A Phenomenological Explication of Cultural Difference. With Reference to the Cultural Situation in Taiwan

In an age when it has become commonplace to encounter cultural differences, the problem of the latter deserves our close attention. With the help of phenomenology, the paper manages to illuminate the meaning of cultural difference. Beyond that, the paper wishes to show that phenomenology may also provide us with a solid ground, such that we can handle cultural difference in the face of the challenge of nihilism. The first part of the contribution is dedicated to a brief review concerning the question how the problem of cultural difference has been hinted at in the thoughts both of Husserl and Schutz, and how it was overlooked by both of them. As next, the paper deals with the concept of appresentation, in order to see how it was originally developed in Husserl and then transformed by Schutz. The last part lays out the twisted experience of cultural difference displayed in the novel Orphan of Asia; within it, Nietzsche’s ideas of nihilism are introduced, in order to evaluate how to face cultural differences appropriately.