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8 R. T. Ames

I use this neologism “intra-cultural” in describing Lao’sphilosophyof
culture to distinguish his hard-won approach from the presuppositions of
those who would classify their avocation as “com-parative” or “inter-cultural”
philosophy. The prefixs “com-” (or co-) and “inter-” suggest a joint, external
and open relationship that conjoins two or more separate and in some sense
comparable entities. “Intra-” on the other hand, as “on the inside,”“within,”
references internal and constitutive relations contained within a given entity
itself—in this case, philosophy. In this essay, I will argue that for Lao Sze-Kwang,
philosophy in all of its complexity, is one thing.
Of course, this same perception of Lao’s understanding of philosophy as “one
thing” is much remarked upon by many of his colleagues and students. Favorite
targets of Lao Sze-Kwang’s ire were the romantic and idealizing traditionalists,
who in advocating for Chinese philosophy, exaggerated its moral profundities
while ignoring its cognitive, analytic and scientific limits. For Lao, these partisans,
rather than using reason and rigor to enlighten their interrogation, used it only to
rationalize the dictates of their occulted ethnocentrism. Lau Kwok-ying (刘国英),
for example, remembers his teacher’s exhortations:

Professor Lao would constantly remind us: We should not and cannot set China up in
contrast to the world (the May Fourth reformers who advocated for complete Westerniza-
tion and the traditional cultural purists were both guilty of making this same mistake). We
can only see the way forward for Chinese culture from the vantage point of “China in the
world.” (Lau, 2003, p. 28).

Cheng Chung-yi (郑宗义) in his reflections on Lao’s attitude toward Confucianism
makes the same point:

Professor Lao would repeatedly stress that it is only when we deliberate upon and analyze
Chinese philosophy within the context of world philosophy (or universal philosophical
problems) that we begin to fathom its real meaning (Cheng, 2003, p. 58).

Iwantto appealtoLao’s intra-cultural approach to the philosophy of culture to
address three questions: Why did Lao abandon his early reliance on the Hegelian
model of philosophy of culture and formulate his own “two-structured” theory?
Again, given Lao’s profound commitment and contribution to Chinese philoso-
phy and its future directions, is it not proper to describe him as a “Chinese
philosopher?” And why is the much accomplished Lao Sze-Kwang not installed
in the CUHK pantheon as yet one more of the great “New Confucian” philoso-
phers (新儒学家) to be associated with this institution?
Lao Sze-Kwang was not alone in reading Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit as a
philosophy of culture. The distinguished philosopher Albert William Levi also
observes: