Co-Becoming: Reconceptualizing the Human Condition

This open access book deepens the conversation begun in the 2024 volume Gongsheng Across Contexts: A Philosophy of Co-Becoming, exploring in greater detail philosophies of co-becoming. This volume brings together essays by scholars from East Asia and North America, focusing on the philosophy of co-becoming and its practical applications that were not featured in the last volume, together with an Open Invitation to Thinking Global Co-becoming, jointly drafted by the three leading institutions advocating co-becoming thinking. As co-becoming remains a relatively unfamiliar concept in global intellectual discourse, its theoretical foundations and immense potential to address pressing human challenges are often underappreciated. Through this collection, we aim to deepen the theoretical groundwork for advancing an international intellectual movement centered on co-becoming as a philosophy, a way of life, and a way of thinking.

Bing Song is the President of the Berggruen Institute. She has dedicated herself to fostering deep integration and creative dialogue among frontier technologies, Eastern philosophies, and artistic practice. She has led numerous innovative initiatives at the Berggruen Institute at the intersection of these fields, while building and sustaining a cross-disciplinary network of thinkers and practitioners spanning the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, literature, the arts and spiritual practices. She has also published essays exploring themes of artificial intelligence and Chinese philosophy, wisdom education in the age of AI, the Eastern gongsheng (co-becoming) worldview and “planetary thinking,” attempting to explore deeper connections between technology and civilization, thought and the future.

Mark McConaghy is associate professor in the Department of Chinese Literature at National Sun Yat-sen University and as well as co-director of the university's Center for Global Co-Becoming and Transnational Sinology. His research focuses on modern Chinese and Taiwanese literary and intellectual history. His writings have appeared in the leading journals in his field, including China Information, Modern China, The International Journal of Taiwan Studies, The Journal of Asian Studies, Asian Studies Review, and more.