritus of the Australian National University, moderated by Yong Huang, Chairperson of Philosophy Department at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. They will share their thoughts on what lessons can be drawn from the East’s and West’s history and how we maneuver realism and idealism, or even a third pathway forward.

Susan Neiman is Director of the Einstein Forum. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Neiman studied philosophy at Harvard and the Freie Universität Berlin, and was professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv University. She is the author of Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin, The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant, Evil in Modern Thought, Fremde sehen anders, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists, Why Grow Up?, Widerstand der Vernunft. Ein Manifest in postfaktischen Zeiten and Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil.

Wang Gungwu, is a historian of China and Southeast Asia. Born in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies. Wang studied history in the University of Malaya and holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Wang was a founding member of the University Socialist Club and its founding president in 1953. Wang was awarded the Academic Prize of the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize by the Japanese city of Fukuoka in 1994. He was also awarded the Tang Prize in Sinology and the Distinguished Service Order (Singapore) in 2020.

Yong Huang, Ph.D. (Fudan) and Th.D. (Harvard), is currently a professor and the chairperson of Philosophy Department at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He served as the President of Association of Chinese Philosophers in America, co-chair of University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies at Columbia University, and co-chair of the Confucian Tradition Group of American Academy of Religion. He is the founding editor of Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy and Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy (a book series), both by Springer. His research interests include ethics, political philosophy, and Chinese and comparative philosophy. Author of Religious Goodness and Political Rightness: Beyond the Liberal and Communitarian Debate, Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed, and Why Be Moral: Learning from the Neo-Confucian Cheng Brothers. (moderator)