This essay attempts a paradigmatic comparison between the fourfold worldview of Hua-yen Buddhism and the postmodern philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard. Employing a tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces as a structural underpinning of these two philosophies, the essay illuminates the liberating nature of Hua-yen Buddhism and postmodern thought together with the shadow of skepticism involved in endorsing a vision for a poly-lingual existence. Despite human beings' desire for a totalitarian vision hidden in every aspect of our discourse, Hua-yen Buddhism and (...) postmodern thought demand us to envision the world of the 'inconceivable' in which the diversity of existence raises its own voice beyond the regulating force of our society. (shrink)

According to metaphysical coherentism, grounding relations form an interconnected system in which things ground each other and nothing is ungrounded. This potentially viable view’s logical territory remains largely unexplored. In this paper, I describe that territory by articulating four varieties of metaphysical coherentism. I do not argue for any variety in particular. Rather, I aim to show that not all issues which might be raised against coherentism will be equally problematic for all the versions of that view, which features far (...) more nuance and diversity than is typically ascribed to it. (shrink)

This paper examines the Huayan teaching of the six characteristics as presented in the Rafter Dialogue from Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings. The goal is to make the teaching accessible to those with minimal training in Buddhist philosophy, and especially for those who aim to engage with the extensive question-and-answer section of the Rafter Dialogue. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, contextualizing Fazang's account of the characteristics with earlier Buddhist attempts to theorize the relationships between wholes (...) and their parts; second, explicating the meaning Fazang likely attributes to each of the six characteristics; third, situating the characteristics as explicated within Fazang's broader metaphysical framework. (shrink)

This paper discusses the idea of "pure experience" within the context of the Buddhist tradition and in connection with the notions of emptiness and dependent origination via a reading of Dale Wright's reading of 'Huangbo' in his 'Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism'. The purpose is to appropriate Wright's text in order to engender a response to Steven Katz's contextualist-constructivist thesis that there are no "pure" (i.e., unmediated) experiences. In light of the Mahayana claim that everything is empty of substance, i.e., (...) originates dependently through conditions, contingencies, and contexts, what does the "purity" of the Enlightenment experience mean for Chan/Zen Buddhism? (shrink)

In Plato's Parmenides , Socrates proposes a 'Day' analogy to express one possible model of part/whole relations. His analogy is swiftly rejected and replaced with another analogy, that of the 'Sail'. In this paper, it is argued that there is a profound difference between these two analogies and that the 'Day' represents a distinct way to think about part/whole relations. This way of thinking, I argue, is the standard way of thinking in East Asian Buddhism. Plato's 'Day' analogy can then (...) be used to illuminate the meaning of an opaque but very important concept in East Asian Buddhism: li , which in this paper is developed as a modal concept of 'Wholeness'. (shrink)

According to many experiments in cross-cultural psychology, East Asians exhibit holistic cognitive style typified by use of resemblance heuristics, field dependence, external sources of causation, intuitive forms of reasoning, and interdependent forms of social thinking. Holistic cognitive style contrasts with analytic cognitive style, which is common to Westerners. Section 1 presents information on the background of Buddhism’s entry into and treatment by China. Section 2 discusses experimental evidence for the representation of holistic cognitive style in contemporary East Asians. Section 3 (...) presents preliminary evidence for the interaction between holistic cognitive style and the history of ideas in China at large. Section 4 analyzes two discussions of the same philosophical problem conducted by Chinese Buddhist philosopher Fazang and Indian Vedic philosopher Shankara. It is provisionally argued that the interpretive strategies displayed by Fazang interact with several components of holistic cognitive style, in contrast with Shankara. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

Although Indic perspectives toward nature are now well documented, climate engineering discussions seem to still lack the views from Indic or other non‐Western sources. In this article, I will apply some of the Hindu and Jain concepts such as karma, nonviolence (Ahiṃsā ), humility (Vinaya ), and renunciation (Saṃnyāsa ) to analyze the two primary climate geoengineering strategies of solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). I suggest that Indic philosophical and religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and (...) Jainism offer ethical concepts to call for humility in all acts of climate engineering leading to a favoring of CDR over SRM and a favoring of lifestyle changes (particularly vegetarianism) over both. I demonstrate these concepts by introducing the five great elements from the Hindu philosophy, two Hindu legends from Hindu mythology, the Indic ethical ideas of karma, renunciation, and humility, and the moral authority of Gandhi. (shrink)

When the question is posed as to when Chinese thought influenced Western philosophy, people often turn to the philosophy of the German rationalist Christian Wolff, whose 1721 speech on the virtues of Confucianism led to his academic indictment and eventual ousting from the University of Halle in 1723. In his speech, Wolff lauds the Chinese for attaining virtues by natural revelation rather than appealing to Christian revelation, which made their accomplishments all the more impressive in his eyes (Fuchs 2006). According (...) to Kanamori (1997), the audience of Wolff’s speech “criticized it as the product of atheistic thoughts because they thought that the speaker valued Chinese morality as highly as Christian morals, which were formulated by divine revelation” (p. 299). The worry, in other words, was that Wolff was corrupted by Chinese thought since the atheism of Confucianism may have influenced Wolff’s own views. Almost invariably, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz’s name is involved in conversations that question the Chinese influence on Western philosophy, but it is typically tempered by the standard scholarly interpretation of the Leibniz-China connection, which is that Leibniz respected Chinese thought but was not influenced by it. I will argue against this standard scholarly interpretation by showing how Leibniz could have been influenced by Chinese thought. In particular, I propose that Leibniz’s conception of monads, which is something that we only see after his engagement with Chinese thought, may have been influenced by the Huayan Buddhist concept of li, which creeps into the Neo-Confucianism with which Leibniz had exposure. Should my argument be persuasive, this means that Chinese thought influenced the Western world sooner than has been previously believed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT As a welcome contribution to the burgeoning literature addressing the promising intersection between biology and ontology in contemporary continental philosophy, Marjolein Oele's E-Co-Affectivity: Exploring Pathos at Life's Material Interfaces investigates the themes of affectivity and life in their multiple and divergent forms: photosynthesis and growth in plants, touch and trauma in bird feathers, the ontogenesis of human life through the placenta, the bare interface of human skin, and the porous materiality of soil. By seeking out new unexplored territory through (...) her remarkably erudite interventions into the life sciences, Oele critically interrogates the relationship between affectivity and materiality to uncover their shared depth and potential for cultivating ecological interdependence, ethical responsibility, and a renewed political commitment to the local spaces and places constituting e-co-affective communities. (shrink)

This is the first of an ongoing series of review essays in which the authors of significant new works of philosophy engage their readers. These inaugural two readings discuss Rein Raud’s important new reassessment of contemporary ontology, Being in Flux: A Post-Anthropocentric Ontology of the Self. They consider its accomplishments, both on its own terms and with reference to its East Asian and South Asian precursors. Raud then offers a response.