“Wuqiong,” namely the concept of infinite regress has been identified with the hallmark of the Huayan scholasticism, which is dubbed as “chongchong wujin” (repetitive containment ad infinitum). Such an inconceivable perspective is drawn from the Huayan thinkers’ presupposition that a part contains the whole, which is again composed of such parts. But many philosophical traditions, in general, try to avoid the infinite regress as one of the logical fallacies. This paper examines the Buddhist literature that alludes to (...) “wuqiong” as infinite regress, and highlights that the Huayan thinkers also had a critical attitude toward this issue when they discussed the ontological status of the dissociated factors. But they also used the term in a positive sense of inexhaustiveness. This twofold usage of the term seems to show that the Huayan thinkers critically incorporated the elements of previous scholarship even when they created their own unique metaphysical theories. ‘무궁’, 곧 무한소급은 ‘중중무진’으로 표현되는 화엄교학과 동일시되어 왔다. 그것은 부분이 전체를 포함한다는 화엄사상가들의 이론적 전제로부터 각각의 부분들에 전체가 끊임없이 내포된다는 불가사의한 세계관이 도출되기 때문이다. 그러나 불교철학은 물론, 서양철학에서도 무한소급은 논리적 오류로서 회피해야 하는 것으로 간주되어 왔다. 이와 관련하여 본 논문에서는 화엄사상 성립 이전의 몇몇 불교 문헌들에서 특히 유위 4상(相), 득(得)과 같은 불상응행법을 설정할 경우 ‘무궁과’라는 논리적 오류가 발생함을 지적한 사례들을 살펴보았는데, 그러한 비판이 화엄의 문헌들에도 거의 그대로 수용되고 있음을 확인할 수 있다. 그러나 화엄의 문헌에는 ‘무궁’이라는 용어가 ‘무궁진’, ‘무진’, ‘무변’과 동의어로서 긍정적인 맥락에서 사용하고 있는 경우도 자주 발견된다. 이처럼 화엄의 문헌에 이중적인 의미로 사용된 ‘무궁’이라는 개념은 화엄사상가들이 자신들의 독특한 형이상학을 제시하면서도 그들 이전의 여러 교학체계들을 비판적으로 수용했음을 보여주는 증거라고 할 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

The story of Huayan Buddhism intertwines in many ways with many other more well‐known forms of Buddhist thought. The Buddhist concepts of upāya or “skillful means,” prajnapti from Yogācāra and paramārtha satya from Madhyamaka, justify a range of pragmatic propositions, which represent a healthy way of viewing the world. Upāya refers to the diagnostic and prescriptive skill of a buddha or bodhisattva, who is ostensibly able to discern a particular person's problem and recommend a helpful strategy for solving it. (...) This is a completely contextual approach, though, because different problems lead to different strategies. The metaphysics underlying Huayan's philosophy of totality is based on the central Buddhist model of interdependent causality known as prātityasamutpāda. (shrink)

This paper explicates the counting ten coins metaphor as it appears in Fazang’s Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan. The goal is to transform Fazang’s inexact and obscure mentions of the metaphor into something that is clearer and more precise. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, presenting Fazang’s version of the metaphor as improving upon prior efforts by Zhiyan and Ŭisang to interpret a brief stanza in the Avataṁsaka sutra; second, providing textual evidence to support (...) this interpretation; third, contrasting this interpretation with alternatives from Francis Cook as well as Yasuo Deguchi and Katsuhiko Sano. (shrink)

"The book closes with Pieper's thoughts on the permanent philosophical and theological significance of scholasticism and the Middle Ages. Once again, wearing his learning lightly, writing with a clarity that delights, Josef Pieper has taken the field from stuffier and more extended accounts."--BOOK JACKET.

Huayan Buddhist philosophers and John Dewey share a perspective on emptiness or dependent origination. This article compares Dewey's local, contextual, and relational metaphysics with Huayan thinkers’ use of the metaphor of Indra's jewel net to extend their relational metaphysics to an infinite extent. Huayan thinkers base their ethics of compassion on the recognition of the infinite relatedness of all things. Dewey prefers constructing social institutions that foster experiences that are reliably aesthetically unified. This dispute is significant because (...) pragmatism and Buddhism both provide promising ethical positions based on the understanding of persons as temporally limited and relational. (shrink)

This is an attempt to explain, in a way familiar to contemporary ways of thinking about mereology, why someone might accept some prima facie puzzling remarks by Fazang, such as his claims that the eye of a lion is its ear and that a rafter of a building is identical to the building itself. These claims are corollaries of the Huayan Buddhist thesis that everything is part of everything else, and it is intended here to show that there is (...) a rational basis for this thesis that involves a nonstandard notion of parthood and, importantly, that does not violate the principle of noncontradiction. (shrink)

Making reason and revelation agree, notably by defining the former’s subordination to the latter, was one of the main concerns of European Medieval scholasticism; and from the tension between the weight of scriptural authority and the aspiration to the independence of rational inquiry finally emerged in Europe a philosophical field free of any allegiance to a revealed discourse – or at least pretending to be so – and castigating the old “scholastic method”. In India, by way of contrast, the (...) philosophical field has remained essentially scholastic inasmuch as most philosophical systems never ceased to acknowledge scripture (āgama) as a means of valid knowledge, and even often asserted its supremacy over reason and experience. Yet, just as European scholasticism cannot be reduced to the image of it that has prevailed since Descartes, the relationship between scriptural authority and rational enquiry in India is much more complex than might appear at first sight. It is first and foremost in order to defend their respective scriptures that various Indian religious currents chose to engage in philosophical debates; but this apologetic intention paradoxically led their champions to set aside scriptural authority. The paper points out this strange process of philosophical emancipation, born of apologetic concerns and nourished by them; and by comparing two apparently diametrically opposed definitions of the relationship between reason and revelation – that of the Buddhist Dharmakīrti, and that of the Śaiva nondualist Utpaladeva –, it aims at showing that although the Indian philosophical field never acquired the autonomy (real or proclaimed) that has characterized Western philosophy from the 17th century onwards, it grew in a constant creative tension between the acceptance and rejection of scriptural authority. (shrink)

Few would deny that something ontologically depends on something else. Given that something depends on something, what depends on what? Huayan Buddhism 華嚴宗, a prominent Chinese Buddhist school, is known for its extensive thesis of interdependence, according to which everything depends on everything else. This intriguing thesis is entangled with seemingly paradoxical claims that everything is not only identified with everything else but also contained within it. Moreover, the radical thesis of interdependence entails that dependence is pervasive and symmetric. (...) In this paper, I first develop a contemporary interpretation of Huayan interdependence by employing the definitional account of essence and the essence-based account of dependence. Through these contemporary resources, I elucidate and unify the theses of interdependence, mutual identity, and mutual containment within Huayan Buddhism. I then propose a unique framework of ontological dependence that suggests varying degrees of ontological dependence, aimed at accommodating and explaining away our intuitions against pervasive and symmetric dependence. By contemporizing Huayan Buddhism, I explore its potential and facilitate engagement between contemporary metaphysics and Huayan Buddhism. (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)

I will compare Huayan Buddhism's metaphysical vision ith that of A.N. Whitehead, both of them emphasizing that events in dynamic relation constitute the fundamental elements of reality. In Huayan Buddhism, all events are organically related to each ot and thereby constitute a harmonious and dynamic network of existents as metaphorized by Indra's Net of Jewels, in which one jewel reflects many other jewels and many reflect one. In Whitehead's view, events, or actual entities in Process and Reality, constitute (...) the basic elements of the universe that are in the proces of creativity in which many are integrated into one while adding a new one to the many. The purpose of this comparative work is to philoophically articulate an ontology ofdynamic relation in support of a theory of strangification. (shrink)

Through a close analysis of Zen encounter dialogues and Huayan Buddhist philosophy, Buddhism and Postmodernity offers a new ethical paradigm for Buddhist-postmodern philosophy.

Leading scholars in the field of religious studies show that scholasticism as a comparative category is useful in the analysis of a variety of religious and philosophical traditions and even in the task of cultural criticism.

The texts written by Huayan thinkers are characterized by rather unintelligible expressions that identify the one with the many. Such an identity thesis can be justified by the fact that all individual objects in the world are based on the common principle of emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā). But we need to take into consideration the fact that Huayan thought emerged from the typical Chinese attitude that appreciates the inherent value of every phenomenal object. Thus the relationship between the one (...) and the many in Huayan thought can be understood in terms of the parts and the whole composed of such parts. Generally speaking, Buddhist literature in the early phase seems to represent the so-called mereological reductionism because it aims at revealing that the concept of “I” or “person” as a whole is illusory. Huayan thought points out, however, that the parts and the whole are equally significant and mutually dependent. Furthermore, it identifies the parts with the whole by showing the existence of parts of an object is a necessary and sufficient condition for that of the object as a whole. It is important to note here that Huayan thought does not simply indulge in metaphysical speculations but emphasizes its soteriological purport that an initial stage of practice contains its whole process. Although Huayan thought has been often dubbed as a philosophy of totality and considered to uphold totalitarianism, such a misunderstanding could be redressed by a survey conducted in this paper. Furthermore, since Huayan thought does not posit a singular and ultimate cause but prioritizes each and every individual, it should be seen as having a profound practical significance in this polarized society. 화엄사상가들의 저작에서 우리는 일(一)과 다(多) 사이에 동일성의 관계가 성립한다는 다소 이해하기 어려운 표현을 자주 발견한다. 그러한 동일성의 관계는 모든 개별적 사물들이 공(空)이라고 하는 공통된 이치에 기반하고 있기 때문에 성립하는 것이기도 하지만, 그 관계를 해석하는 데 있어서 우리는 모든 현상적 대상들의 고유한 가치를 인정하는 중국적 태도에서 화엄사상이 출현했다는 점을 고려할 필요가 있다. 따라서 화엄사상에서 일과 다 사이의 관계는 어떠한 하나의 현상적 대상 전체와 그것을 구성하는 부분들 사이의 관계를 가리킨다고 볼 수 있다. 일반적으로 초기불교의 문헌에서는 여러 요소들이 결합된 총체로서의 ‘나’ 또는 ‘인간’이라는 개념의 허구성을 지적하기 위하여 전체를 부분들로 환원하여 전체라는 것이 개념적 허구임을 보이는 부분론적 환원주의(mereological reductionism)를 채택하는 경향이 있었다. 그러나 화엄사상은 부분과 전체가 모두 유의미할 뿐만 아니라 아니라 상호 의존적임을 지적하고, 더 나아가 어떤 대상의 부분들은 그 대상 전체의 성립을 위한 필요충분조건임을 보임으로써 부분과 전체를 동일시한다. 그러나 화엄사상의 이러한 입장은 순전히 형이상학적 사변에만 머물지 않고 수행의 최초의 단계에 그것의 전과정이 포함되어 있다는 실천론적 의미를 내포하고 있다는 점에 유의해야 한다. 이러한 고찰을 통해 우리는 화엄사상을 흔히 전체성의 철학(philosophy of totality)이라고 규정함으로써 그것을 마치 전체주의를 옹호하는 것처럼 오도하는 경향을 바로잡을 수 있을 것이다. 또한 화엄사상은 어떠한 단일하고 궁극적인 원인을 상정하지 않고 각각의 개별자들을 우선시한다는 점에서 다원화된 사회에서 더욱 적합한 실천론적 의미를 가지고 있다고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

In order to systematically explore the normative treatment of black slavery by Second Scholastic thinkers, who usually place the problem within the broad discussion of moral conscience and, more narrowly, the nature and justice of trade and contracts, I propose two stations of research that may be helpful for future studies, especially concerning the study of Scholastic ideas in colonial Latin America. Beginning with the analysis of just titles for slavery and slavery trade proposed by Luis de Molina S.J., I (...) show how his accounts were critically reviewed by Diego de Avendaño S.J., revealing basic features of Second Scholasticism’s normative thinking in Europe and the Americas. The normative knowledge provided by these two Scholastic intellectuals would be profoundly tested during the last decades of the 17th century, especially by authors who sharpened the systemic analysis and a rigorist moral assessment of every title of slavery and slaveholding, as well as the requirements of an ethics of restitution. (shrink)

As interest in Huayan thought among Western scholars has grown over the last few decades, a number of individuals have noted similarities between A. N. Whitehead's ideas of reality as a process of arising actual occasions and Huayan doctrines concerning the interdependent arising of dharmas. Comparisons of the two systems do show striking similarities, but as Steve Odin has pointed out, one area of noteworthy difference may be their views of temporal passage.1 There seems to be clear agreement (...) among Whitehead scholars that his view requires temporal asymmetry such that the present arises as a creative advance toward an open future. In contrast, Huayan is well known for advocating a symmetrical view of reality, and the Huayan view of time, it has been argued, is no exception. On this basis some have suggested that in accounting for and even requiring an open future, Whitehead's views effectively allow for a free advance of becoming that may not be possible within the context of Huayan views. But is this the case? -/- By examining sections of Fazang's works that specifically deal with tense and temporal passage, we will see that the typical view of Huayan as advocating a temporally symmetrical notion of passage is only partially accurate. Even further, it is apparent in light of that material that the Whiteheadian critique of Huayan is partly inaccurate as well. It is this latter point that may mean Huayan views allow for a type of becoming that Whitehead's cannot. To see how this is the case, it will be helpful to briefly summarize the Whiteheadian critique before focusing on key elements of Fazang's view. (shrink)

This volume offers a significant overview of authors, works and characteristics of philosophy in Latin America in the 16th - 18th centuries, i.e. essentially "colonial scholasticism": this is actually a remarkable chapter in the history of Baroque or Modern scholasticism. This volume is a collection of studies on Latin American scholasticism originally presented at the Fourth International Conference of Medieval Philosophy at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Porto Alegre, Brazil, November 12-14, 2012. (...) These essays provide a significant overview of authors, works and areas of interest associated to scholastic thought in the 16th-18th centuries, focusing particularly on Latin American or European-born authors whose philosophical and theological careers were significantly set in Latin American soil and, due to their education, reveal a profound acquaintance with European philosophical theories and problems. The reception and development of Medieval thought in Baroque scholasticism, the connections between European philosophy, mainly Iberian scholasticism, and philosophical-theological debates in the New World, and the revisiting by Latin American scholars of Medieval schools of thought and theoretical patterns taught in Europe, prompted by the encounter with several peoples living in the new continent and the search and justification for models of colonization, are some of the relevant issues discussed in here. The studies collected in this volume place colonial scholasticism in the history of ideas by letting authors and their writings speak for themselves. (shrink)

This book highlights the powerful impact of some important Spanish Jesuits (Suárez, Acosta, Ribadeneira, Mariana) on some relevant English thinkers such as Locke, Bacon, and others, regarding politics, law and natural rights, an influence sometimes hidden and always controversial.

In Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought, King Pong Chiu discusses Thomé H. Fang and Tang Junyi, two of the most important Confucian thinkers in twentieth-century China, who appropriated aspects of the medieval Chinese Buddhist school of Huayan to develop a response to the challenges of ‘scientism’, the belief that quantitative natural science is the only valuable part of human learning and the only source of truth. -/- As Chiu argues, Fang’s and Tang’s selective appropriations of (...) Huayan thought paid heed to the hermeneutical importance of studying ancient texts in order to be more responsive to modern issues, and helped confirm the values of Confucianism under the challenge of ‘scientism’, a topic widely ignored in academia. (shrink)

The issue of the whole–part relationship has been a contentious subject in Indian philosophical discourse since its early stages. Generally speaking, there are two leading positions concerning the nature of the whole, from which the issue of the whole–part relationship stems. First is the reductionist position, which contends that the whole is nothing more than the parts put in a certain order; hence, the part is more fundamental than the whole, since the whole can be reduced to the parts that (...) constitute it. Second, there is the essentialist position, advocating that the essence of the whole cannot be simply reduced to the parts, since we do not find the whole in any of the parts; hence, the whole is more primary than the part. Most Indian Buddhists subscribe to the first position, whereas Hindu realists adhere to the second. When Buddhism spread to China, however, the issue took an interesting turn in the hands of Chinese Buddhists. In this article, I will examine this turn by investigating two representative Buddhist positions on the issue of whole and part. One is found in the Abhidharma literature, the early Buddhist philosophical treatises, wherein the core Buddhist notion of an tman (wu wob ), no-self, is explained by appealing to this relationship. As we will see, the whole–part relationship discussed there is distinctively reductionist. Another major deliberation on the whole–part issue is found in the literature produced by the Chinese Huayan Buddhist school, wherein the reductionist approach is nowhere to be seen. In fact, the Huayan philosophers tried as hard as they could to fend off any reductionist mode of thinking regarding the whole–part relationship. Be that as it may, their position in no way corresponds to the essentialist stance. This article investigates the unique Huayan theory of part and whole, thereby offering a possible way out of the reductionism–essentialism dilemma. (shrink)

Chinese Buddhist thought is more than a case of “Indianization” or “Sinicization,” and even less, “Distortion.” Chinese Buddhist thought should be grasped, first, in its own terms and only then in terms of the possible influences or confluences that flowed into it. The present article will seek to look into the concept of “Suchness vasana” (perfumation by the Buddhist absolute, Suchness, upon avidya, ignorance) as used by the Huayan school in China. Then it will show how, in the elaboration (...) of this idea, Fazang, the key patriarch of the Huayan school, apparently drew on a mode of thought that is derived from the Yijing, the Book of Changes. It is in the nature of the present article that only the Chinese influence will be underlined and that the Indian contributions to the formation of a theory of a “dynamic Suchness” will only be briefly touched upon. Scholars have long noticed the Daoist influence of Chinese Buddhological thinking, especially within the Ch'an and the Hua-yen circles. However, too often scholars only suggest impressionistic parallels, between, say, the book Laozi and the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch or between Mencian humanism (“Every man can be Sage Yao and Shun”) and the idea that “Every man can be Buddha.” Such presentations of Chinese influence bypass the various problems involved in the long and thorny history of conflict, compromise, mutual self-discovery, and fertilization between the two cultural traditions. The present article will try to be much more concrete by documenting and analyzing the series of incidents that led to a datable innovation on Fazang's part. (shrink)

This article will first give an account of Mou's judgment of the transcendental character of Huayan School by tracing his understanding of the doctrinal relationship between the “One Mind Opens Two Doors” in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna and the “Simply True Mind” of Huayan School. Second, Mou's interpretation of “the co-dependent origination of tathagatgarbha” of Huayan School will be analyzed so as to identify the sense in which Mou considers that the teaching of (...) class='Hi'>Huayan School is perfect. This will be explicated in detail in the second and third parts. However, Mou's interpretation of the “Perfect” Doctrine of Huayan School draws our attention to the fact that the “distinctive” ontological explanation of all dharmas in Huayan teaching is different from that of the Tiantai School. Mou argues that the Huayan School is not the final and authentic “Perfect” Doctrine of Buddhism. In the fourth part we will discuss this in detail. Finally, does Mou's transcendental interpretation do justice to the Huayan School? Wing-cheuk Chan (Chen Rongzhuo inline image) criticizes such a reading as a mere step toward a proper understanding of the dialectical essence of Huayan School. We will introduce this in the last part of this article. (shrink)

Extant discussions of Buddhist mereology give minimal attention to the soteriological significance of denying the reality of wholes. This is unfortunate, because the connection between mereology and soteriological is both significant and problematic. The connection is significant, because it supports an argument for the unreality of composite wholes that does not depend upon any claim about the nature of wholes. The connection is also problematic, because some Buddhists endorse the soteriological relevance of mereology despite admitting that composite wholes are real. (...) I address these issues by reviewing early Pāli Buddhist attitudes toward the soteriological significance of mereology, developing an argument for the unreality of wholes from the work of Buddhaghosa, and explicating an alternative approach from the Chinese tradition of Huayan 華嚴 Buddhism that calls into question some common assumptions about parts and wholes. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Institutional setting Curriculum.

(From the Introduction) The topic I would like to present is “Scholasticism and Thomism” as found in Chapter 7 of Fabro’s "Brief Introduction to Thomism". My presentation, as both a summary and a partial commentary on some aspects of this work, may be helpful as we wait for the English translation of Fabro’s book. The title of this chapter says exactly what Fr. Fabro wants to do. He wants to relate Scholasticism and Aquinas in two senses: 1) from (...) a historical point of view, so that we may understand the origins, context and later fortune of the doctrine of St. Thomas, and 2) from a doctrinal point of view (and this is the most important) so that we may clearly distinguish St. Thomas’ doctrine from the rest of Scholasticism. This is very important because some people have tried to understand the Church’s invitation—or, rather, instruction—to study St. Thomas as simply a broad invitation to study Scholastic philosophy and theology. This is clearly not the case. The Church wants us to study the principles of Thomistic doctrine which, many times, are substantially different from other scholastic doctrines. (shrink)

This article responds to a critical research challenge in Medieval philosophy scholarship regarding the internal periodisation of the register. By arguing the case for ‘post-scholasticism’ as an internal period indicator (1349–1464, the era between the deaths of William of Ockham and Nicholas of Cusa), defined as ‘the transformation of high scholasticism on the basis of a selective departure thereof’, the article specifies a predisposition in the majority of introductions to and commentaries in Medieval philosophy to proceed straight from (...) 1349 to 1464, understating 115 years of pertinent Medieval philosophical discourse. It is argued that in the modern account of Medieval philosophy, this understatement is manifested in either a predating of Renaissance philosophy to close the gap between 1349 and 1464 as far as possible or in proceeding straight from 1349 to Renaissance philosophy. The article presents five unique philosophical themes from this delicate period, indicating that ‘post-scholasticism’ was indeed a productive period in late Medieval philosophy, which should not be bypassed as an inconsequential entrance to Renaissance philosophy. The period 1349–1464 should accordingly be appreciated for its idiosyncratic contributions to the history of ideas in the late-14th and early-15th centuries, with reference to the political intensification of the via moderna, the pivotal separation of philosophy and theology and the resulting independence of the natural sciences, in res critique of institutions, transforming pragmatics and the rise of philosophical materialism. Contribution: This article contributes to methodological development in Medieval philosophy by responding to a critical research challenge regarding the internal periodisation of the later Middle Ages. Arguing the case for ‘post-scholasticism’ as an internal period indicator (1349 to 1464 in Medieval philosophy, the article presents unique philosophical themes from the period, indicating that it was a productive stage in late Medieval philosophy which should not be bypassed as an inconsequential entrance to Renaissance philosophy. (shrink)

Fazang’s arguments in his Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan provide a philosophical foundation for the Avatamsaka Sutra’s rich and suggestive imagery. This chapter focuses on one of Fazang’s central arguments in that treatise, namely, his argument that mutually reliant dharmas are mutually identical. The chapter presents the background context for Fazang’s argument, reconstructs the argument’s logical structure, interprets the central concepts appearing therein, and explains why Fazang might have found plausible his argument’s premises. Specific discussion points include: (...) the non-duality of existence and emptiness; relations between causes and their conditions; the meaning of creation and identity; connections with the ti-yong paradigm; Fazang’s analogy of the ten coins. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of Fazang’s metaphysics for contemporary discussions of substance and ontological foundations. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on John Locke's relation to scholasticism. It explores who the schoolmen referred to by Locke were, and what he might have learned from them, particularly with respect to topics in metaphysics, logic, and language. The chapter considers the Oxford curriculum which provided the framework for Locke's years of study and teaching there, as there is little reason to believe that he enriched his acquaintance with the schoolmen in his later career. The topic of substance was raised (...) both in metaphysics textbooks and in logic textbooks, but the material in both was largely similar. The chapter considers some of Locke's remarks and focuses on what the scholastics had to say. Locke goes on to claim that the very use of syllogistic depends on the prior ability to see the connections between ideas. The area in which Locke showed the most obvious influence of scholasticism is that of language. (shrink)

The Chinese word “bukong” 不空 appearing in the Āgama texts is a rendering of Pāli words such as aritta (not discarded), asuñña (not empty), amogha (not vain). Whereas the Madhyamika texts never affirm the term non‐empty as a counterpart of the concept emtpy, the Yogācāra texts overlay it with a slightly negative connotation as a false imagination. However, Tathāgatagarbha thought affirms that term positively, and Chinese strands of Buddhism further adopt it as an absolute affirmation by identifying emptiness with non‐emptiness, (...) thereby turning the concept of mutual dependence or counterpart into that of mutual identification. In the Huayan jing, the concepts such as aśūnya, aśūnyatā, amogha, amoghatā are equally rendered as “bukong”, and this term thus comes to have a wide range of meanings including non‐empty, without any errors, beneficial, not deluded, or fully endowed with wisdom and compassion, and so on, which are attributes of tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, we see that the Huayan jing has such diverse meaning in the word “bukong” in according to the context. In the case of the typical Chinese Buddhist text Dasheng qixin lun, “bukong” indicates the state in which the pure dharmas are fulfilled. It seems that this text regards the essence as empty while considering the function to be non‐empty. When we contemplate on the meanings of “bukong” appearing in the Huayan jing, we may say that this scripture played a role of bridging Indian Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism. In particular, the comparisons of the meanings of “bukong” in the scriptures and treatises will reveal the affirmative spirit of the Chinese Buddhists, which is implicit in Indian Mahāhyāna Buddhism. 『아함경』에서 ‘不空’이라 한역된 원어는 Pā. aritta(버려지지 않은), asuñña(비어 있지 않은), amogha(헛되지 않은) 등이다. 중관에서는 공의 상대(相待)인 불공을 절대 부정하는 반면, 유식에서는 허망 분별로 인한 부정적인 이미지가 살짝 보이다가 여래장 사상이 도입되면서 긍정적인 이미지로 전환하는데, 그것이 중국불교에서는 절대 긍정으로 바뀌어서 ‘空即不空’인 상의상즉(相依相卽)의 의미로 공과 분리가 불가능해진다. 『화엄경』에서는 ‘不空’이란 역어가 Skt. aśūnya, aśūnyatā, amogha, amoghatā로, 그 의미가 어리석지 않은 지혜와 자비가 충만한 여래장의 뜻으로 무한히 펼쳐져서 불공이란 꽃이 활짝 핀다. 이렇게 불공은 문맥에 따라 그 의미가 다르나, 중국불교의 전형적인 논인 『기신론』에서는 정법(淨法)이 만족스러우면 ‘불공’이라 하면서, 체(體)가 공이고 용(用)이 불공이라고 말하는 것으로 보인다. ‘不空’이라는 역어만을 놓고 대조해 본다면, 초기불교 경전인 『아함경』에서의 불공의 의미가 『화엄경』에서 되살아나는 듯하여 『화엄경』이 인도불교와 중국불교의 가교역할을 한다고 감히 추정할 수 있는데, 특히 경론에서 불공의 의미만 가지고 비교한다면, 『화엄경』에는 인도 대승불교 속에 자연스레 녹아 있는 긍정적인 중국 불자들의 마음이 엿보인다. (shrink)

Huayan Buddhism is regarded as one of the most philosophical schools of Chinese Buddhism, representing the elite-scholar Buddhism under the Tang Dynasty. Its vision of truth is based on the Avatamsaka Sutra, the scripture that Huayan masters studied, explained, and commented intensively throughout their lives. This was the common vocation of these monks, which gradually created a lineage of the Huayan tradition, a succession of exegetes who believed that the Avatamsaka Sutra was the consummate teaching of Buddha (...) preached directly after his enlightenment under the bodhi tree. Although the base text of Huayan Buddhism was the Avatamsaka Sutra, classified as the round or perfect teaching in the classification of doctrines (panjiao), other teachings, such as Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and Tathāgatagarbha had exerted a great influence on the way Huayan scholars apprehended and interpreted this Mahāyāna scripture. In this article, we are going to discuss how Yogācāra philosophy was evaluated in the context of Huayan Buddhism, how the Huayan masters classified the consciousness-only teachings, and finally how they applied this philosophy in revealing the purport of the inline image, formulating its own distinctive school, the round teaching of one vehicle. (shrink)

Standard views about metaphysical structure presume that if metaphysical structure is hierarchical, any priority ordering of individuals is rigid or situationally invariant. This paper challenges this presumption. The challenge derives from an effort to interpret the kind of metaphysical structure implicit in writings central to the Huayan tradition of Chinese Buddhism. The Huayan tradition views reality as a realm of thoroughgoing interdependence. Close attention to primary sources indicates that this view does not fit comfortably in any of the (...) metaphysical structures familiar from contemporary analytic metaphysics. Accordingly, this paper also develops a conception of metaphysical structure that rejects the standard presumption. Motivation for this conception derives from attending to certain formal analogies between kinds of metaphysical structure and kinds of social organization. These analogies provide guidance for a conception of metaphysical structure as heterarchical or situationally variable. This conception breaks new ground for analytic metaphysics and opens conceptual space for interpreting Huayan metaphysics as a heterarchical variation of foundationalism. (shrink)

In order to systematically explore the normative treatment of Black slavery by Second Scholastic thinkers, usually placing the problem within the broad discussion of moral conscience and, more narrowly, the nature and justice of trade and contracts, I propose two stations of research that may be helpful for future studies, especially in what concerns the study of Scholastic ideas in colonial Latin America. Beginning with the analysisof just titles for slavery and slavery trade proposed by Luis de Molina S.J., I (...) show how his accounts were critically reviewed by Diego de Avendaño S.J., revealing basic features of Second Scholastic normative thinking in Europe and the Americas. Normative knowledge provided by these two Scholastic intellectuals wouldbe deeply tested throughout the last decades of the 17th century, especially by authors who sharpened the systemic analysis and a rigorist moral assessment of every title of slavery and slaveholding, as well as the requirements of an ethics of restitution. (shrink)

The present work is a study of the method of contemporary Soviet philosophy. By "Soviet philosophy" we mean philosophy as published in the Soviet Union. For practical purposes we have limited our attention to Soviet sources in Russian in spite of the fact that Soviet philosophical works are also published in other languages (see B 2029(21)(38». The term "method" is taken in the sense usual in Western books on methodology .1 In view of the content of the first chapter it (...) will be useful to explain the last term a little more fully. By method we mean a procedure and it is obvious that the principles according to which a procedure is carried out are rules, i.e. imperatives, which tell us not what is but what should be done. Such imperatives mayor may not be connected with and founded on certain descriptive statements (the fact that every rule of formal logic is based on a corresponding law has been well-known since Husserl's "Logische Unter suchungen" and is generally accepted in contemporary logic), but such a foundation is irrelevant to a methodological study. The object of such a study is to find out what these rules are, why they are accepted and how they are inter-connected and applied. This is how methodology - the science of method - is conceived in Western treatises on the subject and this is also the standpoint assumed here. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the Huayan Buddhism of Li Tongxuan. At the core of his Buddhism is the claim that sentient beings are equipped with exactly the same qualities as the Buddha. In his analysis of the 80-fascicle version of the Huayan Jing, Li claims that Huayan teaching is a subitist teaching that proposes the awakening in this lifetime. In this context, unlike “orthodox” Huayan thinkers, Li claims that the chapter “Entering the Realm of Reality” is the (...) core of the Huayan Jing and that Sudhana’s pilgrimage in this chapter demonstrates the importance of practice as opposed to theorization.I address these issues by examining Li’s concept of time, which I identify as “non-temporality.” In the first section, I discuss non-temporality in connection with the Buddhist themes of existence and non-existence and Li’s doctrinal classification. In the second, I address Li’s discussion of nature-arising and subitism. In the third, I discuss Li’s comparative interpretation of Sudhana in the Huayan Jing and the Dragon Girl in the Lotus Sūtra. I conclude with a consideration of the ontological and existential implications of Li’s Huayan phenomenology. (shrink)

Until recently Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) has been regarded as the “last medieval philosopher,” representing the end of the philosophically respectful scholastic tradition going back to the Early Middle Ages. In fact, however, Suárez stood at the beginning, rather than at the end, of a distinguished scholastic culture, which should best be labeled “Baroque scholasticism,” and which flourished throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In this paper I offer some ideas on why the study of this philosophical culture has (...) been so far neglected by the mainstream Anglo-American philosophical historiography and argue that more attention should be paid to it. (shrink)

The scholar Mark Siderits defends two views about Buddhism. The first is that the Buddhist denial of independently existing selves is best understood as a kind of reductionism, according to which wholes, by virtue of being nothing more than their atomic parts, are conventionally real but ultimately unreal. The second is that the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness is not a metaphysical thesis, according to which nothing has an intrinsic nature of its own, but rather a semantic thesis, according to which (...) no statement about ultimate reality is true. This chapter uses central metaphysical doctrines from the Huayan School of Chinese Buddhism to develop, in contrast, a nonreductionist approach to wholes and a metaphysical construal of emptiness. (shrink)

Examines the place of individuation in the work of over 25 scholastic writers from when Arabic and Greek thought began to impact Europe, until scholasticism died out.

This paper elaborates upon various responses to the Problem of the One over the Many, in the service of two central goals. The first is to situate Huayan's mereology within the context of Buddhism's historical development, showing its continuity with a broader tradition of philosophizing about part-whole relations. The second goal is to highlight the way in which Huayan's mereology combines the virtues of the Nyāya-Vaisheshika and Indian Buddhist solutions to the Problem of the One over the Many (...) while avoiding their vices. (shrink)