Tsang Lap Chuen () (1943—) is a Chinese philosopher in the analytic tradition. He is known for his theory of the sublime in which he presents the notion of limit-situations in life as being central to the human experience.
Personal life Tsang was born in Wuhua County, Guangdong, China on 7 October 1943, the son of Tsang Kwok Ying (1906–1999), District Minister of Tsung Tsin Mission (formerly Basle Mission) of Hong Kong, and Wong Kun Tsing (1916–2014), a devout Christian committed to the church and family. They moved to Hong Kong when he was two years old.A picture of Tsang (center) with siblings taken in Kau Yan Church, Hong Kong in 1946. Today he and his wife Tse Wai Yee live in Hong Kong. They have two sons, Tze Yee and Tze Yan.
Education and work Tsang attended church-operated public schoolsKau Yan School, then College (1949–1961), and St. Paul's College (1961–1963). before studying at the University of Hong Kong from 1963 to 1968, graduating with a B.A. in philosophy and modern languages and an M.A. in philosophy.The University of Hong Kong Gazette, Vol. XIV, No. 2, p. 17 & Vol. XVII, No. 2, p. 21.Noteworthy is that, before the master's program actually began in October 1966, at the advice of one of his mentors Erik Kvan in June 1966, Tsang wrote reviews of over a dozen classic works in philosophy and religion and no fewer than two hundred English synopses of articles in Chinese journals on Chinese culture and religion. From 1968 to 1970 he was a philosophy tutorThe Chinese University of Hong Kong Bulletin, Vol. 5, Issues 1–8. at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. From 1969 to 1974, he continued his study at HKU for a PhD in philosophical method, which ended with his withdrawal due to gradual digression of his research interests. From 1975 until 2004, he was a faculty memberSee HKBU e-News, Wed. 12 May, 2004. in general education and religious studies at Hong Kong Baptist University; from 1978 to 1979, its exchange professor to Malone College, USA; and, from 1995 to 2000, head of its Department of Religion and Philosophy.
From 1985 to 1991 Tsang re-enrolled for the PhD program at HKU, this time in philosophy of religion, with the research topic of existential wonder.; reprinted in To place the topic in a historical context, his supervisor F.C.T. Moore introduced him to Kant's Critique of Judgment on the concept of the sublime. Eventually, he worked out a thesisSee The University of Hong Kong Gazette, Vol. XL, No. 1, p. 2. The thesis, entitled A Theory of the Sublime (1991), The HKU Scholars Hub, was published intact in . on a new theory of the sublime in the tradition of Longinus, Burke and Kant, later published as The Sublime: Groundwork towards a Theory by the recommendation of Joseph A. Munitiz, then the Master of Campion Hall, Oxford.
Theory of the Sublime In the light of Wittgenstein on "language games", Lévi-Strauss on "ritual and myth" and Freud on "ideas and dreams",See also references in the book to F.C.T. Moore, Erik Kvan, Rush Rhees, Dan Sperber, Martin Hengel, Gerd Theissen, Michael Grant, Martin Hollis, Bernard Williams, Carl Jung, Robert Campbell Roberts, Harry Frankfurt and Malcolm Budd. Tsang develops a conceptual framework of [i] construal, [ii] evocation, [iii] affectivity and [iv] instantiation, giving a coherent account of the elements that can be distinguished in the phenomenon of the sublime, with the event of the Crucifixion as an exemplary instance. In the experience of the sublime, Longinus emphasises our contemplation and thought reaching the limit of the natural order of grandeur; Burke our self-preservation in situations which defy our existing capacities; and Kant our transcendence of the natural order as supersensible beings. Each of them is concerned with an aspect of the sublime which Tsang characterises, in general terms, as that which transports us to a self-realization at the limit of our existence.
According to the theory Tsang proposes, the sublime is concerned with a limit-situation in life and our self-realization in it such that the core of all experience of the sublime is an intensified awareness of our self-realization at a life-limit. Life-limits are of three kinds, the top limit to our being which borders on that which transcends the natural and the human, the bottom limit to our being which borders on the non-existent, and the median limit which designates the bloom of our being in its domain.. By our very nature, we desire affirmation at the summit, preservation at the basis, and equilibrium in the domain of being; . Typical instances evocative of the sublime in the natural order are, e.g., Mount Everest, a precipitous cliff and the fall of leaves in autumn, respectively; . We come to an intensified awareness of our self-realization at a life-limit in our encounter with an object which is so construed that it elicits a set of thoughts and reactions pertaining to certain themes, including the limits of our powers and abilities, and the importance of being able to go up to or even beyond those limits.. For instance, the Crucifixion may be construed in terms of the sublime in its three senses. As an object construed in terms of the sublime at the top limit in the affirmative mode, the Crucifixion may be looked upon as an authentic expression of autonomy at its perfection. As an object construed in terms of the sublime at the bottom limit in the preservative mode, the Crucifixion may be regarded as the infliction of the utmost torture on a human being. And then, as an object construed in terms of the sublime at the median limit in the appreciative mode, the Crucifixion may be depicted as God's act of reconciliation with man, making peace on earth. .
The sublime is concerned with the notion of a limit to what can be said and thought and willed. The sublime is not an object per se, but a particular manner in which certain objects are construed and are evocative of certain thoughts and reactions. There is no one common property of sublime objects, no one single emotional state in sublime experiences, which is an essential feature of the sublime. For the sublime is but a notion in the mind and heart of the person in relation to the object, any object,Any object, be it a thing, an event, a thought, an action, a situation, or the like. . which is confronted as sublime. However, from the standpoint of an external observer, one is able to distinguish in the experience of the sublime that which presupposes the universality of certain concepts and human characteristics and that which belongs to particular cultural and social forms and varies from culture to culture.See further explanation of the theory in Alasdair MacIntyre's "Foreword" to .
Reference to St Anselm The Sublime: Groundwork towards a Theory is concerned with language, thought and ultimate reality; as such, the book is a sequel to Tsang's master's thesis on logic, language and religion, which concludes with the possibility of God's existence and the relevance of St Anselm's "faith seeking understanding" to the question of God's existence.Tsang (1968), pp. 27-30 & 120-1. "Faith seeking understanding" is the original title of Anselm's Proslogion. The Epilogue of The Sublime alludes to, without affirming, two central ideas in the Proslogion: that God is Existence (“I am that I am.” Exodus 3:14), as explained in Anselm's ontological argument; and that man is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).St Anselm, Proslogion (1078), Prologue & Chapters 1-3. Before engaging in the sublime, Tsang had been interested in existential wonder, which is wonder at the world of our existence and our existence in the world. An experience of the sublime, which is an intensified awareness of our self-realization at a life-limit, is existential wonder occasioned by an object construed as connected with going to the limit of some human possibility, From the typewritten comments on Tsang's penultimate draft (1991) of The Sublime, it can be said that F.C.T. Moore first pointed out this aspect of "going to the limit of some human possibility" as being central to the experience of the sublime, which is in line with the Tractatus (). and here the person may further respond in faith, seeking to understand what lies at the limit.; see pp. 147-160 on the ontological thrust of existential wonder in Wittgenstein. For discussion of this aspect of the sublime in human activities other than the religious and moral, see, e.g., David Stipp, A Most Elegant Equation: Euler's Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics (New York: Basic Books, 2017), pp. 7-15, 138-163. Stipp's formulation of the sublime (p. 145) explains in brief the central idea of Tsang’s theory in terms of the Kantian sublime with MacIntyre's emphasis on its inherent connection with the limit of some human possibility (). The afore-explained theory of the sublime, with emphasis on its threefold kind experienced in a threefold manner (), may be treated as of historical relevance. It can be said that Tsang’s theory is the concept of the sublime explicated in a language regardless of Kant's transcendental idealism ().
The Epilogue of The Sublime concludes with the self-fulfilling conception of the devout Christian in imitation of Christ the Son of God (John 14:6) under totally adverse conditions,The Christian follows in Jesus' footsteps in all aspects of life, i.e., body, mind and spirit; which can be said to be the main themes of Kant’s trilogy of practical reason, pure reason and judgment. As to our coming unto God, Kant has argued that, when man confronts the sublime in a natural or experiential object in actual life, he can realize himself as a rational and free being transcendent of the natural or social order. For Kant God is the most sublime of all and the Crucifixion, as the ultimate manifestation of the moral law in man in defiance of the natural and social order, is an exemplary instantiation of the sublime. Cf. Leszek Kolakowski on the Crucifixion in an article which appeared in the weekly paper of the Polish association of atheists and freethinkers in 1965, quoted in Sign of Contradiction by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) (New York: Seabury, 1979), p. 106. (Cf. Karlheinz Gerlach, Die Freimaurer im Alten Preußen 1738–1806 (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2014), p. 24; cf. Kant, sect. on "Young Scholar", see reference to the Masonic lodge.) See (In the experience of the sublime, Kant also intends to unite, in an attempt to integrate his critical philosophy, the theoretical and practical aspects of man's reason in the empirical