Professor Wang Jiaxin is a professor of philosophy at XJTU.

Professor Wang Jiaxin of Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU) recently published his paper The Vitality of Subjectivity: Reexamining the Relationship between Consciousness and Life in Issue 5, 2025 of Social Sciences in China.‌

The paper focuses on two philosophical motivations in 20th-century Continental European philosophy: one seeks to construct rational universalism based on the philosophy of consciousness, while the other aims to reveal the vital life within fluid experiences as such.

It examines the entanglement and tension between these motivations, arguing that this tension has shaped the broader phenomenological movement and that balancing, even reconfiguring, their relationship remains an essential pursuit of modern Continental philosophy.

As a representative doctrine of modern foreign philosophy, classical phenomenology inadequately addressed the demand for balancing consciousness and life, tacitly prioritizing the modern philosophy of consciousness initiated by Descartes.

Consequently, "life" as a fundamental dimension grounding consciousness largely fails to manifest itself authentically. This foundational tension drives current efforts to articulate and defend a non-reductionist, non-intellectualist concept of life.

To this day, German and French phenomenology continue responding to this demand, revealing the connotations of life through rebalancing consciousness and vitality. The paper characterizes these theoretical explorations as a philosophical stance termed ‌"transcendental vitalism",‌ which depicts life grounding consciousness while manifesting itself within consciousness through force and movement.

Based on structural elements in this process, new possibilities for cross-cultural philosophical dialogue emerge. This concept of life not only resonates with ancient Chinese qi theory but also offers a unique metaphysical perspective for understanding the world in the era of mechanism and digitalization.

Centering on the movement of subjectivity, the paper explains and defends life conceptualized as ‌"motion,"‌ thereby interpreting connections between naïve conceptions of life and scientific notions of "life" at a more fundamental level.

Social Sciences in China‌, administered and published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is China's most prestigious comprehensive journal in philosophy and social sciences, featuring the nation's latest and most significant academic research.