From "Cultural Awareness" to "Cultural Creativity"——A Clue to Understand Fei Xiaotong's Cultural Reflection

This article further interprets Fei Xiaotong's concept of "cultural awareness" in respond both to the world's cultural encounters and to the concept of cultural awareness. The "cultural awareness" concept by Fei Xiaotong and the concept of "cultural creativity" by Paul Ricoeur are generally concerned with the same issue, which is how to keep cultural independence and creativity in today's world culture encounter situation. By comparing the thoughts of Fei Xiaotong and Paul Ricoeur, it can be found that Fei Xiaotong's academic thoughts have developed from post-development countries. He raised the concept of "cultural awareness" from another standpoint of the world center, and based on the adaptation of Chinese civilization in the era of cultural encounter, the deeper concern of his concept of "cultural awareness" is the "cultural creativity". In fact, this is an individual problem. In his later academic reflections, Fei emphasized the uniqueness of Chinese culture, and also noted the individual level of cultural awareness, which can be seen from his emphasis on the "I" as the subject. Although the focus of their discussions are very different, their opinions can still form a mutually complementary relationship: Paul Ricoeur gives the intrinsic motivation for cultural development; Fei Xiaotong's "cultural awareness' gives a perfect solution.