Ritual and Otherness in Human Relations: The Human-Person Philosophy of Byung-Chul Han

Abstract

Contemporary Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han covers a wide range of topics in his many books, ranging from time to death to beauty to power, among others. While Han couches his investigations and critiques, mainly into and of present-day society, in the language of anti-neoliberalism, anti-capitalism, and other standards of the day, I understand Han’s hidden preoccupation to be the human person. In this essay I examine some of Han’s books to draw out his personalist philosophy more clearly.

Keywords

• byung-chul han
• neoliberalism
• capitalism
• dataism
• human person