How to Return to the Family: the Redemption of Modernity

Abstract

“Family” is a word charged with complex emotions. As a matter of philosophical inquiry, however, we need to bracket everyday understandings of family, its historical mechanisms, and the findings of social-scientific research, so as to clarify family as a philosophical concept and reveal its fundamental character as an existential structure. Modernity is founded on the logic of “leaving the family.” The privileged status of the individual as subject originates in Protestant theology and is deepened in modern philosophy, yet the profound crisis of the individual-subject has given rise to modern nihilism. Drawing on interpretive paths to redemption within the Chinese-speaking world, this article offers a response to the crisis of modernity: “returning to the family” becomes the orientation of this restorative redemption. Guided by this perspective, modern Western philosophy likewise reveals a path of salvation grounded in family. Ultimately, on the basis of an “ontology of family,” we seek to disclose the “nurturing” dimension of human existence.