Lecture
LUCIP Colloquium Heidegger’s Phusis (φύσις) and Daoist Ziran (自然):a Phenomenological Comparison of ‘Things-Themselves’ in Inter-dependence
- Date
- Friday 11 September 2026
- Time
- Location
-
P.J. Veth
Nonnensteeg 1-3
2311 VJ Leiden - Room
- 0.06
The Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy is pleased to announce a lecture by Steven Burik, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Singapore Management University.
Abstract
This article explores a key notion of classical Daoism, ziran 自然, through Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of the Greek word phusis. I discuss whether a comparison between these terms allows us to understand ziran differently, and whether a ‘ziranist’ reading sheds more light on how Heidegger understands phusis. I argue that Heidegger challenged the dominance of metaphysics as dualist representational thinking, and that his phenomenological challenge to the dominant Western categories of thought allows us a clearer understanding of ziran in Daoism. I argue that both terms have gone through a similar development in history, which unfortunately does not do those terms justice. While phusis and ziran are often understood as indicating things being ‘in themselves’, purely self-generated and perceived as separate entities, my reading provides a new way to understand phenomenology’s core mission of returning to ‘the things themselves’, consisting in seeing things as fundamentally processual and relational.
About
Steven Burik is currently Associate Professor in Philosophy at Singapore Management University. He is also the Associate Dean for Student Matters and Alumni Affairs in the School of Social Sciences, and currently holds a Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship. He holds a PhD in comparative philosophy from the National University of Singapore. His research interests are mainly in comparative philosophy, continental philosophy (Heidegger, Derrida), Chinese philosophy (Daoism), and Critical Thinking. He is the author of The End of Comparative Philosophy and the Task of Comparative Thinking (SUNY Press), and editor of Comparative Philosophy and Method: Contemporary Practices and Future Possibilities, (co-edited with Ralph Weber and Robert Smid, Bloomsbury), which brings together leading scholars thinking about the methodology in comparative philosophy, and has co-authored a textbook in Critical Thinking. Aside from these he has published numerous articles in various journals and books, including Philosophy East and West, Dao: a Journal of Comparative Philosophy, and Comparative and Continental Philosophy.
All are welcome!