A variety of crucial and still most relevant ideas about nothingness or emptiness have gained profound philosophical prominence in the history and development of a number of South and East Asian ...traditions—including in Buddhism, Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, Hinduism, Korean philosophy, and the Japanese Kyoto School. These traditions share the insight that in order to explain both the great mysteries and mundane facts about our experience, ideas of ""nothingness"" must play a primary role. This collection of essays brings together the work of twenty of the world’s prominent scholars of Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Neo-Confucian, Japanese and Korean thought to illuminate fascinating philosophical conceptualizations of ""nothingness"" in both classical and modern Asian traditions. The unique collection offers new work from accomplished scholars and provides a coherent, panoramic view of the most significant ways that ""nothingness"" plays crucial roles in Asian philosophy. It includes both traditional and contemporary formulations, sometimes putting Asian traditions into dialogue with one another and sometimes with classical and modern Western thought. The result is a book of immense value for students and researchers in Asian and comparative philosophy.
Mendelssohn and the State Goetschel, Willi
The Discipline of Philosophy and the Invention of Modern Jewish Thought,
11/2012
Book Chapter
In some ways, Mendelssohn is the classic that modern Jewish philosophy never had. The case of his reception has paradigmatic significance for understanding the limits and challenges faced by ...philosophy, German studies, and Jewish studies. In particular, it raises the methodological question of how to address a body of work that has been systematically marginalized and whose critical significance, rendered largely invisible by traditional scholarship, still awaits recognition. The critical study of Mendelssohn therefore also presents us with the task of recovering, reexamining, and rethinking what research and scholarship have so effectively eclipsed. As the critical edition of Mendelssohn’s complete
Literary skill, learning, and insight—to possess any one of these is not an easy task, but to be equally proficient in all three is even more difficult. This is why, throughout the ages, there have ...been many more great literary men than good historians.¹ Earlier, Liu Zhiji seems to have believed that such an explanation provides a complete account of the matter.² Nevertheless, in the case of history what matters is its meaning; its medium is events, and its vehicle is literature. Mengzi said, “The events it (i.e., the Spring and Autumn Annals) records are those of Huan of
People hide their heart-minds, one cannot take their measure.¹ But spoken words are sounds from the heart-mind, and one who is skilled at observing people need look only to their words.² Now people ...are not necessarily good, and yet in what they say, they never fail to feign goodness. And so one who is skilled at observing people need only examine what motivates the goodness of their words. Kongzi said, “At first, my attitude toward others was to listen to their words and believe they would act accordingly. Now, my attitude toward others is to listen to their words and
This chapter presents the English translation of a reply written by Zhang to Shen Zaiting. Zhang says that learning must be aimed at personal understanding; its true goal is moral improvement. The ...aspiring student of the dao must be on guard so as not to be seduced by promises of worldly renown or reward or led astray by the popularity of intellectual fashions. Different intellectual fashions come and go, and everyone has its underlying merits, but one must realize that each is but one facet of the dao. Students must keep their eyes on the true prize: a personal understanding of the Way, and the first step in this process is grasping what the dao is and what it is not; this, of course, is the focus of Zhang's “On the Dao.” Zhang then presents a summary of his view of the dao.
This chapter presents the English translation of a letter written by Zhang to Zhu Cangmei, which not only describes Zhang's own course of learning and specific advice to his young protégé but also an ...analysis of how people in general should pursue an understanding of the dao. Zhang self-consciously modeled his composition on a justly famous letter from Han Yu to his student Li Yi. But Zhang uses the occasion to review and apply some of the central claims of his general philosophical view.
On the Dao1 Ivanhoe, Philip J
On Ethics and History,
11/2009
Book Chapter
This chapter presents the English translation of Zhang's most comprehensive and important essay. Zhang understood the title yuan dao to mean both “to trace the dao or Way back to its historical ...source,” and “to provide a complete analysis describing what it essentially is.” Zhao traces the evolution of the dao through three distinctive historical periods and explains why a grasp of this history is critical for understanding how past as well as contemporary thinkers misunderstand the nature of the dao, and therefore act in misguided and unproductive ways. Zhang's criticisms are aimed primarily at well-meaning yet misguided Confucians who misunderstood the very nature of the dao and therefore corrupted and misdirected the Confucian tradition.
This concluding chapter examines the question how the essays on the Enlightenment written and published by Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant in close vicinity in 1784 highlight and, upon closer ...examination, correspond to each other in a way that suggests a revision of the narrative on the Enlightenment. Curiously enough and despite repeated attempts at reading the two essays together, little critical attention has been directed to the question of how these two admittedly key programmatic statements on the Enlightenment communicate with each other. The standard reading of the essays denies any affinity between them, although two studies, which figure
Contradiction Set Free Goetschel, Willi
The Discipline of Philosophy and the Invention of Modern Jewish Thought,
11/2012
Book Chapter
Inspired by the groundbreaking assertion of Jewish thought by Cohen, Buber, and Rosenzweig, Hermann Levin Goldschmidt found confidence in reclaiming their projects of philosophy in the wake of the ...Shoah. He also met in Margarete Susman a mentor who combined an unwavering grounding in the continuity of German and Jewish tradition, which otherwise had been lost, with a strong and self-conscious faith of looking forward into the future. Born in 1914 in Berlin, Goldschmidt had left Berlin in 1938, in the nick of time. In Zurich he found a new home. His dissertation, published in 1941,Der Nihilismus im Lichte
