François Jullien

François Jullien, philosopher and sinologist, is a professor at the Paris Diderot University and a member of the University Institute of France. He directs the Institute of Contemporary Thought and his work has been translated into twenty languages. He trained at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris and has studied Chinese language and thought at the universities of Beijing and Shanghai. He has a PhD in Far Eastern studies.

Between 1988 and 1990, Jullien was president of the French Association of Chinese Studies, and was director of the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Paris 7 (1990-2000) and president of the International College of Philosophy (1995-1998). Jullien directs “L’Agenda de la pensée contemporaine” for the Flammarion publishing house, as well as working as a consultant to Western companies interested in establishing themselves in China. The originality of François Jullien’s project is that in his work China becomes a detour to lead us back to philosophy. His intention is to depart from Western thinking in order to better interrogate it in a radical way; to uncover its roots, its sometimes unimagined assumptions and basic pillars.