关键词: 阿兰·瓦兹, 弗朗索瓦·朱利安, 中西思想比较, 老庄思想, 禅学

Abstract: Both Alan Watts (1915－1973) and François Jullien (1951－ ) are widely known and admired for their prolific research and writings on Asian philosophy and religion that offered fresh and insightful interpretations of these fields to Western readers. Each of these two men possess profound erudition in multiple textual and other cultural traditions such as Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, and each produced two or three dozen books that have played important roles in promoting the understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture in the West. This study compares the contrasting approaches of these two thinkers toward traditional Chinese thought: namely, while Watts tends to employ Chinese philosophical approaches to supplement or correct certain shortcomings of Western thought, Jullien employs Chinese tradition as a mirror to illuminate and explore the blind spots or undeveloped topics in Western philosophy. I argue that unlike the tendency of academic Sinology to remain narrowly focused or of more popular writings that do not penetrate beyond the superficial, these two thinkers have contributed far-reaching and profound insights on both the differences and parallels between Chinese and European thought, thereby opening up new avenues of research for the pursuit of comparative studies of these traditions.

Key words: Alan Watts, François Jullien, Comparative Chinese and Western ideas, Laozi and Zhuangzi thought, Chan (Zen)