Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy 9781299561144, 1299561144, 9789004205116, 900420511X

Table of contents :
CONTENTSAcknowledgements ........................................................................................ viiNotes on Transcription ................................................................................. ixContributors ..................................................................................................... xiiiGeneral Introduction ..................................................................................... 1Part One ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHYIN THE WESTERN TRADITIONIntroduction ..................................................................................................... 7Richard TieszenChapter One Husserl's Transcendental PhenomenologyConsidered in the Light of (Recent) Epistemology ......................... 11Christian BeyerChapter Two Meaning as Significance in Analytic andContinental Philosophy ........................................................................... 33A.P. MartinichChapter Three Narrative Conceptions of the Self ............................. 55Todd MayChapter Four Against Linguistic Exclusivism ................................... 71Soren OvergaardChapter Five Consciousness Experienced and Witnessed ............. 91David Woodruff SmithChapter Six Analytic and Continental Philosophy, Science,and Global Philosophy ............................................................................. 103Richard TieszenChapter Seven Of Boundaries and What Falls Between theCracks: Philosophy, Its History and Chinese 'Philosophy' ............ 125Mary Tiles Part TwoCONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF ANALYTICAND CONTINENTAL APPROACHES BEYONDTHE WESTERN TRADITIONIntroduction ..................................................................................................... 147Bo MouChapter Eight Philosophy Sans Frontieres: Analytic andContinental Philosophy-A View from the East .......................... 163Graham PriestChapter Nine Comparative Aspects of Africana Philosophyand the Continental-Analytic Divide ................................................ 183Tommy L. LottChapter Ten Meaning and Reality: A Cross-TraditionalEncounter .................................................................................................. 199Lajos L. BronsChapter Eleven The Buddhist Challenge to the Noumenal:Analyzing Epistemological Deconstruction .................................... 221Sandra A. WawrytkoChapter Twelve A Daoist Perspective on Analyticaland Phenomenological Methodologies in the Analysisof Intuition ................................................................................................ 243Marshall D. WillmanChapter Thirteen Daoism as Critical Theory ................................... 261Mario WenningChapter Fourteen On Daoist Approach to the Issue of Beingin Engaging Quinean and Heideggerian Approaches .................. 289Bo MouIndex ................................................................................................................ 321

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Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy

Philosophy of History and Culture Edited by

Michael Krausz, Bryn Mawr College Advisory Board

Annette Baier, University of Pittsburgh Purushottama Bilimoria, Deakin University, Australia Cora Diamond, University of Virginia William Dray, University of Ottawa Nancy Fraser, New School for Social Research Clifford Geertz†, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Peter Hacker, St. John’s College, Oxford Rom Harré, Linacre College, Oxford Bernard Harrison, University of Sussex Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago Leon Pompa, University of Birmingham Joseph Raz, Balliol College, Oxford Amélie Rorty, Harvard University VOLUME 32

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/phc

Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy From the Vantage Point of Comparative Philosophy Edited by

Bo Mou and Richard Tieszen

Leiden • boston 2013

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0922–6001 ISBN 978-90-04-20511-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-24886-1 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ Note on Transcription and Guide to Pronunciation ........................... Contributors .....................................................................................................

vii ix xiii

General Introduction .....................................................................................

1

PART One

ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE WESTERN TRADITION Introduction to Part One: Analytic and Continental Philosophy in the Western Tradition ......................................................................... Richard Tieszen

7

1. Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology Considered in the Light of (Recent) Epistemology ............................................................. Christian Beyer

11

2. Meaning as Significance in Analytic and Continental Philosophy .................................................................................................... A.P. Martinich

33

3. Narrative Conceptions of the Self ........................................................ Todd May

55

4. Against Linguistic Exclusivism ............................................................. Søren Overgaard

71

5. Consciousness Experienced and Witnessed ..................................... David Woodruff Smith

91

6. Analytic and Continental Philosophy, Science, and Global Philosophy .................................................................................................... Richard Tieszen

103

7. Of Boundaries and What Falls between the Cracks: Philosophy, Its History, and Chinese ‘Philosophy’ .......................... Mary Tiles

125

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contents PART two

CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL APPROACHES BEYOND THE WESTERN TRADITION Introduction to Part Two: Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches beyond the Western Tradition ..... Bo Mou

147

8.. Philosophy Sans Frontières: Analytic and Continental Philosophy—A View from the East ................................................ . Graham Priest

163

9.. Comparative Aspects of Africana Philosophy and the Continental-Analytic Divide ............................................................. . Tommy L. Lott

183

1 0.. Meaning and Reality: A Cross-Traditional Encounter .............. . Lajos L. Brons

199

11.. The Buddhist Challenge to the Noumenal: Analyzing Epistemological Deconstruction ...................................................... . Sandra A. Wawrytko

221

12.. A Daoist Perspective on Analytical and Phenomenological Methodologies in the Analysis of Intuition .................................. . Marshall D. Willman

243

13.. Daoism as Critical Theory .................................................................. . Mario Wenning

261

14.. On Daoist Approach to the Issue of Being in Engaging Quinean and Heideggerian Approaches ....................................... Bo Mou

289

Index of Names and Subjects ...................................................................

321

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are indebted to the authors of the papers collected here for their valuable contributions. Most of the papers were written expressly for this volume while a few of the contributions, noted below, are revised versions of previously published work. We also thank the contributors for their very helpful peer-review work, their patience, cooperation and their understanding throughout the whole process. Three of the contributions to the volume are substantial revisions of earlier papers that appeared in the peer-reviewed, open-access inter­ national journal Comparative Philosophy (http://www.comparative philosophy.org): Tommy Lott (2011), “Comparative Aspects of African Philosophy and the Continental-Analytic Divide”, Comparative Philosophy, 2(1): 25–37; Richard Tieszen (2011), “Analytic and Continental Philosophy, Science, and Global Philosophy”, Comparative Philosophy, 2(2): 4–22; and Mario Wenning (2011), “Daoism as Critical Theory”, Comparative Philosophy, 2(2): 50–71. To provide a forum for critical discussion on the theme of the book and for the sake of enhancing the quality of the contributions, several workshops/symposia on the theme have been organized. The first one was the symposium on the topic “Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy”, held at San José State University on 10th April 2010 as part of the SJSU Center for Comparative Philosophy Workshop/Conference Series. The second one was a workshop on the same theme but from the point of view of Chinese philosophy, held at Peking University, China, on 6th August 2010, as the 2010 term of the “Beijing Roundtable on Contemporary Philosophy” Workshop Series. The third one was a special panel session arranged by the APA Committee on the Status of Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies on the topic “Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy: From the Point of View of Asian Philosophy” on 21st April 2011 at the Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in San Diego. We appreciate the critical comments and feedback from the workshop/symposium participants. Among others, we are grateful to the following participating colleagues’ stimulating and engaging talks at the foregoing occasions: Hubert Dreyfus, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Peter Hadreas, Chad Kidd, Paul Livingston, LIU Yuedi, John Searle, YAO Dazhi, ZHANG Xianglong.

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acknowledgements

We are grateful to our home institution, San José State University in the U.S.A., and its Department of Philosophy, for substantial support related to this anthology project. We are indebted to Michael Krausz for his vision and wise judgment on the nature and significance of this anthology project and for his strong recommendation to the publisher that the volume be included in his edited series “Philosophy of History and Culture” at Brill. We are grateful to our editors at Brill, Liesbeth Hugenholtz, Julia Berick and Michael J. Mozina, for their kind and timely professional assistance and support at different stages of the book preparation and production. As co-editors of the volume, we ourselves have much enjoyed the whole process of academic co-operation in designing and editing this anthology. Working together on the project has been a rewarding experience for both of us.

NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION AND GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION 1. Chinese Terms and Names Because of its official status in China, its relative accuracy in transcribing actual pronunciation in Chinese common speech, and consequent worldwide use, the pinyin romanization system is employed in this book for transliterating Chinese names and terms. However, we have left transliterations of Chinese names and terms as originally published (typically in the Wade-Giles system) in the following cases: (1) the titles of cited publications; (2) the names whose Latinizations have become quite conventional (such as ‘Confucius’ and ‘Mencius’); (3) the names of the writers who have had their authored English publications under their regular non-pinyin romanized names (such as ‘Fung Yu-lan’). The titles of cited Chinese books and essays are given in their pinyin transcriptions with their paraphrases given in parentheses. The following rule of thumb has been used in dealing with the order of the surname (family) name and given name in romanized Chinese names: (1) for the name of a historical figure in Chinese history, the surname appears first, and the given name second (such as ‘Zhu Xi’); (2) for contemporary figures, their own practice is followed when writing in English: either, typically in their English publications (if any), the given name appears first and the surname second, or, in some occasions to indicate their actual order in Chinese, the surname appears first (given in capital case to avoid the confusion) and the given name second. In the pinyin versions of Chinese publication titles and those proper phrases that contain two or more than two Chinese characters, hyphens may be used to indicate separate characters. Transcription Conversion Table Wade-Giles ai ch ch’ hs ien

Pinyin ei zh ch q x ian

x

note on transcription and guide to pronunciation (cont.) Wade-Giles

Pinyin

-ih j k k’ p p’ szu t t’ ts, tz ts’, tz’ tzu ung yu

-i r g k b p si d t z c zi ong you

2. Indian Terms Two languages, (classical) Sanskrit and Pāli, used by the Indian tradition are referred to by some contributing essays in this volume. Classical Sanskrit is the language in which most Indian philosophical texts (Hinduist classics) were written. Pāli is one of variants of classical Sanskrit which emerged later and in which many of the earliest Buddhist texts were written. Sanskrit and Pāli, both phonetic languages, are based on the same alphabet, which has more letters than the Roman alphabet and thus needs to combine diacritical marks with Roman letters to represent the sounds in Sanskrit and Pāli. The following list illustrate how to pronounce these Sanskrit/Pāli vowels and consonants that differ from usual English equivalents. a ā c e i ī ṃ

short, as ‘u’ in ‘but’ long, as ‘a’ in ‘father’ as ‘ch’ in ‘church’ as ‘ay’ in ‘bay’ short, as ‘i’ in ‘pit’ long, as ‘i’ in ‘police’ semi-nasalizes and lengthens the preceding vowel, like ‘ng’ in ‘long’ ñ as ‘n’ in ‘sing’ ṅ or ṇ as ‘n’ in ‘not’ and ‘nice’

note on transcription and guide to pronunciation ṛ ṣ or ś ṭ u ū

xi

as ‘ri’ in ‘river’ as ‘sh’ in ‘shut’, with ‘sh’ sounded with the tongue tip turned backward as ‘t’ in ‘time’, with ‘t’ sounded with the tongue tip turned backward short, as ‘u’ in ‘full’ long, as ‘u’ in ‘rule’

CONTRIBUTORS Beyer, Christian studied philosophy, linguistics and the history of science in Bielefeld and Hamburg, where he also took his PhD (1999). He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University (1994–5), served as Temporary Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield (2000) and as Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the University of Erfurt (2000–5), where he earned his habilitation. Since the winter semester of 2007/8 he is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at Georg-August University Göttingen. He is the author of Von Bolzano zu Husserl (1996), Intentionalität und Referenz (2000), Subjektivität, Intersubjektivität, Personalität (2006) and co-editor of Philosophical Knowledge (2007) and Edmund Husserl 1859–2009 (2011) Brons, Lajos L. received a PhD from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) in 2005 for a thesis in the history and philosophy of social science. Since then, his main research interests have been the philosophy of Donald Davidson; the relations between language, thought, and reality; and the realism—relativism debate in metaphysics. Currently he is affiliated with the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of Nihon University (Tokyo, Japan) as a researcher, and with Lakeland College Japan Campus (id.) as an adjunct professor of philosophy. Lott, Tommy L. is Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State University. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California at Los Angeles. Lott has published in modern philosophy, social and political philosophy, African American philosophy, and film/media and cultural studies. He is the contributing editor/co-editor of several anthologies, including African-American Philosophy: Selected Readings (2002), Philosophers on Race: Critical Essays (2002), A Companion to African-American Philosophy (2003) and Race (2003), and the author of The Invention of Race: Black Culture and the Politics of Representation (1999). Martinich, A. P. is Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor in Philosophy and Professor of History and Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author or editor of many books and articles, including The Philosophy of Language 6th ed., edited with David Sosa, Communication and Reference (1986), Philosophical Writing 3rd ed. (2005), The Two

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Gods of Leviathan (1992), Hobbes: A Biography (1999), and Hobbes (2005). He is currently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Hobbes, with Kinch Hoekstra. May, Todd is Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of the Humanities at Clemson University.  He is the author of eleven books, most recently Friendship in an Age of Economics.  His primary area of research is in recent Continental philosophy.  However, he has been working in crossover areas of Continental and Anglo-American philosophy for over twenty years. Mou, Bo is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at San Jose State University. He is Editor of the journal Comparative Philosophy. He published in philosophy of language, metaphysics, Chinese and comparative philosophy, and ethics. He is contributing editor of several anthologies, including Two Roads to Wisdom? (2001), Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy (2006), Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy (2008) and History of Chinese Philosophy (2009), and the author of Substantive Perspectivism (2009) and Chinese Philosophy A–Z (2010). Overgaard, Søren is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of Husserl and Heidegger on Being in the World (2004) and Wittgenstein and Other Minds (2007), a co-author of An Introduction to Metaphilosophy (forthcoming), and a co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology (2011). Priest, Graham is Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and Arché Professorial Fellow at the University of St Andrews. He is known for his work on non-classical logic, particularly paraconsistent logic, and for his work on metaphysics and the history of philosophy, both east and west. His books include In Contradiction (1987/2006 expanded edition), Beyond the Limits of Thought (2003), Towards Non-Being (2007), Doubt Truth to be a Liar (2008), and Introduction to Non-Classical Logic (2008). Smith, David Woodruff is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. He has written on varied topics in phenomenology and analytic philosophy and on the history of works in both traditions. His

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books include Husserl and Intentionality (1982, co-authored with Ronald McIntyre), The Circle of Acquaintance (1989), Mind World (2004), and Husserl (2007, second edition 2013). Central concerns in these works are the structure of consciousness and intentionality and the ontology thereof. Tieszen, Richard is Professor of Philosophy at San José State University in California. His special interests include logic, phenomenology, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of mind. He is the co-editor of Between Logic and Intuition: Essays in Honor of Charles Parsons (2000) and the author of Mathematical Intuition: Phenomenology and Mathematical Knowledge (1989), Phenomenology, Logic, and the Philosophy of Mathematics (2005), After Gödel: Platonism and Rationalism in Mathematics and Logic (2011), and numerous papers and reviews. Tiles, Mary is Professor of Philosophy (Emerita) at the University of Hawaii, Manoa and is currently a part-time Associate Lecturer at the Open University in the UK, tutoring for environmental courses.  Her books include Gaston Bachelard: Science and Objectivity, Mathematics and the Image of Reason, and with Jim Tiles An Introduction to Historical Epistemology: The Authority of Knowledge. Wawrytko, Sandra A. received her Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis and has taught Philosophy and Asian Studies at San Diego State University. She specializes in Buddhist and Daoist epistemology. Editor/ author of eight books, she has published articles in numerous professional journals and chapters in thirty books. She is editor and contributor to Dharma & Dao: Chinese Buddhist Philosophy (Springer, 2013) and editor of Peter Lang’s Asian Thought and Culture series, with more than 60 volumes in print. Currently she is developing an eight volume series, Buddhism for Philosophers: A Guided Tour of Primary Texts. Wenning, Mario is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Macau, China, as well as Humboldt Research Fellow at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany. He received his PhD in philosophy from New School for Social Research in 2007. His main research concentration is in the areas of Critical Theory, German Idealism as well as Comparative Philosophy. Apart from a number of articles in these areas, he also translates modern German philosophers (including Carl Schmitt, Karl Jaspers and Peter Sloterdijk) into English.

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Willman, Marshall D. is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at New York Institute of Technology at Nanjing/China Campus. He received his Ph.D in philosophy from University of Iowa. His primary interests are in philosophical logic and the philosophies of language and mind. Having taught at academic institutions in both China and the United States, he has favored a highly comparative approach in philosophy that draws on recent trends in Chinese and Western philosophy.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION Exploration of the relation between analytic and “Continental” approaches in philosophy is not new. What distinguishes this book from the previous work is its vantage point of comparative philosophy and its goal of crosstradition constructive engagement, as highlighted in its title “Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy: From the Vantage Point of Comparative Philosophy”. It is known that contemporary philosophical studies in the West and in other regions such as China have been (or can be) more or less divided into two blocs or trends concerning methodological styles or orientations of doing philosophy,1 which in the West are often historically and conveniently labeled ‘analytic’ and ‘Continental’ approaches or traditions, although both labels tend to be misleading and inaccurate. How should we understand and characterize their respective identities within a broad and diverse philosophical background? What is the relationship between the two? Could they learn from each other and make joint contributions to the common philosophical enterprise? How could we carry out critical reflection on both instead of indiscriminately taking either of them for granted in treating philosophical issues and concerns? These related questions address the central concern and objective of the current anthology volume, that is, of how the approaches can constructively engage each other. Constructive engagement, as we understand it, involves the exploration of how, by way of reflective criticism (including self-criticism) and argumentation, distinct approaches from different philosophical traditions (generally covering both culture-associated and style/orientationassociated philosophical traditions)2 can learn from each other and jointly contribute to the contemporary development of philosophy on a range of issues through appropriate philosophical interpretation and/or from a broader philosophical vantage point. This is a central concern and goal of

1 We do not intend to explore the issue of how to define or exactly characterize the identities of the analytic and “Continental” approaches in philosophy here, as this is one of the issues addressed in the main text. 2 Understanding the identity of philosophical traditions in this reflectively broader way is not a mere verbal difference but is needed for the sake of sophisticated appreciation of the internal structure of each of the philosophical traditions and for philosophical comparison across traditions.

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comparative philosophy when it is understood as a way of doing philosophy that crosses traditions and seeks constructive engagement. Comparative philosophy has undergone a significant development in its identity, coverage and mission, especially since the first decade of this century. It is no longer limited exclusively to East-West dialogue nor is it restricted to examining regional and cultural traditions. It does not stop at a mere historical description of apparent similarities and differences of views under examination, but it penetrates deeper and wider philosophically. Instead of being a local subfield of philosophy, it has become an exciting general front of philosophical exploration that is primarily concerned with the “constructive engagement” goal and methodology just mentioned. There are two distinct but complementary “cross-tradition” fronts, with their different emphases and focuses, on which to effectively carry out and implement the project of constructive engagement of analytic and Continental philosophy. One front is to explore the issue with the focus on relevant resources within the Western philosophical tradition. This exploration is carried out from the vantage point of comparative philosophy in the following sense: the two approaches are essentially treated as two styles or orientations of doing philosophy and are examined in the foregoing constructive-engagement way that crosses the two target traditions to explore how they can learn from each other and make a joint contribution to the development of contemporary philosophy. To this extent, the exploration on this front consists of engaging in comparative philosophy. Another front consists of referring to the resources of the two approaches from the perspective of philosophical traditions other than the Western tradition. Historically speaking, the two labels ‘analytic’ and ­‘Continental’ have been used by many to refer to the two styles and orientations of doing philosophy within the Western philosophical tradition, especially post-Kantian Western philosophy, as literally suggested by the label ‘European Continent(al)’. There have been workshops and conferences in Europe and the U.S. that focus on the relation between analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy. However, since the primary interest and purpose of this anthology on the topic does not consist in doing history but in philosophical inquiry, and since some characteristic features of the two distinct types of methodological styles and orientations of doing philosophy can be traced back to ancient sources in the Western and other philosophical traditions and have also manifested themselves in other

general introduction

3

philosophical traditions in distinct philosophically-interesting ways,3 the volume as a whole examines the issue of how their constructive engagement is possible on both of these two fronts. Explorations on both fronts are needed and can be complementary from the vantage point of comparative philosophy. This anthology, by bridging analytic and “Continental” philosophy within the Western tradition and also beyond the Western tradition, brings together explorations of just this type. The contributions to the volume are organized in a way that reflects the two fronts and that can serve distinct needs of various readers. Part One consists of essays that focus on relevant resources in the Western tradition, while Part Two consists of essays that includes resources from other traditions. In addition to this general introduction to the volume as a whole, we provide separate specific introductions to the two parts since each part has its distinct focus, emphasis and concerns. Richard Tieszen introduces Part One while Bo Mou provides an introduction to Part Two. Each part stands on its own, while together they complement each other from the vantage point of constructive engagement in comparative philosophy. Besides reading through the whole book the reader can also make selections in accordance with his or her own distinct interests and concerns. Although the two fronts represented in this volume have their own distinct focuses, emphases and concerns, they capture the same central point of doing philosophy comparatively, which is to show how distinct approaches and resources from different philosophical traditions can provide broad visions, complementary perspectives, and other valuable or even indispensable resources in order to enhance our understanding and treatment of philosophical topics. The point can be vividly captured in a poetic adage by Su Shi, an ancient Chinese poet in the Song Dynasty: “One cannot recognize the genuine facets of Lushan Mountain if one is caught in the midst of this very mountain.”4 3 For example, in contemporary studies of classical Chinese philosophy there has recently been exploration of how the analytic methodological approach can be applied to philosophical interpretation and analysis of classical Chinese philosophy, including those important movements of thought that prominently share some characteristic features of “Continental” methodological style and orientation (such as classical Daoism one of whose most important classics, the Dao-De-Jing, is literally a philosophical poem). 4 The sentence (“不識廬山真面目, 只緣身在此山中” in its Chinese original) is from Su Shi (蘇軾)’s poem “Inscription on the Wall of Xilinxi Temple” 《題西林寺壁》 ( ) (translation by Bo Mou).

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It is hoped that this anthology effectively illustrates the value, significance and explanatory power of doing philosophy comparatively in way that crosses traditions with the intent of constructive engagement. Bo Mou & Richard Tieszen San José, California September 2012

PART ONE

ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE WESTERN TRADITION

INTRODUCTION TO PART ONE

ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE WESTERN TRADITION Richard Tieszen There is a lot to say about the analytic/Continental divide in Western philosophy, and even more to say if we reflect on this divide in relation to various philosophical traditions around the world. In the time that I have been studying philosophy there has been a significant shift from a relatively polarized state of affairs in Western philosophy to much more interaction and constructive engagement between the so-called analytic and Continental traditions. As a beginning student of the subject I remember being surprised that there should be such a division in philosophy. The dynamic at the time seemed closer to what I had observed in connection with certain forms of religious or political belief, namely, that there was true belief and there was heresy, that there were fairly sharp lines of inclusion and exclusion, that there was shunning of particular groups by others and even, at times, open hostility. One could see clearly how certain book publishers, philosophy journals, philosophy departments and professional organizations lined up along the divide. So I always had a great appreciation for those who attempted to bridge the perceived differences. For me, the point generalizes immediately to comparative philosophy as a whole. The essays in this part of the book are all good examples either of direct constructive engagement of ideas in analytic and Continental philosophy or of what can be learned from comparing the ideas and engaging in further dialogue. In several cases, the essays cross into territory outside of Western philosophy, although most of the essays that do so are included in Part II. The contributions in this part, while mostly focused on the Western tradition, extend across a broad range of thinkers and issues in philosophy. In order to assist readers of this part of the book, I offer a few words about the contents of each of the contributions. Christian Beyer, who is a philosopher in Germany, contributes “Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology Considered in the Light of (Recent) Epistemology”. He presents Edmund Husserl’s ideas on how to respond to ‘the

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problem of transcendence’, which he formulates in an interesting manner as the problem of providing a phenomenological meta-justification of the realism about the world that underlies what Husserl calls the ‘natural attitude’. The idea is to arrive at a reasonable rejection of skepticism. Husserl’s position is contrasted with the views of some recent epistemologists, notably Michael Williams and Laurence BonJour. Beyer argues that Husserl’s position is not foundationalist but, rather, is holistic. The position that Beyer presents, which proceeds from a solipsistic notion of the world to an intersubjective notion, issues in the idea that we all share a common lifeworld. It is against the uncircumventable background of the lifeworld, with its unthematized, prejudgmentally given data, that revisable knowledge claims are justified holistically. In “Meaning as Significance in Analytic and Continental Philosophy” Al Martinich introduces a new sense of ‘meaning’ which, remarkably, can be transferred back and forth between some work in analytic theory of meaning and Heidegger’s investigation of the meaning of Being. Martinich calls this new sense of ‘meaning’ meaning-as-significance. It is motivated in connection with H.P. Grice’s distinction between natural meaning, non-natural (communicative) meaning, and intentional meaning. Meaning-as-significance is like communicative meaning but unlike natural meaning in that it requires a person or persons to imbue things or events with meaning. On the other hand, it is like natural meaning in supporting certain types of entailment that are not supported by communicative meaning. Martinich relates meaning-as-significance to issues about the meaning of life, especially in the existential philosophy of Sartre and of Heidegger. Heidegger’s views on the meaning of Being in Being and Time and related works are considered in some detail, and Martinich argues that Heidegger’s use of ‘Bedeutung’ corresponds with the logic of ‘meaning-as-significance’. Here we have a nice dovetailing of analytic and Continental thought. In “Narrative Conceptions of the Self ” Todd May takes us on an enlightening tour through positions on narrative conceptions of the self in the work of the analytic philosophers Marya Schectman and Galen Strawson and the Continental philosophers Paul Ricoeur and Adriana Cavarero in order to show how a productive discussion across the divide can be had on this topic. Although these philosophers have different positions, with Schectman and Ricoueur defending narrative conceptions of the self, Strawson skeptical of any such view, and Cavarero emphasizing how the narration of one’s story often comes from others instead of the self, May argues that the engagement of these thinkers with one another yields a

analytic and continental philosophy in the western tradition 9 deepening of the idea of a narrative conception of the self. By the end of the paper he arrives at a position that is somewhat thinner than a fullblown narrative conception of the self. May puts forward a diachronic and dialectical conception “that involves narrative elements without necessarily implying an encompassing narrative structure”. Søren Overgaard, who is a philosopher in Denmark, writes “Against Linguistic Exclusivism”. Overgaard characterizes linguistic exclusivism in philosophy as the position according to which only data concerning the use of words is relevant and admissible in philosophical investigation. This would include Oxford ordinary language philosophy and the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein and his followers. Overgaard notes the work of Ryle, Peter Strawson, and Austin but focuses on the views of the prominent Wittgensteinian Peter Hacker, with the intention of clearing away a major obstacle to constructive engagement between the analytic and phenomenological traditions. His reference to the infamous Royaumont Colloquium of 1958 will be of interest to younger scholars who might not be aware of the extent to which the polemics flared. Overgaard argues that the considerations that lead Hacker and other linguistic philosophers to linguistic exclusivism are misguided, and that accepting linguistic exclusivism “leads to a philosophy incapable of achieving even the modest aims Hacker sets for it”. An alternative, he argues, is to supplement linguistic or ‘grammatical’ descriptions with phenomenological descriptions. With “Consciousness Experienced and Witnessed” by David Woodruff Smith we turn inward. Smith starts with a description of witnessing consciousness of the sort found in Vipassana Buddhism and then asks what it is that makes conscious activity conscious. Like Beyer, Smith is deeply attuned to Husserl’s work except that in this essay he crosses over to situate his view on the dynamics of inner experience in relation to some Buddhist views on consciousness. Following the Husserlian phenomenological tradition, Smith asks what the formal structure of experience is that makes it conscious experience. After characterizing a ‘higher-order’ model of the consciousness-conferring structure with a ‘same-order’ model, he presents his view that consciousness characteristically includes a form of self-consciousness. Smith lays out the components of his ‘modal’ model of (self-)consciousness and indicates how his view differs from some interpretations on which Husserl’s account of inner time-consciousness supplies all the structure needed for inner awareness. The essay concludes with some very interesting ideas about how phenomenological reflection involves empathizing with one’s own lived experience.

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Natural science requires a turn to outer experience. My contribution, “Analytic and Continental Philosophy, Science, and Global Philosophy”, discusses the relation of analytic to Continental philosophy in terms of the extent to which natural science either is or should be taken to be a model for philosophy. Is philosophy supposed to be analogous to the natural sciences? Science and technology have had a profound impact on our lives and as they exert even more influence in various parts of the world they will no doubt continue to affect our conceptions of the world and ourselves. With this in mind, I wanted to explore some of the differences between analytic and Continental philosophy concerning the place of science in relation to philosophy, and broach the subject of what this means for comparative philosophy generally. I focus on the case of philosophy of mind in particular, and consider what the limits of natural science and naturalized philosophy might be if we are trying to understand the nature of human consciousness. At a somewhat further remove from specific topics on which analytic and Continental philosophy might engage, Mary Tiles raises deep questions about boundaries between systems of ideas, how boundaries are determined, and whether they are natural or conventional in her “Of Boundaries and What Falls Between the Cracks: Philosophy, Its History, and Chinese ‘Philosophy’ ”. She is interested in connections between ideas about the history of philosophy and possible projects of comparative philosophy, and in what can be seen and what is hidden in the cracks between boundaries. Her paper draws on figures such as Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault, Bourdieu in the French tradition of historical epistemology/ epistemological history, as well as the approach of the neo-Kantian Ernst Cassirer. Issues about the historical dimension of what counts as philosophy, where philosophy is supposed to be different from intellectual history, history of ideas, and cultural and religious studies, thus emerge from her paper, illustrated in a nice way by her example of the Jesuit mission to China in the period 1552 to 1773. Readers of these essays will, I hope, find many stimulating and fruitful ideas on analytic and Continental philosophy—ideas, moreover, that will resonate across traditions of philosophy worldwide. In the Introduction to Part Two of this book my colleague Professor Bo Mou, who is Director of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at San José State University, offers a host of methodological reflections on comparative philosophy as a whole.

CHAPTER ONE

HUSSERL’S TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY CONSIDERED IN THE LIGHT OF (RECENT) EPISTEMOLOGY Christian Beyer Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology represents an epistemological project which he sometimes refers to as “First Philosophy”. He also speaks of “Cartesian Meditations” and stresses that “the first philosophical act” is “the universal overthrow of all prior beliefs, however acquired” (Hua VIII, 23).1 This project aims at nothing less than a philosophical understanding of our whole view of the world and ourselves. I propose to investigate into this undertaking regarding both its method and content and to relate it, where useful, to more recent (analytic) epistemology. For Husserl, the task of First Philosophy is to philosophically explicate our access to, or being in, the world, i.e., the intentionality of our consciousness. By an intentional state of consciousness, an intentional (lived) experience, he understands a state of consciousness that has a subject matter which it is directed toward, so to speak (cp. the literal meaning of the Latin verb intendere); a state that is “as of ” something, represents something. It was Husserl’s teacher Franz Brentano who brought this notion to the attention of philosophers and psychologists. In his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint he says: Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a real thing [eine Realität]), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. (Brentano 1995, 63)

1 Unless indicated otherwise, Husserl’s writings are cited after Husserliana: Edmund Husserl—Gesammelte Werke, The Hague/Dordrecht: Nijhoff/Kluwer/Springer 1950ff. [=Hua] and the translations are mine.

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Intentionality is “the direction toward an object [die Richtung auf ein Objekt]”, or “[the] immanent objectivity [die immanente Gegenständlichkeit]”, such that each intentional phenomenon “includes something as object within itself.” Does that mean that mental phenomena constitute an inner realm, wholly separated from what is “out there” in objective reality “in itself ”? “I have been searching for reality all of my life”, Husserl once said to Helmuth Plessner, near the end of his Göttingen years, “and while saying this”, Plessner reports, “he took his thin walking stick with its silver crutch, bent forward and pressed it against the post” of his garden door (Plessner 1959, 18). Husserl is a realist. He is, in other words, convinced of the existence of objects transcending what is given to our consciousness; objects to which there is more, and which are more, than what shows itself in present consciousness; and consciousness is always present (I shall return to that point). But Husserl is not a naive realist; this is one of the points of the anecdote told by Plessner. In pressing his walking stick against the door post, Husserl expresses a different attitude than G.E. Moore when raising his hands and exclaiming “here is a hand, and here is another hand!” in order to “disprove” scepticism about objective reality. Nor does Husserl adhere to so-called critical realism, the view (going back to Descartes) that we experience objective reality only indirectly, by representing subjective appearances or sense-data. According to Husserl, this view does violence to the facts of consciousness and thus violates the basic methodological requirement of phenomenology, i.e., “to open our eyes and take the phenomena as they offer themselves as against all firmly rooted theory and even despite it” (Heidegger 1988, 62). This formulation stems from Martin Heidegger’s lectures on The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, which testify to a good understanding of Husserlian phenomenology. Heidegger there gives the following statement of the central problem pursued by critical realism: In themselves, it is said, intentional experiences as belonging to the subjective sphere relate only to what is immanent within this sphere. Perceptions as psychical direct themselves toward sensations, representational images, memory residues, and determinations which the thinking that is likewise immanent to the subject adds to what is first given subjectively. Thus the problem that is above all alleged to be the central philosophical problem must be posed: How do experiences and that to which they direct themselves as intentional, the subjective in sensations, representations, relate to the objective? [. . .] How do intentional experiences [. . .] relate to transcendent objects? (Ibid.)

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Heidegger calls this “an absurd problem of transcendence [ein verkehrtes Problem der Transzendenz]” (Heidegger 1988, 64). Husserl had convinced himself of the falsity of the underlying theoretical assumption— so-called representationalism2 or indirect realism or, as Husserl refers to it, the “image theory” of intentionality—as early as in 1894, in his treatise Intentional Objects, in which the “paradox of objectless representations” is discussed. The paradox is that, on the one hand, (1) every (objective) representation represents an object, but that, on the other hand (2) there are “objectless representations” (Bolzano), ones which have no object they represent, such as the representation of a winged horse. Representationalism holds that thesis 1 is about different represented objects than thesis 2. Thesis 1 concerns “mental images” of those objects that thesis 2 is about (thesis 1 concerns inscriptions on the tabula rasa, if you will); and these images, or “phantasmata [Phantasmen]”, would exist even if the objects depicted therein failed to exist (as in the case of the pictorial representation of a Greek deity). In Intentional Objects, Husserl basically raises three objections against this theory, which theory can be regarded as spelling out Brentano’s above-cited talk of an “immanent objectivity”, which Husserl regards as unclear. First, Husserl argues that the theory “does violence to the facts” of consciousness (Husserl 1994, 347): I would like to be introduced to those ‘mental images’ which are supposed to reside in the concepts Art, Literature, Science, and the like [. . .] I would also like to meet the mental images of objects thought in absurd representations; and, again, those that come before the mathematician in reading a treatise filled with complicated systems of formulae. Veritable cyclones of phantasms must play themselves out in his consciousness. (Ibid.)

Secondly, Husserl objects that the “mental image theory” merely shifts the problem it is supposed to solve: It leads to a “duplication” of represented objects, such that a non-objectless representation such as ‘Berlin’ represents both the mental image of an object and the depicted object itself. Husserl says: But how is it not inherent in the sense of the apparently, or actually, contradictory propositions cited, [i.e., thesis 1 and 2, respectively; CB] that 2 This assumption is not to be confused with the naturalistic thesis about the mind that Fred Dretske, among others, refers to as “representational”. On Dretske’s view, all perceptual experiences are functioning as natural representations indicating properties of objects to which they are causally related (see Dretske 1995, ch. 1). Unlike traditional representationalism, this view does not postulate inner representata (subjective appearances, sense-data).

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christian beyer in the given case the same object which is represented exists or does not exist? The same Berlin which I represent also exists, and the same would no longer exist if judgment fell upon it as upon Sodom and Gomorrah. (Husserl 1994, 347)

Thirdly, Husserl objects that the “mental image theory” already presupposes what an adequate theory of representation is yet supposed to accomplish: It is overlooked that the phantasy content first must become the [r]epresenting image of something or other, and that this ‘pointing-beyond-itself ’ in the image—which first makes it into an image [. . .]—is a ‘more’ that is essential to consider. (Husserl 1994, 348)

What we need is a theoretically unbiased elucidation of the intentionality of consciousness, one that does not “rape [vergewaltigt]” the phenomenon to be elucidated (Heidegger) but looks at it from an unprejudiced angle. How can the paradox of objectless representations be resolved under that guideline? The statement that every representation represents an object (thesis 1), taken literally, is false, according to Husserl. What is true is that for each representation there is an implicitly thought hypothetical assumption for which the following counterfactual holds: If this assumption were true, then the representation in question would have an object. Here is an example: If what is told in Greek mythology were true, then the representation ‘Pegasus’ would have an object. This is the way we think about the nonexistent, on closer inspection. Accordingly, in his first major work Logical Investigations Husserl stresses that: [. . .] the intentional object of a presentation is the same as its actual object, and on occasion as its external object, and that it is absurd to distinguish between them. (Husserl 2001, 127)

This is the view of realism. Husserl regards it as a “triviality”—and, for this very reason, as philosophically problematic. How can this naive view be elucidated without doing violence to the phenomenon of intentionality by theoretical preconceptions such as representationalism? This question represents the problem of transcendence rightly understood. As Heidegger rightly stresses, it is identical to the problem of the philosophical elucidation of intentionality. For, the so-called transcendence of objective reality simply consists in the intentionality of the consciousness directed at it (cf. Heidegger 1988, 63). Dasein, or intentional consciousness, transcends what is given, and this fact accounts for the so-called transcendence of objective reality. Husserl would agree, but unlike Heidegger

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he explicitly formulates the “problem of transcendence” as an epistemological one, i.e. as: [. . .] the problem of how epistemic consciousness [das erkennende Bewußtsein] in its flow consisting of variously formed and interwoven acts of knowledge can transcend itself and posit as well as determine an objectuality that is in no way to be found as a real component in it, never and nowhere comes to absolutely doubtless self-givenness in it, while according to the very sense of knowledge about nature this objectuality is at the same time supposed to exist in itself, regardless of whether it happens to become the object of an act of knowledge or not. (Hua X, 345)

Husserl asks which first and foremost implicit structures and properties of epistemic consciousness make it rational for us, in our naive life with all of its trivialities, to be realists. At the same time, he strives for a justification, regarding the assumption of entities existing objectively (and thus transcending the “self-givenness” of one’s own consciousness), that is “immune to all reasonable doubt” (Hua X, 344). All presuppositions or premisses based on this realistic assumption are to be systematically bracketed in a “phenomenological epoché”. The idea behind this is the following: “The life accomplishing the world-validity of natural world-life cannot be studied in the attitude of natural world-life.” (Hua X, 345) For, as Husserl says elsewhere: “Ordinarily we notice nothing of the whole subjective character of the manners of exhibiting ‘of ’ the things [. . .].” (Husserl 1970, 159) We naively “live into” the world. To escape this naivity, the philosophical “beginner” must only state “absolutely indubitable self-givennesses [absolut zweifellose Selbstgegebenheiten]” about their own consciousness at first; Husserl here demands “apodictic justification” (Hua VIII, 69). “Absolutely indubitable”, “apodictic”—that is to say: undoubtedly doubtless, in the sense that “every possible doubt [is] excluded” in such a way that “this exclusion is itself to be grasped adequately” (Hua VIII, 68), notably in the framework of an unbiased and maximally intuitive3 justification that meets the “requirement of the phenomenological reduction”.

3 This constraint refers to Husserl’s “principle of all principles”, which says that “every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition, that everything originarily (so to speak, in its ‘personal’ actuality) offered to us in ‘intuition’ is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there.” (Husserl 1983, 44) In what follows, I shall present some examples of (meta-)justification that (on Husserl’s view) meet this constraint. However, I will not investigate into the respective sort of intuition (i.e., whether it constitutes essential or categorical intuition, or what have you).

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This requirement simply says that the intentionality of consciousness is to be elucidated both under the guideline of the epoché and guided by the problem of transcendence, rightly understood (Hua X, 346). The claim that Husserl decidedly associates this methodological requirement with an epistemological goal is supported, among other things, by what is said in the manuscript of his lecture series Introduction to the Phenomenology of Knowledge [Einführung in die Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis] (summer term 1909), from which manuscript the abovequoted description of the problem of transcendence stems.4 Husserl there clearly states that this requirement both concerns the conditions for possibility of knowledge [Erkenntnis] about transcendent objects and functions as a means for a reasonable rejection of scepticism; this latter aim is stressed again and again in the manuscript by formulations like “immune to all reasonable doubt”, “undoubted”, “not always subject to reasonable doubt”, “cogent [triftig]” and so on. Husserl says: The leading problem [. . .] was the ‘problem of transcendence’, and in the first place the problem of the transcendence of nature. [. . .] From there, it seemed that the problem [. . .] expanded: how is knowledge of anything existing in itself in a similar sense [sc. as in the case of objective nature; CB] possible, how is its objective validity claim to be understood and to be protected against the absurd scepticism towards which reflection seems to push again and again? (Hua X, 345f; last emphasis mine)

The project to provide a philosophical solution to the problem of transcendence (meeting the demands of the phenomenological reduction), on the one hand, and to reject epistemic scepticism in a reasonable way, on the other, are two sides of the same coin, on Husserl’s view. As will become clear below, this rejection is performed by a phenomenological meta-justification of the realism underlying the natural attitude, which meta-justification protects it against “reasonable doubt” by showing it to be justified in a methodologically well-regulated manner (such that it is more reasonable to proceed from realistic assumptions than not to do so). 4 The present paragraph is a reaction to an objection raised by Christopher Erhard (in his commentary to my talk at the 22nd German Congress for Philosophy), to the effect that Husserl did not so much attempt to secure the realism inherent in the natural attitude against reasonable doubt “as to understand how such a realistic attitude is possible in the first place”. On my interpretation, Husserl pursues both of these goals at the same time; the philosophical elucidation regarding the possibility of objective knowledge within the natural attitude intended by him coincides with a phenomenologically founded rejection of scepticism.

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It was said above that the beginning philosopher must only make apodictic claims “at first”. Before turning to the question which claims meet this constraint according to Husserl, I would like to step back and explain what this “at first” amounts to. Husserl typically starts out from a description of the naive, vulgar or, as Husserl puts it, “natural” attitude of the non-phenomenologist. He says in no uncertain terms that this attitude does not admit of any doubt with regard to the existence of the (empirically experiencable) world: “Nothings speaks in favour of the assumption [Nichts spricht dafür] that the world does not exist, and everything speaks in favour of the assumption that it exists.” (Hua VIII, 54) If someone who is “confused” by sceptical arguments “judges and believes” within the natural attitude “that the world does not truly exist, or even just that one must always beware of this” possibility, then they “fail to look at the meaning content of the world-experience and at the unbreakable world-belief inherent in it” (ibid.). In the natural attitude, the belief in the existence of the world is completely justified; it would be “mad” to deny this in this attitude. The respective justification is holistic in character; it is presupposed here that coherence tends to generate knowledge (and thus to yield justification): [That the world does not exist, never existed,] is an absolutely empty possibility, against which the whole course of experience [die gesamte Empirie] speaks with the full force of its coherence, and in favour of which nothing whatsoever speaks. (Hua VIII, 67)  [The universal world-perception carries inside itself,] at each moment, and as a matter of consciousness, the anticipation of a future course [of experience] that is either coherent or can be brought to coherence by corrections, if necessary [. . .]. (Hua VIII, 51)

By contrast, Husserl holds, in the phenomenological attitude of the philosophical beginner it is not mad to take the possibility of the world’s non-existence seriously and to suspend the world-belief in view of this possibility. In fact, the concept of madness is not applicable at this stage, as it presupposes the universal world-belief, which is yet to be justified (cf. Hua VIII, 65). The universal world-belief is based on empirical evidence that qualifies as (holistically) justified in the natural attitude all right, but does not at this point qualify as justified in the phenomenological attitude: The world-belief [. . .] continuously leaves open the possibility that the coherent style of the actual course of perception leads to senseless chaos

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christian beyer [. . .]; and correlatively this means [. . .]: this world which I am now experiencing as present in the mode of undoubtful perceptual belief continuously being confirmed [. . .], it may be no more than a mere transcendental appearance. (Hua VIII, 67)

But then, as we have seen, Husserl assumes that the universal world-belief is completely justified within the natural attitude. How does this fit into his view about what qualifies as justified in the phenomenological attitude? Does he take a contextualist view on epistemic justification, in Keith DeRose’s sense of the term? What we fail to realize, according to the contextualist solution, is that the denials that we know various things that are governed by the standards that the sceptic at least threatens to install are perfectly compatible with our ordinary claims to know those very propositions. Once we realize this, we can see how both sceptical denials of knowledge and our ordinary attributions of knowledge can be correct. (DeRose 2009, 42)

Do the conditions under which one counts as justified in the phenomenological attitude (which is not sceptical, though) differ from those under which one does so in the natural attitude? In other words, does the content expressed by “justified”, and the corresponding semantic condition of satisfaction, diverge between these two contexts, such that the content expressed in the phenomenological context determines higher standards of knowledge? This would after all help to explain why (as Husserl stresses) we “do not throw away” the knowledge claims of the natural attitude when taking the phenomenological attitude (Hua III/1, 209). Now it is indeed Husserl’s task to regain the realism inherent in the natural attitude phenomenologically; he tries to uncover the underlying rational structures of epistemic consciousness (nota bene: to uncover— not to generate). But, in the end, it is this fact that speaks against a contextualist reading of Husserl’s view on justification (in DeRose’s sense of the term ‘contextualist’). For, given this task, it is an essential characteristic of the phenomenological attitude that it consequently aims for metajustification, i.e., for a justification of the assumption that the realism inherent in the natural attitude is justified—a justification that is as unbiased as possible and orients itself by the facts of consciousness, including evident essential facts about it. To this end, the assumption in question and the corresponding knowledge claims of the natural attitude are to be bracketed, or suspended. Husserl rather adheres to a ‘contextualist’ conception of justification in the different, albeit related, sense that Michael Williams associates with that term. By all accounts, ‘contextualism’ refers to the view that epistemic

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justification or knowledge depends on context in a non-trivial manner. On DeRose’s view, which is quite representative, it depends on the context of utterance determining the propositional content expressed by an according knowledge ascription whether a true belief counts as sufficiently justified so as to qualify as knowledge. Husserl does not hold that view (see above). However, on Williams’ particular conception, which focuses on the context of the epistemic subject rather than the (utterance) context of the ascriber of an epistemic predicate, a “view of knowledge and justification” is a “contextualist” one if “according to it all epistemic questions arise within a particular informational and methodological context, in which [. . .] not everything is under dispute at the same time” (Williams 2003, 985).5 Thus, “[i]n particular contexts of investigation or epistemic assessment”, explains Williams, “some things are exempted from doubt, because we would change the subject if we cast doubt on them” (ibid.; cp. Hua VIII, 101ff ). Husserl seems to adhere to the same view when he counters the objection that it would be “mad” to doubt the existence of the spatio-temporal world as follows: Thus one may operate with [sc. the assumption of ] the actual reality and possibility of other subjects in the framework of a critique of experience just as long as this critique amounts to common empirical critique, such as historical critique or critique of testimonial assertions and the like; this also holds for [sc. the assumption of ] the possibility that human beings become mad. It represents a form of real possibilities which already presuppose the existence of the world. [. . .] From considerations such as these I therefore recognize that a universal critique of experience as such, to which I am obliged as a beginning philosopher, can only be a solipsistic critique in a good sense—that it is only possible as a critique of my own experiences, which critique knows other subjects and their experiences merely as experienced in my own experience and, since they are under critical investigation, does not presuppose their existence. (Hua VIII, 65f )

Williams denies, however, that knowledge can be subjected to a “totality condition” according to which we can critically call into question our knowledge in total, thanks to a problematic source of knowledge named “(empirical) experience [Erfahrung]”—“experience understood as a generic, autonomous source of knowledge whose informational content is rather limited” (Williams 2004, 981, 985). If experience were subject to this totality condition, then it would be easily undermined by global sceptical scenarios and, as a consequence, “huge areas of knowledge” would 5 Translations from this article are mine.

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be undermined “at once” (Williams 2003, 989). I will return to this objection. Here I shall just record that Husserl claims a peculiar informational and methodological context for the project of First Philosophy, notably the context of a methodological solipsism, which presupposes the existence of one’s own “experience” as an apodictic fact of consciousness (see Hua VIII, 74f ). But even this presupposition—regarding the apodictic character of the “I experience thus-and-so”, conceived along the lines of methodological solipsism—can and must itself be queried, on Husserl’s view, notably by considering with what right or justification we regard this fact of consciousness as an “Archimedean point” (Hua VIII, 69) from which may start out as beginning philosophers (see Hua VIII, 70f ). This “absolute self-assurance” amounts to the question of what constitutes a fact of consiousness as such and allows for its apodictic determination in the mode of self-awareness, or reflective awareness. Husserl’s answer to this question makes recourse to the data of time consciousness (temporal awareness). My own consciousness flows in a steady stream, so to speak—this flow character is peculiar to it. What I experience “right now” is immediately transformed into what I experienced “just a moment ago”; “before”, “afterwards”, “at the same time”—this is how my consciousness is structured. The sceptic about the external world cannot shake this fact, for the time that is at issue here is not objective, physically measurable time. It is the time that is immanent to consciousness, “inner time consciousness”. As already mentioned above, consciousness is always present. However, as Husserl points out, this living present is always already extended: It essentially comes with a temporal horizon.6 What is experienced “now” necessarily turns into what has been experienced “just a moment ago”, which gets replaced by what is experienced “now”, and so on. The present lived experience as such contains an “original impression”, i.e., a consciousness of “now”, which is in turn accompanied by “retentions” as its “comets tail” (Hua X, 295), so to speak. By a retention Husserl means an immediate or primary memory which keeps alive or retains what has been experienced “just a moment ago”, which is in turn followed by another retention, and so on. Consider,

6 This temporal horizon is not to be confused with the intentional horizon of an experience such as a perception, which constitutes another kind of temporal horizon, associated with a higher “level of constitution [Konstitutionsstufe]”. The intentional horizon involves the intersubjective notion of a transcendent object, whilst the temporal horizon in question merely involves the subjective notions of the immediate present and past (what is presented in “original impressions” and “retentions”).

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for instance, how the already heard tones of a melody just being heard are still present to consciousness even if they gradually sink back into the unconscious. (The example stems from Husserl. Another example that he gives in this connection is the perception of bodily motion.) It is this “inner time consciousness” that accounts for that fact that lived experiences flow in the stream of consciousness and that at the same time makes them available for “reflective self-awareness”, i.e. for the Cartesian “cogito”—such as the meta-judgement “I am observing a house” (conceived along the lines of methodological solipsism), whose apodictic character is at issue here. When we undergo a given experience in the ordinary, self-forgotten way it is “latent”, says Husserl; it only becomes “patent” by the “occurrence of an Ego reflecting upon it”, which is in turn latent (Hua VIII, 90). In other words, when reflective self-awareness occurs, it is itself available (accessible) for higher-order judgements but does not require their occurence, either, in order to occur. Thus, Husserl does not endorse an actualist higher-order thought theory of consciousness, according to which consciousness must always be accompanied (and represented) by reflective self-awareness. He does, however, hold that thanks to the inner time consciousness inherent in it, it is in principle always reflectively available, in the sense of a mental disposition. It is in this sense that inner time consciousness may be described as “pre-reflective self-awareness”, to use Sartre’s terminology (see Beyer 2011). Whenever reflective self-awareness, i.e. introspective judgement, occurs, it is founded in “higher-order perception” (Hua VIII, 88), i.e. inner perception of the lived experience reflectively grasped. This inner perception involves both a retention, which allows it to intuitively grasp and immediately retain (“zurückgreifendes Nachgewahren”) the directly preceding phase of the perceived lived experience, and an original impression, which helps the current phase of the lived experience to present itself. The inner perception is in turn founded in this inner time consciousness (original impression plus retention), i.e. it cannot exist without the latter. Unlike in the case of outer perception, the perceived object does not “adumbrate itself ” itself perspectively in inner perception (see Hua III/1, 295f ) but presents itself as it intrinsically is qua lived experience, notably in its essential character as a conscious experience, the living present. At the same time, this inner time consciousness constitutes something like the experiential content of inner perception (see Hua X, 295f ). Hence, the “cogito” founded in the inner perception simply cannot fail the cogitatio, the lived experience it reflectively grasps, at least as far as its character

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as a lived experience, i.e. as something just flowing along in the stream of consciousness is concerned.7 Here we have found a phenomenological meta-justification, and at the same time a clarification, of the thesis that introspective judgements can be apodictic. These considerations prima facie resemble Laurence BonJour’s recent attempt to revive epistemic foundationalism. Foundationalism, as understood by BonJour, is a variety of epistemological internalism, which (unlike its rival, called externalism) holds that for an epistemic subject to be justified in a given belief, they must be able to make explicit (to themselves or others)—i.e. must have cognitive access to—their justifying reasons for holding that belief; with these reasons being themselves part of the subject’s overall system of beliefs. According to (internalist) foundationalism, epistemic justification, thus construed, is not holistic, i.e. it does not derive from the whole epistemic (belief ) system and its coherence, but is linear instead; where the linearly structured system of justifying reasons is supposed to end with immediately (i.e., non-inferentially) justified reasons, notably (as BonJour holds)8 with judgements concerning one’s own present experiences and their sensory or experiential content (example: “It just seems to me that I am seeing something red”) whose justification derives from something like inner experience; in other words, the tree (or pyramid, if you prefer that metaphor) of justification ends with introspective judgements. However, as Wilfried Sellars has pointed out in

7 This account needs further explanation and defence, taking into consideration the holistic character of perception (see next footnote), including inner perception. 8 In his commentary, Christopher Erhard stressed that one can be a foundationalist without making recourse to something like inner consciousness, as BonJour does. I am not aware of any sufficiently worked out alternative version of foundationalism, though. Erhard proposes to hypothesize perceptual judgements of the form “this is P” as providing the foundation of empirical justification, and he refers to the author of Experience and Judgment (Husserl 1973) in this regard. However, the justification of such judgements owing to “pre-predicative experience” (Husserl’s term for non-propositional perception in Experience and Judgment) seems to me to be holistic in character, it does not obtain in a linear manner, in virtue of inferential connections to individual propositional attitudes (beliefs), but rather in virtue of the coherence of the total system of “habitualities” (in particular of “unconscious” beliefs) to which these judgements (or occurent beliefs) belong and to which they owe their intentional content. In the final analysis, the author of Experience and Judgment thus does not endorse a version of foundationalism in the relevant sense of the term (requiring linear justification, where each chain of justification ends with immediately, i.e. non-inferentially justified judgements or beliefs).—Furthermore, on my interpretation such judgements are correlated, according to Husserl, with a higher “level of constitution” than introspective judgements are. It should be added, however, that constitutive relations (whose investigation is the task of transcendental phenomenology) are not to be confused with alleged linear justificatory relations.

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his critique of the “Myth of the Given” (Sellars 1997), this lands the foundationalist in a dilemma. 1. Either the relevant inner awareness itself possesses propositional content; in which case we are dealing with a kind of judgement here which itself stands in need of justification, so that we are (again) confronted by an infinite regress of justification. (This is the first horn of the dilemma). 2. Or else, the relevant inner awareness fails to possess propositional content; in which case it is hard to see how the foundationalist can account for the justification of an allegedly basic belief in terms of this awareness. (This is the second horn.) Now BonJour takes himself to be able to go between the horns of the dilemma by claiming the awareness of sensory content (and of psychological mode) of a present experience of one’s own to be an essential trait of this lived experience as such (see BonJour 2003a, 64). Thanks to this inner awareness the introspective judgement is directly (or immediately) justified, BonJour holds, as it does not represent a separate judgement but rather a constitutive moment of the lived experience which the introspective judgement concerns—a moment that enables the subject making the judgement to recognize its truth by “direct comparison” (BonJour 2003a, 73). BonJour contends that the relevant inner awareness justifies the introspective judgement in question (BonJour 2003a, 78). Thus he seems to choose, nolens volens, the first horn of the dilemma. BonJour replies that this represents that one exception where no further description is necessary and the question of justification does not arise anew (BonJour 2003a, 73f ). This reply is ad hoc and therefore less than convincing. Let us nevertheless assume with BonJour that there is an inner awareness of a given experience, regarding its sensory content, and that this awareness is in no way “conceptually permeated”. Then—as Ernest Sosa has pointed out—Chisholm’s “problem of the speckled hen” arises. Consider that a hen with 48 speckles on its facing side, all of which contrast in my sensory perceptual field, but that I do not thereby perceive the hen as one with 48 speckles—after all, this perceptual image is supposed to be pure sensory content; the image is (as Fred Dretske would put it) analog, not digital, i.e. it is not conceptually structured (the information it may bear fail to be calibrated; see Dretske 1995, 20). Imagine that while undergoing the relevant experience you make the following reflective

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judgement: “It now appears to me that I see a hen with 48 speckles”. Then this meta-judgement will hardly be justified, despite the fact that it correctly describes the experience it concerns with respect to the sensory content that is (on BonJour’s view) subject to inner awareness. As a consequence, such meta-judgements are not directly justified, either, and BonJour’s attempt to defend foundationalism by making recourse to a “‘built-in’ non-apperceptive” and non-conceptual “awareness” fails (see Sosa 2003, 121). BonJour’s reply to this objection runs that in the example about the hen the content of the reflective judgement is too “complex” for its correspondence with the experience’s sensory content, which is subject to inner awareness, to be recognizable by direct comparison (see BonJour 2003b, 192). So he concedes that the inner awareness of an experience’s sensory content does not always explain the direct justification of a reflective judgement concerning it. The explanatory burden rests on the hard to understand concept of direct comparability, which BonJour unfortunately leaves largely unexplained. (All he says is that such a comparison would not be a comparative judgement; see BonJour 2003a, 65.) In some cases, he holds, direct comparability obtains, while in others, such as the example of the speckled hen, it fails to obtain; end of story (see BonJour 2003b, 194). Husserl is not confronted by such problems. Between the inner awareness that he also takes to be responsible for the intrinsic conscious character of the intropectively conscious experience and the introspective judgement he interposes an inner perception, which (as long as the Ego is merely latent) does not possess propositional content—i.e., intentional content to be expressed by a complete sentence—but still conceptual, i.e. sub-propositional content—intentional content to be expressed by a sub-sentential, nominal expression, such as a demonstrative or a description. On his view, it is not the inner awareness but rather the inner perception founded in it that accounts for the introspective judgement’s being justified—just as the “nominal” (non-epistemic, i.e. non-propositional)9 perception of a house as such motivates an according perceptual judgement (“this is a house”) and accounts for its justification. (“Why do I judge this way?”—“Because I am seeing a house.”) To justify the reflective judgement 9 Epistemic perception may be reported by statements of the type “I see/hear/ . . . that such-and-such is the case”. In the veridical case (when things are indeed such-and-such), it constitutes (the acquisition of ) perceptual knowledge. Accordingly, its intentional content is propositional—it can be expressed by a complete sentence rather than a sub-sentential, nominal expression.

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“It now appears to me that I am seeing a hen with 48 speckles”, the inner perception would have to present the perceived experience as one whose sensory content displays 48 speckles, and this is less than probable. Unlike BonJour, Husserl is not a foundationalist. The inner perception he invokes is “conceptually permeated”, it has intentional content. This implies that it predelineates an intentional horizon of experiences all of which are reasonably harmonized, and that it is also otherwise embedded in a coherent total intentional system (including beliefs which enable the possession of the relevant mental concepts) to which it owes its intentional content and due to which the introspective judgement founded in it is justified holistically, as the case may be. In the framework of their “absolute self-assurance”, the beginning philosopher aims at an evident meta-justification of such reflective judgements with regard to the underlying inner perception. The content of the latter remains unchanged in the course of this, but the inner perception is critically reflected upon epistemologically, which on Husserl’s view requires, at least from within the phenomenological attitude, to perform a kind of “Ego divison [Ich-Spaltung]” (Hua VIII, 89), or “division of positions [Spaltung der Stellungnahmen]” (Hua VIII, 93). For, the phenomenologist must both undergo or perform the perception and bracket the validity claim of the latter (see Hua VIII, 87). In the meta-attitude of the phenomenologist you become an “uninterested observer”, says Husserl (Hua VIII, 97), of the interested observer that you still are at the lower level, in absolute simultaneity with the act of phenomenological reflection—just as the philosophical sceptic “as a harmoniously perceiving Ego simply cannot but” continue to experience “the world as real” (Hua VIII, 93) even in the loneliness of their study room. As we have seen, the upshot of the beginning philosopher’s “absolute self-assurance” is that, owing to the underlying time consciousness on both sides, both the inner perception and its intentional object are embedded, as a matter of essential law, in a temporally clearly structured order which accounts for the fact, among other things, that the inner perception involves an intuitive retention (or re-presentation) of earlier phases of the perceived experience. Hence, there is undoubtedly a comprehensive stream of consciousness which is not a wholly “senseless chaos”. Thus, already at the level of inner perception a holistic structure reveals itself. However, it makes no sense to ascribe the property of being holistically justified to inner perception itself. After all, justification requires propositional content, and the intentional content of inner (as well as outer)

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perception is not propositional but nominal (i.e., sub-propositional). Or so Husserl’s conception of perception has it. How about recollection of former lived experiences (as opposed to the absolutely self-given retentional awareness of preceding experiencephases) when viewed from within the phenomenological attitude? Husserl argues that such recollection is “not always subject to reasonable doubt”: [. . .] notably, when from it [i.e., the recollection in question, or rather its intentional object; CB], we get, through a continuous path of memory, to the ‘now’ and then again from the ‘now’ through retention, i.e. continuously reviving retention, back to what is posited in the recollection. (Hua X, 345)

In this way one one can realise, in the phenomenological attitude, that a chain of consciousness discreetly leads back to the recollected experience. Thus, not only the present but also the past of one’s own stream of consciousness becomes immune to reasonable doubt; the recollections representing that past have been shown to be apt for rationally motivating memory judgements or beliefs about that past.10 But now, how is the realism underlying (or inherent in) the natural attitude to be secured against reasonable doubt? In other words, how can we solve the problem of transcendence? On a meta-epistemological level, this problem arises in general for holistic justifications of empirical knowledge claims, and BonJour sees this as a serious difficulty for the view of justification he criticizes: How is the assumption that our experiences indeed receive an “input” (as BonJour puts it) by observable elements of the external world to be justified from the viewpoint of a coherentist (or holistic) conception of justification (see BonJour 2003a, 57)? It is Husserl’s phenomenological solution to this sort of problem that I am now going to sketch. We have already seen that intentional consciousness exists, and that it is temporally structured. It therefore suggests itself to look upon the problem of transcendence under the (as Husserl puts it) “functional” aspect of which rational structures and essential properties of consciousness enable us to keep an intentional object “in mind” across time (see Hua III/1, 196f ). Then it quickly becomes clear that it is not only the inner time consciousness, but also the intentional consciousness founded in it that possesses, quite generally, a temporal horizon—this time one involving more than just original impressions and retentions, notably recollections

10 Husserl speaks of “double reduction” in this connection (see Hua VIII, 85).

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(or dispositional memories) and accordingly motivated (dispositional) anticipations about the further course of objectual experience. Husserl also speaks of the “horizon structure” of consciousness and stresses that intentional consciousness is always a case of “horizon intentionality”. Intentional consciousness comes with a horizon of the past—it does not drop from the sky. It also has a horizon of the future—it automatically brings about that you anticipate future experiences. (Consider the perception of a motion again; another example would be the process of observing, say, a house.) Some of these past and future experiences determine my concept or notion of a particular object: I see an object without a ‘historic’ horizon [ footnote: without a horizon of acquaintance and knowledge], and now it gets one. I have experienced the object multifariously, I have made ‘multifarious’ judgements about it and have gained multifarious [pieces of] knowledge about it, at various times, all of which I have connected. Thanks to this connection I now possess a ‘notion’ of the object, an individual notion [. . .] [W]hat is posited in memory under a certain sense gains an epistemic enrichment of sense, i.e. the x of the sense is determined further empirically [erfahrungsmäßig]. (Hua XX/2, 358)

The “historic” horizon and the objects of the anticipations referred to constitutre the “inner horizon” of the experience. They all belong to the same “x of the sense” (also referred to as the “determinable X”). Other past and anticipated experiences bring it about that my “‘notion’ of the object” is networked with other notions of objects. They constitute the “outer horizon” of the experience, your current world horizon. It is in this sense that intentionality is always already “being-in-the world”, as Heidegger puts it, and it is for this reason that the radical separation between the subjective “inner” and the objective “outer” endorsed by critical realism is mistaken in principle. Inner and outer horizon alike are aspects of the unitary structure of being-in-the-world. But with what right, and in which sense, is this world in your own experiential horizon to be understood as objective reality? After all, we have merely obtained a solipsistic notion of world and innerworldly objects so far, one that does not presuppose more than the existence of one’s own consciousness (we are still moving within what Husserl calls the subject’s “sphere of ownness”). In this way, we have hardly succeeded in developing a philosophical justification of realism. Thus we fail to intellectually reach the post of Husserl’s garden door. At this decisive point Husserl makes recourse to the facts of consciousness associated with the empathetic experience of the conscious lives of others (see Hua VII, 435), in order to find out with what right we are

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operating with a richer notion of object, according to which the object transcends the (“primordial”) world of the lonely solipsist. To this end, Husserl uses the solipsistic notion of an “Other”, an alter ego, as a starting point. Like, say, the backside of a house seen frontally (as a house), the Other is given as a subject of consciousness “appresentatively”. In other words, you do not have to draw any inference, inductive or otherwise (such as an inference by analogy), in order to grasp the Other in this way; yet the Other’s consciousness is not given to you perceptually or introspectively (see Hua VIII, 62f ). Instead, you automatically associate the perceived body of the Other with the consciousness you associate with your own body, which you know from inside, so to speak (see ibid.). You can make sense of your corresponding anticipations by bringing to your mind intuitively, by means of conscious empathy, that the Other, just like yourself, takes a perspective on their environment which is egocentrically centered around their own living body. Now there would be no way for you to thus empathetically experience the Other if your world horizon did not at least partially involve the same objects as that of the Other: it is an essential fact of consiousness that in empathy you “appresentatively” represent the Other’s body analogously to your own living body as a center of orientation sharing basically the same possibilities of perceptual consciousness that you would have if you took the perspective of the Other (see Husserl 1977, 123). Therefore, you need an intersubjective notion of object, tailormade for the experiences of different subjects of consciousness.11 Thus you arrive at an evident justification for the belief that it is more reasonable to proceed on the assumption of a spatio-temporal reality existing independently of your own perspective and consciousness than not to do so. At this point it becomes clear that the realism underlying the natural attitude is in principle secured against reasonable doubt; we are justified in regarding it as justified. The following excerpt from First Philosophy confirms that the foregoing considerations are in accord with the intention of the phenomenological reduction, i.e., that Husserl indeed aims at a meta-justification of the type just sketched in connection with the analysis of the intersubjective constitution of spatio-temporal objects:

11 Mere intersubjectivity is not enough. The relevant notion needs to allow different subjects to (knowingly) purport to relate to the same object, from different but mutually convertible perspectives. This requires reciprocity and intersubjective coherence, in a way that needs further explanation.

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[I]f I [. . .] review, in the transcendental attitude, the whole of my epistemic life and consider the knowledge I have of other subjects with respect to what is accomplished in it, then it is and remains knowledge confirming itself [sich bewährendes Erkennen]. [. . .] With the same right, generally speaking, with which things are there for me, namely the right stemming from continued empirical confirmation, the other living bodies are there for me as things, and the other souls are thus there for me as well. In transcendental elucidation, all things are unities of possible coherent perception (as original realisation) that belong to my life and are constituted in it. But then again, in transcendental elucidation the other human subject is precisely another transcendental subject; unlike a thing, it is not an object realised originally [im Original], and to be realised thus, in my own life, hence it is not merely a unity of possible perceptions of mine, but still a subject rightfully indicated, as another Ego, by certain unities of my experience. [. . .] Thus the phenomenological reduction leads to two universal structures of life founded in one another: 1) my life [. . .] constitutes itself for itself in an original manner, i.e. empirically [ursprünglich erfahrungsmäßig]. [. . .] 2) By means of the experience of other living bodies rooted in my experience of my own living body, which however only has secondary character regarding the psychical side, I co-experience other subjectivity in the framework of my own subjectivity. [. . .] For the very reason that other subjectivity does not belong to the range of my original perceptual possibilities, it does not dissolve into intentional correlates of my own life and its rule structures. Moreover, it presents itself with empirical right, according to its peculiar sense, as a being that is in and for itself and only for me has the mode of presentation of the ‘Other’. [. . .] If we consider the transcendental life of the Other with respect to its community with our own life, then the further insight results that due to such community the intentional constitution of my own thing-world also gains community with the intentional constitution performed by the Other, notably as a constitution of the same thing-world. By means of empathy into the Other [I can] bring a perception ascribed to him by empathy, and performed by him, into synthetic unity with my own perception, in the awareness that we are both perceiving the same thing. And thus vice versa. [. . .] All objectivity that is is true for me is true for everyone [. . .]. (Hua VIII, 187ff )

The fact that the realism inherent in the natural attitude is correct (as it is reasonable to assume) does not mean, according to Husserl, that the elements of spatio-temporal reality and the real world as a whole are completely subject-independent. For, on his view, another essential condition regarding intersubjective experience (alias empathy) is precisely that by and large you structure the world into objects in the same style as the other subjects do: We all share a common lifeworld that manifests itself in generally acknowledged certainties (“fixed truths”), to which our world of experience owes its specific character.

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Generally speaking, Husserl conceives of the data of the lifeworld as unthematized (unnoticed), “prejudgementally” given (i.e., prior to all conscious judgements), subject-relative (perspectival), intersubjectively experienceable trivialities [Selbstverständlichkeiten] that constitute the uncircumventable but revisable background against which knowledge claims can be justified holistically (see Føllesdal 1990; also see Beyer 2007, secs IIf ). An examination of the mutual compatibility and the internal connection between the various traits of the lifeworld just listed still represents a desideratum of systematically oriented Husserl research. At any event, Husserl’s recourse to the so conceived lifeworld shows that he does not presuppose any generic source of knowledge which could be questioned as a whole due to its epistemic autonomy and its limited information value. Furthermore, the thesis of the transcendence and, connectedly, the essential horizon character of experience, “finally justified” by Husserl, does not fit in with a view of experience according to which it may easily be undermined by global sceptical scenarios. Thus, his project escapes Williams’ objection to the “traditional epistemological project” which aims at a “completely general understanding of our knowledge about the world” and takes for granted precisely such autonomous, sceptically underminable sources of knowledge (see Williams 2003, 979, 985). The question arises, though, whether this holds true for all phases of the project of transcendental phenomenology. I have attempted to make it clear that there is no phase in which it can be regarded as constituting a foundationalist project à la BonJour. If am right, Husserl nowhere assumes autonomous generic sources of knowledge in the sense Williams has in mind. Instead of associating Husserl with a problematic foundationalist position, we should rather investigate into his conception of lifeworld and consider whether it can indeed be integrated into the project of First Philosophy as intended by him. I have contended that Husserl has a holistic view regarding the justification of the knowledge claims underlying the natural attitude, closely related to his view of the essential horizon character of intentional experience. This view of epistemic justification is internalist, it requires that the justifying reasons be accessible to critical and particularly transcendentalphenomenological reflection, in the way sketched and exemplified above. However, when it comes to the lifewordly background of epistemic justification, a kind of externalist element enters. For, as long as the relevant background continues to fulfill its epistemic function, it fails to be cognitively accessible. It is only when the things taken for granted first and

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foremost (the “fixed truths” of the lifeworld) get into flux, that we may acquire cognitively accessible beliefs (make conscious judgements) about these things—beliefs that can face the tribunal of (meta-)justification.12 References Beyer, Christian (2007), “Contextualism and the Background of (Philosophical) Justification”, Grazer Philosophische Studien, 74: 291–305. —— (2011), “Husserls Konzeption des Bewusstseins”, in Konrad Cramer and Christian Beyer (eds), Edmund Husserl 1859–2009 (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter), 43–54. BonJour, Laurence (2003a), “A Version of Internalist Foundationalism”, in Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa, Epistemic Justification (Oxford: Blackwell), 5–96. —— (2003b), “Reply to Sosa”, in Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa, Epistemic Justification (Oxford: Blackwell), 173–200. Brentano, Franz (1995), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (London: Routledge). DeRose, Keith (2009), The Case for Contextualism. Knowledge, Scepticism and Context, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon). Dretske, Fred (1995), Naturalizing the Mind (Cambridge/Mass.: MIT Press). Føllesdal, Dagfinn (1990), “The Lebenswelt in Husserl”, Acta Philosophica Fennica, 49: 123–149. Heidegger, Martin (1988), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Bloomington: Indiana UP). Husserl, Edmund (1950ff ), Husserliana: Edmund Husserl—Gesammelte Werke [Hua] (The Hague/Dordrecht: Nijhoff/Kluwer/Springer). —— (1970), The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern UP). [Hua VI] —— (1977), Cartesian Meditations (The Hague: Nijhoff ). [Hua I] —— (1983), Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy (The Hague: Nijhoff ). —— (1994), Experience and Judgment (Evanston: Northwestern UP). —— (1994), Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics (Dordrecht: Kluwer). [From Hua XII, XXI, XXII and XXIV. The treatise “Intentionale Gegenstände” is contained in Hua XXII.] —— (2001), Logical Investigations—Volume 1 (London: Routledge). [Hua XVIII, XIX] Plessner, Helmuth (1959), Husserl in Göttingen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Sellars, Wilfrid (1997), Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard UP). Sosa, Ernest (2003), “Beyond Internal Foundations to External Values”, in Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa, Epistemic Justification (Oxford: Blackwell), 97–170. Williams, Michael (2003), “Skeptizismus und der Kontext der Philosophie”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 51 (6): 973–991.

12 An earlier German version of this contribution appears in the conference proceedings of the 22nd German Congress for Philosophy, titled Welt der Gründe, ed. by J. NidaRümelin and E. Özmen, Hamburg: Meiner 2012. I am grateful to Christopher Erhard for his helpful commentary on an earlier German version of this paper, and to Rick Tieszen and another reader for their equally helpful comments on the penultimate version.

CHAPTER TWO

MEANING AS SIGNIFICANCE IN ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY A.P. Martinich Both Anglo-American and Continental philosophers have long taken meaning to be a central topic. This statement is ambiguous because the word ‘meaning’ is equivocal; and philosophers in both traditions have discussed several kinds of meaning. It is an open question whether they are discussing the same concept of meaning; and if they sometimes do, when. A general goal of this chapter is to identify some of the central concepts of meaning and to explain some of their relations to each other. The number of concepts involved and their relations to each other are so numerous and often unclear that this goal cannot be completely achieved. A slightly less general goal is to identify some concepts of meaning in AngloAmerican philosophy with the corresponding concepts in Continental philosophy in order to illuminate the concepts themselves. Rigor requires precision about which kinds of meaning to discuss. I will focus on meaning-as-significance. But to get clear about this concept, other sorts of meaning need to be discussed, in particular, natural-meaning and communicative-meaning. A tentative statement of my thesis is that meaning-as-significance, in a sense to be explained, plays a crucial role in the philosophies of Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. The concept as discussed in the continental tradition is generally used for more central concerns to human beings than the use made of it in the Anglo-American. However, I also think that the discussion of it in the latter tradition helps to clarify its occurrence in the former. The view that the meaning of life, to the extent that human life has a meaning, is something that human beings construct for themselves is illuminated by the logic of meaningas-significance. 1. Several Kinds of Meaning H.P. Grice distinguished between three kinds of meaning: natural-meaning, nonnatural- or communicative-meaning, and intentional-meaning. That

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three kinds of meaning are involved is evident from the different logical properties that sentences that contain ‘meaning’ have. Although Grice was primarily concerned with “nonnatural meaning,” I will prefer the term “communicative-meaning” because it is apter. In normal situations, when a speaker says something, for example, “Austin is the capital of Texas,” to an audience, one might report what she said in this way: (1) In saying, “Austin is the capital of Texas,” Sarah meant that Austin is the capital of Texas.

While it is also true that Sarah ‘said that’ Austin is the capital of Texas, we are focusing on a sense of ‘meaning’ in which to say something is also usually to mean it. Also, a person might communicatively mean something without saying anything, for example, by warning someone that he is in danger by frantically waving one’s arms to get the attention of the person and then pointing vigorously in the direction of a bull. The communicative sense of ‘meaning’ may be extended to include cases in which words used on an occasion are said to mean what the speaker meant by them. So, (2) The words “Austin is the capital of Texas,” as said by Sarah, meant that Austin is the capital of Texas.

A salient fact about communicative-meaning is that neither (1) nor (2) entails (3) Austin is the capital of Texas.

This can be seen by considering that (4) The words “Columbus is the capital of Texas,” as said by Sarah meant that Austin is the capital of Texas

does not entail (5) Columbus is the capital of Texas.

A second salient fact is that as regards (1), it was necessary for the utterer to have intended to get an audience to believe (or to understand or to think about) something at least in part by the audience’s recognition of that intention. Communicative-meaning stands in sharp contrast with natural­meaning, which is the relevant sense in sentences like (6) and (7): (6) Those spots mean that Tina has the measles,

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 35 (7) The emission of great volumes of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere means that the average temperature of the earth will rise,

which entail (8) and (9) respectively: (8) Tina has the measles, (9) The average temperature of the earth will rise.

Some philosophers think that natural-meaning is equivalent to having a high probability. They think that (6) might be true even if (8) is false. Either their dialect is different from Grice’s and mine or they are mistaken. For me, if (8) is false, then (6) has to be false. What would be true are (10) Those spots seem to mean that Tina has the measles

and (11) Those spots indicate that Tina has the measles.

For example, economic leading indicators may falsely predict future economic conditions. That (6) entails (8) may be seen from the fact that if it did not, then it would be possible for sentence (12) to be true: (12) Those spots mean that Tina has the measles, and Tina does not have the measles.

And it is not. In trying to get clear about what historians of various sorts are trying to do when they purport to identify the meaning of some event and what literary critics try to do when they purport to identify the meaning of a poem, short story or novel, I discovered that there is another sense of ‘meaning’ similar in some respects to natural-meaning and in other respect to communicative-meaning, but different from both. I have called this ‘meaning-as-significance’; it is the sense that ‘meaning’ has when someone says (13) or (14): (13) For Texans, the meaning of the Alamo is that tyranny must be opposed, (14) For Milton, the meaning of Paradise Lost is that God is just and humans freely chose to disobey God.

Cases like (13) are easier to understand than those like (14). Sentences with the structure of (13) entail something close to a corresponding sentence with the ‘that’-clause. So (13) entails

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The difference between the relevant sentences expressing naturalmeaning and those expressing meaning-as-significance is that the prepositional phrase of the form, ‘For NP’, which relativizes the meaning to some person or group, has to be included for explicit truths. Often, however, the relativizing phrase is omitted because the appropriate person or group is implied or presupposed. So, (13) might sometimes be said to entail (16) Tyranny must be opposed.

Similarly, sometimes the relativizing phrase is omitted even in the primary sentence. It would not be unusual for (13) to be expressed as (17) The meaning of the Alamo is that tyranny must be opposed.

Someone who asserted (17) would either assume or presuppose that the audience knows the appropriate person or group or might not be aware that such meaning needs to be relativized. People who do not distinguish between the beliefs and values of their own community or nation, and those of others often think that these relative truths are absolute. It may well be the case that in addition to (13), (18) may be true: (18) For Mexicans, the meaning of the Alamo is that American imperialism caused Texas to be lost.

(13) is a simple case of meaning-as-significance.1 Often to state the meaning of some historical event would require a lengthy statement. It is not unusual for such statements to constitute virtually all of a historical monograph. But it would always be possible to formulate a sentence of the form, For NP, the meaning of the event E, is the following: [text inserted].

Sentences about the meaning of poems, short stories and novels are like statements of the meaning of historical events.

1 Meaning-as-significance is often social and highly personal. In July, some Protestants, especially in Northern Ireland, engage in “Orange walks” to commemorate the victory of Protestant forces over Roman Catholic ones at the Battle of the Boyne in 1689. For the Protestants, the march means that they are better than Roman Catholics. (I do not know why but as regards this example, it seems to me that ‘signifies’ would be more colloquial than ‘means’. For Roman Catholics, the meaning is quite different. For them, the march means that the Protestants are celebrating their oppression of the Catholics or indicating that they are believe that they are superior to them.

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 37 Sentences like (14) are rarer than those like (13) because the meaningas-significance of a work of literature or other work of art, especially an important one, is too complex to be easily expressed in one idiomatic sentence. Often, a treatise on the meaning-as-significance of a work of art W will not even have a sentence that begins, ‘The meaning of W . . .’. But their titles express the fact that the books are about meaning-as-significance. Two randomly chosen examples are The Meaning of Hamlet by Levin Schücking and The Meaning of Moby Dick by William Gleim. The specifications of the meaning-as-significance of books such as these are conveyed by numerous sentences or phrases in the book. Gleim at one point draws on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter to explain the kind of meaning he has in mind. About the incident in which Hester Prynn tosses her scarlet letter “among the withered leaves”, Gleim writes: “The meaning of her action . . . [is] that she consigned her shame to the dead past” (Gleim 1962, 5). Clearly, he means the significance of her action is that she consigned her shame to the dead past. Apparent cases of meaning-as-significance should not be confused with other senses. The sense of ‘meaning’ in this sentence, “What Melville really meant [in Moby Dick is] . . . that the whole book is but a compendium of incomprehensible mysteries” is a kind of meaning that has not yet been discussed. It is ‘intentional-meaning’. When ‘mean’ has this sense, it is synonymous with ‘intend’. So the last sentence quoted from Gleim above could have read: ‘What Melville really intended is. . . .’ (See Gleim 1962, 10). Sentences of the form, ‘What X meant (intended) is that p’ do not entail the sentence corresponding to ‘p’ because people often fail to achieve their intentions. Even if Melville fulfilled his intention to write “a compendium of incomprehensible mysteries,” he might have failed. Perhaps the book was brilliantly intelligible. For the most part, the issue of entailment usually does not arise for intentional-meaning because ‘mean’ in that sense usually occurs with a verb in the infinitive, as in ‘Lee meant to shoot the barn door, not the horse’. Verbs in the infinitive do not take a ‘that’-clause as a complement. Although this is all I have to say about intentional-meaning for now, I will return to it later. So far I have been talking for the most part about a salient difference between meaning-as-significance and natural-meaning. That difference also constitutes the similarity between meaning-as-significance and communicative-meaning. Both require some person or persons to imbue some thing or event with ‘meaning’. The difference between meaningas-significance and communicative-meaning is that sentences expressing the former entail the relevant ‘that’-clause and sentences expressing the

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latter do not. And it is obvious that this difference involves the property that makes meaning-as-significance similar to natural-meaning. So there is a pattern of properties among the three senses of meaning represented by the following: Type of meaning Natural-meaning: Meaning-as-significance: Communicative-meaning:

Properties of meaning entailment entailment nonentailment

nonpersonal personal personal

Meaning-as-significance has some other properties that make it different from natural and communicative-meaning. It changes as time and the appropriate person or group changes. The meaning of the Alamo for Texans changes as their values and beliefs become more cosmopolitan. It even changes with relatively small changes in beliefs and values. The meaning of an event changes with a new fact being discovered; the meaning of a literary text may change with the addition of a new work that in some way echoes, alludes to, or quotes the text.2 2. Meaning-as-Significance and the Meaning of Life We can now apply what has been discovered about meaning-as-significance to the meaning of life as treated primarily by (atheistic) existentialists.3 Their summary view is that human life has no meaning in itself. They may sometimes say that life has no meaning at all. But that is misleading or false. A human being has a meaning when that being creates a meaning for herself. Part of the meaning of an individual human life is constituted by a meaning that some group of people creates for itself, whether it is a friendship, love of family, devotion to tribe or to nation, commitment to a religion or identification with an ethnicity. It is debatable whether individual or group meaning is primary; and it is possible that they are equally primary, ‘equiprimordial’.

2 T.S. Eliot described this feature in “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” See also Martinich 2009. 3 Since most existentialists were atheists, the modifier ‘atheistic’ before ‘existentialists’ is perhaps not necessary in a generalization.

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 39 The claim that human life does not have any meaning in itself is tantamount to the assertion that there is no natural-meaning that human life has. Many Roman Catholic and Protestant philosophers asserted something to the effect that the meaning of human life was that humans had an obligation to serve God; and a primary way of serving God was to obey his commands. Sometimes this was said to be the supernatural meaning of human life. The nonsupernatural4 meaning of human life was to live a life in accordance with reason.5 These positions were typically expressed within an Aristotelian framework, in which what kind of thing something was, its essence, was philosophically more fundamental, than that something was. For example, the scholastic version of the tree of Porphyry charted all of reality from infinite being down to species or essences. It did not descend to particular existents, because they were not objects of philosophical knowledge. Sartre’s negative thesis in “Existentialism is a Humanism” may be understood as the denial of a natural-meaning to human life. As mentioned above, natural-meaning is absolute and not relative to a person, group or, more generally, to a particular point of view. Although Sartre was severely criticized for this lecture, I think that one has to understand that his audience in 1945 consisted largely of his critics, Roman Catholic philosophers and Marxists,6 whose philosophical concepts and beliefs were quite at odds with his own. Rather than describing his own views in his own terminology, which probably would have been lost on his audience, he tried to bridge the conceptual and linguistic gap between himself and his opponents by talking in terms that they could understand. He said as much himself, “It is to these various reproaches [from Catholics and Marxists] that I shall endeavor to reply today; that is why I have entitled this brief exposition “Existentialism is a Humanism.”7 The single most important instance of his attempt in that lecture to explain existentialism in terms of scholastic philosophy is his remark, “existence comes before essence.” He is explicitly denying what he understands to be the Platonic and the scholastic Aristotelian position that essence precedes existence. That is, he is in effect denying that essence, as represented in the tree

4 I use the word ‘nonsupernatural’ rather than ‘natural’ in order to forestall a confusion of the natural meaning of life in general with the natural-meaning that may be attributed to human life. 5 See Irwin 2009, 960–1, for a contemporary philosopher who holds this view. 6 Sartre 1975, 345–6. 7 Sartre 1975, 346; see also 360.

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of Porphyry, is philosophically more significant than individual existents, which do not appear at all. For Plato, the forms, which do not have spatiotemporal existence in themselves, are ontologically prior to the existent things that humans encounter on a daily basis. For scholastics, the issue is more complicated; but it can at least be said that they hold that every human being, not to mention animals and plants, have an essence when they come into existence: no essence, no entity. They are rational animals, and their possibilities are constrained by that essence. For Christian Aristotelians, this view is buttressed by their belief that God made human beings and all other things, “each according to its kind,” according to the Authorized Version of the Bible. To act contrary to the nature that God has given one is unnatural and sinful. Sartre explicitly rejects this view: “When we think of God as the creator, we are thinking of him, most of the time, as a supernal artisan” (Sartre 1975, 348). Because Sartre wants to emphasize human freedom and the ability of each person to live a unique life, he gives priority to existence that is unconstrained. People make themselves what they are; that is, they create their own essence, unlike manufactured goods whose nature has been determined by forces over which they have no control. Individuals create their own essences (“define themselves”) through their actions: “to begin with he [an individual] is nothing . . . He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself ” (Sartre 1975, 349). Sartre believed he was merely being consistent when he canonized Jean Genet, thief, murderer, homosexual, as “St. Genet.” He was also led to this view by his belief that if God does not exist, then there are no objective values and thus that there is no standard by which what one chooses can be judged to be really valuable or not: without God there is no “real value” at all. He thought that if God does not exist, then there have to be substantial consequences for the way that people think of themselves. If objective morality depends on the existence of God and there is no God, then there cannot be an objective morality (Sartre 1975, 353).8 I wish that Sartre had seen that existentialism cannot be a humanism if Genet is an existentialist saint. His honoring Genet is incompatible with his claims that each human being is responsible for himself and “for all 8 Sartre did not consider that ethics could be objective if it were constructive. Ethics conceived of as a set of rules, principles, or guides that people construct to solve problems of human interaction and personal flourishing can be objective, but not independent of human beings.

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 41 men” in the sense that “in choosing for himself he chooses for all men” (Sartre 1975, 350). Thievery and murder do not universalize. Sartre waxes Kantian “If . . . we will to exist at the same time as we fashion our image, that image is valid for all and for the entire epoch in which we find ourselves. Our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed, for it concerns mankind as a whole . . . [H]e is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind” (Sartre 1975, 350–1). Genet’s vision is not valid for all. In short, my point is that Sartre has two inconsonant values: one is that there is no limit on the values that one chooses for oneself; the other is that one must be able to generalize that all human beings might have the same values. One gets the impression from Sartre that if humans had a nature, they would not be free. But this inference is far from obvious.9 It depends on how one understands an essence. It is not obviously wrong to say that the essence of human beings is freedom or something else. Bernard Williams thinks that the fact that human beings differ from nonhuman animals in some ways has the consequence that they are free to be whatever they want to be (Williams 1972, 64–5). He also thinks, in line with Sartre, that a consequence of rejecting the Judeo-Christian God makes it likely that the virtues of Judeo-Christian morality in large part ought to be rejected too. Although Sartre and Camus begin their philosophies either by denying that humans have a meaning or that meaning is natural to them, both eventually attribute the origin of meaning to human beings (e.g. Camus 1956). For both it is something chosen, and what is chosen is significant and valuable. The same things may be said about meaning-as-significance as I have discussed it within the philosophy of history.10 Whether a historical event has a meaning or not (and what meaning it may have) depends upon what human beings make of it. Of course by ‘making something’ of an event I have in mind the fact that humans make it significant and valuable in some way. The seeming paradox that a historian can make some event insignificant either by declaring it to be so or by simply ignoring it is actually trivial. Making nothing of something is simply not to make something of it. This trivial possibility should not be confused with Sartre’s insight that no decision is a decision; that insight displays the 9 It seems to me that having a nature does not entail that one is not free. The doctrine of free will is part of the concept of having a human nature according to many philosophers. Also, not having a nature does not entail that one is free. If human action is indeterministic, it is not free. 10 Martinich 2009.

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pervasiveness of freedom or choice. While the refusal to decide is often momentous—say, not deciding to save a drowning person or not deciding to intervene when an innocent person is accused of wrongdoing—Sartre’s point concerns the form of human existence, not the substance of the decision made or not made (Sartre 1975, 363). He sometimes mistakenly says that the “aim” of some actions is freedom (Sartre 1975, 367). Freedom is not the aim of any action but the source of every action. In “A Letter on Humanism,” Martin Heidegger attacked Sartre on a number of grounds. He pointed out that to say “Existence precedes essence” is to remain on the same level as the philosopher who says, “Essence precedes existence,”11 and he thinks that the truth about human existence (Dasein) is deeper than that. While Heidegger’s remark about Sartre’s assertion is true, it is unfair. Philosophy should take beliefs as they are, in the language in which they are expressed, and insights as they can be, to reveal the truth to the audience. That is what Sartre did. He had chosen to speak in a certain vocabulary at a certain level so that his audience could understand him. He made no claims for having reached the deepest philosophical level. It was Sartre’s choice to make. Also, I think that Heidegger is wrong if he thinks that all philosophy has to occupy only the deepest level of thought and reality. Sartre was describing what he understood existentialism to be and that is consistent with other understandings. It is either odd or interesting, that very soon after criticizing Sartre, Heidegger concedes the point I have just made: “Sartre’s key proposition about the priority of existential does, however, justify using the name ‘existentialism’ as an appropriate title for a philosophy of this sort. But the basic tenet of ‘existentialism’ has nothing at all in common with the statement from Being and Time” (Heidegger 1993, 209). In fact, Heidegger had not said anything in Being and Time that contradicts Sartre because Heidegger had said nothing about the “relation of essential and existential . . . since there it is still the question of preparing something precursory” (Heidegger 1993, 209). My own interpretation of Heidegger is that he thinks that what characterizes Existenz is the ability of human beings to reflect on themselves and their own actions: Being concerns man . . . [when] it dawns on us that man is in [sic] that he exists. Were we now to say this in the language of the tradition, it would run: the ek-sistence of man is his substance. That is why in Being and Time the

11 “[T]he reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement” (Heidegger 1993, 208).

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 43 sentence often recurs, “The ‘substance’ of man is existence . . .” (Heidegger 1993, 209).

Freedom in various senses originates from this self-reflectiveness (Heideg­ ger 1985). A separate, though of course related, criticism of Heidegger is that he thinks that Dasein does have an essence; and he speaks rather freely about that essence. However, he does not mean by ‘essence’ what Plato and the scholastics do; and to the extent that he fails to explain the difference between them, he fails in a crucial aspect of philosophy, communication with his audience. Heidegger objects to Sartre’s use of ‘humanism’ in regard to existentialism even though “this determination of the essence of man, [that is,] the humanistic interpretations of man as animal rationale, as person, as spiritual-ensouled-bodily being, are not declared false and thrust aside” (Heidegger 1993, 209–10). Heidegger thinks that ordinary versions of humanism, including Sartre’s existentialism, do not reach all the way to the bottom of human essence, or, as he says, they “do not set the humanitas of man high enough;” and “the highest determinations of the essence of man in humanism still do not realize the proper dignity of man” (Heidegger 1993, 210).12 Again, even if what Heidegger says is true, it is irrelevant to the fact that Sartre was explaining the way his existentialism is a humanism in the sense that he explained to his audience: Man is all the time outside of himself: it is in projecting and losing himself beyond himself that he makes man to exist; and, on the other hand, it is by pursuing transcendent aims that he himself is able to exist. Since man is thus self-surpassing, and can grasp objects only in relation to his self-surpassing, he is himself the heart and center of the universe (Sartre 1975, 368).

My guess is that what bothered Heidegger at bottom was Sartre’s use of such Heideggerian terms as ‘projecting’ to explain a philosophy that he believed was superficial compared to his own. He may have feared that in speaking about existentialism generally, people would think that Sartre was giving them an insight into Heidegger’s own thought. In other words, he was particularly concerned about protecting the correct ­understanding

12 So Heidegger gives the impression that human existence correctly understood is a humanism, before he takes some of this back: Does the humanity of man understood as “ek-sistence . . . still allow itself to be described as humanism? Certainly not so far as humanism thinks metaphysically. Certainly not if humanism is existentialism and is represented by what Sartre expresses” (Heidegger 1993, 213).

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of his own philosophy. On the issue of the various senses of meaning, Heidegger’s Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) is well worth looking at. 3. The Question of the Meaning of Being At the beginning of Being and Time, Heidegger talks about the importance of being clear about the question one is asking. He formulates his question in two ways, sometimes as “What is being?” and sometimes as “What is the meaning [Sinn] of being?” He usually alludes to the question with the correlative noun phrases “the question of Being” and “the question of the meaning of Being” (“die Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein”) (e.g., Heidegger 1962, 21). Because Being is of the greatest importance to him, the latter question, which explicitly mentions Sinn, more precisely expresses his project.13 He is not interested in the indeterminate or vague average understanding of Being. An adequate treatment of the central object of philosophy must be something precise and determinate. This reveals an inherent problem in talking determinately and precisely about something as general as Being. Almost every topic-specific word has quite limited applications, whether the word is concrete (‘tree’, ‘red’, ‘human’) or abstract (‘justice’, ‘evil’, ‘guilt’). To say that everyone is always guilty is to apply ‘guilt’ far beyond its usual sense. Even the words ‘world’ and ‘universe’ often have limited applications; and when one tries to apply them to absolutely everything, they tend not to communicate much. A precise and determinate account of the world or universe has to involve topic-specific words, the ordinary meanings of which have limited applications. So in speaking generally about Being, philosophers have to use words whose ordinary meaning is quite restricted, in a way that is artificially general. They have to stretch their meanings in order to use them to talk determinately about the most important general things. So while only some people are guilty or care about things in the ordinary sense of ‘guilt’ and ‘care’, Heidegger tries to convey something true but novel about people by saying that they are all guilty and all care. This explains to some degree the difficulty of Heidegger’s language. Fortunately, I think that this problem is not as severe as regards the various senses of ‘meaning’ as it is for other topics that Heidegger discusses.

13 “Die Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein soll gestellt werden” (Heidegger 1977, 6).

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 45 As noted above, Heidegger’s project is to illuminate the meaning of Being (Sinn der Sein). For Anglo-American philosophers, ‘Sinn’ is familiar from Frege’s article, “Über Sinn und Bedeutung” and the use of ‘Sinn’ by Wittgenstein, especially in Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus. The standard translation is ‘sense’. But Frege uses ‘Sinn’ as a technical term as does Wittgenstein; so their theses about Sinn are not reliable guides to its use by Heidegger. While Heidegger was a student of Edmund Husserl and knew his work well, I do not believe that he was influenced by Husserl on this particular issue.14 The important philosopher for Heidegger on this issue was Wilhelm Dilthey, who used ‘Sinn’ to denote the significance of a whole (Inwood 1999, 125). Dilthey sometimes talked about the Sinn des Lebens and held that the whole of life gets Bedeutung from the parts and the whole gets Sinn from the parts.15 In Being and Time, Heidegger replaced Lebens with Sein and did not preserve the reciprocity between Sinn and Bedeutung. He says that Sinn is “that wherein the intelligibility [Verstandlickeit] of something maintains itself. . . . Meaning [Sinn] is the upon which of a projection in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something; it gets its structure from a fore-having, a fore-sight, and a fore-conception” (Heidegger 1962: 193). For Heidegger, Sinn makes the meanings-as-significance [Bedeutungen] possible but is not one of those meanings or even the unity of those meanings: “Meaning is an existential of Dasein, not a property attaching to entities, lying ‘behind’ them, or floating somewhere as an ‘intermediate domain’” (Heidegger 1962: 193; “Sinn ist ein Existenzial des Daseins, nicht eine Eigenschaft, die am Seinden haftet, ‘hinter’ ihm liegt oder als ‘Zwischenreich’ (Heidegger 1977: 151). How might Heidegger have responded to the question, “What is the significance [Sinn] of Being as a whole?” He might have said that the whole of meaning-as-significance depends on the individual things that have meaning-as-significance. He calls this totality “Bedeutungsganze” (Heidegger 1977: 161). The Sinn of being as a whole can be grasped only by considering the kind of significance that we have already explained, the significance or meaning that objects have as related to their place in a network of things.16 Heidegger uses ‘Bedeutung’ for meaning-as-­significance 14 For Husserl Sinne are mental objects or ideal contents. See for example, Bell 1990, 101–6; Smith and McIntyre 1982, 124–5 and 154–6, and Smith 2007, 154–6. I am grateful to Kathleen Higgins for discussing this issue with me. 15 I want to thank Rudolf Makkreel for this valuable information. See also Makkreel (1975, 376–9). 16 Heidegger focuses on functional things; but there is no reason for him to limit meaning-as-significance to just those things.

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when specific objects and relations are involved.17 So Heidegger’s investigation of the Sinn of Being involves the Bedeutungen of things that are ready-to-hand, that is, things that we use in our practical affairs and which are largely unnoticed as long as things are functioning smoothly.18 All practical behavior—where ‘behavior’ is not to be understood in the eviscerated sense of behaviorists—involves meaning (Bedeutung); it pervades ordinary experience. Things experienced as ready-at-hand form a network that is meaningful to people. But these networks are parts of larger networks. A hammers and screwdrivers and pliers are parts of a network of tools. The network of tools is part of the larger network of buildings. In my earlier terminology, hammers have meaning-as-significance. Each connection they have with something on the same level, say, a screwdriver, or something at a higher level, say, tools, also has meaning-as-significance. We could have started from other points, for example, from a pet dog or a flower in a garden, and generated other networks of meaning, which would eventually have connected with the network that began with the hammer. At what point do we reached a limit of meaning-as-significance? It will be helpful to consider another example before we try to answer this question. For reflective people, a judge—to take a relatively arbitrary example— has meaning-as-significance within the institution of the law in some jurisdiction; and the law of that jurisdiction has meaning-as-significance within one or more larger civil institutions, say, a state and then the United States. Now either the United States has meaning-as-significance or not. If it does not, it is because the people for whom the judge and the law have a meaning-of-significance do not connect the United States with any greater element of meaning.19 But to stop with a particular nation or even all nations is to stop prematurely. We can see that the United States and all nations are connected and have meaning-as-significance in ­relation 17 When a German word is translated into English as ‘meaning’, the word being translated is much more likely to be Bedeutung; and in ordinary German ‘Bedeutung’ is more likely to occur than ‘Sinn’. 18 In contrast, scientists detach the person relative aspect of things and view things as objects in themselves, merely, present-to-hand and nonfunctioning. Their study of meaning is the study of the natural meaning of objects and events. Fire is rapid oxidation simpliciter. It is not rapid oxidation for human beings. Actually, I leave open the possibility that even the relations of natural meaning are at some deeper level relative to human beings. 19 The United States then would constitute a world [Welt] in some sense. But it is not even, I believe, even as general as the world of science or the world of mathematics (Cf. Heidegger 1962, 93).

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 47 to humanity. Here a transition from institutions (human constructs) to a natural entity has been made; and some believe that the limit of meaningas-significance has been reached once one reaches the nonhuman world. Some atheistic existentialists (and many atheists simpliciter) believe that humanity has no meaning-as-significance. Human beings and human life is absurd. I believe that this last line of reasoning is an instance of the fallacy of division. Even if humanity lacks meaning-as-significance, individual nations and persons may have it precisely because of their relations to other things, often in virtue of the choices they make, as Sartre emphasized. The absurdity of the universe does not mean that nothing has a value or that some lives are worth living. Certainly many things are valuable and many lives are worth living. Camus thought a life of rebellion was worth living. Sartre thought any life completely embraced was worth living. Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss these matters further, I think many of the quite conventional lives of parents, spouses, and friends, and also carpenters, plumbers, nurses, and teachers, to mention only a few, are worth living. What if the atheistic existentialist pushes on and sees humanity in relation to all living things and then to the earth and ultimately to the entire universe as having meaning-as-significance? Does the universe have meaning-as-significance? Our answer is no because the logic of that concept stops applying once one gets to the condition for the possibility of meaning-as-significance; in this case, the universe itself.20 The universe has no such meaning and is hence absurd. But again, it does not follow that things within the universe do not have meaning-as-significance. What about theists? For them, humanity has meaning-as-significance in relation to God’s plan for the universe. It supplies the meaning of life for them. Also, for many of them, God is not simply the condition for the possibility of meaning-as-significance but has meaning-as-significance in himself, possibly because he is all good, or all powerful, or something else. However, it seems to me that to hold that God himself has meaningas-significance is to confuse that latter concept with intrinsic value. Joy, happiness, pleasure and contentment arguably have intrinsic value and are worthwhile; but it is not clear that they themselves have any meaningas-significance. So theists do not need to hold that God has meaning-assignificance. They could hold for the reasons given that God is the ultimate

20 I am speaking in propria persona now, not as an interpreter of Heidegger.

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cause, intrinsically valuable, and the source of all meaning-as-significance, without himself having any meaning-as-significance. We have discussed the relationship between Sinn and Bedeutung in Being and Time in terms of meaning-as-significance and the connection between the latter concept and a general world. But we can also approach the issue of meaning-as-significance in the more mundane terms of the relation of Bedeutungen to the world [Welt]. Of the four senses of ‘world’ that Heidegger distinguishes, I want to talk briefly about the third: “ ‘World’ can be understood in another ontical sense—not however, as those entities which Dasein essentially is not and which can be encountered within-the-world, but rather as that ‘wherein’ a factical Dasein as such can be said to ‘live’. ‘World’ here has a pre-ontological existentiell signification” (Heidegger, 1967: 93: “Welt kann wiederum in einem ontischen Sinne verstanden werden, jetzt aber nicht als das Seiende, das das Dasein wesenhaft nicht ist und das innerweltlich begegnen kann, sondern als das, ‘worin’ ein faktisches Dasein als dieses ‘lebt’. Welt hat hier eine vorontologisch existenzielle Bedeutung” (Heidegger, 1977: 65)). Individual things with meaning-as-significance are Bedeutungen. Before elaborating on this claim, we need to confirm that Heidegger’s use of ‘Bedeutung’ corresponds with the logic of ‘meaning-as-significance’. The confirmation comes by seeing that the logic of ‘Bedeutung’ is like that of ‘meaning-as-significance’ as it was explained in section 1.21 The sentences corresponding to (6) and (8) are (G6) and (G8): (G6) Diese Flecken bedeuten, dass Tina die Masern hat. (G8) Tina hat die Masern.

Further, (G6) entails (G8). Corresponding to (7) and (9) are (G7) and (G9): (G7) Der Ausstoß einer grossen Menge an Kohlenwasserstoff in die Atmosphäre bedeutet (hat zur Folge), dass die durchschnittliche Temperatur auf der Erde ansteigen wird.22 (G9) Die durchschnittliche Temperatur auf der Erde wird ansteigen.

And (G7) entails (G9). The same holds for (13) and (15) and (G13) and (G15), mutatis mutandis:

21 Wrathall (2011, 130–1) has a good discussion of Bedeutung. 22 While ‘bedeutet’ can be used to translate (7), idiomatic German would probably use ‘cause’ (hat zur Folge) instead of ‘mean’.

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 49 (G13) Die Schlacht von Alamo bedeutet für Texaner, dass der Tyrannei Widerstand geleistet werden muss. (G15) Texanern zufolge muss der Tyrannei muss Widerstand geleistet werden.

To complete the comparison of the relevant senses of ‘meaning’ in English with the relevant words of German, I note that for communicativemeaning, ‘meinen’ would be used: (G1) Mit der Aussage “Austin ist die Hauptstadt von Texas” meint Sarah, Austin sie die Hauptstadt von Texas. (G3) Austin ist die Hauptstadt von Texas.

Further, (G1) does not entail (G3), just as (1) does not entail (3). Although Heidegger does not explicitly ask the question whether the world has meaning-as-significance, his answer can be inferred. If one follows his bottom-up method of beginning with a particular thing that is ready-to-hand and has meaning-as-significance, such as a hammer, and then relating it to a network of other things that has a more extensive meaning-as-significance and continuing until one reaches the world as the total space within which people live, then it seems that the world does have meaning-as-significance because he seems to equate it with the entire “whole of significance” (Gonzes von Bedeutsamkeit) (Heidegger 1982, 165; cf. Heidegger 1977, 151). Meanings-as-significance generated in this way consist of “Bedeutungen”, signs that indicate relations to other things that have Bedeutung (Heidegger 1977, 87: “Das Bezugsganze dieses Bedeutens nennen wir die Bedeutsamkeit.” See also 151 and Dreyfus 1991, 223). Heidegger might have held that the lived-world does not itself have meaning-as-significance because it is the condition for the possibility of meaning, just as for Plato, the form of largeness is not large. If ready-to-hand is the primary way that things are experienced and their being is essentially relativized to Dasein, does that have the consequence that the world depends on Dasein? Heidegger says yes: “There is world only insofar as Dasein exists” (quoted from Dreyfus 1991, 99; see Heidegger 1984, 195); and “If no Dasein exists, no world is there either” (Heidegger 1962, 417). This kind of relativity is a kind of subjectivity, but not the subjectivity of a solipsist or egoist. By ‘world’, Heidegger means the lived-world, not the world of things considered as present-at-hand. Without Dasein there is nothing within which things are significant or important.23

23 This statement should not be conflated with the false sentences, “[T]he Dasein of man . . . is that being through which Being is first fashioned” and “Being is the product of man” (Heidegger 1993, 216).

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The totality of significance does not provide the final or complete answer to the question whether the world has meaning-as-significance. If one considers what makes the possibility of either Bedeutsamkeit or Bedeutung, one may see that there has to be a condition for their possibility, an “‘upon-which’ of a projection.” That condition is Sinn (Heidegger 1977, 151: “Sinn ist . . . aus dem her etwas als etwas verstandlich wird”). Heidegger then says that his interpretation of the concept of ‘Sinn’ is an “existentiale of Dasein” and thus “only Dasein can be meaningful or meaningless” (Heidegger 1962, 142 and Heidegger 1977, 151: “Nur Dasein kann daher sinnvoll oder sinnlos sein”). Although it can be understood in other ways, my guess is that since Sinn is an “ontologico-existentiale,” to speak of the ability for Dasein to be “either meaningful (sinnvoll) or meaningless (sinnlos)” is to speak ontically, not ontologically. That is, the distinction between what is sinnvoll and sinnlos goes down a philosophical level from the ontological to the ontic. A life that is sinnlos has Sinn as much as one that is sinnvoll. His comment shortly later that all beings other than Dasein are (meaningless) “unsinniges” is in line with this interpretation (Heidegger 1977, 151). I do not see anything objectionable to the claim that the world as the lived-world exists only with respect to human beings. Tables and chairs and automobiles are what they are only because they function as such for human beings. Even trees, considered as providing food and shade, lumber for houses, decoration for boulevards and yards, exist in this way as trees, only with respect to human beings. This point is confirmed by the fact that sentences expressing the key propositions stated at the beginning of this paragraph, namely, (19) For human beings (Dasein), the meaning of the (lived) world is that it depends on human beings. (20) For human beings (Dasein), the meaning of the (lived) world is that everything in it has a function. (21) For human beings (Dasein), the meaning of tables and chairs and trees and everything else in the lived world is determined by human beings.

have the same form as the sentences used earlier to explicate meaningas-significance: (12) For Texans, the meaning of the Alamo is that tyranny must be opposed. (13) For Milton, the meaning of Paradise Lost is that God is just and humans freely chose to disobey God.

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 51 Moreover, if we delete the initial phrase, ‘For human beings (Dasein)’ from sentences (19)–(21), then we get (22) The meaning of the (lived) world is that it depends on human beings. (23) The meaning of the (lived) world is that everything in it has a function. (24) The meaning of tables and chairs and trees and everything else in the lived world is determined by human beings,

just as we got (17) The meaning of the Alamo is that tyranny must be opposed

from (12). The content of the phrase, ‘For human beings’, must be presupposed just as the content of the phrase, ‘For Texans’, must be presupposed for (17). The strict correlations we have observed so far raise the question of what Heidegger might have said about statements expressing naturalmeaning such as (6) Those spots mean that Tina has the measles, (7) The emission of great volumes of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere means that the average temperature of the earth will rise.

For Heidegger, such statements are scientifically theoretical and thus derivative. One might think that as such they should not or could not be independent of human beings; and yet (6) and (7) do entail (8) Tina has the measles, (9) The average temperature of the earth will rise.

I don’t think that there should be any cause for worry. Sentences (6)–(9) are operating within the context of the world as present-at-hand; and the relevant entailments involved in them are justified within that context. While it may be a serious mistake to take things fundamentally as being present-at-hand and statements about them as the most basic kinds of statements—I am not taking a position on this issue—it is not a mistake to take things in this way for some purposes and to make such statements for those purposes. (G6) and (G7) appropriately contain a cognate of ‘Bedeutung’: (G6) Diese Flecken bedeuten, dass Tina die Masern hat. (G7) Der Ausstoß einer grossen Menge an Kohlenwasserstoff in die Atmosphäre bedeutet (hat zur Folge), dass die durchschnittliche Temperatur auf der Erde ansteigen wird.

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Identifying the various senses of ‘meaning’ by their logical properties allows us to speak precisely about substantive issues like the meaning of life and the meaning of Being or beings. Although solutions to substantive issues cannot be read off the logic of the various senses of ‘meaning’, understanding the logic at least provides evidence for claims such as that some kinds of meaning are relative to people while others are not. The meaning of life depends on the meanings assigned or constructed by people; but this kind of meaning should not be confused with the ‘meaning’ relation that holds between facts independent of or abstracted from human existence. The senses of ‘meaning’ also provide tentative constraints on what might be truly said about issues like the meaning of life or the meaning of Being. I say ‘tentative’ because what the logic of a word dictates could be revised or a new sense could be created for the ‘vocable’ that is a word. For example, one might be able to create a new sense for the word ‘meaning’ such that even the terms of natural-meaning could be relative to a person or group of persons. But the burden of proof or truth would be on the person who introduces the new sense.24 References Bell, David (1990), Husserl (London: Routledge). Camus, Albert (1956), The Rebel (New York: Random House). Dreyfus, Hubert (1991), Being-in-the-World. A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Heidegger, Martin (1962), Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row). —— (1969), The Essence of Reasons, trans. T Malick (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press). —— (1977), Sein und Zeit (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann). This is the seventh edition. Page references are to the numbers in the margin, which are common to most editions of this book. —— (1978), “Briefüberden Humanismus”, in Wegmarken, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt: Klostermann), 311–60. —— (1982), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press). —— (1984), Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press). —— (1985), Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press).

24 I want to thank Linda Pickny for her invaluable help with the German usage of various words, and Richard Tieszen and an anonymous reader for their comments.

meaning as significance in analytic & continental philosophy 53 —— (1993), “Letter on Humanism,” in Basic Writings, ed. David F. Krell. (London: Routledge), 193–242. Inwood, Michael (1999), A Heidegger Dictionary (Malden, MA. Blackwell). Irwin, Terence (2009), The Development of Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Makkreel, Rudolf (1975), Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Martinich, A.P. (2009), “Four Senses of ‘Meaning’ in the History of Philosophy,” Journal of the Philosophy of History, 225–45. Mulhall, Stephen (2005), Heidegger and Being and Time 2nd ed. (London: Routledge). Sartre, Jean-Paul (1975), “Existentialism is a Humanism”, in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, revised and expanded, ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: New American Library). Smith, David Woodruff, and Ronald McIntyre (1982), Husserl and Intentionality (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.). Williams, Bernard (1972), Morality (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers). Wrathall, Mark (2011), Heidegger and Unconcealment. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

CHAPTER THREE

NARRATIVE CONCEPTIONS OF THE SELF Todd May The divisions that are claimed to characterize the split between analytic and Continental philosophy are generally located along standard fault lines. In ontology, analytic philosophers study beings while Continental philosophers concern themselves with Being. In political philosophy, the former focus on abstract conceptions of justice and right while the latter are more topically oriented. Analytic philosophers take science to be their closest methodological ally and conversational partner, while for Continental philosophers the reference is said to be art. Because of these differences, it is said, there is little those working in each tradition have to say to each other. They can only stare across the chasm that divides them, when they bother to look at all. I have argued elsewhere that this account, or any account, that places members of the two traditions at odds with each other is not only unfortunate but theoretically mistaken (May 2002). It fails to account for the many ways in which work in one tradition is relevant to concerns in the other. This does not mean that the two can be mapped directly onto each other. In fact, it precisely because they cannot that each offers resources to the other, both methodological and substantive. In this paper I would like to do something different. Rather than take the large view or try to construct a bridge across what are said to be the standard fault lines, I will instead work in an area that is smaller and more marginal. I will seek to show, through a particular set of confrontations, how it is that analytic and Continental philosophy can be put in confrontation. Rather than looking from above at the lay of the land, as I did previously, I will dip my hands in the soil of both traditions in order to engage in a particular inquiry in an area where the distinction between analytic and Continental philosophy has never been invoked. Recently there have arisen in both traditions a concern with narrative, and in particular with narrative conceptions of the self. This concern dates at least back to Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue. He writes, in an Aristotelean vein, “The unity of an individual life is the unity of a

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narrative embodied in a single life. To ask, ‘What is the good for me?’ is to ask how best I might live out that unity and bring it to completion.” (MacIntyre 1981, 203) Narrative conceptions of the self are attractive in many ways. They offer us a way to think of ourselves diachronically. They are in language, and thus incorporate a sociality rather than an isolated and individualized view of the self in ways that have become anathema to many in contemporary philosophy. And, as stories, they lend a shape to people’s lives that they might otherwise seem to lack. The task taken up by this paper is to investigate particular engagements with narrative conceptions of the self coming from both analytic and Continental thinkers. In the end, I will argue for something thinner than a fullblown narrative conception of the self, something more like a diachronic and dialectical conception that involves narrative elements without necessarily implying an encompassing narrative structure. I will arrive at this conclusion, not by pitting the two traditions against each other to see what they may yield, but instead by looking at particular thinkers aligned with each tradition in order to advance the discussion step by step. It is perhaps worth beginning this itinerary with the work of two thinkers that offer narrative conceptions of the self at least in part as a response to Derek Parfit’s work on personal identity. For Parfit, personal identity, inasmuch as it gives us a sense of diachronic integrity, is founded on a mistaken self-conception. It presupposes an ongoing relation of identity between earlier and later selves, one that various thought experiments, such as split-brain and teletransportation experiments, serves to undermine or at least weaken. (Parfit 1984, esp. part 3) For two philosophers, Marya Schechtman and Paul Ricoeur, Parfit’s view is mistaken, and its mistake can be seen when one contrasts a narrative conception of the self to his view of personal identity. “What Parfit recommends,” according to Schechtman, “having discovered the superficiality of psychological continuation, is that we take seriously the Buddhist idea that the self is a fiction, and that enlightenment is to be achieved by coming to experience it as such.” (Schechtman 1996, 100) (We must take the term “Buddhist” loosely here, since, as other essays in this volume demonstrate, there are nuances to the Buddhist conception of the self that do not appear in either Schechtman’s or Parfit’s treatments.) This recommendation, in her view, rather than loosening us from the grip of an illusion, lands us in the grip of another one: that there is nothing that ties together the moments of our lives. In order to see this bond, we need

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to turn away from theories of psychological continuity and toward a more narrative conception of the self. For Schechtman, “At the core of [my] view is the assertion that individuals constitute themselves as persons by coming to think of themselves as persisting subjects who have had experience in the past and will continue to have experience in the future. Some, but not all, individuals weave stories of their lives, and it is their doing so which makes them persons . . . a person’s identity . . . is constituted by the content of their self-narrative.” (Schechtman 1996, 94) In this sense, personal identity is not a given, but rather an achievement. Schechtman, then, agree with Parfit in the idea that individuals need not have personal identities. We are not born with them, and we may never come to have them. The “Buddhist” orientation, which denies personal identity, is not entirely mistaken. It is possible to see oneself as a more or less disconnected set of experiences. Where Parfit goes wrong is in thinking that that is what we necessarily are. For most of us, the constitution of an ongoing identity is not only possible but likely, happening not through our ontological legacy but through our ongoing efforts to forge identities. “The narrative self-constitution view holds that the kinds of connections between the different temporal portions of a person’s life which provides the basis for the four features [survival, moral responsibility, self-interested concern, and compensation] are created by the having of a self-conception.” (Schechtman 1996, 101) This self-­conception is narrative in character. What is it to have a narrative self-conception? It does not, according to Schechtman, entail that one tell an explicit story to oneself or to others about who one is or how one has become who one is. In fact, “the telling of an explicit story is, indeed, usually an inappropriate way of expressing one’s self-conception. The sense of one’s life as unfolding according to the logic of a narrative is not just an idea we have, it is an organizing principle of our lives. It is the lens through which we filter our experience and plan for actions, not a way we think about ourselves in reflective hours.” (Schechtman 1996, 113) To have a narrative self-conception, then, is rarely to have an explicit story that one uses to organize the moments of one’s life. It is not to have a plot against which one compares what happens to one or out of which one makes one’s plans for the future. It is, in Schechtman’s words, a lens through which one sees one’s life. It is not what is seen but how one sees. Still, one might ask, what is it to see narratively? If it is not to tell a story, in what sense is it a narrative? For Schechtman, there seem to be three elements. First, the narrative, while not explicitly told to oneself,

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can be “implicit.” (Schechtman 1996, 114) One can live according to a narrative that one does not tell to oneself. This happens when our previous experiences frame how we view ourselves and our current circumstances. For instance, if we have been taught to doubt ourselves, we will likely not exhibit confidence in new situations. This is an implicit taking up of a narrative about who we are. Second, however, the narrative cannot be irrevocably implicit. In what Schechtman calls “the articulation constraint,” “an identity-constituting narrative [must] be capable of local articulation. This means that the narrator should be able to explain why he does what he does, believes what he believes, and feels what he feels.” (Schechtman 1996, 114) Finally, there is “the reality constraint:” a narrative lens must accord with reality, at least in some fundamental ways. This does not mean that there cannot be local mistakes, but that a narrative is different from a fantasy. It is a way of seeing oneself in one’s world, and as such, must cohere with the basic contours of that world. One might wonder, at this point, whether there really is a narrative character to the account Schechtman offers. One lives one’s history, to be sure, and can articulate a bit about why one is the way one is. But is there the kind of story here that would merit the label narrative? ­Schechtman herself seems aware of this difficulty. She writes at one point, “I realize that this is a somewhat unusual way to think about ‘self-narrative,’ and that I may not have satisfied everyone that it is a legitimate one. In the end, however, very little really turns on this choice of words. It does not matter much whether we say that identity is determined by a person’s self-narrative or by his psychical organization, so long as it is understood that the psychological forces constituting identity are dynamic and active—things a person does—rather than static and passive features she has.” (Schechtman 1996, 117) It is not clear, however, that what is at issue is simply a choice of words. If most people don’t engage in a self-narrative, and if the lens through which they see and construct their lives, while temporally oriented, is not narratively structured, then what remains of the idea of narrative self-constitution? This is a point to which we return below. In the meantime, we turn to a thinker from the Continental tradition who also offers a narrative view of the self as a response to Parfit’s challenge to personal identity. For Paul Ricoeur, the weakness in Parfit’s approach has to do with his privileging one aspect of what it is to remain the same at the expense of another, equally important one. The role narrative will play is in navigating between these two. The first aspect or sense of identity, what Ricoeur calls “idem-identity,” concerns sameness

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or permanence of the same over time in the sense of “uninterrupted continuity.” (Ricoeur 1992, 117) That is the type of identity Parfit focuses on. For Ricoeur, however, there is another aspect or sense of identity, one that is equally important for who we are but is neglected in Parfit’s work on personal identity. “When we speak of ourselves, we in fact have available to us two models of permanence in time which can be summed up in two expressions that are at once descriptive and emblematic: character and keeping one’s word.” (Ricoeur 1992, 118) Character is the Parfittian sense of identity. It is who we are without our doing anything. It is us inasmuch as it is what we are born to be. “By ‘character’ I understand the set of distinctive marks which permit the reidentification of a human individual as being the same.” (Ricoeur 1992, 119) Keeping one’s word is different. It does not imply a passive and unchanging persistence through time. Rather, it is a matter of what one does. It is the sameness that one creates in the sense that one determines oneself to be this way rather than another. Perhaps we can capture it by means of the English phrase, “To be true to oneself.” We need to recognize, however, that to be true to oneself is not simply to be true to one’s character. In the sense of character that Ricoeur invokes, it is impossible not to be true to one’s character. Instead, it is to be true or constant to that to which one has committed oneself. Both senses of identity answer to the question of “Who am I?” But they do so in different ways. In one sense, I am who I cannot help being; in another, I am who I commit myself to be. But if I am both these things, how are they both I? What is their relationship, if I am not to be somehow schizoid at the core of my being? This is where the concept of narrative emerges for Ricoeur, playing the role of a dialectical mediator between the two. “From the correlation between action and character [here, character in the sense of an actor rather than in the sense of sameness] in a narrative there results a dialectic internal to the character which is the exact corollary of the dialectic of concordance and discordance developed in the emplotment of action.” (Ricoeur 1992, 147) What is this dialectic? On the one hand, there is one’s life considered as a “temporal totality which is itself singular and distinguishable from all the others.” (Ricoeur 1992, 147) On the other hand, there is the discordance in which “this temporal totality is threatened by the disruptive effect of the unforeseeable events that punctuate it (encounters, accidents, etc.).” (Ricoeur 1992, 147) In navigating this dialectic, a narrative unity that is the person’s identity is created. This identity is not simply given to us: it is not simply idemidentity. But it is not simply something we create ex nihilo either: it is not

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only ipse-identity. Instead, it is the identity that emerges when we act in accordance with a story we tell ourselves about who we are, a story that reflects itself in what we commit ourselves to, given our character and the events we confront over the course of our lives. This narrative is, to some extent, an unstable one. In narrating our lives, we do not know entirely who we are. We can be deceived about ourselves, and we are not consciously present to all of our history, ex. our birth. “As for the notion of the narrative unity of a life, it must be seen as an unstable mixture of fabulation and actual experience. It is precisely because of the elusive character of real life that we need the help of fiction to organize life retrospectively, after the fact, prepared to take as provisional and open to revision any figure of emplotment borrowed from fiction or history.” (Ricoeur 1992, 162) Narrative unity is not simply a mirroring of one’s life and commitments. It is an emplotment that at once connects with and adds to or subtracts from one’s history. As such, it is not an emplotment in which the first-person perspective is entirely privileged. This, too, is a point to which we will return. Unlike Schechtman’s, Ricoeur’s view commits the person to living a self-reflectively narratively structured life. This appears clear from what we have seen; it would be difficult to understand how a person’s life could dialectically resolve ipse- and idem-identities without a consciously structured narrative approach. In the further development of his discussion of narrative, Ricoeur confirms this. He sees narrative appearing in a nested series of life structures, from individual practices to life plans, where he invokes MacIntyre’s conception of “the narrative unity of a life.” (Ricoeur 1992, 158–60) These life structures are not simply read off or interpreted from the outside. They consist in self-reflectively structured narratives that place a person is her social and historical context in a way that allows her to navigate it and her ipse-identity in forming the particular life that is hers. We will turn in a moment to the plausibility of these narrative conceptions. However, we should note that a reader of Parfit might be puzzled at their resistance to his thought. It might seem as though they were answering different questions from his, even though both fall under the rubric of personal identity. We might put the difference this way: Schechtman and Ricoeur are answering the question of who one is, while Parfit may be said to be raising questions about where one is. Or, to put the point another way, Parfit is not asking about our psychological identity, but our numerical identity. Because of this, one might wonder whether their

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critique of his thought is misplaced. Parfit might be able to hold (although he nowhere, to my knowledge, indicates that he does hold) that narrative conceptions of the self are correct, inasmuch as there is a self. The limits of the self would indicate the limits of the applicability of the narrative conception. Both Ricoeur and Schechtman are aware of this distinction. Their claim is not that they answer Parfit in the ground of numerical identity, but that the conclusions he draws from his discussion of numerical identity are too strong. They bleed over into issues of psychological identity. This occurs specifically in Parfit’s “Buddhist” approach to the self, one in which there is no personal identity to be had because there is no guarantee of psychological connectedness that would always allow us to re-identify later selves with earlier ones.1 On a more general level, Schechtman argues that “Reidentification theorists [ex. Parfit] seem to assume that since they are working on defining personal identity, and since identity is linked to the four features [survival, moral responsibility, self-interested concern, and compensation], their definition of identity must capture that link. . . . I contend that the four features are indeed linked to facts about personal identity, but identity in the sense at issue in the characterization question [who one is], not the reidentification question [where one is].” (Schechtman 1996, 2) Ricoeur echoes this thought when he writes, “everything leads me to believe that Parfit, by reason of not distinguishing between selfhood and sameness, aims at the former through the latter.” (Ricoeur 1992, 137) We cannot here enter the debate about the boundaries and structure of questions of personal identity, since our concern is more specifically with narrative conceptions of the self. So we will assume for our purposes that a narrative view of the self does not fall prey to Parfit’s concerns. However, doing so does not get such a view out of the woods. There are challenges one might raise specifically to a narrative conception of the self, and Galen Strawson has done so in an article appropriately entitled “Against Narrativity.” Although Strawson is hardly a Continental philosopher, his work has direct bearing on Ricoeur’s conception of the self as reflectively narrative, as well as Schechtman’s less self-consciously narrative approach (both of which he cites in his essay).

1 “Nagel once claimed that it is psychologically impossible to believe the Reductionist View. Buddha claimed that, though this is very hard, it is possible. I find Buddha’s claim to be true.” (Parfit 1984, 280) See also Appendix J.

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Strawson argues against narrativity on two fronts, descriptive and normative. That is, he argues that we do not necessarily see our lives in narrative terms and that it is mistaken to claim that we ought to do so. In arguing against the descriptive necessity of narrative, he uses himself as an example. “I have absolutely no sense of my life as a narrative with form, or indeed as a narrative without form. Absolutely none. Nor do I have any great or special interest in my past. Nor do I have a great deal of concern for my future.” (Strawson 2004, 433) Or again: “I’m completely uninterested in the answer to the question, ‘What has GS made of his life?’, or ‘What have I made of my life?’. I’m living it, and this sort of thinking about it is no part of it . . . The way I am now is profoundly shaped by my past, but it is only the present shaping consequences of the past that matter, not the past as such.” (Strawson 2004, 438) Strawson admits that he is not disconnected from his past, that his past does influence, indeed “profoundly,” who he is now. But he resists a narrative understanding of himself. How can this be? In order to understand these claims, it requires us to understand what he means by the term “narrative” or “narrativity.” For him, “the paradigm of a narrative is a conventional story told in words. I take the term to attribute—at the very least—a certain sort of developmental and hence temporal unity or coherence to the things to which it is standardly applied—lives, parts of lives, pieces of writing.” (Strawson 2004, 439) It is precisely this he is denying when he says that his life lacks a narrative character. To deny this is not to deny that his past has bearing on his present. It is to reject a stronger thesis: that his sense of who he is is rooted in a story that tells how he has developed on the basis of that past to the position he now finds himself in. In fact, Strawson worries about the narrative project. His misgivings are normative. He points out that narratives about life stories often involve a good deal of retrospective revision, and therefore can be the source of misunderstanding and self-deception about people’s lives. Ricoeur concedes this point, writing, “As for the narrative unity of a life, it must be seen as an unstable mixture of fabulation and actual experience.” (Ricoeur 1992, 162) Ricoeur’s remedy for this is to see specific narratives as “provisional.” Since he thinks of narratives as inescapable, he does not consider the possibility Strawson raises that one can just dispense with narratives in the face of their unreliability. Strawson does not deny that a life well-lived requires some kind of selfunderstanding. Nor does he deny that that self-understanding can refer

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to the past. Nor yet again does he deny that that self-understanding can give some sort of form to one’s self-reflection. None of these, however, require a narrative self-conception. They do not require a story that displays a particular development or coherence. “The key explanatory linkings in psychotherapy are often piecemeal in nature, as are many of the key impacts of experience. Ideally, I think one acquires an assorted basketful of understandings, not a narrative—an almost inevitably falsifying narrative.” (Strawson 2004, 448) Strawson’s critique would seem to cut against Ricoeur’s view more than Schechtman’s, since it is Ricoeur who thinks that narrative self­understandings are inescapable. Indeed, Schechtman notes, in a passage we have already cited, that, “the telling of an explicit story is, indeed, usually an inappropriate way of expressing one’s self-conception.” For her, narrativity is not a story we tell ourselves, but a lens through which we organize our experience. However, the doubts Strawson raises have bearing on Schechtman in a different way from their bearing on Ricoeur. Recall the three constraints Schechtman places on a narrative: there must be an implicit narrativity, articulability, and constraint by reality. The latter two constraints are met by self-understandings that involve form without narrativity. I can say why I do something or what my interest is in a certain project without telling a story about how it came about; and I can conform my self-understandings to reality without relying in any way on narrative. As for implicit narrativity, why does it need to be narrative? Aren’t there many ways in which the past can influence the present other than by means of a developmental or coherent trajectory? In fact, it is the assumption of narrativity that, in Strawson’s view, often obscures rather than enlightens us as to our past and its influence on our present. Our past can help determine our present in a variety of overlapping ways irreducible to a particular story. So the difficulty for Schechtman is not whether she diverges deeply from Strawson, except on the question of the implicit narrative. It is instead that of what is left of narrativity in her account of our narrative self-conception. While Strawson’s argument challenges Ricoeur’s claim that we live according to an explicit narrative structure, it challenges Schechtman’s claim that what she has offered us is indeed narrative in any interesting or non-trivial sense. “What do I mean by non-trivial? Well, if someone says, as some do, that making coffee is a narrative that involves Narrativity, because you have to think ahead, do things in the right order, and so on, and that everyday life involves many such narratives, then I

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take it the claim is trivial.” (Strawson 2004, 439)2 So the dilemma Strawson raises is this: if the claim of a narrative conception of the self is that we actually narrate one (Ricoeur), then it’s false; alternatively, if the claim is that we act according to one even if we often don’t have one overtly (Schechtman), it’s either trivial or false. One might continue this conversation by seeking to arbitrate this dispute. It is a bit unclear, however, how it would be arbitrated. Ricoeur claims that we do engage in self-narrative; Strawson denies that he does. I believe Strawson is right in claiming that to call something a narrative it needs to be structured in some way as a story with a certain development, coherence, and/or unity, and it is unclear, as Schechtman concedes, that her conception of narrative achieves that. If we accept Strawson’s definition of narrative, or something like it, I suspect that it would be plausible to claim that at least some people don’t engage in self-narrative, and, at the very least, that while it might be helpful to some to have such a narrative, to make it a general normative prescription is likely an ethical stretch. On the other hand, all three thinkers do converge on a more minimal claim: that self-conceptions, even if not narrative, are diachronic. They see a life as taking place over time, see earlier events as relevant in one way or another to who one is, and see people as immersed in projects that extend however far into the future. At this point, we need to bring another thinker into the discussion, a Continentalist who has not seen herself as part of the conversation that incorporates Schechtman and Strawson (and she has only a passing reference to Ricoeur). There is an avenue for narrative conceptions of the self to take, one that is neglected in Strawson’s account. This is the possibility of a narrative conception of the self that does not take place as a self-narrative. The story of who I am may be a story that is not told by me so much as it is told to me by others. It is that possibility that Adriana Cavarero raises in Relating Narratives. Cavarero’s work relies not only on philosophical discussion but also on literature and historical accounts of narrative. In fact, she criticizes philosophy for offering general accounts of who people are rather than the particular accounts found in narrative. “Unlike philosophy, which for

2 He notes, in regard to the capital letter in Narrative, that he is “using the word ‘Narrative’ with a capital letter to denote a specifically psychological property or outlook . . . This is how we are, it says, this is our nature.” (Strawson 2004, 428)

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millennia has persisted in capturing the universal in the trap of definition, narration reveals the finite in its fragile uniqueness, and sings its glory.” (Cavarero 2000, 3) In passing, I should note that I find this criticism, and other similar ones Cavarero makes of philosophy, puzzling. It seems that, by giving us a general account of the role of narrative in people’s lives, she is doing philosophy under her own definition of the term. While she engages with specific narratives, she offers a philosophical account of how we conceive ourselves narratively. For Caverero, a self is not constituted by its own narration. Rather, it is “narratable.” Narratability is given through memory, which offers the possibility of a narration. But that narration actually comes through others. “The narratable self finds its home, not simply in a conscious exercise of remembering, but in the spontaneous narrating structure of memory itself . . . What is essential is the familiar experience of a narratability of the self, which, not by chance, we always perceive in the other, even when we do not know their story at all.” (Cavarero 2000, 34) One’s own relation to one’s story is not that of narrator, but of protagonist. The narrator is always someone other than oneself. To illustrate her ideas—and the particularity they involve—Cavarero turns to the stories of Oedipus and Ulysses’ place at the court of the Phaecians. In the latter, Ulysses is in disguise, and when a blind rhapsodist sings of his exploits, not knowing that Ulysses is in the audience, “Ulysses is moved to tears. Not only because the narrated events are painful, but because when he had lived them directly he had not understood their meaning. It is as if, while acting, he had been immersed in the contextuality of the events . . . But now, in the tale of the rhapsod, the discontinuous times of that happening come together in a story.” (Cavarero 2000, 18) Cavarero recognizes and takes on board Strawson’s idea that we do not always narrate our own story; often, we just live it. However, we do not live it alone. We are social beings, and although we often don’t tell our stories to ourselves directly, many of those around us will tell them to us. Of course, they rarely tell us our whole story (or a whole story of who we are). Different people tell us different stories: “Remember when . . .?” “You used to be . . .” “When you were little . . .” “You’ve always been . . .” These stories come to us from outside of us. Nevertheless, they are our stories. And these stories are who we are. They are not simply how we are seen, in her view, but who we actually are. The story of Oedipus is particularly illustrative because it concerns his birth. Oedipus hears the story from the Delphic oracle, specifically the prediction that he will kill his father and marry his mother. He, of course,

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does so, unaware that he is living out the fate prophesied by the oracle. This is because the oracle is aware of something that no one can, in principle, be aware of in a first-person way: Oedipus’ birth. The story of one’s birth must be told by others. And yet it is a crucial element of who one is. (How many kids, at some point in their childhood, wonder whether they’ve been adopted? Of course they could never settle that wonderment from their own experience.) This point is recognized by Ricoeur. “Now there is nothing in real life that serves as a narrative beginning; memory is lost in the hazes of early childhood; my birth and, with greater reason, the act through which I was conceived belong more to the history of others—in this case, my parents—than to me.” (Ricoeur 1992, 160) Ricoeur concludes from this that the narrative unity of a life must be a mixture of fact and fiction. Cavarero’s view is different, and I think more compelling. In recognizing that one’s story or stories often come from others, she places narration in a social world in a way that seems to have escaped both Ricoeur and Strawson. The latter, for different reasons, focuses on the first-personal nature of narration. But for both a narrative conception of the self must be a narration one gives oneself. This leads Ricoeur to conclude that that narration cannot be entirely accurate, and leads Strawson to deny that there must be narration. For Cavarero, there is indeed narration, but it is often second-personal (ex. Oedipus) and third-personal (ex. Ulysses). Who I am is, as narrative conceptions of the self insist, largely a product of a story or of stories. But those stories come to me more than they come from me. Cavarero differs from Strawson in posing a desire for unity through narration (a controversial claim which I will leave aside for the purposes of this discussion); however that desire is realized, though, it must come through another. “At once exposable and narratable, the existent always constitutes herself in relation to another . . . she knows she is a narratable identity, but also knows that only another can correct the fallacy of the autobiographical impulse.” (Cavarero 2000, 40) We have focused here on Cavarero’s insistence that one’s story is told by others. There may be other constraints on one’s story, or what Judith Butler calls, in a book of the same name, “giving an account of oneself.” Butler lists five of them: “a non-narrativizable exposure that establishes my singularity . . . primary relations . . . a history that establishes my partial opacity to myself . . . norms that facilitate my telling about myself but that I do not author . . . the structure of address in which it takes place.” (Butler 2005, 39) One might note in passing here that all of these constraints stem from one’s immersion in a social environment, whether that be of one’s

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parents, one’s practices, or the social norms through which one thinks about oneself. Although Cavarero insists more specifically on the social character of the stories themselves, her lesson can be widened to include various aspect of the social constitution of oneself and one’s narration. This social character has received support from recent research in cognitive studies. To cite one instance, Shaun Gallagher, working in cognitive science within the phenomenological tradition of Maurice MerleauPonty, has called attention to the embodied interaction with others whose beginning lies earlier in a child’s development than many other theorists (including Merleau-Ponty himself) have recognized. Although a full discussion of this research is wide of our concerns, we should note that, as Gallagher shows, “from birth, actions of the infant and the perceived actions of others are coded in the same ‘language,’ in a cross-modal system that is directly attuned to the actions and gestures of other humans.” (Gallagher 2005, 225) Of particular note is research on infants that shows two- and three-week old infants imitating the facial expressions—open mouths, tongue protrusion, etc.—of adults who are facing them. We are, nearly from the moment we are born, inserted into a social world that we take up through imitative gestures and other primitive behavioral expressions. We are not separate individuals, but woven into an interpersonal world from which we take our own cues. This interpersonal entwinement is in keeping with Caverero’s view, but extends it in a way that will bring us back to the previous theorists. We are, as Cavarero insists, encrusted into a world of stories about ourselves that tell us who we are. We are not in control of our own narratives, but we are not immune to narrative either. Narratives come to us from the outside, giving us a recognition of who we are that mirrors what others tell us about ourselves. This telling often takes the form of stories. I learn who I am, at least in part, by the narratives about me told by others. But if I do so, this should not be taken to entail that I take up these stories blindly. I am not simply a cipher for others’ narratives about me. Rather, they become part of who I am in an ongoing dialectical interaction with my environment. Indeed, if I were only a cipher, it is unclear how the stories told to me of who I am would take root. Different people tell me different stories. My friends recall my history to me in ways different from my parents, and different again from my colleagues. Unless I could take these stories up in a coherent (although not necessarily unified) way, then I would be nothing more than a chaos of broken narratives. This is a point neglected by Cavarero, who is focused more on how one is formed by external narratives than upon how one takes them up.

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It is recognized, although its implications are overdrawn, by both Schechtman and Ricoeur. As we have seen, both of them understand that who we are is narratively is shaped by the external world. Their limitation is twofold. First, that shaping is not seen to be a narrative one. One takes up elements from the external world in one’s narrative self-conception, but those elements are not themselves narrative in character. Instead, narrative is seen as an internal development, whether nascently (­Schechtman) or explicitly (Ricoeur). But if, as for instance Ricoeur states, one’s own birth eludes one’s ability to narrate without fabulation, we should recognize that this does not imply that there is no narration associated with it. One’s birth, one’s early childhood, as well as the course of one’s history of which one is unaware, not only can be but often is told to one by others. Second, and related, by making narrative an internal development, Schechtman and Ricoeur draw too rigid a line between inside and outside. It is not that they fail to recognize the social character of one’s involvement. Instead, it is that they fail to recognize the social character of one’s narrative involvement. It is the latter that is emphasized by Cavarero. Her own limitation is to emphasize it at the expense of how people might or might not take up the narratives to which they are exposed, both in their self-conception and in their behavior. This stems from her insistence upon individuals as narratable rather than narrating. (Although, as we have seen, she claims a quasi- or proto-narrating character for the self in the form of memory.) Strawson, for his part, in recognizing that our past need not be coherent or unified, intersects with Cavarero from a different angle. If who we are is partly a matter of stories that come to us from the outside, then those stories can be different from one another, partial, disconnected, even contradictory. It is not as though everyone around us tells us the same story, nor even that the stories they tell us always agree with one another, nor even that they are always stories (even when diachronic). Inasmuch as we take them up, we are rarely taking up a single coherent narrative from the outside. We are, instead, seeing ourselves through varied and intersecting stories and bits of stories. And because those stories and bits of stories tell us who we are, and because, to one extent or another, we take them up and become who they tell us we are, we should not think of ourselves solely in terms of a coherent, unified narrative of a particular development. And yet, it is here also that the limits to Strawson’s thought lie. The fact that we don’t have a single coherent narrative does not entail that we aren’t composed of narratives at all. Strawson, like Ricoeur and

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S­ chechtman, divorces our narrativity from the outside. If we are exposed to the outside, and to the narratives that that outside offers to us, then it is inescapable that we will at least partly be narrative beings, i.e. that who we are will be composed at least in part narratively. A narrative composition may be partial, disconnected, even conflicting, but none of that precludes it as narrative. What is precluded is a single, overarching narrative. But narrativity, in the sense of stories, will be part of who we are. The question for our living is one of how we take up that narrativity. As we noted a moment ago, we are not merely ciphers for the narratives that are told to us. We listen to them, we incorporate or reject them in whole or in part, and perhaps we re-shape them based on our own experience of who we are. If we are exposed to stories which tell us who we are, we act upon those stories as those stories act upon us. If we did not, if we were merely ciphers for those stories, then inasmuch as those stories are disconnected and conflicted, we ourselves would necessarily be disconnected and conflicted. But often we are not, or at least are not in the ways the intersection of those stories would have us be. We engage with those stories, making them true to one extent or another just as they make themselves true through us. There is, then, a dialectic bound to our inescapable narrativity, as Ricoeur thought. And it is not entirely unlike the one he conceived. It is, in a sense, a dialectic between an idem and an ipse. But the idem is not our unchangeable character. It is, instead, the stories that come to us through our exposure to them. Those are the narrative elements over which we have no control. The ipse, in turn, is not the unchangeableness to which we commit, but instead the molding of the stories that are given to us into a more (Ricoeur) or less (Strawson) coherent narrative self-conception. In other words, the narrative dialectic is not, as Ricoeur thought, a dialectic in which narrativity offers the solution. It is instead a dialectic within narrativity itself. That dialectic may yield up a coherent, developmental self-conception, one that orients not only who we think we are but also who we are. Or it may not. Narrativity, in other words, is inescapable in a being who is exposed to the world. However, the product of a narrativity need not be a coherent narrative. It all depends on that to which we are exposed and the way we take it up. By way of conclusion, let us return to the initial thoughts about the purported analytic/Continental split. In this essay, we have traced a discussion that lies at the margins of much of what is said to constitute that split. What we have seen is that an engagement of analytic thinkers (Schechtman, Strawson) with Continental ones (Ricoeur, Cavarero) has

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yielded a deepening of the idea of a narrative conception of the self. This engagement has occurred not only through this essay. It didn’t take an outside party to bring them into conversation with one another (with the partial exception of Cavarero). Their own interaction has, before the construction of this essay, already deepened discussion of narrative selfconceptions. One might speculate that perhaps it is because the philosophical spotlight lies elsewhere (ontology, political philosophy, ethics) that a productive conversation across the “border” is able to be had in this arena. And perhaps, if we philosophers decided to focus on content rather than reputation, we might find that what can happen at the periphery can also happen in the center. That is to say, if we talked about each other less and read each other more, we might find we actually have something to say, rather than to shout, across the “border.” In other words, we might find that, within philosophy, fences don’t make such good neighbors after all. References Butler, Judith (2005), Giving an Account of Oneself (New York: Fordham University Press). Cavarero, Adriana (2000 [1997]), Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood, tr. Paul A. Kottman (London: Routledge). Gallagher, Shaun (2005), How the Mind Shapes the Body (Oxford: Oxford University Press). MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981), After Virtue (London: Duckworth). May, Todd (2002), “On the Very Idea of Continental (or for that matter Anglo-American) Philosophy”, Metaphilosophy, 33 (4). Parfit, Derek (1984), Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Ricoeur, Paul (1992 [1990]), Oneself as Another, tr. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Schechtman, Marya (1996), The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). Strawson, Galen (2004), “Against Narrativity”, Ratio, 17(4).

CHAPTER FOUR

AGAINST LINGUISTIC EXCLUSIVISM Søren Overgaard 1. Introduction The aim of this chapter, broadly stated, is to clear away one major obstacle to constructive engagement between two traditions separated by the analytic-continental divide: what I will call linguistic philosophy (comprising Oxford ordinary language philosophy as well as the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein and his followers) and phenomenology.1 The prominent Wittgensteinian Peter Hacker will be the main focus of my discussion. The chapter is motivated by the idea that there is something paradoxical about the fact that linguistic philosophers have shown little interest in any rapprochement with phenomenology. It is certainly not that they lacked opportunities. The notorious 1958 Royaumont Colloquium, for example, which counted Ryle, Strawson, Urmson, and Austin among the speakers, and which was attended by phenomenologists such as H.L. Van Breda2 and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, was an abject failure. Ryle, who had previously published on both Husserl and Heidegger, and whom the other Oxonians no doubt regarded as something of an expert on phenomenology, took the opportunity to deliver a paper aptly entitled “Phenomenology versus ‘The Concept of Mind’.” In this highly polemical paper, Ryle caricatured Husserl and was tactless enough to accuse him of claims to philosophical “Führership” (Ryle 2009, 189). As Hans-Johann Glock has remarked, “Ryle seemed interested less in establishing whether there was a wide gulf between analytic and ‘Continental’ philosophy than in ensuring that there would be” (Glock 2008, 63). Nor did any of the other

1   Many prominent philosophers have made similar efforts to get the analytic and Continental traditions talking to each other—including Cavell, Dummett, Føllesdal, Hintikka, and Putnam. Note, however, that my focus is not on the analytic-Continental divide as such, but on the possible obstacles to a rapprochement between phenomenology and (Oxonian/Wittgensteinian) linguistic philosophy. 2 A Husserlian phenomenologist and founder of the Husserl Archives in Leuven, ­Belgium.

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Oxonian participants at Royaumont attempt to establish any sort of rapprochement with their phenomenological listeners. The reason this is surprising is that phenomenologists and linguistic philosophers have so much in common. Both sides think of philosophy as a largely descriptive enterprise; they distinguish sharply between philosophy and empirical science; they think of philosophy as concerned to articulate something “ordinary”—whether this is the way we ordinarily speak or the way we ordinarily experience the world around us; and, following on from this, both parties think of philosophy not as an enterprise that gives us new knowledge of the world, but as a “second-order” discipline that reflects on, and makes explicit, something with which we are already implicitly familiar. Here I just state these claims, leaving a proper defence of them for future publications. I also propose to put to one side any in-depth historical study of either phenomenology or linguistic ­philosophy.3 What I aim to do instead is to critically examine the reasons that may be behind at least some linguistic philosophers’ reservations vis-à-vis phenomenology. I suggest that a chief reason is an assumption that I will call “linguistic exclusivism” (LE).4 Roughly, this is the idea that the only proper way for philosophy to proceed is by examining the use of linguistic expressions. Focusing, as mentioned, on the work of Peter Hacker—the main contemporary advocate of (Wittgensteinian) linguistic philosophy—I try to establish two claims: First, that there are good internal reasons for linguistic philosophers to abandon LE; and second, that the considerations that appear to support LE do not actually do so. The structure of the chapter is as follows. In the next section, I introduce LE. In section 3, I offer a brief reconstruction of the metaphilosophical background for the assumption, focussing on Hacker’s writings. Then, in the fourth and fifth sections, I criticise LE. First, I argue that the considerations that seem to lead Hacker (and possibly other linguistic philosophers) to adopt LE are misguided. Then I show that accepting LE leads to a philosophy incapable of achieving even the modest aims Hacker sets for it.

3 I have explored such matters in previous publications. See Overgaard 2010a, 2010b, 2011. 4 No doubt sociological and political reasons also factored in. I will not discuss these, however.

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2. Linguistic Exclusivism What, then, do I mean by ‘linguistic exclusivism’? I mean the following idea: (LE) In a philosophical investigation, only one sort of data is relevant and admissible: data concerning the use of words

LE, thus understood, is supposed to be consistent with the idea that in order to assemble data about what we would or would not say, the linguistic philosopher who adheres to LE may call our attention to a variety of things, including the actions, beliefs, desires, etc. of people. But according to LE, the point of all this information is to make us see what we would or would not say—and such “linguistic reminders” exhaust the permissible data available to the philosopher.5 Let me admit at the outset that there is scant direct evidence that any linguistic philosopher has ever endorsed LE. There are, however, two sorts of circumstantial evidence to that effect, the first of which may perhaps include something that approaches direct evidence. For some linguistic philosophers have come very close to expressing LE explicitly. Consider, for example, the following quotes, spanning some four decades of linguistic philosophising. . . . the actual use of linguistic expressions remains [the philosopher’s] sole and essential contact with the reality which he wishes to understand (Strawson 1992b, 320; my emphasis).6 Not only is there nothing new about analysing concepts via an examination of their linguistic expression; there are reasons for thinking this is the only practicable way (White 1975, 110; last emphasis mine). . . . the questions “What is X?” and “What does ‘X’ mean?” may be one and the same. . . . [For example,] the distinction between “What is knowledge?” and “What do we mean by ‘knowledge’?” is illusory. And the only way of approaching either question is by reference to how we use that word and words related to it. (Hanfling 2000, 17; my emphasis) What truth and falsity is to science, sense and nonsense is to philosophy. . . .  How can one investigate the bounds of sense? Only by examining the use of words. (Bennett and Hacker 2003, 6; my emphasis) 5 This may not be strictly true. Sometimes, bits of behaviour are also part of the relevant data. For example, it could be relevant that we’d usually not just say “That’s Fifth Avenue” to someone asking for directions—that we would also point or in some other way indicate what ‘that’ is supposed to refer to. Nothing in the argument offered here turns on this minor qualification, however. 6 From the paper Strawson presented at the 1958 Royaumont meeting.

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At first blush, these quotes seem to give expression to the following idea: there is only one way to tackle the questions that philosophers have typically wrestled with, and that way is the examination of linguistic expressions. If this interpretation is right, LE seems a natural extension: facts about the uses of linguistic expressions exhaust the data that are relevant and admissible to philosophical inquiry. Perhaps, however, the quotes are only meant to state the more modest claim that the examination of the use of words is a necessary element in any philosophical inquiry. Apparently none of the quotes—with the Strawson quote as a possible exception—positively rule out that there could be other sorts of “data” besides linguistic data for the philosopher to examine. (Indeed, it is even compatible with the letter of the quotes—though I think incompatible with their spirit—to maintain that the examination of non-linguistic matters, too, might be necessary to philosophising.) If this is the right way to interpret the quotes, LE goes further than anything stated in them. For it is an implication of LE that a philosopher should avoid basing her investigations on any non-linguistic data. But if nothing in the quotes implies commitment to the view that only linguistic data are admissible, then why think any of the quoted philosophers is committed to LE? My second sort of—admittedly very circumstantial—evidence bears on this question. As I mentioned in the introduction, there is something paradoxical about the dismissive attitudes many linguistic philosophers have adopted towards phenomenology, given the many commitments they seem to have in common. No doubt Ryle’s attitude rubbed off on many Oxford philosophers. Yet if one looks at the discussions that took place between linguistic philosophers and some of their Continental listeners at the Royaumont Colloquium, it becomes clear that some of the former had reasons for thinking their philosophical approaches superior to those recommended by the latter. Those reasons, I want to suggest, may have turned on an implicit commitment to LE. I have discussed these matters extensively elsewhere (Overgaard 2010a), and will here just briefly consider one representative example, taken from the transcripts of the Royaumont Colloquium. In the discussion following his talk, Strawson was asked to justify his claim (quoted above) regarding the philosophical importance of the use of linguistic expressions. He answered as follows: I should defend the passage . . . by saying that the philosopher’s principal task is the understanding of how our thought about things works, and that we cannot find out about these workings except by looking at how we use

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words. To put it another way, linguistic usage is the only experimental datum which we possess that is relevant to inquiry about the behavior of our concepts. (Strawson 1992b, 324)

This already comes very close to an explicit articulation of LE. But equally revealing is the way Strawson reacted to suggestions from phenomenologists in the audience that other things besides the use of linguistic expressions could be philosophically important. H.L. Van Breda, for example, urged that “For the phenomenologist, the thesis that the sole point of contact with that reality which philosophy wishes to understand is language is entirely inadmissible” (Van Breda, in Strawson 1992b, 325). For, as he continued, “The simple description of my own consciousness, and of all that of which I am conscious, shows me that there are a great many ways of being-in-the-world. . . . Such a description in no way suggests that language has the privileged status you [i.e. Strawson] claim for it” (Van Breda, in Strawson 1992b, 325). What Van Breda wanted to suggest, then, was that descriptions of our various experiences of the world—and not just of our talk about the world—were important “data” for the philosophical enterprise. Strawson replied, however, that “neither the concept of a relation with the world, nor that of existence in the world, strikes me as very clear. Can’t we simply leave all that to the psychologists?” (Strawson 1992b, 326). And again: “I am aware of many ways of standing in relation to things in addition to that particular way which makes use of conceptual structures. But it seems to me that the study of these other relationships belongs elsewhere—in history, the social sciences, scientific research” (Strawson 1992b, 327). Strawson’s replies strongly suggest that philosophy’s proper business is with language use, and not experience. At the very least, then, he seems to endorse something like the following: (LE*) In a philosophical investigation, data concerning conscious experiences are (strictly speaking) inadmissible

But LE* is plausibly construed as a corollary of LE in conjunction with the premise (which Van Breda explicitly endorsed) that data concerning conscious experience are not data concerning the use of words. Since Strawson himself singled linguistic data out as the philosopher’s “sole . . . contact with the reality which he wishes to understand”, it seems plausible to assume that he dismissed Van Breda’s emphasis on conscious experience and being-in-the-world as, in effect, non-philosophical, because it involved reference to data falling outside of the privileged class of linguistic data. In other words, the reasoning seems to be that to the extent that a philosopher appeals to non-linguistic sorts of data, she intrudes into the

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proper domain of a special science (psychology, history, or whatever). If this interpretation is right, Strawson is committed to LE. Of course, Strawson is only one person,7 and it would be fallacious to attribute the views he expressed at Royaumont to the linguistic movement at large. However, first of all, similar ideas were floated by other linguistically inclined philosophers at the Royaumont Colloquium (see Overgaard 2010a). Secondly, as we will see later in this chapter, Peter Hacker8 suggests essentially the same point in some critical remarks directed at Austin. At any rather, whether or not the evidence convinces, I shall proceed on the assumption that LE is something implicitly embraced by at least some linguistic philosophers, past and present. I now turn to perhaps the most prominent present defender of linguistic philosophy, Peter Hacker. 3. Hacker on Philosophy It is sometimes claimed that the defining trait of linguistic philosophy is its commitment to the view that language is the proper subject matter of philosophy (e.g. Mundle 1979, 18). Hacker argues, however, that this is a mistake. Philosophy is not “about” language (Hacker 2009, 137). In fact, it is a mistake to think that linguistic philosophers single out any particular “region of objects” as the subject matter of philosophy. For this suggests that philosophy is the study of language use in the same way as chemistry is the study of the structure and composition of substances. And it is the lexicographer, rather than the philosopher, who studies language in this sense. As Hacker states: “In the sense in which the sciences have a subjectmatter . . . philosophy has none” (Hacker 1996, 232). In other words, philosophy is not the study of those bits of the world that we call “words” or the use humans make of them. Philosophy is not “a branch of linguistics” 7 An intriguing fact about Strawson, to which I hope to return in future work, is that he seems to have changed his mind later on. Thus, in later texts Strawson emphasises the importance of doing justice to the “phenomenology of thought” (1985, 79), and on one occasion even embraces the phenomenological notion of ‘expérience vécue’ or lived experience (Strawson 2011, 177). 8 In all fairness, I must mention that Hacker does not seem consistently to adhere to this restriction. He writes, for example, that “grammatical clarification is a method, perhaps the primary (though not the only) method of philosophy” (1996, 232–3; see also Hacker 2009). If this is closer to Hacker’s considered view, the point of this paper can be reformulated as follows: to put pressure on linguistic philosophers to be more explicit about their rejection of any such notions of linguistic exclusivism and to avoid relying on any such notion in practice, when confronted with philosophies that have different methodological commitments—such as, for example, phenomenology.

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(Hacker 1996, 179). Unlike all the empirical sciences, philosophy does not study any particular region of the world. What sets the philosophical examination of the use of words apart from scientific studies of the same, on Hacker’s view, is the peculiar interest the former have in this topic. Philosophers are exclusively interested in “conceptual” or “logical” connections. Details of syntax, for example, are of little interest to them. This has to do with the peculiar aim of philosophy. As Hacker writes, philosophy is “the pursuit not of knowledge but of understanding. The task of philosophy is not to add to the sum of human knowledge, but to enable us to attain a clear understanding of what is already known” (Hacker 1996, 272–3). The goal of philosophy, as Hacker and G.P. Baker once wrote, is to “obtain an understanding of our understanding” (Baker and Hacker 1983, 308). Not all conceptual relations are of equal interest to philosophers, however. Indeed, some may have no philosophical relevance at all. As Grice suggests, it may be that we lack a clear overview of the conceptual relations between battles, skirmishes, and campaigns. When would we say that something is a battle? When that it is a skirmish, but not (really) a battle? Intuitively, these do not seem to be questions that philosophy should be concerned with (Grice 1989, 174–5). But why are questions about battles and skirmishes not philosophically pertinent questions? Hacker’s answer is that the latter have to do with certain fundamental confusions or puzzles that have characteristically worried philosophers. There are parts of our conceptual scheme where we tend to get entangled in confusions when we think about the concepts involved. The concepts of knowledge, mind, language, and reality are among these; the concept of a battle, perhaps, is not. The philosopher will be particularly interested in those parts of our conceptual scheme that have led, and continue to lead, philosophers into muddles and confusion. These points are intimately connected with Hacker’s view of the nature of philosophical problems. Philosophical problems are not scientific problems, according to Hacker. Nor are they “deep” problems pertaining to some profound dimension inaccessible to common sense and science alike. What are they, then? Hacker has various slightly different formulations of his reply to this. “Philosophical problems”, he says, “are misunderstandings, caused, among other things, by analogies between forms of expression with different uses” (Hacker 1996, 107); they are “mesmerising confusions engendered inter alia by our entanglement in grammar” (ibid., 112). Or, as Hacker also puts it, “Philosophical problems are symptoms of conceptual entanglement” (Hacker 2001, 336).

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Yet a philosophical problem has nothing to do with an inability to use linguistic expressions and understand concepts—such as that of knowledge. In fact, they typically attach to quite ordinary concepts that we are all thoroughly familiar with, and perfectly able to master (Hacker 1993, 147). Trouble emerges only when we start philosophising, that is, reflecting on parts of our conceptual repertoire. Implicit mastery and thematic, reflective overview are two very different things, and this difference nourishes philosophical confusion (Hacker 2009, 145). When we reflect on certain conceptual domains we are easily misled by false analogies and may become perplexed and confused. The understanding that philosophy aims at comes from a certain order being installed among our concepts: a philosophical problem is symptomatic of a disorder in our concepts—that is, a disorder in our reflective mastery of them—and it can be solved by ordering our concepts so that we can find our way around the grammatical network without stumbling into conceptual confusion. (Hacker 1996, 109–10)

The understanding that philosophy strives for is thus a positive achievement (cf. Baker and Hacker 1983, 308; Hacker 1996, 113). We do not merely end up where we started: as competent language users. For when we achieve the right order in our concepts, we have a reflective mastery that we could perhaps only have gotten through wrestling with philosophical problems. When emphasising this positive aspect of philosophical method, Hacker often uses Strawson’s term ‘connective analysis’ (see Strawson 1992a, 17–28). Connective analysis is the sort of analysis that traces the interconnections between concepts, thereby providing the desired overview of a problematic conceptual domain. Such linguistic analysis is not only indispensable in securing the understanding that we, as philosophers, want. It is also sufficient, Hacker suggests: The connective analysis, or elucidation, which complements therapeutic analysis . . . leads to the understanding which philosophers have characteristically craved, even though they were typically unclear about their own questions and the methods of resolving them. (Hacker 1996, 113)

The elucidation of linguistic use, or “grammar”, it seems, gives us precisely the understanding that philosophers have always wanted. They have merely been groping in the dark, under the illusion that it was the world, the essences of things, or the Absolute that we needed to understand, when in fact an assemblage of reminders of what we say—and hence of what we can meaningfully say—is what satisfies our philosophical hunger. Or so Hacker thinks. But before I examine this idea, I want to critically discuss the reasoning behind Hacker’s apparent adoption of LE.

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4. Philosophy and Science There are two obvious ways Hacker might attempt to justify LE. The first turns on the idea that there is a fundamental distinction between philosophical inquiries and scientific inquiries. Thus, as already mentioned, Hacker suggests that any philosophical account that appeals to facts other than facts about our use of expressions intrudes into the proper domain of some empirical science. Consider how these concerns are at work in Hacker’s critique of J.L. Austin. Austin famously resisted ideas of methodological exclusivity. He doubtless believed that the method of looking at “what we should say when” had some claim to superiority compared with the majority of alternative philosophical methods. But he was suspicious of philosophical claims to universality or uniqueness, and thus maintained merely that the examination of the actual use of words was one (very promising) philosophical method. In “A Plea for Excuses”, Austin wrote the following on the linguistic method itself: When we examine what we should say when, what words we should use in what situations, we are looking again not merely at words (or “meanings”, whatever they may be) but also at the realities we use the words to talk about: we are using a sharpened awareness of words to sharpen our perception of, though not as the final arbiter of, the phenomena. For this reason I think it might be better to use, for this way of doing philosophy, some less misleading name . . .—for instance, “linguistic phenomenology”. . . . (Austin 1979, 182)

Austin made similar statements at the Royaumont Colloquium: [W]e use the multiplicity of expressions with which the richness of our language furnishes us in order to direct our attention to the multiplicity and the richness of our experiences. Language serves us as interpreter for observing the living facts which constitute our experience, which, without it, we would tend to overlook. . . . This means that language illumines for us the complexity of life. (Cited in Spiegelberg 1981, 84)

According to Austin, then, it is entirely legitimate for a philosopher to appeal to “the living facts that constitute our experience”. Indeed, he seems to be suggesting that the main value of examining our uses of words is the way it might “sharpen our awareness” of our experiences, or “phenomena”. Hacker complains that this “suggests a view of philosophy as an empirical investigation” (Hacker 1996, 175). As he comments, philosophical investigations

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søren overgaard will not produce insights into the nature of the world, but only into the grammar of our descriptions of the world. . . . [W]hat we clarify in [conceptual] investigations is not the empirical landscape before us but our point of view, not what we apprehend but our vision. (Hacker 1997, 206).

This criticism of Austin seems confused, however. For one thing, there is nothing in what Austin says to suggest that he construes the aim of philosophy as that of contributing to our stock of empirical knowledge about the world.9 His “living facts which constitute our experience” are surely not new facts. We are already thoroughly familiar with our own experience; but despite—or perhaps because of—this familiarity we may overlook important aspects of it when we engage in philosophical reflection. In fact, Austin’s talk about “illumining the complexity of life” strongly suggests that the aim of philosophy is understanding rather than knowledge. More precisely, it suggests that philosophy aims to provide a reflective overview—Übersicht—of something we, in some sense, already know. This impression is confirmed by other things Austin says. Austin seems to suggest that what is special about philosophers’ interest in language is that they do not simply examine words, but look through our words, as it were, onto our experience and the world as characterised by the kinds of things we say about them.10 The linguistic sciences hardly do that; rather, they do study the use of words just as such ( just as parts of psychology and cognitive neuroscience, say, are concerned with our vision as such). What Austin says here—far from suggesting “a view of philosophy as an empirical investigation”—seems to underline the reflective, or “secondorder” character of philosophical inquiry. I suspect that Hacker fails to appreciate these points because he implicitly relies on LE. Yet it is very hard to see how Hacker could be justified in accepting LE, unless he would be prepared to abandon the view that philosophy is not to be distinguished by a special subject matter, but by the    9 Austin did seem to hold that there is no fundamental difference between philosophy and other types of inquiry (Austin 1979, 232). However, his insistence that philosophers look not just at words but also at the phenomena we use words to talk about, precisely distinguishes what the philosopher does from what the lexicographer does. 10 Baker and Hacker once suggested that “When we have an Übersicht we do not merely see the world by means of the network of language, but we see the world through the network of language” (Baker and Hacker 1983, 308). They also tried to express the difference between empirical linguistics and philosophical elucidation by saying that the former studies language “from without” while the latter studies it “from within” (ibid., 282). The quoted passage from Austin goes a little way towards explaining what might be meant by that contrast.

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special aim governing the philosophical enterprise. For that aim—the aim of providing a reflective “understanding of our understanding”—seems to be one Austin would subscribe to. All Austin suggests is that, in pursuit of this aim, we do not merely examine words but also pay attention to our experience.11 And surely, this will only look like philosophy is being absorbed by science if it is supposed that there is some particular domain of objects (namely, words and their use) that is the proper subject matter of philosophy. Moreover, the point that philosophy is defined by its aim rather than subject matter is one that Hacker had better not abandon. For it is hard to see what is so special about words and our use of them as to single these out as the proper subject matter of philosophy. After all, to state the obvious, words are also part of the empirical world and their use is something that can be studied empirically. In this respect, there is no essential difference between words and experiences. Psychologists study experiences, just as linguists study words and their use. Hacker is aware of this point, but I think he might underestimate its significance. In response to the criticism that it cannot be the business of philosophy to study “mere words”, for example, Bennett and Hacker point out that it is absurd to be dismissive of the spectacles by means of which we view the world on the grounds that they are merely glass and that only lens grinders should be interested in that (as if only lexicographers should be interested in mere words). (Bennett and Hacker 2003, 401)

This point is well taken. Why should we think that only lexicographers could have an interest in “mere words”? But this sound point indirectly highlights the fundamental problem for Hacker’s argument. For, to repeat, spectacles and words are not denizens of a world of their own, but belong, together with binoculars and pop tunes, to the ordinary world that is the subject matter of various empirical sciences. One can therefore not stipulate that any conception of philosophy that proposes to take a descriptive, reflective interest in something else than the use of words is, for that very reason, one that assimilates philosophy to science. As I mentioned, however, there is another justification for LE. The task of philosophy, on Hacker’s view, is to analyse concepts: to provide 11 Admittedly, Austin also seems to suggest something I do not endorse: the view that linguistic analysis is merely an auxiliary means to a quite different end.

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r­ eflective mastery of our concepts by tracing conceptual connections. Now, it may be that I am right, for example, that there is no reason to think an investigation of “living facts which constitute our experience” must ipso facto be one that should be left to the empirical psychologist. Perhaps such investigation can serve interests and aims that are not those of the psychologist qua psychologist, but rather those of the philosopher. It might be maintained, nevertheless, that if the task of the philosopher is to analyse concepts then an appeal to facts about how we experience the world would be of little use to her. The only way to trace the connections between, say, the concept of knowledge and that of belief, it might be thought, is via an examination of the way ‘knowledge’, ‘belief’, and related words are used. So, on this line of thought, if one accepts the view of philosophy as conceptual analysis, the idea of its being restricted to the examination of language use follows. But why should one accept this? Take, for example, the problem of other minds. It seems we somehow know how to obtain information about the experiences and thoughts of other people. But, on reflection, we may find it difficult to articulate what it is that we know and how we (can) know this. Surely, to provide such an articulation is a philosophical task if anything is. And it may well be that what we need here is, first and foremost, something like an analysis or elucidation of our concepts of mind, mental state, and related concepts. But it is far from obvious that such an elucidation cannot involve looking at actual encounters with other people. Indeed, why not look at examples where we ourselves have a certain experience or think a certain thought and try and capture what this is like? Do I always feel that my thoughts are inaccessible to others? If we want to throw light on the problem of other minds, it does not seem natural to focus our attention exclusively on words, unless we already believe—and again, Hacker professes not to believe this—that philosophy is essentially about linguistic matters. Thus, as Timothy Williamson (2007, chapter 1) has recently stressed, one can take the “conceptual turn” without taking the “linguistic turn”. And, more importantly to the present discussion, it seems that one can take the linguistic turn—that is, embrace the view that linguistic analysis is a valuable philosophical method with which to elucidate our “conceptual scheme”—without accepting LE. Linguistic philosophers ought to regard this as good news, not only because there seems to be no good reason to accept LE, but also, as I argue next, because accepting it has undesirable consequences.

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5. The Façon de Parler Problem For all I have said so far, linguistic analysis might still seem sufficient to provide the sort of “second-order” understanding that Hacker emphasises as the central aim of philosophy. In this section, however, I argue that strictly linguistic analysis is in fact not up to the task. To see why not, let us consider the sorts of results one can expect to get from Hacker’s strictly linguistic way of proceeding. According to Hacker, linguistic analysis does not lead to the discovery of “metaphysical truths” (Hacker 1996, 240). Truth and falsity is the domain of science; philosophy deals with sense and nonsense. The propositions that result from philosophical analysis are “expressions of rules . . . for the use of their constituent expressions” (ibid.). As Hacker elaborates the point, the propositions which describe the conceptual connections between the major structural features of our conceptual scheme [are] expressions of “norms of representation” or, more mundanely, [are] rules of grammar, in a suitably stretched sense of ‘grammar’. Taken thus, their “truth” is innocuous: it is not that they “correspond with reality” or describe how things, in fact, are: rather, they specify rules for the use of their constituent expressions, and their “truth” consists in the fact that they are the rules ( just as it is true that the chess king moves one square at a time). (Hacker 1996, 178; cf. 1997, 204–5)

Among other things, this is supposed to dispel any impression that there is some special domain of objects to which the philosopher’s propositions refer and of which they are, or may be, true. (As if philosophy were, after all, a cognitive enterprise with its own subject matter—perhaps a Platonic realm of abstract entities.) Against any such assumption, Hacker insists that the philosopher’s propositions are merely “true” in the sense that they express rules for the use of expressions. Suppose we have assembled all the grammatical reminders needed to lay out all the relevant conceptual connections of a given conceptual domain. What sort of understanding does this provide us with? In replying to this question, it is useful to look at some concrete examples. An example that features prominently in Bennett and Hacker’s critical discussion of the claims of cognitive neuroscientists is this: mental predicates can only be applied to human beings and animals and not to parts of human beings or animals (or their bodies). This principle—which Bennett and Hacker label “the mereological principle”—they exemplify as follows: “Human beings, but not their brains, can be said to be thoughtful or thoughtless; animals, but not their brains, let alone the hemispheres

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of their brains, can be said to see, hear, smell and taste things” (Bennett and Hacker 2003, 73). In other words, the fact that we do not attribute mental states to brains “is not a mark of correctible ignorance . . . but of our assigning no sense to the form of words ‘My brain is thinking things over’ ” (ibid., 445). To ascribe mental predicates to brains or “minds” (or for that matter to fingernails, chairs, and trees) is to violate the “grammar” of mental predicates. Here is another example of the kind of result that Hacker believes philosophy capable of delivering. Discussing the view that we have first-hand, certain knowledge about our own present psychological states, Hacker writes: It is misleading to suggest that when one is in pain, one knows that one is; the truth of the matter is that it makes no sense to be ignorant here or to doubt or wonder whether one is. . . . But by the same token, it makes no sense to be certain that one is either. . . . Ignorance, doubt, mistake, misidentification, misrecognition are ruled out by grammar—we have no use for such forms of words as “I may be in pain or I may not—I am not sure, I must find out”, “I thought I was in pain, but I was mistaken”, or “Either I intend to V or I do not, but I wonder which it is”. But for precisely this reason, knowledge, certainty, identification, recognition are ruled out too. (Hacker 1996, 133)

The “prevailing tradition in epistemology”, as Hacker puts it elsewhere, “has confused the grammatical exclusion of ignorance with the presence of knowledge” (1993, 29). Traditional epistemologists have thought, that is, that we must have some exceptionally good and reliable cognitive access to our own psychological states, but thereby they have merely been mesmerised by the “shadows cast by grammar” (cf. Hacker 1993, 261). What they have hit upon, without realising it, was simply a rule to the effect that we have no use for expressions such as, “I may or may not intend to φ, I don’t know which”, and “I must find out whether or not I have a splitting headache”. Yet can such “results” reasonably be said to offer the understanding that we, as philosophers, crave? The first example gives us the principle that one can only meaningfully say of a “whole” human being (or animal), and not of a mind, a soul, a brain, or a computer that it is conscious, or unconscious, sees or is blind, thinks or is thoughtless, and so on. The second example tells us that there is no meaningful use for first-person present tense expressions of doubt as to whether one is in pain, intends to φ, etc. It seems to me that these may be useful reminders of philosophically interesting features of our “conceptual scheme”. However, it is

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hard to see how they alone could provide the philosophical understanding that we seek. Surely, we still want some kind of account that makes it intelligible that our conceptual scheme has these features. We would like, for example, to be told something about human life, or something about what it is to be a subject of experience, which somehow ties in with and illuminates—and is itself illuminated by—the fact that we have no use for the mentioned expressions. The statement of a rule to the effect that we have assigned no meaning to an expression can hardly in itself be said to give us an “understanding of our understanding”. To fully appreciate this, it is useful to juxtapose Hacker’s grammatical reminders with the views of one of the philosophers whose philosophical “entanglement” they are supposed to set right. Descartes’ story about why we have no use for an expression such as ‘I may or may not intend to φ, I don’t know which’, would include something about my ability to “achieve an easier and more evident perception of my own mind than of anything else” (Descartes 1984, 23). Hacker is, I believe, right to question that story. What I object to is his contention that to offer a story that goes beyond simply stating the “grammatical rules” is simply to be “mesmerised by the shadows cast by grammar”. The problem with the Cartesian story—or rather, one problem with it—is that, taken literally, it precisely fails to illuminate the grammatical rules in question. If it really were a question of internal perception or observation, then why, for example, do we unhesitatingly accept expressions of intentions, pains, and emotions, even when made, say, by absentminded people whom we generally know to be poor observers? If it really were a question of “looking inside”, of “perceiving our own minds”, then one would at least expect to be able to make sense of the idea of my “having to find out” whether or not I have a splitting headache; one would expect people to be more or less good at finding out about such things, and so on. The fact that these ideas do not seem to make sense is a reason to suspect that the idea of inner perception fails to get at the heart of the status that our own mental lives have for us. So the Cartesian story may be a problematic one precisely because it fails to resonate with Hacker’s “grammatical” reminders. But the attempt to offer a story that does so resonate still seems a perfectly legitimate response to the philosophical craving for reflective understanding. Again, it sounds odd to say that I perceive my pain when I am in pain, and perhaps here we encounter another of Hacker’s “grammatical rules” (cf. Hacker 1993, 23). But the reply that no use has been assigned for the expression ‘I perceive (see, feel) my pain’—even if this is correct— is entirely unsatisfactory in terms of its power to elucidate the part of

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our first-order understanding that we are concerned with here. Of course there is no such use—that is why the expression sounds odd. But we want some account of the role of sensations and other mental phenomena in our lives, which ties in with, and thus throws light on, the fact that this linguistic move, and a host of similar ones, are ruled out. In fact, not only does Hacker’s type of linguistic analysis fall short of providing the understanding philosophers have typically craved. It is hard to see how they could be sufficient even by Hacker’s own lights. For the strict linguistic analyst is left without any means to distinguish grammatical reminders with philosophical import from philosophically irrelevant ones. We might call this the “façon de parler problem”. It can be illustrated as follows. We can, and sometimes do, say of a chess computer that it “knows” that this or that move would lead to its losing its rook, and that the computer “does not want” this to happen. At first blush, this seems to be a counterexample to Hacker’s grammatical rule that we can only ascribe mental predicates to humans and animals. But, according to Bennett and Hacker, this way of talking is no more than a façon de parler. We know that the computer has been designed to make moves that will (probably) lead to the defeat of whomever plays with it—and there is no such thing as the computer’s knowing or wanting anything. (Bennett and Hacker 2003, 425)

But compare a case where someone with Cartesian sympathies grants that we say that we “see a person’s fury”, but simply goes on to insist that this is a mere façon de parler that is of no philosophical consequence—a fortiori does not mean (contra Bennett and Hacker 2003, 447) that “[a person’s] fury may be perfectly visible”. How do we know that there is no such thing as a computer knowing or wanting while there is such a thing as someone’s fury being perfectly visible? Why do the “grammatical reminders” in the one case lead to an important philosophical insight, when in the other case they merely indicate a philosophically inconsequential façon de parler? Given that such reminders constitute the only data to which Hacker seems willing to appeal, then surely he has no means of distinguishing the philosophically important reminders from irrelevant “manners of speaking”. The problem generalises. There are perfectly unremarkable cases in which we do say that we know we are in pain. If multiple tests have revealed nothing wrong, and your doctor inquires whether you are quite certain that you are in pain; or if your friend, trying to persuade you to see

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a doctor, reminds you for the fiftieth time that you are in pain—in such cases, and many more like them, it would be natural to reply, “I know I am in pain”. Why aren’t these genuine cases of knowledge? Or rather, how does one establish that they are not, when the only thing one may appeal to are facts about linguistic usage? I suspect that for every “grammatical rule” Hacker puts forward it will be possible to think of counterexamples that he has to class as philosophically irrelevant manners of speaking. But in admitting only data about linguistic usage, he has deprived himself of any means of doing so. At this point—with a bit of help from the later Wittgenstein, who is of course the main source of inspiration for Hacker’s philosophical outlook—I would like to make a positive suggestion. The suggestion is that we solve the façon de parler problem, as well as provide a richer philosophical understanding, by assembling other types of reminders besides the strictly grammatical ones. In particular, we can go a long way towards accomplishing both of these tasks by supplementing grammatical descriptions with phenomenological descriptions. Phenomenological descriptions are, roughly put, descriptions of our experiences of things. However, this must not be misunderstood. Such descriptions are neither exclusively nor even primarily descriptions of “what it is like”, subjectively, to feel pain or smell freshly brewed coffee, for instance. Nor does the practice of phenomenology involve “a special technique of introspection”, as some have claimed (Dennett 1991, 44). It is a lot closer to the truth to say that phenomenology mostly involves a special sort of attention to the world—not the world as described in quantum mechanics or molecular biology, but the world “as it strikes us in everyday life”, to borrow Gregory McCulloch’s useful phrase (McCulloch 1995, 131). While a lot more could be said about this notion of phenomenological description, I hope it is reasonably clear what sort of thing I have in mind. If not, it might become clearer if we consider the following quotes from Wittgenstein: In general I do not surmise fear in him—I see it. I do not feel that I am deducing the probable existence of something inside from something outside; rather it is as if the human face were in a way translucent and that I were seeing it not in reflected light but rather in its own. (Wittgenstein 1980b, § 170) Consciousness in another’s face. Look into someone else’s face, and see the consciousness in it, and a particular shade of consciousness. You see on it, in it, joy, indifference, interest, excitement, torpor, and so on. The light in other people’s faces. Do you look into yourself in order to recognise the fury in his face? It is there as clearly as in your own breast. (Wittgenstein 1980a, § 927)

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I want to emphasise two things about passages such as these (and there are many more like them in the later Wittgenstein’s writings).12 First, having our attention drawn to the sorts of facts Wittgenstein mentions is one way to make us see, for example, that talk of seeing a person’s fury is much more than merely a convenient façon de parler. In many cases, we immediately see a person’s face as angry, sad, and so forth; we do not infer that the person is sad or angry on the basis of a perception of a particular facial configuration. Phenomenological descriptions such as these thus tie in with, and lend support to, the grammatical reminders that Hacker offers. The second thing I want to emphasise is that, in passages such as these, Wittgenstein is offering more than “grammatical reminders”.13 I do not mean to deny that he also wants to remind us of some of the things we say. Sometimes, for example, we say that we see a particular emotion in someone else’s face.14 But the overall drift of the remarks cannot plausibly be construed as that of reminding us of the way we “use words”. Rather, Wittgenstein is trying to draw our attention to such facts as these: that we often do not experience other people’s emotions as concealed behind a bodily façade; that other people’s faces seem to us to reveal their “consciousness”; that our knowledge of another’s emotion is (typically) not the result of an inference we draw; that we see joy, indifference, and excitement “in” or “on” other people’s faces, and so on. Wittgenstein is, among other things, reminding us of a whole range of experiences in the phenomenological sense. On one level, all of it is well known to us. Wittgenstein is not offering us new empirical information. But reflectively, we may have failed to give these points due attention.

12 See Overgaard and Zahavi (2009) for references. 13 There is, I think, a least a partial convergence of my reading of Wittgenstein here and the reading advanced by the later Gordon Baker. Baker writes, for example, that a perspicuous presentation in Wittgenstein’s sense “need not consist of a mere selection and arrangement of grammatical rules” (Baker 2004, 41), and Baker indeed suggests that Wittgenstein’s method has affinities with the method of a phenomenologist like MerleauPonty (ibid., 222, 277). I am not certain, however, if in the end I want to pin my colours to Baker’s interpretation of Wittgenstein. Some aspects of it—in particular the claim that there is a deep affinity between Wittgensteinian “therapy” and psychoanalysis, and Baker’s denial that there is much common ground between Wittgenstein and Ryle—are effectively criticised in Hacker (2007). 14 ‘It was written all over his face’ is one such example, and a phrase Bennett and Hacker refer to in this context (Bennett and Hacker 2003, 83, 90). But of course, this expression is at least as metaphorical as some of the other expressions that, according to Bennett and Hacker, we must handle with care and not interpret literally (e.g., speaking of the mental as “inner”). When as person is angry, say, there is usually nothing written all over his or her face—and certainly not the word ‘anger’.

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To offer phenomenological “reminders” may not be the only way to supplement Hacker’s linguistic ones. But unless we embed the grammatical reminders in a fuller account of some sort, we will not achieve the “understanding of our understanding” Hacker desires. 6. Conclusion I have suggested that a main obstacle to any rapprochement between linguistic philosophy and phenomenology has been a tacit commitment on the part of some of the former to what I have called linguistic exclusivism. Focussing on the writings of Peter Hacker, I have argued that the there is no good reason to accept linguistic exclusivism, and that doing so leads to an unacceptably impoverished philosophy.15 References Austin, J.L. (1979), Philosophical Papers, ed. J.O. Urmson and G.J. Warnock (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Baker, G.P. (2004), Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects, ed. K. Morris (Oxford: Blackwell). Baker, G.P. and Hacker, P.M.S. (1983), Wittgenstein: Meaning and Understanding: Essays on the Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell). Bennett, M.R. and Hacker, P.M.S. (2003), Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Oxford: Blackwell). Dennett, D.C. (1991), Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown and Company). Descartes, R. (1984), The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. II trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Glock, H.-J. (2008), What is Analytic Philosophy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Grice, H.P. (1989), Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Hacker, P.M.S. (1993), Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind. Part I: Essays (Oxford: Blackwell). —— (1996), Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell). —— (1997), Insight and Illusion: Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein (Bristol: Thoemmes Press). —— (2001), “Philosophy”, in H.-J. Glock (ed.), Wittgenstein: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Blackwell), 322–347. —— (2007), “Gordon Baker’s Late Interpretation of Wittgenstein”, in G. Kahane, E. Kanterian, and O. Kuusela (eds.), Wittgenstein and His Interpreters (Oxford: Blackwell), 88–122.

15 I am grateful to Steve Champlin, David Cockburn, Paul Gilbert, and Kathleen Lennon for valuable feedback on some of the material included in this chapter, and to Rick Tieszen and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on the penultimate draft of the chapter.

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—— (2009), “Philosophy: A Contribution, not to Human Knowledge, but to Human Understanding”, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 65: 129–153. Hanfling, O. (2000), Philosophy and Ordinary Language: The Bent and Genius of our Tongue (London: Routledge). McCulloch, G. (1995), The Mind and Its World (London: Routledge). Mundle, C.W.K. (1979), A Critique of Linguistic Philosophy, 2nd, revised edn (London: Glover and Blair). Overgaard, S. (2010a), “Royaumont Revisited”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 18: 899–924. —— (2010b), “Ordinary Experience and the Epoché: Husserl and Heidegger versus Rosen (and Cavell)”, Continental Philosophy Review, 43: 307–330. —— (2011), “Analytic Philosophy”, in S. Luft and S. Overgaard (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology (London: Routledge), 563–573. Overgaard, S. and Zahavi, D. (2009), “Understanding (Other) Minds: Wittgenstein’s Phenomenological Contribution”, in E. Zamuner and D.K. Levy (eds.), Wittgenstein’s Enduring Arguments (London: Routledge), 60–86. Ryle, G. (2009), Collected Papers, Volume 1: Critical Essays (London: Routledge). Spiegelberg, H. (1981), “ ‘Linguistic Phenomenology’: John L. Austin and Alexander Pfänder”, in his The Context of the Phenomenological Movement (The Hague: Nijhoff), 83–90. Strawson, P.F. (1985), Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties (London: Methuen). —— (1992a), Analysis and Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press). —— (1992b), “Analysis, Science, and Metaphysics”, in R. Rorty (ed.), The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 312–330. —— (2011), Philosophical Writings, ed. G. Strawson and M. Montague (Oxford: Oxford University Press). White, A.R. (1975), “Conceptual Analysis”, in C.J. Bontempo and S.J. Odell (eds), The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy (New York: McGraw-Hill), 103–117. Williamson, T. (2007), The Philosophy of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell). Wittgenstein, L. (1980a), Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Volume I, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell). —— (1980b), Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Volume II, ed. G.H. von Wright and H. Nyman, trans. C.G. Luckhardt and M.A.E. Aue (Oxford: Blackwell).

CHAPTER FIVE

CONSCIOUSNESS EXPERIENCED AND WITNESSED David Woodruff Smith 1 How to experience, that is the question here. How to live, that was the question Michel de Montaigne pondered in the 16th century (as well observed in a delightful new biography: Bakewell 2010). Montaigne “tried” ways of experiencing and observing himself: in his “tries”, essais, penned as Essais, or in English Essays (drafted and edited, roughly 1572–1592). Montaigne harked back to Pyrrho and the Classical Skeptics, alongside the Stoics and the Epicureans. And Pyrrho himself had travelled to Persia and India circa 270 BC and dabbled in Eastern philosophy (so notes his biographer, Ms. Bakewell, p. 124). From Pyrrho Montaigne borrowed the technique of epekho: suspend judgment, the better to pay attention to your current experience. Judge not, even if like Montaigne you write about it later, in effect editing your experience as you come to understand it in retrospect. Montaigne’s introspective “essaying” introduced a new style to European literary efforts. More to the point here, his essays opened the gates to René Descartes’ philosophy of the cogito circa 1640, which opened “­modern” Western philosophy to consciousness. By the late 19th century Franz Brentano contrasted “descriptive psychology”, or “phenomenology”, with “genetic psychology”, which sought the causes of mental states. And then, from 1900 onward, Edmund Husserl, former student of Brentano’s, developed the discipline we now call phenomenology: the science of the essence of consciousness, that is, forms of experience—in perception, thought, emotion, action—as experienced from the subject’s first-person perspective. Husserl adapted the Skeptics’ method of epoché (a grammatical variant of epekho): bracket the question of the existence of the surrounding world and thereby turn to your own consciousness of that world. Phenomenology by any other name is phenomenology, from ancient India to ancient Greece to 20th century philosophy and on to today’s perspective on consciousness. Within the field of philosophy we should

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distinguish several core disciplines: ethics (how to live), logic (how to reason), epistemology (what and how we know), metaphysics or ontology (what there is, how things exist), and—the new kid on the block— phenomenology (how we experience). My present essay is not a scholarly portrait of a philosophical issue, consciousness. No, this exercise is one of “trying” an idea whose roots, to my nose, lie in contemporary phenomenology cum analytic philosophy of mind—but stretch back in time to classical Indian philosophy, specifically to Buddhist accounts of meditative “witnessing” of experience. In my own essaying here those roots lie buried deep in our collective philosophical consciousness, as I simply try—essayer—to capture a crucial feature of consciousness as experienced in everyday life. 2 A popular image finds the master meditator sitting on a cushion, in the lotus position, deep in contemplation, inducing an extraordinary state of consciousness. In the Buddhist tradition this Bodhisattva is experiencing or tending toward a state of “enlightenment”. The perfected state is one of “nirvana” (Sanskrit), or “nibbana” (Pali): a state of “pure” consciousness, where the sense of self dissolves and the sense of an objective surrounding world appears as mere illusion. So difficult is it to achieve this state of pure consciousness that few of us will be able even to comprehend what this could be like, even as we read descriptions from the Buddha or others. (For “analytic” perspectives on the Buddhist view, see Albahari 2006, Flanagan 2011.) Still, we ordinary mortals can experience something special in consciousness through a more rudimentary level of meditation. In the practice of “mindful” meditation (vipassana), I may sit, with eyes closed, breathing slowly, and simply observe or witness the thoughts, images, feelings that pass through my consciousness. I do not explicitly control these passing phases of experience, I control only my breathing; all else in my experience simply passes through. If no particular sensation or thought or emotion appears, I am conscious nonetheless. When a particular sensation arises in my consciousness, I become aware of that passing sensation; when a thought arises, clothed in words perhaps, I become aware of that passing thought; when an emotion arises, I become aware of that emotion. And then that sensation, thought, or emotion passes. Soon enough, another arises. In between these episodes, or during any one of these, I

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am conscious. When such an episode arises and passes, I am aware of the passing episode. In between these, I am . . . aware, simply aware. We can equally well say: in between these passing experiences, I am conscious, simply conscious, and during each passing experience I am consciously experiencing that particular experience, i.e., I am conscious in and of that experience. This state is sometimes called “pure consciousness”, or, for Tibetan Buddhists, the “clear light” of pure consciousness. In this way I experience consciousness: in each conscious sensation or thought or emotion, or in between these particular episodes. Moreover, in a state of mindfulness, I am aware of each episode, I witness it as it transpires. I become aware of each passing episode, effortlessly, without the special act of explicitly focusing my attention on the experience. This form of awareness of my experience, this form of mindful witnessing, is thus distinct from any explicitly controlled observation of my experience. As observed, I am aware, simply aware, and aware of each passing experience as it transpires. This practice of mindful meditation leads me to appreciate the ubiquitous awareness that defines consciousness. As I go about everyday life, my experiences of sensation, perception, thought, emotion, volition, action, are each inhabited by this basic awareness. Thus my stream of consciousness flows on, transpires. I am experiencing consciousness. When a sensation or thought or emotion arises, that experience is conscious: I am aware of sensing or thinking or feeling so. From the preceding phenomenological reflection, I find—we find—in everyday experience a form of basic awareness. We may call this basic or pure consciousness. (Alluding to ancient Buddhist phenomenology, we may call it nibbanic consciousness, as in Albahari 2006 and Smith 2011). 3 What makes a conscious mental episode or activity conscious? In one direction lies the neurobiology of consciousness, specifying the neural correlates of consciousness, or indeed the whole range of biological processes that subserve the actual experience of consciousness. (See Thompson 2007, Damasio 2010.) In another direction lies the phenomenology of consciousness, specifying the structure of consciousness, or of lived experience in a particular activity of sensation, perception, thought, emotion, volition. Our concern here is the phenomenological. What exactly is the formal structure of an experience whereby it is a conscious experience of

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perception, thought, etc.? (By formal structure I have in mind Husserl’s conception of ideal meaning or “noema” as appraised in Smith 2007.) Let us call my awareness of my passing experience an inner awareness of the experience. In light of our reflection above (a limited element of enlightenment?) we should begin to see that: inner awareness of an experience is formed by the sort of basic awareness I experience in a simple mindful meditation. Well, that is the point I am here pursuing, in a Montaignesque essai. This form of awareness is not that of a dedicated introspective observation. I am not consciously doing two things at once, say, thinking that the sun is setting behind yonder island and also observing that I am so thinking as I gaze upon the island. Rather, in living through that particular experience I am immediately aware of my so thinking-and-seeing. What is the structure of that form of awareness?—that is our question. In recent decades several models for this consciousness-conferring structure have been proposed. One generic model holds that a conscious mental activity involves a higher-order monitoring of the activity, and that monitoring is what makes the activity conscious. Think of one part of the brain monitoring what another part is doing. Now leave aside the brain for the consciousness subserved by that brain activity. A refined version of the monitoring approach, the same-order monitoring model, holds that my awareness of my passing experience is an integral part of the experience itself: not, on pain of infinite regress, a distinct additional activity of monitoring the base activity; but rather a monitoring of the experience that is an intrinsic part of the experience itself, a monitoring on the same order as the experience. . . . So goes the monitoring approach in consciousness studies. (An instructive perspective on competing models of monitoring is found in Kriegel and Williford eds. 2006 and in Kriegel 2009.) Now, the problem for phenomenology, as opposed to neuroscience, is that normally we do not experience any distinct mental activity of monitoring our passing experience, whether the monitoring is a part of the experience or a separate accompaniment to the experience. And yet normally we are aware of our passing experience. There may well be variations, as in the oft-cited experience of long-distance driving where your attention wanders away from your conscious driving. But long-distance driving is not like sleep-walking or sleep-driving, as reported under some sleep medications. In the wide range of everyday experience, by contrast, we are indeed aware of hearing this, thinking that, doing such-and-such. We should see that inner awareness is its own unique form of awareness, not properly assimilated to any form of representation or monitoring

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of an experience sited in some distinct area of the mind. Phenomenologically, inner awareness is a distinctive feature of a normal conscious experience. As Jean-Paul Sartre put it, consciousness-of-itself is constitutive of consciousness. As I prefer to say, consciousness characteristically includes a form of self-consciousness: a form of inner awareness. Elsewhere I have tried to capture that form of awareness in a complex form of phenomenological description. (See Smith 1986, 1989, 2004, 2005.) Allow me to reiterate that characterization for a simple visual experience: Phenomenally in this very experience I now here see (and smell) this yellow rose.

Here we characterize the phenomenological structure or content of my visual experience of the rose. The object of my act of visual consciousness is presented (or represented or “intended”) in a certain way, as “this yellow rose”. That part of the content of the experience forms the mode of presentation of the rose. But there is more to the content of the experience. The subject of the act is experienced in a certain way, as “I”, and the act itself is experienced in a certain way, as “this very experience”, and so on. These parts of the content of the experience form the modality of presentation in the experience, defining the way I am conscious, not the way the object is presented. Now, on the modal model of (self-)consciousness, I have proposed, inner awareness of an experience is effected by content that falls within the modality—not the mode—of presentation in the experience. Thus, in seeing the rose, I am visually conscious of the rose, not of myself and my experience. Yet I have an immediate inner awareness of my experience and of myself. (The distinction I draw between mode and modality is similar to Husserl’s distinction between the noematic sense of the object and the act’s thetic character: as interpreted in Smith 2007. However, I do not find in Husserl the phenomenological analysis of inner awareness I am pursuing.) In the case at hand I experience a simple visual perception, wherein I experience a certain inner awareness of that perception. In this phenomenological description we distinguish several key features in the structure of the experience: • • • •

 henomenality—the character “phenomenally . . .”; p reflexivity—the character “in this very experience . . .”; subjectivity or egocentricity—“I . . .”; locality—“here now . . .”, centering on my lived body;

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• a ct-typicality—“see . . .” • objectivity—“this yellow rose”. According to this phenomenological articulation, the structure of my inner awareness of my visual experience is the character “phenomenally in this very experience”. Phenomenality consists in the appearance of the experience in my consciousness, its simply arising in my stream of consciousness. A recent fashion gets at this character as what-it-is-like for me to experience this perception. Reflexivity consists in the way the experience reflexively indicates itself, without as it were stepping outside itself to observe itself. My inner awareness of my perceptual experience is formed in the fusion of these two characters, that is, in the character “phenomenally in this very experience”. Well, so goes the “modal” model of (self-)consciousness that I have pursued elsewhere (as in the updated version in Smith 2004, 2005). How, on that model, does inner awareness tie into the basic awareness that I experience in a simple mindfulness meditation? That is where my present essai is leading me. 4 Now let’s try to experience this form of inner awareness. Assume, as a point of familiar experience, that I experience basic awareness. I am aware, not only in meditation, but readily enough in everyday life. I am aware, aware of things around me, aware of myself, and aware of my living body in action. In between particular experiences of sensing, thinking, feeling, I experience basic awareness. This awareness I feel, commonly enough. Meditation attunes me to this basic awareness. And once having discerned it, I continue to experience it in a familiar way—it was always there, with or without my officially noticing it as such. Now also assume, as a point of phenomenological analysis, that my visual experience in seeing the rose has the character of inner awareness whose structure is assayed in the modal model above. That model distinguishes several features of everyday consciousness: not only the way the rose appears or presents itself in that experience, but also—and here is our present concern—the way the experience itself appears or arises in consciousness (nota bena once more: without any further mental activity of representing itself). Within the “modality” of presentation in the experience, we distinguish: the perception’s being experienced by me

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(“. . . I see . . .”), its being indicated reflexively (“. . . in this very experience . . .”), and its occurring phenomenally (“phenomenally . . .”). Consider again this phenomenality, the perception’s “appearing” in my consciousness. Ever since Thomas Nagel memorably asked “what it is like” to experience a mental state (in Nagel 1974), philosophers of mind have focused on the subjective character consisting in what-it-is-like (in the example) for me to see this yellow rose as I prune the bush. However, on closer reflection, we should distinguish in this conscious experience its phenomenality, its reflexivity, and its egocentricity—three distinct characters in the experience. . . . And now we begin to see the unique contribution of the character, phenomenality. The visual experience “appears” in consciousness, in “my” consciousness, “here and now”, in “this very experience” itself. Thus we abstract out phenomenality. Though phenomenality is fused with reflexivity, egocentricity, and locality in the modal character of the experience, phenomenality is distinct from these fellow characters. And in the special attitude of meditation the other characters may drift away while phenomenality remains in play. That is, in the normal flow of everyday conscious experiences, phenomenality is interdependent with reflexivity and egocentricity—and, to emphasize lived embodiment, with locality. In passing moments of mindful meditative consciousness, however, this fusion of characters dissolves and yet I am aware: not aware of a rose or any such thing, not aware of my self or my history, not aware of any particular experience, nor of my lived locality—but yet, simply, aware. That is: “phenomenally . . .”—consciousness is flowing on, awaiting the appearance of, well, whatever. . . . Of course it is my consciousness, phenomenally flowing. But in that passing phase no moment of “I” is appearing. This “pure” consciousness is as if without “I”: here is the “noself” form of awareness so famously described in Buddhist philosophy. We should now see that phenomenality per se is characteristic of consciousness. As one experience passes and another arises in my stream of consciousness, phenomenality remains. There is the “light” of consciousness—to borrow the recurrent metaphor of light. 5 The founder of contemporary phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, spoke of “pure” or “transcendental” consciousness. (Compare Smith 2007.) Husserl did not mean this basic awareness of which we have spoken here,

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s­ ometimes called “pure” consciousness in the contemplative traditions East and West. For the latter I rather like the term “nibbanic ­consciousness”, suggesting the ancient vision of nibbana, or nirvana. In any event, by “pure” consciousness Husserl meant consciousness taken as abstracted from the surrounding world of nature and culture: to practice “transcendental” phenomenology, we are to “bracket” the question of the existence of that surrounding world, and thereby we are to focus on consciousness as experienced. The paradigm form of consciousness we then find is that of an “act” of consciousness: a unit of conscious experience that is directed as if from a subject toward an object—via an ideal meaning structure that represents said object in a certain way. An act of consciousness, in Husserl’s detailed account, occurs within a stream of consciousness. In the modal model, however, we map out elements of structure beyond the structures Husserl carved out in a typical act of consciousness. Each phase in my stream of consciousness, we should see, is grounded in a basic and minimal form of awareness defined by phenomenality, i.e., the modal character “phenomenally”. As further elements of experience arise in my consciousness, this basic awareness fuses with further characters. Those further features, in the running example, include the modal characters “in this very experience”, “I”, “now”, “here”, “see” and the mode of presentation of the object “this yellow rose I am pruning”. On the modal model I’ve proposed, inner awareness characteristically has the form we ascribed by “phenomenally in this very experience . . .”. It is worth noting that this form of inner awareness is distinct from what Husserl famously analyzed as the form of “inner time-consciousness”. On Husserl’s account, the phase of my experience “now” transpiring includes what Husserl called retentions of just-prior phases of my stream of experience and also protentions of just-imminent phases of my stream of consciousness. This structure of retentions and protentions defines my inner awareness of the passage of time (“. . . now . . .”) in my experience. But inner awareness of temporally flowing experience is distinct in form from inner awareness of the flow of time. Or so I’ve argued elsewhere. (The essays by John Drummond and Dan Zahavi in Kriegel and Williford eds. 2006 take Husserl’s account of inner time-consciousness to supply all the structure needed for inner awareness. On that view inner awareness boils down to inner time-consciousness, a pre-reflective temporal self-givenness of consciousness. As noted in Smith 2004, however, I find the form of inner awareness distinct—“logically”—from the form of inner time-­consciousness, though the former is typically supervenient on the latter.)

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On the present picture, then, consciousness begins with basic awareness and develops with further structures as we have described these. In everyday life, I experience these various forms of consciousness, as the case may be. In the form of meditative consciousness described above, I experience and indeed witness basic awareness. In theoretical reflection, I map out these various structures, as above. Moreover, and more precisely, in the discipline of phenomenology it is we who map out these forms of consciousness. For the discipline of phenomenology is an intersubjective effort, like any scientific or artistic endeavor, or indeed like the practice of Buddhism (as the current Dalai Lama notes). “We” seek to understand a form of experience that “I”, each “I”, may experience and may live through with inner awareness. 6 We have been practicing phenomenology. In reflection on everyday lived experience we find the afore-assayed structures of consciousness. In phenomenological reflection we step back and try to articulate the structures of consciousness that we each experience from the first-­person perspective—quite apart from reflection, prior to any reflection. In mindful “witnessing”, I experience these varied forms of consciousness but with a “noticing” form of awareness. In everyday—less mindful, even “mindless”—activity, I simply go about my business, pick up the pruner, look at the yellow rose, sniff it, clip it, and put it in some water. I do so with an integral inner awareness of these activities. If I am skillful enough at the style of “witnessing” practiced in meditation, I may perform these activities with a mindful awareness, witnessing my activity even as I am absorbed in it. In this way I live a more “awakened” experience in pruning the rose bush. Yet that heightened form of mindful awareness is distinct from the immediate inner awareness that is an integral part of my seeing and smelling the rose. Perhaps we should say mindful awareness is a heightened form of inner awareness. Here is food for further reflection in the company of more adept meditators! Now here is my final point in this essai. Phenomenological reflection on my own lived experience is something distinct from and quite removed from these forms of awareness themselves: whether inner awareness of my current experience, or mindful witnessing of my passing experience, or indeed vivid recollection of my experience once passed. . . . One thinks of similar variations of consciousness expressed in Marcel Proust’s À la

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recherche du temps perdu—in effect Proust’s own phenomenological research into his own past experiences, projecting himself into those past times and analyzing what he then experienced. To be precise: in phenomenological reflection I empathize with my own lived experience and invite my fellow researchers to understand empathically that first-person form of experience. Thus, through empathic reconstruction of the structure of my otherwise-lived experience, I develop an analysis of the phenomenological structure of that type of experience, an analysis other phenomenologists can then work with. In today’s idiom “empathy” is primarily a mode of understanding another’s emotional state. However, a more basic form of empathy is that of putting oneself in another’s place as subject: putting myself in the other’s shoes, perhaps in a vivid imagination, so that “I” understand the other “I” ’s experience as if I myself were experiencing it. That is, I step into the role of “I” in that form of consciousness. But how does this basic empathy work in the practice of phenomenological reflection? (See Smith 1989 on the structure of empathy, developing a phenomenology of empathy on the heels of Husserl and his student Edith Stein. Compare essays on empathy, sympathy, and intersubjectivity in Fricke and Føllesdal eds. 2012.) In reflection I step out of my role as subject of the experience under analysis, and from a reflective distance I project myself into that role as subject of the experience under analysis, as it were showing the way to others. Importantly, my base experience is one act of consciousness, and my reflection on that experience is another act of consciousness. Thus, in reflection on my visual experience, for example, I step out of my role as perceiving subject (“I see . . .”) wherein phenomenally in this very experience I now here see this yellow rose

and into my role as reflecting subject (“I reflect . . .”) wherein phenomenally in this very experience I now here reflect on my now here seeing this yellow rose.

And in my act of reflection I place myself as if in the role of “I” wherein “. . . I now here see this yellow rose”. Then in our communal reflection you join me in placing yourself as if in that specified role in the structure “. . . I now here see this yellow rose”. In the art of phenomenological analysis, then, you and I each place our respective selves empathically as if in the role of the subject “I” in that form of experience. (See Smith 1989 and 2005 on the structure of indexical contents to which I here appeal.)

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The intersubjective discipline of phenomenology is thus dependent on our own subjective experience. We are immediately acquainted with our own experience in inner awareness. Inner awareness makes possible recollection of lived experience. But inner awareness also makes possible empathic reconstruction of a form of lived experience. That lived experience itself provides the “phenomena” of consciousness to be analyzed in the practice of phenomenological reflection. . . . And mindful meditation allows a heightened clarity in experiencing-cum-witnessing those phenomena of consciousness. Mindful witnessing of experience amplifies the “phenomena” opening to phenomenological reflection and analysis. Phenomenology is hard work. Experience itself is not. Experience happens. Only then can reflection set in. And, no, one need not develop an explicit syntax of inner awareness, along the “modal” lines above, in order to experience. Rather, it is only in reflection that we come to distinguish such characters of consciousness as phenomenality and reflexivity in inner awareness. Once we discern the character, we may experience it, mindfully, in its uniqueness.1 References Albahari, Miri (2006), Analytical Buddhism: The two-tiered illusion of self (New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Bakewell, Sarah (2010), How to Live—or—A Life of Montaigne (New York: Other Press; Great Britain: Chatto & Windus, Random House UK). Damasio, Antonio (2010), Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain (New York: Pantheon Books). Flanagan, Owen (2011), The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press). Fricke, Christel, and Dagfinn Føllesdal, editors (2012), Intersubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl: A Collection of Essays (Frankfurt: ontos verlag; Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Books, Rutgers University). Kriegel, Uriah (2009), Subjective Consciousness: A Self-Representational Theory (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press). Kriegel, Uriah, and Williford, Kenneth, editors (2006), Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press). Nagel, Thomas (1974), “What Is It Like to be a Bat?”, Philosophical Review 4: 435–450. Smith, David Woodruff (1986), “The Structure of (Self-) Consciousness”, Topoi 5: 149–156. —— (1989), The Circle of Acquaintance: Perception, Consciousness, and Empathy (Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, now Springer).

1 I am grateful to Richard Tieszen and an anonymous referee for comments on the penultimate draft. Their comments helped me to clarify the discussion.

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—— (2004), Mind World: Essays in Phenomenology and Ontology (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press), Essay 3, “Return to Consciousness”, pp. 76–121. —— (2005), “Consciousness with Reflexive Content”, in Smith, David Woodruff, and Amie L. Thomasson, editors, Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 93–114. —— (2007), Husserl (London and New York: Routledge). —— (2011), “Nibbanic (or Pure) Consciousness and Beyond”, Philosophia (2011) 39: 475–491. Thompson, Evan (2007), Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press).

CHAPTER SIX

ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND GLOBAL PHILOSOPHY Richard Tieszen There are many references in the philosophical literature to the division between analytic and Continental philosophy but it is not easy to provide a simple formulation of what it is that distinguishes these approaches to or styles of philosophy. There have been significant subdivisions within what has been considered analytic philosophy, such as that between formal philosophy, ordinary language philosophy, and conceptual analysis, and there have of course also been many variations within the general grouping of Continental philosophy, extending from eidetic phenomenology, existential phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism and semiotics, and neo-Freudian analysis to deconstruction. Philosophers who have written about the split between the analytic and Continental traditions have often focused on the work of particular figures who seem to embody much of what is involved in the division. In The Origins of Analytic Philosophy, for example, Michael Dummett looks to Frege and Husserl and holds that Frege took a turn into the philosophy of language but that Husserl did not, thus initiating a split in modern philosophy. Michael Friedman, to take another example, writes a book entitled A Parting of the Ways in which he focuses on Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger. Over the years I have heard or read a host of characterizations of the two traditions, such as the following: Analytic philosophy strives for clarity, exactness, precision and Continental philosophy does not. Continental philosophy instead tends toward the use of poetic or dramatic language. The methodology of analytic philosophy is argumentation while Continental philosophy, if it has a methodology at all, is concerned with description or narrative or literary quality. Analytic philosophy is, in many domains, reductionistic in nature and Continental philosophy is not. Analytic philosophy tends to be ahistorical while Continental philosophy does not. Analytic philosophers seek to naturalize or formalize or mathematize but Continental philosophers do not. Analytic philosophers have, more often than not, taken the ‘linguistic turn’, while this is not true of

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­ ontinental philosophers. The general idea of the linguistic turn is that, C instead of analyzing X (e.g., Being or obligation) we are to analyze the language of X. I have also heard it said that analytic philosophy places a premium on reason but Continental philosophy does not. Continental philosophy is instead concerned with basic issues of human existence, such as anxiety, authenticity, death, boredom, identity, and so on. One has to be careful about all of these characterizations. I do not think that any one of them, as it stands, is accurate. In this paper I want to consider what I think is one source of disagreement that does run fairly deep in dividing the traditions, especially in connection with efforts in recent times to ‘naturalize’ philosophy in one way or another. Although the contours of the issue are shaped in certain ways by the division between analytic and Continental philosophy, it is an issue that certainly has implications for the broader vision of comparative philosophy that takes in cultures and systems of thinking from around the world. The source of disagreement I have in mind concerns the relationship of science, especially natural science, to philosophy. The issue might be formulated in different ways: Is natural science to be a model for philosophy or not? Is it, in some sense, foundational, so that philosophy should be measured against it or, rather, is philosophy, properly conceived, a foundation for science? Is natural science limited and one-sided as a model for philosophy or does it represent just the sort of regimentation we need in philosophy? One might put it in this way: Is natural science a condition for the possibility of legitimate philosophy or is philosophy in some sense a condition for the possibility of natural science? What is the proper way to think about the relation of philosophy to natural science? It is these kinds of questions, I think, that have a direct bearing on comparative philosophy in a broad sense, and on the prospects for constructive engagement between widely varying philosophical traditions. Several major Continental philosophers have thought deeply and carefully about natural science, while others have had little to say about it one way or the other. Those Continental philosophers who have presented extensive critiques of the sciences have typically argued that philosophy or metaphysics provides a foundation in some sense for the sciences, while many (but not all) analytic philosophers are inclined to a kind of scientism according to which our best efforts to understand reality and knowledge are to be found in the natural sciences. Just think of the various pretensions of philosophers, they might say, that have been undermined by good solid scientific work. Think of the revelations that have

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been made possible by natural science that would not have been possible on the basis of philosophy alone. In most of this paper I compare some ideas on the relation of natural science to philosophy that have emerged from the traditions of analytic and Continental philosophy. It will of course not be possible to do justice to the many strands of thinking about natural science in analytic and Continental philosophy. One could ask general questions, for example, about the understanding or knowledge of Being (or non-Being) in natural science, or one could focus on the work of particular philosophers in either tradition. In order to make the project somewhat more manageable in the space available here I will focus on the philosophy of mind in particular, and especially on issues about human consciousness. In the final sections of the paper I make some remarks on how constructive engagement between different philosophical traditions in the world might benefit from what has transpired in the analytic and Continental encounters over the relation of natural science to philosophy. These other traditions might of course also inform the ongoing disputes that seem to separate analytic from Continental philosophy. 1. Illustrative Quotations on the Place of Science in Analytic and Continental Philosophy A number of the characterizations of the difference between analytic and Continental philosophy that I mentioned above, especially those centering around clarity, precision, use of argumentation, reductionism, formalization, mathematization, and reason, are I think directly related to this issue of how we are to view the relation of philosophy to natural science. Let me provide a few illustrative quotations on both sides of the issue from some major figures in philosophy, starting with some early comments of Martin Heidegger and Rudolph Carnap that express an animosity that persisted for many years. Heidegger wrote extensively on science and technology, and many philosophers know his remark that “science does not think”. Already in his 1929 lecture “What Is Metaphysics?” ­Heidegger says that Science would like to dismiss the nothing with a lordly wave of the hand. But in our inquiry concerning the nothing it has by now become manifest that scientific existence is possible only if in advance it holds itself out into the nothing. It understands itself for what it is only when it does not give up the nothing. The presumed soberness of mind and superiority of

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richard tieszen s­ cience become laughable when it does not take the nothing seriously. Only because the nothing is manifest can science make beings themselves objects of investigation. Only if science exists on the base of metaphysics can it advance further in its essential task, which is not to amass and classify bits of knowledge but to disclose in ever-renewed fashion the entire region of truth in nature and history. Metaphysics is the basic occurrence of Dasein. It is Dasein itself. Because the truth of metaphysics dwells in this groundless ground it stands in closest proximity to the constantly lurking possibility of deepest error. For this reason no amount of scientific rigor attains to the seriousness of metaphysics. Philosophy can never be measured by the standard of the idea of science.

In his infamous paper “The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language” (1932) in which he attacks the lecture of Heidegger from which I just quoted, alleging that it is filled with meaningless pseudo-sentences, the logical positivist Carnap says the following: The development of modern logic has made it possible to give a new and sharper answer to the question of the validity and justification of metaphysics . . . In the domain of metaphysics, including all philosophy of value and normative theory, logical analysis yields the negative result that the alleged statements in this domain are entirely meaningless. But what, then, is left over for philosophy, if all statements whatever that assert something are of an empirical nature and belong to factual science? What remains in not statements, nor a theory, nor a system, but only a method: the method of logical analysis. It is the indicated task of logical analysis, inquiry into logical foundations, that is meant by ‘scientific philosophy’ in contrast to metaphysics.

In The Logical Syntax of Language (1934), Carnap goes on to claim that Philosophy is to be replaced by the logic of science—that is to say, by the logical analysis of the concepts and sentences of the sciences, for the logic of science is nothing other than the logical syntax of the language of science.

The engagement between analytic and Continental philosophy that developed around these kinds of claims was not often not very constructive. An interesting response to Carnap, in turn, can be found in the remarks of one of the greatest logicians of all time, Kurt Gödel. Gödel, who attended meetings of the Vienna Circle on a regular basis, says that Mathematical logic should be used by more nonpositivistic philosophers. The positivists have a tendency to represent their philosophy as a consequence of logic—to give it scientific dignity. Other philosophers think that positivism is identical with mathematical logic, which they consequently avoid. (Kurt Gödel, as cited by Hao Wang in A Logical Journey: From Gödel to Philosophy (1996), 174.)

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It is known that Gödel began to study Husserl’s work in 1959.1 Writing about his interest in Husserl in a lecture manuscript from 1961, “The Modern Development of the Foundations of Mathematics in the Light of Philosophy”, Gödel says . . . not only is there no objective reason for the rejection of [phenomenology], but on the contrary one can present reasons in its favor.

Gödel comments on one of the central concepts in Husserlian phenomenology, the concept of intentionality: One fundamental discovery of introspection marks the true beginning of psychology. This discovery is that the basic form of consciousness distinguishes between an intentional object and our being pointed (directed) toward it in some way (willing, feeling, cognizing). There are various kinds of intentional object. There is nothing analogous in physics. This discovery marks the first division of phenomena between the psychological and the physical. (Wang 1996, 169)

Finally, I note a remark by Quine (Word and Object (1960), § 45) about this same concept of intentionality: The Scholastic word ‘intentional’ was revived by Brentano in connection with the verbs of propositional attitude and related verbs [such as] ‘hunt’, ‘want’, etc. The division between such idioms and the normally tractable ones is notable. We saw how it divides referential from non-referential occurrences of terms. Moreover it is intimately related to the division between behaviorism and mentalism, between efficient cause and final cause, and between literal theory and dramatic portrayal. One may accept the Brentano thesis either as showing the indispensability of intentional idioms and the importance of an autonomous science of intention, or as showing the baselessness of intentional idioms and the emptiness of a science of intention. My attitude, unlike Brentano’s, is the second.

It would of course be possible to provide many more quotations to show that differences over the relationship of (natural) science to philosophy continue to divide analytic from Continental philosophers. It is an issue that has at times clearly interfered with constructive engagement between the two traditions. Skirmishes of this type even receive a lot of attention in the popular press on occasion, as happened several years ago with the so-called ‘Sokal hoax’, which led to the book by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont titled Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of 1 For more on Gödel and Husserl, see my After Gödel: Platonism and Rationalism in Mathematics and Logic (2011).

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Science and to the more recent Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture by Sokal. 2. Philosophy of Mind as an Example The relationship of science to philosophy in analytic and Continental philosophy is a large issue. I would like to limit the scope of the discussion somewhat, as I indicated, by considering as an example the differing views in the case of the philosophy of mind, especially as this concerns human consciousness. The twentieth century saw a succession of efforts, championed by many analytic philosophers, to develop a natural science of the human mind. The natural’ sciences involved were of different types but what they had in common, as I will argue in a moment, is a set of features that has to be in place if natural science is to exist at all. Neuroscience played the central role in identity theory, while behaviorists focused instead on trying to develop a science at the level of observable human behavior, dispositions to behave, and operant conditioning. Since the time that identity theory emerged there have been various forms of neuroscientific reductionism. From a different direction, linguistics was being linked by some thinkers with the effort to develop a natural science of the mind. Functionalism then emerged in response to problems with behaviorism and identity theory. Computational or Turing machine functionalism was the main contender. It was at this stage that computer science entered into the effort to develop a natural science of the mind. This approach itself splintered into ‘symbolic’, serial models of minds, parallel distributed processing (connectionist) models of minds, or various hybrids of such models. At an even later stage such models were criticized for their lack of biological realism. Evolutionary biology, it was argued, should figure into any science of the mind. Perhaps we are, for example, ‘Darwin machines’ of some kind. Every one of these efforts to develop a (natural) science of the mind in the twentieth century, however, was faced with the same problem: leaving out or failing to do justice to consciousness. This ‘problem of consciousness’ has been invariant through all of these positions, as well as a number of other positions, and at present it is just as troublesome for natural science as it has ever been. From the point of view of a number of Continental philosophers, however, it is obvious why the problem of consciousness has persisted throughout all of the efforts to develop a natural science of the mind. I think that some of Husserl’s work, in particular, makes this

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especially clear. In order to see why the problem has persisted I will start by considering some of the conditions that have to be met in order for modern natural science to be possible. 3. The Origins of Modern Natural Science Science, as we understand it today, did not always exist. There are deep analyses of the origins of modern natural science, especially from the side of some Continental philosophers. What we need to do is to consider some of the general features involved in our understanding the world on the basis of the natural sciences. In speaking of ‘natural sciences’ in this paper I have in mind primarily what have been called the ‘hard’ sciences, such as the various areas of mathematical physics, chemistry, computer science, mathematical biology, and the like. A distinction is sometimes drawn between the natural sciences and the human sciences. There are features of the natural sciences that are not always present in areas of investigation that focus on human beings and their activities, such as the social sciences. The following aspects of our experience, aspects that can overlap and condition one another, are involved in making the natural sciences possible: (1) T  he central epistemic idea of empiricism or naturalism is that all knowledge is derived from sensory (external or outer) experience. Evidence in natural science is based on sensory experience. While humans are evidently capable of both inner experience (introspection) and outer experience, science is focused on outer experience. The natural sciences often seek to determine causal relations and proffer causal explanations in domains of inquiry that are based on sensory experience of objects and processes in nature, although there are some anomalies about this in domains such as quantum physics. Hypotheses in natural science need not always be causal. They can be merely correlational. (2) The distinction between quantitative and qualitative aspects of our experience of the external world, and the use of calculational or mechanical techniques with the quantitative aspects. (3) The distinction between formal and ‘material’ aspects of our thinking and understanding (where calculation can also be used with the formal aspects) concerning the external world, along with a related distinction between form and meaning.

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(4) T  he role of idealization and abstraction. (5) The related distinction between the universal and the particular, or between the general and the specific, with the idea that natural ­science is to seek generalities, uniformities, or universal laws concerning natural phenomena in different domains. (6) The fact that there are prereflective and immediate forms of experience and also more reflective, mediate forms of experience. (7) The fact that science requires ‘objectivity’, so that some way of separating the objective from the subjective is called for by modern ­science. I will not say much here about point (1). Hypotheses of natural science are sometimes correlational and not causal, and some theories of natural science are mostly, if not entirely, descriptive in nature. The claim that that all knowledge is derived from sensory (external or outer) experience, however, establishes a baseline for natural sciences. Sense experience is perfectly appropriate for and is required by empirical sciences. Concerning point (2), one of the central features involved in many of the natural sciences is calculative thinking. Not all types of thinking appear to be calculative but calculative thinking is a condition for the possibility of many of our sciences. One simply cannot engage in vast domains of natural science without calculative methods and concepts. It can of course take a great deal of training and specialization to master and develop these methods and concepts, and the methods and concepts will themselves take on more or less value as a function of how much work they do, the range of their application, how efficient they are, and so on. Calculative thinking requires that we be able to distinguish quality from quantity in phenomena. One must be able to quantify phenomena to make them amenable to calculational techniques. This emphasis on the mathematization of experience is clearly present at the beginning of modern natural science in the distinction between so-called primary and secondary qualities. Such a distinction can be found in the work of Galileo, Descartes, Locke, and others. It has been argued that the distinction is present even in ancient Greek philosophy. In Galileo’s work, for example, number, shape, magnitude, position, and motion are taken to be primary qualities and colors, tastes, smells, and warmth/cold to be secondary qualities. The former properties are seen as objective features of experience while the latter are viewed as subjective. Indeed, the primary qualities are just those that are mathematizable and, in Galileo’s view, are absolute and immutable, while the secondary qualities are sensory, relative, and fluctuating. Knowledge is concerned with primary qualities, but opinion and illusion

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are generally associated with secondary qualities. One might hold that the primary qualities inhere in the objects themselves while secondary qualities do not. The primary qualities are tightly linked with third-­person, empirical observation. They are the ‘objective’ features of the world of causes and effects. The features of quantification and calculation are attended by the feature involved in scientific understanding mentioned in point (3): the shift from ‘contentual’ or ‘material’ aspects of thinking and understanding to formal aspects. The quantifiable aspects of our experience are represented in mathematical and logical formulas. Mathematics, mathematical physics, chemistry, mathematical modeling in evolutionary biology, engineering, and many of the other pure and applied sciences require that we discern the form or structure of phenomena. In attempting to determine the form or structure of a phenomenon a kind of formal abstraction takes place. What we abstract from, what is not needed, is what I have called the ‘content’ or ‘matter’ associated with the phenomenon. One of the interesting outgrowths of mathematization is that once we have worked out the appropriate mathematics for the scientific treatment of a phenomenon we can often mechanize the mathematics. What we have said thus far is that with the modern understanding of the world in natural science there is often a focus on quantitative aspects of our experience, where computational techniques are used with the quantitative features abstracted. The understanding of the world in natural science, in a similar vein, involves a shift to formal or structural ­features of experience in which we abstract from content or certain aspects of meaning. These shifts, as indicated in point (4), are attended by a kind of idealization. Everyday experience is inexact and imprecise in a variety of ways. With the shift to quantification and formalization we obtain a kind of precision and exactness that is otherwise not available to us. This move toward the more exact and precise involves us in various idealizations. We leave behind some of the complexity and richness but also the imperfection of the plenum of everyday experience. The scientific understanding of the world is thus typically an understanding in which various idealizations of the world are at work. Points (2), (3) and (4) are closely related to some issues about the language of science and the language of philosophy. It is not possible to quantify and calculate in just any language. The languages in which we quantify and calculate in many of the natural sciences are exact, formal languages. In the sciences one attempts to eliminate ambiguity and vagueness. This is a prerequisite for testing and confirming theoretical ­hypotheses, and for

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making predictions. If we cannot minimize the number of possible interpretations of the expressions of the language of a science then we cannot obtain definite results that can be corroborated. Scientific language is thus generally characterized by a kind of exactness and rigor that we do not find outside of the sciences. According to point (5), natural science requires that we be able to distinguish universal from particular features in our experience. Natural science is all about finding regularities, generalizations, or lawlike features of the world on the basis of our particular sensory experiences. Points (2), (3), and (4) are all involved in making this possible. As I have been indicating, the understanding of the world provided by natural science involves various kinds of abstraction. It requires us to abstract from a larger whole, i.e., the whole of our experience. It is common in certain theories of wholes and parts to distinguish ‘pieces’ (independent parts) from ‘moments’ (non-independent parts). What makes a part of a whole a piece is just that it can exist independently of the whole of which it is a part, while this is not possible in the case of moments. Moments are abstractions that are ‘founded’ on larger given wholes. Now quantification, formalization, generalization, variation and the like are moments of our experience. They are founded on our experience as a whole, where this experience also includes qualitative, contentual, non-calculational, ‘meaningful’, referential, and particular or specific aspects. The modern understanding of the world in natural science would therefore count as a founded understanding of the world. This means that there is a deeper, founding whole on which it depends and of which it is a part. In a book that is of some interest for comparative philosophy, The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl calls the deeper founding stratum of everyday practices and perception the ‘lifeworld’ (Lebenswelt). This notion of the lifeworld had a significant impact on subsequent work in the Continental tradition of philosophy. A conception such as the lifeworld can also be found in the work of other philosophers. Wilfrid Sellars, for example, distinguishes what he calls the ‘manifest image’ of the world from the ‘scientific image’. Sellars would probably be considered by most people, by the way, to be an analytic philosopher. This leads us to point (6). The founded understanding of the world that is present in natural science and modern technology requires the various kinds of reflective activities we have been discussing. The modern scientific understanding of the world is, I would like to argue, a more reflective form of understanding that involves us in various abstractions and

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idealizations. There are, however, also prereflective and more immediate forms of understanding or awareness. These are forms of understanding or awareness that do not involve all of the abstractions and scientific theorizing that are in the background of the understanding of the world in natural science. To abstract features of our experience is not itself to be engaged in experience in the same way that we would be were we not abstracting. Abstracting features of experience already requires, as we said, taking a more reflective stance on our experience. Indeed, we might draw a general (albeit relative) distinction between reflective and prereflective modes of experience. Prereflective modes of experience would be more immediate forms of experience. They would not involve the kind of mediation that attends higher levels of generalization, abstraction, imaginative variation, and theory construction. So the features we abstract from our experience are founded on some larger whole of experience. As Husserl says, there is a founding level of experience and then also founded forms of experience. The natural sciences must count as providing us with a founded form of experience. Modern natural science is built up over time out of abstractions that involve more reflective, mediate and theoretical stances on our experience. There are, as it were, layers of thinking, directedness, and experience. Various Continental philosophers have pointed out that there can be and has been lifeworld experience without natural science. What this higher-level interpretive scheme yields, however, is just the kind of distinction noted in point (7). Points (2)–(6), which are concerned with quantification, calculation, formalization, idealization, exactness, precision, and generalization, all involve a more reflective, mediated perspective on the world. Along with point (1), they are all features that allow us to separate what is objective from what is subjective. They are conditions that make levels of objectification possible. The scientific understanding of the world involves us in a higher degree of objectification of the world. It is thanks to these features that other commonly recognized aspects of objectivity are possible, such as intersubjective agreement on methods and results and repeatability of calculations, experiments, procedures, and the like. As mentioned earlier, it was the intention of Galileo and other founders of modern natural science to distinguish what was absolute and immutable from what was relative, fluctuating and due solely to subjective sensory experience. Knowledge is then supposedly concerned with the former characteristics and the rest is a matter of opinion and illusion. It is a corollary of our earlier analysis that this search for ‘objective’ characteristics itself involves a kind of abstraction from our experience. The

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point is precisely to excise the subjective aspects of experience. What we obtain with natural science is a kind of objectivity that would otherwise be lacking in our epistemic enterprises. We can leave behind the inner sensings, feelings, thoughts, and subjective perspectives and focus on the outer observable phenomena that would, in principle, be available to all. What natural science yields is just the third-person stance on the world. In short, the intention behind it is precisely to abstract from human subjectivity, to minimize subjectivity and maximize objectivity. With these seven points we can therefore specify some of the central elements of the scientific understanding of nature, an understanding that has set the tone for a lot of thinking in analytic philosophy. The features I have discussed, taken as a whole, give us a particular perspective on the world. They provide a way of interpreting the world. Science reveals the world to us in a certain way. It is by these means that we approximate an exactness, clarity, and distinctness in our knowledge that is not part of our everyday, informal understanding of the world. Indeed, an interpretive scheme comprised of these components has a normative character. In light of the successes of mathematical natural science and modern technology we might come to believe that we should quantify, formalize, and idealize. This kind of interpretive scheme is routinely applied to nature and everything in nature. We can see how it is at work in the various natural sciences. It conditions what is revealed to us and the revelations of natural science have indeed been very successful, yielding predictions, control, and hence a remarkable kind of power over nature in many domains. Great advances in science and technology have been made on many fronts. Before moving on to the next section, it should be noted that I do not mean to deny that there are sciences that lack some of the features mentioned in the seven points above. Several of the points are necessary conditions for natural science but some parts of natural science might be non-quantitative, might be primarily descriptive and not focused on providing causal explanations, or might not engage formalization to any significant extent. I will make some further comments about this below. 4. Limitations on Natural Science in Philosophy of Mind The distinctions that lie behind the empiricist, scientific worldview and modern mechanism that are indicated in our seven points allow us to separate the subjective from the objective. They are in fact used for just this

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purpose. With quantification, calculation, formalization, idealization and exactness we obtain intersubjective agreement on methods and results, including repeatability of calculations, experiments, procedures, and predictions. We obtain a kind of objectivity, and objectivity is what we seek everywhere in the modern sciences. Now here is the point that is made by a number of Continental philosophers: what happens when this kind of interpretive scheme is turned back around on human beings in particular? What happens is that the very methods required in order for the natural sciences to be possible are methods that abstract away from subjectivity, consciousness, intentionality, and other features of experience itself. Positions that have been favored by many analytic philosophers, such as behaviorism, computational functionalism, connectionism, and neuroscientific reductionism about the mind, all tend toward or even promote a kind of eliminativism about consciousness, intentionality, qualia, and the like. It is not surprising that what is ‘revealed’ to us is that the nature of human being is quantifiable, formalizable or computational. When we turn natural science back around on ourselves we thus find that, true to our intentions to eliminate human subjectivity, we have eliminated human subjectivity with all of its complexity and detail. Instead we have a purely objectified subject, merely the outer shell as it were. Consciousness, the very essence of subjectivity, disappears. At earlier stages in the development of the modern sciences the human body was interpreted as a machine, with the effect that the “lived body” and bodily intentionality were ignored. The distinction between the human body as a purely material thing (Körper) and the lived body (Leib) as a source of intentionality and meaning conferral was covered over (see, e.g., Husserl 1970). The mind/body problem develops at the point at which the body is seen as an object of natural science, as purely objective, but the mind is not yet seen as an object of natural science. If the mind is still seen as subjective, even as a soul, then how could it possibly be related to the body? As the natural sciences are extended and augmented the human mind also comes to be seen in purely objective terms in various ‘sciences of the mind’, e.g., as a machine. Thus, we develop in the sciences an interpretive scheme the goal of which is to absolutely minimize subjectivity and to maximize objectivity and when we apply this interpretive scheme to the human mind we see that we achieve just this effect. The problem is that we are forgetting what this interpretive scheme abstracts from or leaves behind in the first place. It is not a foundation but is rather already a founded, reflective scheme

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that depends on making the abstractions we have noted (e.g., outer to the exclusion of inner experience, quantitative from qualitative features, primary from secondary qualities, form from content) and then forgetting about the whole from which they were abstracted. Hence, it can become a limited or one-sided view that conceals much that is important about human cognition. The key point is this: the claim that the human mind or body is the ‘object’ of one of these sciences depends on the fact that human beings whose cognitive acts exhibit intentionality have developed a particular interpretive scheme in the first place, a scheme which they have then applied to themselves. We have, in effect, taken an important and fruitful interpretive scheme and applied it beyond its legitimate boundaries. In so doing, we substitute parts of what we are for the whole. At the founding level of all of this, however, we have human subjects with intentionality who build up ways of understanding the world through their manifold capacities for interpretation. The claim that human minds and bodies are to be understood only through such natural sciences rests on a development that presupposes the human capacity for meaning conferral, intentionality, directedness, acts of abstraction, and so on. Science itself is just a kind of directedness. It is a type of intentionality. Our awareness of our own consciousness, however, does not depend on building up layers of scientific theory, abstraction, idealization, and so on. At the prereflective, pre-scientific level humans are already conscious interpreters of the world who are directed toward various goals. Among the features of human consciousness that should presumably be considered in the philosophy of mind but that tend to be concealed by the filtering required for natural science are the following: detailed structural features of the intentionality of consciousness, the meaning-giving character of conscious experience, the perspectival character of consciousness, the inner and outer horizons associated with acts of consciousness, the figure/ground structure of consciousness, qualia, the temporal structure of consciousness with its retention-protention and secondary memory components, the underdetermination of perceptual observation by sensation, and so on. Focusing on this example in the philosophy of mind, let us now come back to the questions I posed earlier on the relation of science to philosophy in analytic and Continental philosophy. Is natural science to be a model for philosophy of mind or not? Is it, in some sense, foundational, so that philosophy should be measured against it or, rather, is philosophy, properly conceived, a foundation for science? Is natural science limited and one-sided as a model for philosophy of mind or does it represent just

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the sort of regimentation we need in philosophy? Is natural science a condition for the possibility of legitimate philosophy or is philosophy in some sense a condition for the possibility of natural science? The argument is that if we are to see things whole then we must keep both objectivity and subjectivity in the picture. The interpretive scheme involved in natural science provides us with a founded understanding of the world and there is a deeper, founding whole on which it depends. This deeper founding stratum of everyday practices and perception, as noted above, is called the ‘lifeworld’ in Husserl’s philosophy. There are prereflective and more immediate forms of understanding and knowing. These are forms of understanding and knowing that do not involve all of the abstractions of the interpretive scheme we have been discussing. Natural science has not always existed but it does not follow that human beings had no understanding or knowledge of anything prior to the development of natural science. On the view I am describing the interpretive scheme of the natural sciences is not foundational but is itself founded on our lifeworld experience.2 Natural science can make us blind to our own subjective experience. Thus, I am arguing against reductionism in this sense. Skepticism about the claim that human consciousness is real or that human subjective qualitative states are real, for example, is skepticism gone too far. I think it is a false dilemma to claim that we must choose between pure objectivity and pure subjectivity. Surely there can be some objectivity about human subjectivity. We can presumably even arrive at objective claims about human consciousness that are not based on natural science. These would be claims about the structures of human consciousness that make natural science possible in the first place. For example, it seems to be invariant across different human subjects that human consciousness is perspectival, or that human beliefs exhibit intentionality. In the case of intentionality, what could it possibly mean to say that humans have beliefs but the beliefs are not about anything? Objective claims about human consciousness that are not based on natural science, such as statements about intentionality, the perspectival character 2 Thus one can also see why Continental philosophers who reflect on science often use language that differs from the language of science. Should we expect that which is presupposed by a science to be expressed in the language of that science? Generally, should we expect a statement of the conditions for the possibility of science to use the language of science? It is a further matter, however, just what kind of language is appropriate at the founding level. One sees wide-ranging differences on this matter within Continental philosophy. My own view is that obscurantism in philosophy is not very helpful, but I won’t go into the issues here.

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of consciousness, the horizons of conscious acts, qualia, the temporal structure of consciousness, and so on, might very well involve generalization, abstraction, and perhaps even some idealization, but this seems to be inescapable if there is to be any theory or any philosophy of anything. The point is not to abandon theory or philosophy but to exercise a kind of skepticism about one-sided or reductionistic theorizing or philosophizing. We should also put a somewhat finer point on our remarks about science here. Some phenomenologists, for example, have followed Husserl in thinking that there can be an eidetic, a priori science of human consciousness, where the model of science does not stem from empiricism but rather from the tradition of rationalism. Objectivity about subjectivity on such a view would certainly involve abstraction, material a priori generalization from particular individuals, making essences salient through imaginative variation, and so on. Phenomenology, on this view, would not be a natural science but would be a material a priori science that is descriptive, primarily non-quantitative, not in search of causal explanation, and not engaged in formalization to any extent. It was already noted above how there are even parts of natural science that are descriptive, primarily non-quantitative, not in search of causal explanation, and not engaged in formalization to any extent. Natural science, however, cannot be construed as a material a priori or eidetic science.3 Many Continental philosophers in Husserl’s wake, however, abandoned his idea of phenomenology as eidetic science. Indeed, the model of ‘scientific philosophy’ in any form was rejected. 5. Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Philosophy? Although I have focused on some particular issues about natural science and consciousness, one could consider many other kinds of examples. Suppose we ask, for example, whether biological evolution makes the human mind possible. According to our best scientific theory on the matter, the theory of evolution, the answer of course is ‘yes’. The argument we are considering can be construed as agreeing with this and then adding that we should nonetheless not forget that the human mind makes the theory of evolution possible in the first place. Certain features of human

3 For more on the distinction between material a priori science and material a posteriori science see, e.g., Chapter 1 of Tieszen 2005.

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c­ ognition, as just suggested, are presupposed by the existence of any theory whatsoever. These features are, in this sense, a condition for the possibility of theory construction. What would these prior (‘a priori’) conditions be? It seems to me to be perfectly legitimate to hold that it is the business of philosophy to explore this question. We can say the same thing about each of our best scientific theories. I think there can be no doubt that the engagement between analytic and Continental philosophy has at times been destructive. It has had its episodes of bitterness, exclusion, power politics, and so on. Do I think constructive engagement between analytic and Continental philosophy on the relation of science to philosophy is possible? Yes. This is possible not only in philosophy of mind but also in other areas in which differences have been manifest. It may not be an easy problem to overcome (consider again the quotations in § 1 of this paper), but if we can see more clearly into our own philosophical past in the twentieth century then we can perhaps make more progress in fostering constructive engagement and balance between at least some elements of these traditions. Indeed, a number of the featured speakers in the Center for Comparative Philosophy Symposium for which this paper was originally written have fostered such constructive engagement over the years: Dagfinn Føllesdal has done this in connection with ideas of Quine and Husserl, Hubert Dreyfus is known for his work on the relation of Heidegger to artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and John Searle has worked on intentionality and philosophy of language. There are now many other instances of such crosstradition engagement. In the past few decades there has been a significant postanalytic turn within analytic philosophy as well as an analytic turn in parts of Continental philosophy. This signifies progress, in my view. Not only is it good to try to prevent wars but the interactions have been fruitful in many ways. 6. The Place of Natural Science in Global Philosophy The split between analytic and Continental philosophy is a relatively recent phenomenon in the tradition of Western philosophy. What bearing, if any, does it have on comparative philosophy in a broad sense, and on the prospects for constructive engagement between widely varying philosophical traditions? What implications might it have for philosophy in traditions such as those associated with China, India, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and so on? I think that the issues that have been

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raised about the relation of natural science to philosophy in analytic and Continental philosophy are certainly relevant to and important for comparative philosophy in a broader sense. Western philosophy has been deeply influenced by science and technology but there have also been reactions against this influence in some quarters in Western philosophy. This dynamic is still being played out. Philosophy in other parts of the world has arguably not yet engaged with science and technology to the same extent, although this is happening more and more as time passes. What is the appropriate relation of natural science to philosophy? Some interesting and important answers to this question have already been thematized and developed in the interactions between analytic and Continental philosophy. Science and technology have affected our world profoundly and they will continue to do so. The investigation of relation of natural science to philosophy in a global context is a large topic in its own right, but let me just briefly mention two further examples to give an indication of what I have in mind. It would be possible to choose many such examples. Example 1—Daoism Meets Natural Science. One of my favorite texts in Chinese philosophy is the Dao De Jing. Now what is the appropriate relation of natural science to philosophy when natural science meets a philosophical and poetic text such as the Dao De Jing? The Wing-Tsit Chan translation of Chapter 1 of the Dao De Jing reads as follows:4 The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; The Named is the mother of all things. Therefore let there always be non-being, so we may see their subtlety, And let there always be being, so we may see their outcome. The two are the same, But after they are produced, they have different names. They both may be called deep and profound. Deeper and more profound, The door of all subtleties!

4 The English translations of the Dao De Jing vary widely. For an interesting per­spective on this, with an alternative translation of the first sentences of Chapter 1 of the Dao De Jing, see my colleague Bo Mou’s “Eternal Dao, Constant Name, and Language Engagement” (2003).

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I think that many philosophers would take this passage to have more in common with certain types of Continental philosophy than it does with types of analytic philosophy. Be that as it may, what is the appropriate relation of natural science to this kind of philosophy? Presumably natural science should not be or is not in a position to dismiss such a philosophical text with a lordly wave of the hand. Perhaps we need to exercise some skepticism about science as “the Grand Narrative” (in Derrida’s colorful but derisive phrase). One might be worried about what remains of the passage if we measure it against the standards of natural science that were spelled out in § 3 above, such as empirical verification, limitation to primary qualities that can be quantified and formalized, preference for form over content, preference for exact language, and so on. As we argued in §§ 3–4, the conditions 1–7 provide a founded interpretation of the world that starts with external experience and then abstracts, idealizes, quantifies, formalizes, and possibly mechanizes. It is an interpretation that provides a certain perspective on the world. It has been argued that such an interpretive scheme reveals many remarkable facts about the world but that we must also be careful about what it might conceal. The interactions that have taken place between analytic and Continental philosophy suggest that we need to take care not to forget about the whole from which the interpretation was abstracted. Are there important perspectives on the world that might be concealed or forgotten if we adopt the interpretive scheme of the natural sciences? Should we not be careful about slipping into an eliminative reductionism here? These are all points have been made and discussed in the literature on the place of science in analytic and Continental philosophy. Heidegger even says at one point that “. . . perhaps ancient traditions of thought will awaken in Russia or China which will help man achieve a free relationship to the technological world” (Heidegger, 1977). It is known, by the way, that Heidegger studied the Dao De Jing. Example 2—Buddhism Meets Natural Science. What happens, for example, when philosophical views such as logical positivism or neuroscientific reductionism meet Buddhist philosophy? It is not clear to me that one could expect the engagement in this case to be constructive. Is Buddhist philosophy to be measured by the standards of science? Is natural science to be dismissed in Buddhist philosophy? The point is that Buddhism would do well not to model itself on the natural sciences in the way that some forms of analytic philosophy modeled themselves on the natural sciences. I am not arguing that Buddhist philosophy should forget about

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or turn its back on natural science. On the other hand, the strong antiscientific or obscurantist aspects of some types of Continental philosophy are also not very helpful. A good example of an effort to find the right balance here can be found in the some of the work of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, such as his book The Universe in a Single Atom.5 The Dalai Lama is very open to science but he evidently feels that while science can perhaps correct Buddhism in certain respects (e.g., Abhidharma cosmology) it is not in a position to overrule Buddhist ideas on all matters. On Buddhist views on consciousness, for example, he says Even from this brief discussion, it is, I think, clear that the third-person method—which has served science so well in so many areas—is inadequate to the explanation of consciousness. What is required, if science is successfully to probe the nature of consciousness, is nothing short of a paradigm shift. That is, the third-person perspective, which can measure phenomena from the point of view of an independent observer, must be integrated with a first-person perspective, which will allow the incorporation of subjectivity and the qualities that characterize the experience of consciousness. A comprehensive scientific study of consciousness must therefore embrace both third-person and first-person methods: it cannot ignore the phenomenological reality of subjective experience but must observe all the rules of scientific rigor. So the critical question is: Can we envision a scientific methodology for the study of consciousness whereby a robust first-person method, which does full justice to the phenomenology of experience, can be combined with the objectivist perspective of the study of the brain? Here I feel a close collaboration between modern science and the contemplative traditions such as Buddhism, could prove beneficial. (The Dalai Lama 2005, 133–134) In my view, the combination of the first-person method with the thirdperson method offers the promise of a real advance in the scientific study of consciousness. (The Dalai Lama 2005, 142)

These ideas are remarkably similar to some of the points about science that have emerged in constructive interactions between analytic and Continental philosophers. 7. Conclusion: The Need for Balance Our brief reflections on analytic and Continental philosophy, science, and global philosophy show how we can avoid the view according to which the sciences and technology provide the fundamental or only ways of 5 I am thinking also of his participation in the “Mind and Life” dialogues, and spinoffs such Hayward and Varela 2001.

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k­ nowing, understanding, and being in the world, and that value natural science and technology above all else. If we should avoid such a scientism it does not at all follow that we should avoid science. It is rather just a matter of keeping it in its proper place. Natural science reveals and conceals. I think the idea would be to retain and develop what is revealed by the sciences, subject to critical scrutiny, responsibility, and broader values, but also to cultivate our understanding of the fundamental features of experience that are concealed by the sciences, where this is also subject to critical scrutiny, responsibility, and broader values. What we arguably need, therefore, is a kind of balance. We do not want to reject science but, rather, we would like to develop the right kind of relationship to it. We need to get it in perspective. To put it in perspective is at the same time to see its limits. On the one hand, there is a tendency toward scientism in many forms of analytic philosophy. If scientism is the view that it is only through science and technology that we have knowledge or understanding of anything then it is an exclusionary view. There is a kind of reductionism at work in some quarters of science in which anything not reducible to scientific knowledge is to be rejected. Of course one can be more or less hard-nosed about this but there are in fact some very hard noses out there. A scientific understanding of Being (or non-Being) on which one embraced the abstractions inherent in the scientific worldview and then either forgot about or covered over what was left behind by the abstractions is, by intention or not, a kind of eliminative reductionism. It is a reductionism that can be understood in terms of the part-whole scheme outlined above. On the other hand, the ideas I have expressed do not imply that we ought to rebound into an anti-scientific or anti-technology stance. Science and technology, in addition to having the potential to provide enormous practical benefits to humanity, can provide an important corrective to the many possible interpretations of the world that involve superstition, credulousness, religious intolerance, and the like. Science and technology can instill a healthy skepticism. Skepticism about the claims that the earth is flat, that the universe is only several thousand years old, or that phlogiston exists, for example, is a healthy skepticism. A scientific worldview can also, however, issue in an unhealthy skepticism that would have us deny a place for other important features of our world.6 6 This is a revised version of a paper that appeared under the same title in the online open access journal Comparative Philosophy, 2(2) (2011): 4–22. An early version of the paper was presented as an invited lecture at the April 10, 2010, Symposium on Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy, sponsored by the

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Carnap, R. (1959), “The Elimination of Metaphysics Through the Logical Analysis of Language”. Originally published in German in 1931. English translation by A. Pap in A.J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press), 60–81. —— (2002) The Logical Syntax of Language (La Salle, IL: Open Court). Originally published in German in 1934. English translation by A. Smeaton. Dalai Lama (2005), The Universe in a Single Atom (New York: Broadway Books). Dummett, M. (1994), Origins of Analytic Philosophy (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press). Friedman, M. (2000), A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger (La Salle, IL: Open Court). Gödel, K. (1961), “The Modern Development of the Foundations of Mathematics in the Light of Philosophy”, in Kurt Gödel: Collected Works, Vol. III (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 374–387. Hayward, J. and Varela, F. (2001), Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind (Boston: Shambhala). Heidegger, M. (1977), “Only a God Can Save Us Now”, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 6: 5–27. This is an English translation by D. Schendler of a 1966 Der Spiegel interview with Heidegger. —— (1977), “What Is Metaphysics?”, in D.F. Krell (ed.) Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings (New York: Harper & Row), 95–112. Originally delivered in German in 1929 as an inaugural lecture at Freiburg University. English translation by D.F. Krell. Husserl, E. (1970), The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press). Originally published in German in 1936. English Translation by D. Carr. Lao Zi (1963), Tao Te Ching (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill). English translation by WingTsit Chan. Mou, Bo (2003), “Eternal Dao, Constant Name, and Language Engagement”, in B. Mou (ed.) Comparative Approaches to Chinese Philosophy (Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate), 245–262. Quine, W.V.O. (1960), Word and Object (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press). Sokal, A., and Bricmont, J. (1998), Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science (New York: Picador). Sokal, A. (2010), Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Tieszen, R. (2005), Phenomenology, Logic, and the Philosophy of Mathematics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). —— (2011), After Gödel: Platonism and Rationalism in Mathematics and Logic (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Wang, H. (1996), A Logical Journey: From Gödel to Philosophy (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press).

Center for Comparative Philosophy at San José State University. I am grateful to Bo Mou and to the other speakers and audience members for their comments and questions. I also thank three anonymous referees for their insightful comments on the paper.

CHAPTER SEVEN

OF BOUNDARIES AND WHAT FALLS BETWEEN THE CRACKS: PHILOSOPHY, ITS HISTORY, AND CHINESE ‘PHILOSOPHY’ Mary Tiles “Le passé de la culture a pour véritable fonction de préparer un avenir de la culture” [The real role of a culture’s past is to prepare it for its future.] Bachelard (1951)

If you agree with what Bachelard says about contemporary physics, you will be likely to think that the same it true for the culture of contemporary philosophy. However, from within the culture of analytic philosophy it will be seen to be equally false for philosophy and for physics, since the culture of both has been ahistorical.1 Logical relations are atemporal, the posing and resolution of problems by rational (logical) and empirically objective methods is only contingently related to historical time; philosophical problems are perennial and scientific truths timeless. Equally for early modern European humanists, natural theologians and early Jesuit missionaries, moral and theological problems were perennial, religious and philosophic truths as timeless as the one true all-knowing creator-God, for they too placed their faith in the power of logically articulated reason, the natural light that is the gift of God to all humans.2 But they assumed that knowledge had been conferred at creation and had been degraded with time; their Enlightenment successors reversed the story changing it to one in which humans were created in ignorance and, because they are not (yet) gods, require time progressively to acquire knowledge of truths which do not themselves change. Here I want briefly to explore the implications of these simplified contrasts. In particular I am interested in the connections between views of history of philosophy and the possible projects of comparative 1   In the case of analytic philosophy this may be beginning to change. 2 Although for them the logic was Aristotelian syllogistic, not first order predicate ­calculus.

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­ hilosophy—what can be seen, and what is hidden in the unmentionable p depths of the cracks between boundaries. One problem created by boundaries is that they can be hard to cross, another is that things may be left in a ‘no-man’s land’ between the bounded domains, ignored, unrepresented and thus excluded. A higher order issue is whether the boundaries are unquestioned because they are presumed to be natural, objectively fixed features (like mountain ranges) or whether they are regarded as necessary for the time being but questionable since they are the product of convention or habit (like national borders). It may be harder to cross a well patrolled national border than a remote mountain range, but one may also, without moving, find oneself on the other side of a national border because it has been moved by international agreement. However, a boundary that is taken for granted will just be part of the landscape; it will not be a topic of debate, and what lies beyond remains terra incognita. The demarcation between analytic and continental philosophy is a case in point. At least for much of the twentieth century analytic philosophy used demarcation in the mode of self and other. There was a self-conception and anything not fitting it was the unknown other. ‘Continental’ has been a label for part of this heterogenous other contingently demarcated in terms of conversations initiated in continental Europe. But if it were only a contingent demarcation it should not be difficult to establish conversations across the divide,3 so there have been various attempts to locate some core differentiae which might render conversation difficult. Charles Taylor (with Hegel in mind) contrasts the ahistorical stance of analytic philosophy with the explicit historicism of much continental philosophy (Taylor 1984, 17). Others have noted that whereas analytic philosophy takes the exact sciences for granted and seeks to make itself in their image, continental philosophy works within a much wider frame within which science can be critically evaluated but where the methods of philosophy may take many forms and its goals are not restricted to attainment of something akin to scientific knowledge. Yet others have contrasted the conceptions of reason at work contrasting the neo-­scholasticism of the analytic tradition (its founders placing their faith in the new formal logic) 3 For evidence that conversation is still difficult and that it does not depend on geographic location see the explanatory remark made by Feest and Sturm (Max Planck Institute, Berlin) (2011, 298) concerning a piece I wrote about French debates over historical epistemology. “While the terminology and background assumptions of this debate will be alien to many analytic philosophers, it is well worth stressing that some of the issues raised here are quite similar to recent debates about value-free science and the tenability of the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values.”

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with the continentals’ reliance on forms of critical and/or dialectical reason. Each of these attempts faces the problem that there is no intrinsic unity to what had been labelled ‘continental’ philosophy—there are many different currents. Moreover, what now passes for analytic philosophy exhibits considerable diversity, having more the unity of a practice (what is acceptable at meetings of the American Philosophical Association, for example). So we should be ready to acknowledge that these are not natural kinds with essences to be discerned but distinct, evolving families of cultural practices which nonetheless attempt on occasion to police their borders and, when they do so, want to reach for some criterion on the basis of which to exclude the alien intruder. When boundaries, such as those between history and philosophy are taken for granted and acquire the status of borders between ‘natural kinds’ between disciplines whose subject and purpose are familiar and uncontroversial, this tends to produce red-faced snortings about how a given book ‘isn’t what I call history’ or ‘doesn’t count as philosophy’. They take for granted that there is a well-known part of the world—the past—which is the domain of history, and another well-know part, usually thought of as a set of ‘timeless problems’, which is the domain of philosophy. (Rorty et al. 1984, 8)

This means that debates about the relationships between history, philosophy and the history of philosophy such as that just quoted, have required movement beyond the bounds of analytic philosophy even when conducted by those otherwise rooted in that tradition. So to that extent this whole essay has to be acknowledged as writing from between the cracks left by traditional labels and will draw on a variety of influences from a variety of traditions, but primarily from the historical epistemology/epistemological history of Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault and Bourdieu and the neo-Kantianism of Cassirer. Its purpose is to suggest that there are analogies between the issue of philosophy’s relation its own past and its engagement with other traditions and their histories, and that its relation to science is an integral part of the story. 1. Enlightenment and its History At the end of the colonial era people began to ask the West what right its culture, its science, its social organization and its rationality could have to lay claim to universality. They began to ask whether the Enlightenment notion of progressive freedom and autonomy through Reason (linked in

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many cases to cognitive progress in the sciences) was not merely a subterfuge for a program of economic domination and political hegemony. Reason (especially in the form of the presumed rationality of science and its methods) was seen as part of a despotic Enlightenment that needed to be challenged by raising questions about its abuse of power. Foucault (1978, xii) puts the issues very succinctly: These questionings are those which must be addressed by a rationality which makes universal claims while developing in contingency, . . . In the history of science in France as in German critical theory, what we are to examine essentially is a reason whose autonomy of structures carries within itself the history of dogmatisms and despotism—a reason which, consequently, has the effect of emancipation only on condition that it succeeds in freeing itself of itself.

But how exactly does reason do this? Can this be accomplished within the boundaries of philosophy? And if so how are the tools of analytic, continental or comparative philosophy suited to the task? Is the history of philosophy part of philosophy and should it encompass non-Western traditions? Some continental philosophy, whether that of Goethe, Hegel, Heidegger or Nietzsche has been critical of both the Enlightenment and of its faith in scientific reason and some (most notably Heidegger) reached for the wisdom of the East as an antidote. More recently others, like Bruno Latour, suggest that philosophy, certainly philosophy as currently constituted whether in France or in Anglophone communities, is not up to the task. Latour rejects the Enlightenment and the progressivism of modernity by insisting that he has never been modern and does so by rejecting modern philosophy, in particular by repudiating epistemology and its framing questions, seeking thereby to remove himself from the disciplinary matrix of philosophy in favor of the tools of empirical, observational sociology or anthropology. Other critics of the Enlightenment have been content to do battle under the banner of post-modern or post-structuralist philosophy. Latour differs from them in not wanting to cast loose from the critical engagement with issues relating to the positioning of science and technology in society, whereas much of the post-modern rejection of the Enlightenment’s conception of reason has also been (taking cues from Heidegger) more explicitly anti-scientific. The problem is that Enlightenment philosophy (whether British, French, German or American, whether analytic or continental) moulded itself around its faith in the primacy of reason and /or the empirical methods of natural science even as it disputed their exact scope and nature;

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philosophy was an integral part of Enlightenment culture. Less frequently mentioned is the experience of the European Renaissance and the role of humanists in forming a new historical narrative for western culture—one which enabled and supported the universalist and ahistorical stance of subsequent enlightenment. This enlightenment was product of a rebirth, a putting back on the one right track as a result of regaining contact with ancient wisdom, enabling Europeans to cast aside the obfuscation and ignorant mystification of medieval scholasticism and religion based on superstition. It helped give us the nineteenth century story that western philosophy starts with and is descended (as if in a direct line) from the Greeks (forget the Romans, who however played a very important role in shaping early humanist culture). It gave us the idea that this was a recovery of universal wisdom and true faith, re-founded on a reading of the scriptures by individuals, which once recovered could enable people to move forward with confidence and without the need to look back. It is during this same historical period—of transition from looking back in search of a static wisdom to looking forward confident that (with the help of the light of reason, that of God in every man) the future is one of progress, needing no further recourse to antiquity—that Europe discovered not merely other lands but other cultures. Another of those things to fall through the cracks has been the story of the extent to which European culture, including philosophy, bears the marks of encounters with those cultures. The Jesuit mission to China and the controversy it sparked in Paris and Rome over the status of Confucian rites provides just one example, which will be discussed further below. How do we know what to count as philosophy in a period where boundaries of all cultural sorts seem to be very fluid? Is it a story of progress or simply of change? Neal Stephenson (2003–4) in his vast trilogy The Baroque Cycle, in which Newton and Leibniz figure prominently, captures, through the vehicle of fiction, a sense of the magnitude of the move from one cultural world to another. 2. Philosophy and History As the above quote from Foucault suggests, there have been in France and in Germany since the second quarter of the twentieth century resources developed by those working on the history and philosophy of science in France and critical theory in Germany, for developing alternative conceptions of reason. The history (and philosophy) of science to which Foucault refers is that conducted by the likes of Koyré, Bachelard, Canguilhem and

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Foucault himself. These writers are able to recognize that (scientfic) rationality has a history, that this history is not that of smooth progressive development but is riven by disjunctures and elements of contingency; it is a rationality that acknowledges its lack of completeness and is open to change. This picture erupted into analytic history and philosophy of science in the 1960’s with the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, where it was, controversially from the point of view of analytic philosophy of science, suggested that the development of scientific theories does not come about by the purely rational confrontation with accumulated empirical evidence but requires periodic revolutions in which an old order is overturned and a new one instituted, but where there can be no purely rational discourse between new and old regimes because they are conceptually incommensurable—sentences framed in the language of the new cannot contradict those framed in the language of the old because they do not employ the same concepts. Rationality, in the sense of logically demonstrative reasoning breaks down at this point. Kuhn however also argued that there is much more to science than its theories, that equally important are the empirical and theoretical practices inculcated in laboratories and through educational systems ­(scientific paradigms). In order to understand why this work should cause such a stir one has to remember that, in its early formation analytic philosophy had explicitly cast itself in the image of (its conception of) natural science as a discipline that confronted specific problems armed with the tools for conceptual analysis newly provided by formal (mathematical) logic on which progress could be made and for which definitive answers could be found. Metaphysics was discarded and with it the relevance of much prior philosophy as well as contemporary European philosophy, German Idealism and Marxism in particular. Metaphysical questions were regarded as meaningless because not decidable by empirical methods. Not surprisingly questions about the nature of empirical science, its methods and how these secured progress loomed large. Early positivists had assumed that one could portray the progress of scientific knowledge as the simple accumulation of knowledge of facts about the world. It was agreed that the task of science was to provide accurate representations (captured in true sentences) of the natural world and that this could be achieved by following the Scientific Method, assumed to undergird modern experimental (and hence empirical) science. For philosophers the task was to refine the picture of scientific knowledge (the goal of science as ­discerning the laws of nature) and of scientific method (how to portray this as a rational ­process leading from the particulars of empirical observation to the generalities

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of theory). Anything not susceptible to rational determination using the empirical methods of natural science was not really science; anything not susceptible to rational determination using the quasi empirical methods of analytic philosophy was not really philosophy. This was the context in which the work of Karl Popper was so influential. But there was a need for a properly filled out story of the development of science which became both more urgent and more difficult with the acceptance by the scientific community of Einstein’s theories of relativity, the emergence of quantum mechanics and the fall from dominance of classical Newtonian mechanics. In the nineteenth century it was plausible to believe that with the rise of the Newtonian world view and experimental natural science we had been set definitively on the right path, one along which progress was now possible, once old scholastic habits and medieval superstition had been discarded. When this new framework was itself called into question it raised issues about the nature of transitions, about the role of frameworks, and of the kind of confidence we can have in them. The ‘scientific’ method for tackling the problem of the development of science would be to make conjectures about how science works and then test these against the data of the historical record of actual science, discarding those which don’t fit the data. This is very much the conception of the role for the history of science that can be found in Dijksterhuis’ The Mechanisation of the World Picture. This presumes that there can be a purely empirical, objectively descriptive writing of the history of science and this presumption has to confront the view that The idea of ‘the truth about the past, uncontaminated by present perspectives or concerns’ is like the idea of ‘real essence, uncontaminated by the preconceptions and concerns built into any human language’. It is a romantic ideal of purity which has no relation to any actual enquiry which human beings have undertaken or could undertake. (Rorty et al. 1984, 8)

The same authors suggest that The idea of ‘sticking to the philosophical problems and eschewing antiquarianism’ is less absurd that that of ‘sticking to the past and eschewing its relation to the present’ only because it is possible simply to enumerate what will count as ‘the philosophical problems’, whereas it is not possible to point to ‘the past’. (Rorty et al. 1984, 8)

Canguilhem (1968) queries the presupposition that we know what it is that we are to write the history of when we write the history of (a) science. If we use our current conception of science in order to make this ­determination, we cannot then put that conception in question by subjecting it to any genuine test. Equally

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mary tiles Analytic philosophers cannot both be the discoverers of what Descartes and Kant were really up to and be the culmination of a great tradition, participants in the final episode of a narrative of progress. (Rorty et al. 1984, 12)

Thus the transition from classical to relativistic physics challenged the assumptions about how to characterize scientific progress, how to characterize science and how to write the history of science. It is possible to see that debates about the luminiferous aether and experiments to determine “aether drag” make sense from a classical viewpoint, but cease to do so from a relativistic point of view. Kuhn’s case is plausibly made by reference to these transitions to theories of relativity and to quantum mechanics and would have been difficult to make before then. The challenge posed to analytic philosophy of science, and analytic philosophy more broadly to the extent that it wished to retain its scientistic self-image, was whether there was a way to portray such transitions as rational and progressive transitions. One difficulty was that a move made early in the history of logical positivism was to see rejection of German idealism as requiring adamant opposition to the Kantian synthetic a priori and with it the Kantian view of mathematical reasoning as distinct from logical reasoning. The image of reason for analytic philosophy was bounded by formal logic (to which is was assumed mathematics was reducible) on the one hand and objectively neutral empirical observation on the other. It’s image of science was also linked to that of an ideal language for science (which became extended to one for language in general) which had formal logic as its deep grammar. As the work of Russell, Carnap and Quine and Feyerabend showed, the restriction of requiring all rational relations to be representable as logical relations reflected in (first order) classical predicate calculus generates issues of incommensurability between differently constituted languages. If different theorists use different concepts embedded in different theoretical frameworks, Kuhn’s conclusions hold—there is no way to bring them into direct discourse in such a way that differences can be definitely settled by reference to empirical observation. Many of the continental counterparts of analytic philosophers did not have such a strictly delimited conception of reason. Neo-Kantians in particular did not accept the reduction of mathematics to logic4 and those such as Bachelard saw the mathematical move from Euclidean to 4 There is not space here to spell out the extensive ramifications of this, but see Tiles (1984 and 1991).

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­ on-Euclidean geometry as a dialectical use of reason—a rational move n to a wider framework but one which compels a re-evaluation of the status of what had been taken for granted when working within the narrower frame. This provided Bachelard with a model for portraying the move from classical to relativistic physics as a similarly rational move, and on this basis Canghuilhem offers an alternative account of the role of history of science: The history of sciences is not the progress of sciences in reverse, i.e the putting into perspective of depassée stages whose truth is today on the point of disappearing. It is an effort to enquire into and give an understanding of the extent to which depassée notions or attitudes or methods, were, in their time successful (depassant) and consequently of the respect in which the depassée past remains the past of an activity for which it is necessary to retain the term “scientific”. To understand what gave instruction in its time is as important as exposing the reasons for its destruction by what followed. [Canguilhem 1968, 14 (my translation)]

To the extent that the self-image of analytical philosophy was modeled after its image of modern science it had seen its current stage as the result of cumulative progress. Part of the impact of Kuhn’s work was to prompt critical reflection on philosophy’s relation with its past because if there are questions about how to write the history of science these must also be problems for the writing of the history of philosophy. These are the concerns reflected in the quoted volume from 1984 as is made explicit in the following comment about the kind of history of philosophy that, for example, Cassirer had been writing. Analytic philosophers see such attempts as conflating philosophy with nonphilosophy, as misunderstanding philosophical questions by mixing them up with religious, literary, etc., questions. This attitude is not so much the result of treating philosophy as a newly developed ‘hard science’ as of continuing to hold a pre-Kuhnian view of the historiography of the hard sciences. On that sort of view, questions do not change but answers do. On a Kuhnian view, by contrast, the major task of the historian of a scientific discipline is to understand when and why the questions changed. The principal defect of the kind of history of philosophy to which analytic philosophy has given rise is its lack of interest in the rise and fall of questions. (Rorty et al. 1984, 13)

Even more than a quarter century on we still find analytic philosophers grappling with the problem of how to write its history; they wish to move beyond constraints imposed by past analytic methodologies and views of the nature of philosophy while at the same time not wanting their work relegated to the non-philosophic other—the history of ideas. So for

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e­ xample Clarke and Wilson in presenting their history of early modern European philosophy explain that their intention is to . . . extend the format well beyond that of histories of philosophy that consider only internal and logical relations between philosophical doctrines. Our objective was to make evident the fluid boundaries in the early modern period between deductions from experimental science and philosophical theory, and to consider the impact on philosophy of historical and political events . . . give a more accurate representation of the meaning of philosophical doctrines as their inventors and proponents understood them, and one less distorted by an exclusive focus on a very limited range of questions such as external-world skepticism, mind-body interaction, or necessity and causality. (Clarke and Wilson 2011, 1–2)

But how do they know what to count as a philosophical doctrine? The book’s sections—Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy, The Mind, The Passions and Aesthetics, Epistemology, Logic, Mathematics and Language, Ethics and Political Philosophy, Religion—tell us that it is contemporary analytic academic practice, with questions structured into sub-disciplines, that is at work. It is this structure that promises to keep the work within the bounds of what that community accepts as philosophy. Those subdivisions hardly reflect boundaries carefully observed in early modern (preEnlightenment) Europe. 3. Philosophy and Other Cultures If philosophy is a matter of grappling with timeless problems then it matters little where or when a text deemed philosophical was written. Engagement with texts originating in another part of the world (India, China, Japan, North Africa) will be no different from engagement with texts from the recognized history of European philosophy. The texts are counted as philosophical to the extent that they can be read as grappling with familiar problems, in perhaps unfamiliar ways, and they are judged important or valuable to the extent that they seem to provide satisfactory answers or interesting new angles to explore. It goes without saying that since the discipline is one and the problems the same, proposed methods and solutions can be compared whether across time, space, or time and space—they are all part of a single enterprise. Comparisons can be drawn and debates engaged wherever one can establish (pace Clarke and ­Wilson) internal and logical relations between philosophical doctrines. But what the searchlight of contemporary analytic philosophy enables us to see will be limited by contemporary disciplinary formations and

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their ongoing concerns. There will be much that today passes for philosophy in some places, and which in Europe counted as philosophy in the past, that will not be seen—it will have been relegated to intellectual history, the history of ideas, or to cultural and religious studies. If philosophy is by now a minor cultural backwater, perhaps this does not matter. The subject matter has not disappeared from view, it just has a different label attached. If however, one wants to claim an ongoing cultural significance for philosophy then its self conception and its relations to other cultural formations do matter. Just as counting past cognitive activity as part of science, or of a specific contemporary science, is, as Bachelard repeatedly noted, a way of according value, counting past intellectual activity as philosophy will be an according of current value and a mark of respect. Bachelard stressed that in order to gain a sense of the values inherent in contemporary science and the ways in which it poses and seeks to resolve problems, it is necessary to get a sense of when, how and why these values change over time. For this he insisted that it was necessary to write two kinds of history of science—history written from the standpoint of the present, using the values of the present which provides a narrative of progress toward that point, accompanied by a history of what was once counted as science but would no longer be so regarded. Here one needs to discern past evaluative standards, have a sense of how they were deployed as well as understanding why we don’t use them any more. To get a sense of what this means and to see that it does not entail a lapse into relativism (the bugbear of analytic philosophy) one could start with histories of measurement. Measurement is the point of transmission of objective information about the state of some object of interest. Its standards of correctness (accuracy and precision) need to be non­arbitrary and generally agreed. Yet all measurement systems are products of convention and all measurements have a margin of error.5 The overcoming of the seeming incompatibility between these aspects of measurement is accomplished by shifting the philosophical focus from linking objectivity to objects and truth, to linking it to objectification embedded in ­practice—a move which seems natural to many ‘continental’ philosophers but presents an obstacle to many in the analytic tradition.6 Boundaries set by standards tend to be taken for granted and thus not seen. If they are not seen they are not challenged either. Writing the history

5 This topic is well explored in for example Desrosières (1998) or Porter (1995). 6 Bachelard (1928) maps out one path for making this move.

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of lapsed science, seeking to discern the standards by reference to which it determines bounds to its questions and methods, is simultaneously a way of bringing today’s standards to light, making them and their justification visible. This can be a first step that enables us to put today’s standards in question, to ask critical questions about them (without thereby discarding them). This is nonetheless a dialectical move which requires a shift of perspective and of value from what was beyond question to what may be questioned. It is a putting into question but not the deciding of anything. It is in this respect that a study of past culture can prepare the way for a future which is a development from the present (without being determined by it) resulting from rational critique. The move of putting the unquestionable into question requires some sense that things have been and might yet be otherwise, but in the case of science at least this is limited by respect for current (and past) scientific achievements. Adopting a critical stance does not mean a flight from science, into the past. It does though involve stepping out into a no-man’s land before any new boundaries have been established. Bachelard’s point is that this is not only always possible but essential to the dynamics of modern science, which is itself highly dynamic. Part of the goal of writing history and philosophy of science then is to create an openness to rational change and change of rational frameworks as well as an appreciation for the value of those we have and of the values inherent in them. Are there any pointers here as to how one can see another model for philosophic interaction with the intellectual traditions of other cultures? One thing about which Bachelard is quite explicit is that his view of the dynamics of modern science requires a non-Cartesian epistemology a step which it is difficult to make within the boundaries of analytic philosophy. In other words it requires a change in philosophic stance. The other place he tells us to look is to those points at which values and standards are shifting. To highlight the dilemma we can use encounters with ancient Chinese texts as an example. The problem of an ahistorical approach to mathematical knowledge is that either it is true that the distinctive feature of mathematical knowledge is that it is acquired as the result of (deductive) proof, in which case unless a culture can be shown to have deductive proof practices, it is impossible to claim that they possessed mathematical knowledge (on which grounds the Jesuits denied that the Chinese knew anything of mathematics), or we recognize a culture as having mathematical knowledge on some other grounds (as Needham did on behalf of the Chinese) and this throws into question the claim that establishment by

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deductive proof really is the prerequisite for possession of mathematical knowledge. Similarly recognition of Chinese classics such as the Analects or the Yi Jing as works of philosophy requires significant revision in what by current analytic professional standards counts as philosophy. Yet in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe there was no question but that these counted as philosophy and Confucius was revered as a great Chinese philosopher, suggesting that by looking further at the role of ­Confucius and Confucianism in Europe at this time might reveal something about how borderlines can change. 4. Philosophy and Confucian Rites The Jesuit mission to China, in part sponsored by Louis XIV, spans the period 1552–1773. In itself the mission provides an example of boundary crossings of many kinds, some of which proved extremely controversial. These controversies were intimately entwined with the development of European history and culture. The mission involved a literal journey across national and continental boundaries, which required learning how to cross from European to Chinese culture in the attempt to persuade Chinese people to become Christians. The Jesuits realized early on in their China mission that they had no hope of staying within the country, let alone converting any significant number of Chinese people to Christianity if they were seen to oppose the observance of Confucian rituals that formed the bedrock of Chinese culture and its state apparatus. They determined that converts to Christianity could continue to participate to the full in Confucian rites because these were deemed to be secular, not ­religious—they did not involve worship. They portrayed Confucian teachings as teachings about morality and governance that were fully compatible with Christianity. They did have to denounce later neo-­Confucian, more explicitly metaphysical writings as corruptions from the true ancient way under the pernicious influence of Buddhism. So in China they contributed to a back to basics Confucianism (fully consistent with their humanist belief in the superiority of ancient wisdom) while in Europe they praised Confucius for his moral and political philosophy. Because these accommodationist strategies caused controversy in Europe the Jesuit representation of China was well publicized at a time when the boundaries between religion, politics, theology, philosophy, anthropology, metaphysics, natural science, and social science were still either contested, fluid or not yet visible. Almost everyone who was ­anyone

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on the French intellectual stage at this time had something to say on the topic of China and this engagement extended to their co-conversationalists in other parts of Europe. These events in which representations of China, and of Confucius as an eminent Chinese philosopher, were deployed by a variety of European factions for European ends, have been copiously documented and discussed under some disciplinary headings but not philosophy. One short version of an explanation for this is that whereas Confucius was represented by the Jesuits as an eminent Chinese philosopher and was accepted as such during the period in which the European valuation of Chinese civilization, culture and knowledge was (for the most part) enthusiastically positive, he ceased to be recognized as a philosopher of any significance once he ceased to be of use to modernists in their critiques of established orders and once the promise of modern science had displaced renaissance reverence for ancient ‘wisdom’. Part of the original allure of Chinese culture was its antiquity at a time when it was assumed by many Europeans that wisdom had been revealed by God to the earliest humans and needed to be recovered by discarding subsequent distortions. It was this same instinct that drove enthusiasm for what appeared to be ancient Egyptian knowledge in the texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, whose subsequent slide into philosophic oblivion is slightly different because of his relationship with alchemy, natural magic and its role in the development of modern science. The two enthusiasms come together in the work of Athanasius Kircher as exemplified in his book on China (Kircher 1667) in which Chinese writing was also likened to Egyptian hieroglyphics. An integral part of this approach is its presumption that ancient texts (including the Bible) carry both esoteric and exoteric meanings, so that to discern their true meaning it is necessary to decode, to learn to read the analogies, metaphors and symbols or encoded numbers.7 It is an approach to learning that Foucault describes at the beginning of The Order of Things, as he too seeks to capture the transition that occurs as the esoteric gives way to the literalism of protestant fundamentalism and Cartesian epistemology. It is one of those disjunctures in intellectual culture with the humanist, figurist Jesuits on one side and Cartesians on the other, across which it is difficult to establish genuine dialogue.

7 Newton for example was intensely interested in kabbalah and Leibniz interpreted the hexagrams of the Yi Jing binary arithmetic as a coding for his newly discovered binary arithmetic, which he thought would help unlock the secrets of the universe.

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But this explanation is written from the perspective of epistemology and it thus omits a crucial dimension to the dispute between Jesuits and Jansenists which concerned the Jesuit defense and practice of casuistry, where moral evaluations are made on the basis of prior cases taken to be exemplary, not on the basis of appeal to universal rules or laws embodied in a moral code. This bitter dispute was fueled in part by Pascal’s Provincial Letters in which he attacked casuistry as productive of moral laxity. The Rites issue concerned the question of whether Confucian rituals were or were not religious and whether the ancient Chinese had any term for the one true God. In other words was Confucianism a (non-Christian) religion whose rites must be abandoned by all true Christian converts, or were the rites merely civil ceremonies, part of the administrative structure whose observance was thus compatible with Christian beliefs? If the latter then Confucians were atheists (lacking a religion), rather than idolators. Structurally this, classificatory, issue is very similar to that posed above in regard to mathematics. But besides putting boundary issues in play it reveals what can turn on the policing of those boundaries. Literalists could read the Chinese character tian (天) as standing for the material heaven hence accusing the Chinese of Spinozism (identification of God with nature, which was generally viewed at the time as dangerously atheistic). Figurists could add a layer of symbolic reference reading it as equivalent to tian zhu (天 主) (lord of heaven—hence God) and evidence that the early Chinese had knowledge of the one true God. Literalist protestants could see only superstition and idolatry in ceremonial ritual involving associated images, whether it were Confucian or Roman Catholic. Malebranche was persuaded by the Bishop of Rosalie to write a dialogue between a Christian and a Chinese philosopher which was widely read as critical of the Jesuit position although Malebranche himself said that it was equally a critique of Spinozism. In other words he was reading what he heard of Chinese philosophy through the lens of Spinoza. Malebranche treats the dispute primarily as one of metaphysics and epistemology, reading the Chinese as philosophers, and metaphysicians but interpreting their doctrines as dangerously atheistic because akin to those of Spinoza (who we should note stands very much on the margins of analytic history of philosophy), but at the same time arguing that Confucian rites amount to worship, and hence are idolatrous. Leibniz responded with a lengthy treatise critical of Malebranche and largely defending the Jesuit stance. He notes in particular that to argue that the Chinese do have a non-Christian religion makes them idolators, not atheists. His position, besides finding fault with Malebranche’s reasoning, also

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displays ­considerable hermeneutical acumen and a pleading not to rush to judgement before we have better knowledge of the Chinese language, its written heritage and its present culture. Leibniz like his Jesuit friends presumes that Chinese metaphysics will be compatible at some level with European views and with an inclusive Catholic church founded on natural theology. Leibniz is still a very Christian philosopher even though his God is neither the mystical miracle worker of medieval Christianity, nor the approachable personal God of radical protestants. Voltaire on the other hand was supportive of the Jesuit position because he saw in it the basis for furthering the case for denying secular power to the Catholic Church (surely not what the Jesuits had in mind). If Confucius was the source of an admirable moral code, and if his philosophy and his rites were purely secular, then it was proof that religion was not essential as a foundation for morality or for sound governance of a ­country.8 For those such as Voltaire, Chinese philosophy is judged not to be metaphysical, but to provide secular ethics compatible with natural theology. It is practical as well as ancient, demonstrably having led to stability in governance. Especially with the transmission of Mencius’ ideas on governance, the Chinese ideas were picked up by the physiocrats, primarily Quesnay (who earned the sobriquet Confucius of the West) and thus fed into debates about economics and politics. So early on Chinese philosophy is valued for its antiquity and for leading to rational governance and stability; it is valued as ethical, social and political philosophy. But this underplaying of any metaphysical content in Chinese philosophy, and the emphasis on its secular and practical nature would come back to bite it. As European discourse developed, as self-confidence increased with the rise of natural philosophy, as antiquity ceased to be a sign of automatic cognitive authority, the status of Chinese thinkers declined. They came to be devalued for lack of science, lack of metaphysics and lack of rational theorizing. This revaluation was in tune with the Cartesian prioritizing of epistemology over ethics in philosophy; a philosopher had first to sort out his metaphysics and epistemology then move on to ethics, politics and the more practical applications of its theoretical stance. Importantly it would be an ethics based on principles, not on exemplary cases. From this perspective Confucius as created by Voltaire and the

8 Of course anglophone histories label Voltaire a philosophe (not someone to take seriously as a philosopher).

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Jesuits does not cut it as a philosopher; he simply didn’t know how to play the real game. In this sense Voltaire lost the argument that morality does not need a foundation; the new secular morality emerged with a philosophical instead of a religious foundation, a foundation in secular metaphysics and/or epistemology. Jesuit casuistry also lost; modern uses of the term with their overwhelming negative valuation indicate just how definitively this approach to ethics was written off. This leaves in place the primacy of theoretical over practical reason, which has been endorsed by the dominant trends in European philosophy since the eighteenth century, whether analytic or otherwise, with the notable exception of those influenced by Marx and his insistance on the importance of the practical and material. But what the brief period of European enchantment with (a European transmitted version of) Confucianism shows us is that other models of philosophy were contemplated and that the stakes for acceptance or rejection of these extended well beyond the boundaries of philosophy. The foreclosure of the alternative vision goes hand in hand with foreclosure of other debates about the structure of society and the relative valuation of practical and theoretical knowledge. We also see the delicateness of the position the Jesuits tried (ultimately unsuccessfully) to maintain. They had a universalist vision that was also locally pluralistic (accommodationist)—they allowed for the possibility of there being many paths to the one true religion (a combination of knowledge and faith). This was consistent with their figurist approach to reading texts and the world, and with their endorsement of casuistry—allowing for a single moral code that needed to take careful account of the situational particulars. But it was adamantly rejected by Jansenists and Cartesians, literalists and foudationalists, who set their store on securing a single correct path to knowledge and salvation. This makes very pertinent a remark made by Robinet in his introduction to the Malebranche dialogue The problem of the history of philosophy posed very precisely by this little Dialogue bears on the following question: can the contact between civilisations and the communication of ideas between West and East be brought about at the level and through the mediation of a philosophy with a Cartesian heritage using methods of rational evidence, analyzing entirely conceptualized notions and proposing a hierarchy of values? [Robinet 1970, xxvi (my translation)]

The Jesuit endorsement of casuistry, moreover, goes some way to explaining their capacity for fruitful engagement with Chinese intellectual culture as is illustrated by the following quotation from the Zhou bi suan jing.

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mary tiles It is the ability to distinguish categories in order to unite categories (lei yi he lei) which is the substance of how the worthy one’s scholarly patrimony is pure, and how he applies himself to the practice of understanding. (Cullen 1996, 71–2)

If the category, or kind, is regarded as pre-established this might set one on the course of a search for essences, but if the bringing under a category or kind is context dependent it may lead one to focus on exemplary cases. This latter structure can be seen at work in the Chinese mathematical classic, Nine Chapters on Arithmetic. A specific, concretely specified, problem is seen as representative of a kind—the kind of problems that can be solved by the same method, and this judgement is made by finding a way of establishing an analogical relation between another problem situation and the one given which reveals that there is a a relevant structural similarity between them such that the method for dealing with one can be transferred to the other. The boundaries of such a kind are not going to be pre-determined. Methods have an inherent generality; what is established is not that they hold for all possible instances of some general kind, but that they work for a specific case and in understanding why it works there, the requisites for analogical extension are also grasped—the respects in which two situations will have to be the same for the same method to apply. Furthermore, the concrete embedding of a particular problem implicitly limits the domain over which the method is proposed as holding—it is a domain of relevantly similar concrete problems. This does not coincide with any of the domains we (or the Jesuits) would recognize as pure mathematics, but it is a procedure remarkably similar to the casuist approach to moral problems. Is this a judgement made within the boundaries of what might be called comparative philosophy, whose project faces very similar dilemmas to that of the Jesuits? It began with universalist pretensions but has realized the need to be locally pluralistic. Can it, however, abandon or work beyond a Cartesian framework, or a prioritizing of epistemology, metaphysics and theory and still remain within the contemporary philosophical fold. We cannot get away from how we see ourselves or from our purposes in wanting to recognize (valorize, validate) aspects of another culture, or of our own past. As the case of the Jesuit mission makes clear, valorizing the past of another culture to that culture itself amounts to more than a philosophic intervention. As the example of Voltaire ‘s use of the Jesuit image of Confucianism makes clear, valorization of an aspect of another culture can be used as a critique of one’s own. How do we know that another culture has anything that we would want to call philosophy? How do we

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make that decision when it comes to dealing with our own past? These questions cannot be detached from the reasons for asking them. What we might learn from the case of the Jesuit’s (and the negative judgements passed on them by history) is that the method of being guided by a sense of intellectual virtue and using exemplary cases as a basis might nonetheless be a way to dilute the implicit universalism of the comparative project enough to allow for local pluralism. What we might take from Bachelard is the focus on looking at how standards operate because this can neutralize the divide between theory and practice, potentially building a bridge from conceptions of philosophy in which questions of practice are dominant to those where conceptions of theory dominate. One might also learn from him that the point of engagement with other cultures, as with the past of our own, is in the end a matter of opening ways to the future. References Bachelard, Gaston (1928), Essai sur la connaissance approchée (Paris: J Vrin). —— (1951), L’Activité rationaliste de la physique contemporaine (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France). Canguilhem, Georges (1968), “L’object de l’histoire et de philosophie des sciences” in his Études d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences (Paris: J. Vrin). Translated as “The Object of the History of Sciences” in Gary Gutting (ed.) (2005), Continental Philosophy of Science (Oxford: Blackwell), 198–208. Clarke, Desmond M. & Wilson, Catherine (eds) (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Cullen, Christopher (1996), Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: the Zhou bi suan jing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Desrosières, Alain (1998), The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning, trans. Camille Naish (Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press). Dijksterhuis, E.J. (1961), The Mechanization of the World Picture (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Translation by C. Dikshoorn of Der Mechanisering van het Werelbeeld, (Amsterdam 1950). Feest, Uljana and Sturm, Thomas (2011), “What (Good) is Historical Epistemology? Editors’ Introduction”, Erkenntnis, 75(3). Foucault, Michel (1970), The Order of Things: an archaeology of the human sciences (London: Tavistock Publications). —— (1978), Introduction to Georges Canguilhem On the Normal and the Pathological, R.S. Cohen (ed.), trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett (Dordrecht: Reidel). This is a translation of the 1972 edition of Le normal et le pathologique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France). Kircher, Athanasius (1667), China Illustrata, Amsterdam: Johannes Jansson van Waesberg. English translation by Dr. Charles D. Van Tuyl available at http://hotgates.stanford.edu/ Eyes/library/kircher.pdf. Kuhn, Thomas (1962), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Latour, Bruno (1993), We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Originally published as Nous n’avons jamais été modernes: Essais d’anthropologie symmétrique (Paris: La Découverte, 1991).

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Leibniz, G.W. (1716), “Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese” in Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz Writings on China, trans. Daniel J. Cook & Henry Rosemont, Jr. (Chicago & LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1994). Malebranche (1708), Entretien d’un philosophe Chrétien et d’un philosophe Chinois sur l’existence et la nature de Dieu (Paris: Michel David). Porter, Theodore M. (1995), Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and public Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Robinet, André (1970), Introduction to Oevres de Malebranche, Tome XV, Entretien d’un philosophe chrétien et d’un philosophe Chinois, Paris: J. Vrin. Rorty, Richard, Schneewind, J.B. & Skinner, Quentin eds. (1984), Philosophy in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Stephenson, Neal The Baroque Cycle: Volume One: Quicksilver (2003), Volume Two: Confusion (2004), Volume Three: The System of the World (2004) (New York: Harper Collins). Taylor, Charles (1984), “Philosophy and its History” in Rorty et al. (1984). Tiles, Mary (1984), Bachelard: Science and Objectivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). —— (1991), Mathematics and the Image of Reason (London & New York: Routledge). Voltaire, (1753), Chs. I and II in Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations available at http:// fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Essai_sur_les_m%C5%93urs. —— (1962), “Chinese Catechism” and “Of China” in his Philosophical Dictionary, trans. Peter Gay (New York: Harvester).

PART TWO

CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL APPROACHES BEYOND THE WESTERN TRADITION

INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO

CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL APPROACHES BEYOND THE WESTERN TRADITION Bo Mou Part Two is to implement the goal of the volume on the front of exploring the constructive engagement of analytic and Continental approaches beyond the Western tradition. With the term ‘beyond’ here meaning “further than/more than/not limited to”, all the contributing essays in this part are intended to look at how the two approaches can constructively engage each other in view of relevant resources from more than, or being not limited to, the Western tradition and explore how these resources as distinct manifestations of analytic and “continental” approaches in the Western and some other philosophical traditions can jointly contribute to our understanding and treatment of a range of issues and topics, which can be jointly concerned through adequate philosophical interpretation and/or from a higher vantage point of philosophy, in philosophically interesting ways. My introduction here is largely a “methodological” introduction in three related connections with the following strategy. (1) I briefly indicate how the coverage of this part is considered, and how the contributing essays to this part are organized in view of their topics and concerns. (2) To aid readers in understanding how it is possible for those addressed resources from different traditions on the theme to engage each other in a cross-tradition constructive way, I present a “methodological” characterization of the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy. (3) I explain how it is possible to have adequate methodological guiding principles in cross-tradition philosophical inquiries by suggesting a set of adequacy conditions, also serving as a stepping stone for the interested readers’ participation in the engaging discussion in this connection. 1 The coverage of this part, as suggested by its title (i.e., “Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches Beyond the Western Tradition”), is supposed to be vast, while the space for such coverage

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in the volume is quite limited. It is challenging how to effectively use the limited space to cover what is expected. Though it is not pretended to be exhaustive, we strive for a balanced coverage with due emphases in several connections. First, this part includes both overall accounts of how to generally look at the analytic-“continental” divide from the vantage points of some other philosophical traditions beyond the Western tradition and specific accounts of how some particular lines and resources from different traditions can jointly contribute to certain particular issues or topics. The essays by Graham Priest and Tommy Lott belong in the former group, while the remaining five essays by Lojos Brons, Sandra Wawrytko, Marshall Willman, Mario Wenning and Bo Mou fall in the latter group. Nevertheless, such a classification is certainly not absolute: the former essays also embrace insightful discussions of relevant particular approaches to provide textual evidence for, and illustrate, general conclusions, while the latter essays likewise include general visions and understandings of the divide of the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy. They thus substantially enrich the resources in both categories in the volume. Second, as far as the contributing essays that give overall accounts of the analytic-“continental” divide from the vantage points beyond the Western tradition are concerned, they include one from the vantage point of the East (Chinese and Indian philosophical traditions), as presented in Priest’s essay “Philosophy Sans Frontières: Analytic and Continental ­Philosophy—a View from the East”, and one from that of Africana philosophy, as presented in Lott’s essay “Comparative Aspects of Africana Philosophy and the Continental-Analytic Divide”. Both authors intend to draw some significant lessons and effective resources from the reflective practices of these non-Western philosophical traditions concerning the identity, nature and prospect of the analytic-“continental” divide. Third, as far as those contributing essays that are concerned primarily with specific approaches from different traditions to certain particular issues are concerned, they explore relevant resources from two of the most fascinating movements of thought in Indian and Chinese philosophical traditions concerning some central issues in such core areas as metaphysics and epistemology: i.e., the Buddhist resources from both Indian and Chinese traditions, as explored in Brons’ essay “Meaning and Reality: A Cross-Traditional Encounter” and Wawrytko’s essay “The Buddhist Challenge to the Noumenal: Analyzing Epistemological Deconstruction”, and the Daoist resources from the Chinese tradition, as explored in Willman’s essay “A Daoist Perspective on Analytical and Phenomenological

constructive engagement of analytic & continental approaches 149 Methodologies in the Analysis of Intuition”, Wenning’s essay “Daoism as Critical Theory”, and Mou’s essay “On Daoist Approach to the Issue of Being in Engaging Quinean and Heideggerian Approaches”. As these Buddhist and Daoist resources have been considered kindred in spirit with the “continental” approach in some prominent connections, it is especially philosophically interesting to see how they can contribute to the constructive engagement of the analytic and “continental” approaches on some specific issues in such areas as metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and mind, philosophy of action and critical theory. This also presents a healthy balance to the current scholarship and literature in comparative East-West philosophy that, in many cases, have the focus of attention only on those approaches in non-Western traditions (such as the Confucian tradition in Chinese philosophy) as sources of inspiration in moral and social-political philosophy. Fourth, as far as the contributors’ training backgrounds and original academic “home” settings are concerned, they are from diverse backgrounds, instead of, say, exclusively from the analytic one or from the “continental” one alone. The shared “constructive-engagement” goal binds them together. As illustrated by their works presented in this volume, no matter which training backgrounds and “home” settings they are from, the authors have made serious efforts to learn from other traditions and explore how these resources from different traditions can jointly contribute to the theme of the volume. Fifth, with their distinct backgrounds, interests and focuses, and being sensitive to peculiar situations of particular issues and topics under discussion, the contributors present distinct but arguably complementary “perspective” approaches to certain jointly-concerned “meta” issues as well as the specific target issues. For example, some authors in this part present different ways to identify the analytic approach, the “continental” approach, and their divide, which I would render basically complementary in view of their distinct focuses on distinct aspects of the issues. Sixth, the authors in this part present and illustrate distinct ways of implementing the shared strategic “constructive engagement” emphasis of the volume, which are sensitive to situations and needs, instead of being restricted to one fixed pattern. Indeed, one ideal situation is that engaging parties like conversation partners who all attend the same event at the same time will directly talk with each other and learn from each other (or explicitly “bi-directional”) at various engaging levels while addressing various relevant aspects of their jointly-concerned issue or subject. However, more often engaging parties (an engaging party can be either

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a figure, or a text, or an account, or a movement, or even a generic type of treatment) make joint contributions (directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly) through their respective constructive impacts or roles in enhancing our understanding/treatment of distinct aspects of the jointlyconcerned issue/subject at different engaging levels; one can thus have the involved engaging parties jointly contribute to a further account (in a broader framework or with a new vision), which integrally includes reasonable and eligible elements, more or less, from (some distinct dimensions of ) each side. The foregoing account of how the coverage of this part is considered and how the contributing essays are organized in view of their topics and focuses raises two questions or concerns. First, given that such labels as ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ are historically attached to the Western tradition only, how it is possible for those addressed resources from different traditions concerning the analytic and “continental” approaches to engage each other in cross-tradition engaging ways. Second, especially as raised by the previous “balance” point concerning distinct “perspective” approaches to those jointly-concerned issues: how to look at the relationship between distinct “perspective” approaches to these jointly concerned issues? Would one, among others, be exclusively correct or they (or some of them) are somehow complementary? Would there be any criterion by which we can make due evaluations in these connections? In Section 2 below, to address the first concern above, I present a crosstradition “methodological” characterization of the identities of the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy; in Section 3, to address the second concern, I explain how it is possible to have adequate methodological guiding principles in cross-tradition philosophical inquiries by suggesting a set of adequacy conditions. 2 To aid readers in understanding how it is possible for those addressed resources from different traditions concerning the theme to engage each other in a cross-tradition constructive way, I intend to present a “methodological” characterization of the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy. For this purpose, a refined understanding of the concept of methodological approach and its associated distinctions are in need.

constructive engagement of analytic & continental approaches 151 Given an object of study, the concern about how to approach it immediately addresses the issue of method. However, the key term ‘method’ or ‘methodological approach’ is both ambiguous and vague. Given that the term ‘method’ or ‘methodological approach’ means a variety of ways that respond to how to approach an object of study, there is the distinction between three distinct but related kinds of ways or methods in approaching the object of study, which can constitute three distinct dimensions of a methodological approach as a whole. (1) A methodological perspective (or perspective method) is a way of approaching an object of study that is intended to point to or focus on a certain aspect of the object and capture or explain the aspect in terms of the characteristics of that aspect, together with the minimal metaphysical commitment that there is that aspect of the object. There are two distinctions concerning methodological perspectives. First, there is the distinction between eligible and ineligible methodological perspectives: an eligible methodological perspective points to and captures a certain aspect or layer that is really possessed by the object, while an ineligible one goes otherwise. Second, there is the distinction between a methodological-perspective simplex and a methodological-perspective complex which either integrates two or more perspective simplexes into one complex (‘perspective-only complex’ for short) or combines a perspective simplex with a certain (adequate or inadequate) methodological guiding principle to be explained below (‘guiding-principle-associated perspective complex’ for short). (The term ‘perspective’ means a methodological-perspective simplex below unless otherwise indicated) (2) A methodological instrument (or instrumental method) is a way in which to implement, or give tools to realize, a certain methodological perspective. Methodological instruments are largely neutral in the sense that they can serve to implement different methodological perspectives, though there is still the distinction between more and less effective methodological instruments in regard to a given methodological perspective. (3) A methodological guiding principle (or guiding-principle method) regulates and guides a certain methodological perspective(s) in regard to an object of study; presupposed by the agent, it is usually implicitly guide and regulate how the perspective should be evaluated and used, and how the purpose and focus that the perspective serves should be set. There is the distinction between adequate and inadequate methodological guiding principles concerning methodological perspectives in regard to an object of study.

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On the one hand, the merit, status, and function of a methodological perspective per se can be evaluated independently of a certain methodological guiding principle that the agent might presuppose in her actual application of the perspective. The reflective practice per se of taking a certain methodological perspective as a working perspective implies neither that one loses sight of other genuine aspects of the object nor that one ignores or rejects other eligible perspectives in one’s background thinking. On the other hand, it does matter whether or not one’s taking a certain methodological perspective is regulated by an adequate guiding principle, an issue to be addressed in the next section. With the foregoing conceptual and explanatory resources and their associated distinctions, to aid readers to understand how it is possible for those addressed resources from different traditions in this part to engage each other in cross-tradition engaging ways, I present a cross-tradition “methodological” characterization of the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy, which I do not pretend is exclusive but which is one “perspective” on their identities as concerns their characteristic methodological aspects. Indeed, it is controversial how to characterize the identities of the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy, and the division appears unclear. Nevertheless, one can relatively easily identify and recognize some “appearance” differences of the analytic and “continental” approaches: the analytic approach emphasizes conceptual, logical or linguistic analysis of philosophical argumentation and key terms; it stresses logical argument, coherent explanation, clear and precise presentation and rigorous assessment; one might note that, more generally speaking, the analytic approach tends to focus more on the stable, definite, constant, consistent or universal aspects of an object of study, or these aspects of the linguistic and conceptual characterization of the object of study, instead of focusing primarily on its historical situation or cultural setting. In contrast, the “continental” approach tends to rely more on literary (sometimes poetic) expressions and imagination of their ideas while having less reliance on formal logic; they are more interested in actual political and cultural settings and implications of an object of study. In the following, I try to identify and explain what methodologically underlie the foregoing “appearance” differences (or differences largely at the level of instrumental methods). The concept of analysis or the (English) term ‘analysis’ as historically employed in the Western tradition, generally speaking, has been employed in philosophy in the following three senses. (1) The term ‘analysis’, in its

constructive engagement of analytic & continental approaches 153 technical sense, means a specific instrumental method that examines concepts typified by definition, breaking concepts into components in some complex structure; this method stands in contrast to what the term ‘synthesis’ denotes. (2) An “analytic” statement is one whose truth derives solely from its meaning or structure, in contrast to a “synthetic” statement. (3) When the term ‘analysis’ or its cognate ‘analytic’ is associated with a style of doing philosophy (what such phrases as ‘analytic philosophy’ or ‘analytic approach’ in philosophy denote), its meaning is not limited to its technical sense but often also means a style of methodological approach, i.e., analytic methodology. The analytic approach in philosophy, understood methodologically and in a broad way, is a methodological style of doing philosophy, or a general methodological approach in philosophical inquiry. It is not limited to one single specific instrumental method (e.g., what ‘analysis’ means in its technical sense, in contrast to ‘synthesis’), but collectively includes two dimensions of methodology: (i) a collection of “analytic” instrumental methods and their associated conceptual and explanatory resources; (ii) more fundamentally, a generic type of “being”-aspect-concerned methodological perspectives that are intended to point to and capture something certain, stable, constant, regular, permanent, definite, coherent, essential, universal or unchanging (‘being’ aspect for short, in the sense of the blanket term ‘being’ in contrast to that of term ‘becoming’) at the “object” level (i.e., a certain “being” aspect, as one general and fundamental aspect, of an object of study) and/or at the “meta” level (i.e., a certain “being” aspect of one’s conceptual and linguistic characterization of the object as a normative examination—so to speak, a meta-level object).1 The two dimensions 1 It is often the case that one’s “being”-aspect-concerned perspective at the “object” level (such as Socrates’ universal-aspect-concerned perspective in, say, Euthyphro and ­Descartes’ certainty-aspect-concerned perspective in his Meditations) naturally requires one’s “being”-aspect-concerned perspective at the “meta” level which is concerned with one’s clear, definite, systematic, coherent, and precise conceptual and linguistic characterization. However, an analytic philosopher can surely talk about changing phenomenon or even contradictory (if any) aspect/layer of an object of study (at the “object” level) while explicitly and prominently taking a “being”-aspect-concerned perspective in her theoretic, conceptual and linguistic characterization as a normative study (at the “meta” level) of the “becoming” aspect of the object. For example, in his naturalized epistemology, Quine takes epistemology as a branch of study of theory change; his conceptual and theoretic characterization (as his epistemological treatment) of theory change is intended to be the normative study of what general, constant and coherent strategies of theory change we should employ (such as the principle of simplicity and the principle of minimum mutilation as those law-like things that should be stably and constantly observed), which Quine surely intends to present in a clear, systematic and coherent way. Cf., W.V. Quine (1969),

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of “analytic” methodology are closely related: an “analytic” methodological perspective or “analytic” expectation demands such “analytic” instruments as meaning analysis, conceptual clarity, coherent explanation, precise formulation or rigor argumentation, by means of which to implement the “analytic” being-aspect-concerned methodological perspective. In this sense, and to this extent, the generic type of “analytic” methodological perspectives underlies various “analytic” instrumental methods. In contrast, the “continental” approach, as understood in a crosstradition methodological way instead of a purely historical way, can be identified in terms of a generic type of “becoming”-aspect-concerned methodological perspectives and their associated instrumental methods to effectively implement them. In contrast to that of the generic term ‘being’ as indicated above, the term ‘becoming aspect’ refers to something uncertain, unstable, irregular, indefinite, impermanent, contradictory, accidental, transient, situational or changing (as one general and fundamental aspect of an object of study) at the aforementioned “object” level and/or “meta” level. For example, many “continental” philosophers in the Western tradition focus primarily on the subjective layer of inner experience or existential dimension of the human experience which illustrates the foregoing generic type of the becoming-aspect-concerned methodological perspectives, such as Husserl’s work on the dynamics of inner experience, Heidegger’s work on the subjective character of Dasein concerning the transcendental horizon of being via temporality, and Derrida’s work on the auto-affection character of the self. In the Chinese philosophical tradition, Confucius’ situational approach to the issue of filial piety addresses various becoming aspects of filial piety as a virtue (see the Analects, 2.5– 2.8), in contrast to Socrates’ universal-aspect-concerned approach to piety (see Euthyphro), which presents a good cross-tradition engaging case of how the two approaches, respectively as tokens of (the generic types of) the “continental” and analytic methodological perspectives, can jointly contribute to our understanding and treatment of the issue of piety.2 One might question this way: some authors focus primarily on the “becoming”

“Epistemology naturalized,” in his Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press), 69–90, and Quine (1990), Pursuit of Truth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). 2 I give a further discussion of this case in Bo Mou (2009), “On Some Methodological Issues Concerning Chinese Philosophy,” in History of Chinese Philosophy, ed. Bo Mou (London: Routledge), Section 2.2, 17–21.

constructive engagement of analytic & continental approaches 155 aspects of their object of study, while their conceptual and linguistic characterizations of these researches well show the aforementioned “being” aspects of such theoretic presentations (as meta-objects) via some “analytic” instrumental methods; would we call them practitioners of “analytic” being-aspect-concerned methodological perspectives or practitioners of “Continental” becoming”-aspect-concerned methodological perspective? This brings the point home in an interesting way to be addressed below—a simple answer is this: they as individual authors are both. The difference in the analytic and “continental” approaches in regard to their manifestations and illustrations in individual thinkers (or even in particular philosophical traditions) lies in “quantity” rather than “quality”. In view of this “methodological” characterization of the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy, four notes are due. First, each of the analytic approach and “continental” approach in philosophy, when identified and understood methodologically, is not intrinsically or conceptually related to any ad hoc philosophical tradition alone, although, historically speaking, it has been prominently manifested in a certain tradition (e.g., in the analytic tradition of Western philosophy, or in the “continental” tradition of Western philosophy). For example, consider the case of Chinese philosophy. On the one hand, some characteristic methodological features of the “continental” approach well manifest themselves in such classical Daoist texts as the Dao-De-Jing and the Zhuang-Zi in which various becoming-aspect-concerned perspectives are presented in poemlike prose. On the other hand, analytic strands and elements can be identified explicitly or directly in some of the classical Chinese philosophers’ works (such as those of Gonsun Long and the Mohist) but also, implicitly or indirectly, almost in all of the classical Chinese philosophers’ writings including Confucius’ Lun-Yü and Lao Zi’s Dao-De-Jing, though the ways of the two classical texts are more kindred with the “continental” approach in view of their becoming-aspect-concerned methodological perspectives at the “meta” level as well as at the “object” level; moreover, there is a significant analytic movement in modern Chinese philosophy. Second, in the analytic tradition of Western philosophy, analytic methodology can be traced back to Socrates’ elenchus method that explicitly illustrates the foregoing “analytic” methodological perspective as well as some ‘analytic’ instrumental methods. The term ‘analytic philosophy’, when being used to indicate one mainstream tradition in Western philosophy, refers to a tradition from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle via Descartes,

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British empiricism, and Kant to the contemporary analytic movement. However, the term is sometimes used in a narrow sense and refers to the contemporary analytic movement in demarcating “Anglo-American” from “Continental” philosophy in the narrow sense of the phrase in the 20th and 21st centuries. One can argue for a likewise historical linkage of the “continental” approach in the West tradition, even also in Socrates’ discourse—a “combination” phenomenon in some individual thinkers to be briefly explained below. Third, both the analytic approach and the “continental” approach in philosophy as distinct generic types of methodological perspectives (together with their associated collections of instrumental methods) are not intrinsically or conceptually related to any ad hoc methodological guiding principles concerning how to look at the relationship between one generic type of methodological perspective and instrument and other seemingly competing types of methodological perspectives and instruments. Historically speaking, the analytic approach and the “continental” approach were applied by philosophers who held or presupposed different methodological guiding principles, some of which were arguably adequate while some others not. Therefore, each of them as two distinct generic types of methodological perspective is not intrinsically or conceptually associated with any ad hoc (adequate or inadequate) methodological guiding principles, though the application of both analytic approach and “continental” approach should, or needs to, be regulated by adequate ones. It is a telling observation: when being guided by an adequate methodological guiding principle, (certain tokens of) the two distinct methodological perspectives can be embodied or implemented in one individual philosopher in a coherent or “mutual-friendly” way (i.e., he/she can consider both somehow complementary in treating relevant issues); when otherwise, they would be treated in a “mutual-hostile” way (i.e., an individual thinker would treat them in conflict and thus take sides with one of them only). Fourth, it is also noted that the division between the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy does not lie in their having totally ­different concerns or topics. Both share many common issues or topics. Many of their originally identified “unique” concerns turn out to be distinct aspects or layers of jointly concerned issues or topics from a broader philosophical vantage point and/or under appropriate philosophical ­interpretation. Although, as explained above, the difference between the analytic and “continental” approaches in regard to their distinct generic types of

constructive engagement of analytic & continental approaches 157 methodological perspectives can be conceptually articulated in an unambiguous way, the difference in regard to their manifestations and illustrations in individual thinkers’ accounts lies in “quantity” rather than “quality” to the following extent. It is arguably correct to say that no figure that is usually labeled an ‘analytic’ or ‘continental’ philosopher, whether it is Socrates, Descartes, Kant, Frege, Russell, Husserl or Heidegger, is absolutely a “continental” philosopher who is totally immune from the foregoing “analytic” methodological perspective or an “analytic” philosopher who is totally immune from the foregoing “continental” methodological perspective, though it is indeed reasonable to identify who is predominantly or largely oriented in one generic type of methodological perspective instead of the other type, in her major academic works and at one level (i.e., the aforementioned “object” level or the “meta” level) instead of the other level, and thus still convenient and useful sometimes to keep such identity labels with the foregoing alert in view. This at least partially explains why it seems to some authors that the divide between analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy tend to be unclear, blurred or even disguised when they talk about the identities of some individual writers. This also at least partially explains why their “methodological” manifestations together with their associated substantial views in different culture-associated philosophical traditions can occur in different collective orientations: either in a largely mutual-hostile way (as known to us in view of the so-far history of contemporary Western philosophy) or in a largely mutual-friendly way (for example, as presented in Lott’s essay in view of the case of Africana philosophy), due to various historical, sociological and cultural contributing elements. However, on the other hand, the foregoing blurring-identity situation concerning individual writers does not amount to saying that there is no substantial and philosophically interesting distinction between the two concerning their distinct methodological perspectives and instruments that can be conceptually identified and characterized in a relatively clear and philosophically illuminating way; rather, as explained above, their distinction can be constructively identified and characterized in ­methodological terms, which can be constructively complementary and make joint contribution in cross-tradition philosophical inquiries. This explains in what sense they can be reasonably and effectively treated as two distinct methodological styles and orientations. This also explains how it is possible for those “analytic” and “continental” resources from different culture-associated philosophical traditions to constructively engage each other in cross-tradition philosophical inquiries: they “methodologically”

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manifest themselves via their associated substantial approaches in other culture-associated philosophical traditions than the Western one in certain distinct ways, whether historically speaking these have occurred in a largely “mutually-hostile” way or in a largely “mutually-friendly” way. Many of such distinct manifestations beyond the Western tradition are philosophically interesting and illuminating and can substantially contribute to the constructive engagement of the analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy. 3 To address the issue of how to look at the relationship of distinct approaches to jointly-concerned issues with adequate methodological guiding principles, in this section, I explain how it is possible to have adequate methodological guiding principles in cross-tradition philosophical inquiries by suggesting a set of adequacy conditions, which I also treat as a stepping stone and target of criticism for readers’ participating in the engaging discussion in this connection. Given that the term ‘methodological approach’ means a variety of ways that respond to how to approach an object of study, the term is a generic term that can indicate a number of methodological ways. As explained above, in the context of philosophical inquiries, generally speaking, the notion of methodological approach can, and needs to, be refined into three distinct but related methodological notions for the sake of adequately characterizing three distinct methodological but somehow related methodological ways in philosophical inquiries, i.e., those of methodological perspective (or perspective method), methodological instrument (or instrumental method), and methodological guiding principle (or guiding-principle method). As indicated before, for the purpose of cross-tradition understanding and constructive engagement, it is especially philosophically interesting, relevant, or even crucial to have an adequate methodological guiding principle, which the agent is expected to hold in evaluating the status and nature of the eligible methodological perspectives, applying her own methodological perspective, and looking at the relationship between her current working perspective and other methodological perspectives. In the following, to explore how it is possible to have adequate methodological guiding principles in doing philosophy comparatively, I suggest a set of eight conditions for adequate

constructive engagement of analytic & continental approaches 159 methodological guiding principles (‘adequacy conditions’ for short).3 This set of adequacy conditions is not necessarily exhaustive or exclusive, and it is not intended as dogma. The conditions are open to criticism for their validity and explanatory force. (1) The same-object-recognizing condition (against the “anything-goes” orientation). A methodological guiding principle is considered adequate (in this connection) if, given an object of study,4 it enables the agent to recognize that there is a way that the object objectively is such that it is not the case that “anything goes”, and we can all talk about that same object even though we may say different things (concerning distinct aspects of the object) about it. In contrast, it is considered inadequate (in this connection) if otherwise. This adequacy condition may be called a ‘minimal’ truth-pursuing condition in the sense that it is presupposed by the remaining kinds of adequacy conditions for the sake of capturing the way the object is if the truth pursuit is one strategic goal. (2) The perspective-eligibility-recognizing condition. A methodological guiding principle that is held or presupposed by the agent who uses some eligible methodological perspective concerning an object of study as her

3 An earlier version of the adequacy conditions is presented with elaboration and illustrations in Bo Mou (2010), “On Constructive-Engagement Strategy of Comparative Philosophy”, Comparative Philosophy 1(1): 1–32, . I have made some substantial modifications of them here. 4 The identity of a (genuine) object of study in philosophy is understood broadly: an object of study can be a naturally produced object in physical reality, a constructed object in social reality, an abstract object in philosophical theory, a “linguistic” object (such as a word), a thinker’s text, or an “issue” object of philosophical inquiry. For a sample case concerning various aspects of an object of study in philosophy as a philosophical issue, and an illustration of how such an object of philosophical studies can be treated, see the way in which I treat various aspects of the philosophical issue of truth in my Substantive Perspectivism: An Essay on Philosophical Concern with Truth (Springer, 2009). Also note that the account of an object of study as specified here is not merely compatible with an account of pseudo issues in philosophy, but also suggests one way to distinguish genuine issues from pseudo issues to the following extent: on the one hand, if an object of study, whether it is an object in a straightforward sense (like a house, a human being, etc.) or an object of philosophical inquiry such as an issue or topic (like the issue of truth, etc.), is genuine then it should be referentially accessible and communicable and open to reflective criticism; on the other hand, pseudo issues in philosophy do not really possess genuine aspects that are referentially accessible and communicable among philosophy critics. In this sense, a pseudo issue cannot be really “given” as an object of study or justifiably assumed in philosophical inquiry, whether or not it can be assumed as an legitimate object of study in some other kinds of inquiry (say, in religion or in social psychology).

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current working perspective is considered adequate (in this connection) when this guiding principle renders other eligible methodological perspectives (if any) also eligible and somehow compatible with the application of the current working perspective. In contrast, it is considered inadequate (in this connection) if otherwise. This adequacy condition may be called a ‘minimal’ multiple-perspectives-treating condition in the sense that it is presupposed by the remaining kinds of adequacy conditions concerning how to look at the relationship between distinct perspectives. (3) The agent-purpose-sensitivity condition. A methodological guiding principle is considered adequate (in this connection) if it enables the agent to have her choice of a certain working perspective, among eligible methodological perspectives concerning an object of study, sensitive to the agent’s purpose and thus renders the most applicable or the most appropriate (the best relative to that purpose) the perspective that (best) serves that purpose. In contrast, it is considered inadequate (in this connection) if otherwise. (4) The equality-status-granting condition. A methodological guiding principle is considered adequate (in this connection) if it renders all the eligible methodological perspectives (perspective simplexes) concerning an object of study equal in the following two senses: being equally necessary for the sake of a complete account of the object and being equally local from the global point of view that transcends any local and finite methodological perspectives, although one eligible perspective can be rendered more (or even the most) suitable than others only relative to its associated purpose and the aspect of the object to which it points; thus none of them is absolutely superior (or inferior) to the others in the above senses. In contrast, it is considered inadequate (in this connection) if otherwise. (5) The new-eligible-perspective-possibility-recognizing condition. A methodological guiding principle is considered adequate (in this connection) if it enables the agent to have an open-minded attitude toward the possibility of a new eligible perspective concerning an object of study that is to point to some genuine aspect of the object but has yet to be realized by the agent because of the ‘unknown-identity’ status of that aspect. A methodological guiding principle is considered inadequate (in this connection) if otherwise. (6) The complementarity-seeking condition. Given that multiple, seemingly competing eligible methodological perspectives concerning an object of study, whose identity can result from dynamic development if any, turn out to be complementary (in the sense that they point to and capture distinct aspects or layers of the object, which jointly contribute to

constructive engagement of analytic & continental approaches 161 the identity of the object in a mutually-supportive and supplementary way, and thus are indispensable for a complete understanding of the object), a methodological guiding principle is considered adequate (in this connection) if it captures the complementary character of the involved aspects of the object and thus seeks the complementary connection and harmonious balance between those perspectives for the sake of capturing the way the object is in this connection. In contrast, it is considered inadequate (in this connection) if otherwise. (7) The sublation-seeking condition. Given that there are two seemingly competing guiding-principle-associated perspective complexes concerning an object of study whose perspective parts are eligible (i.e., capturing distinct aspects of the object) but whose respectively associated methodological guiding principles are genuinely competing or incompatible (either because one of them is inadequate or because both are inadequate in other connections addressed above), such a methodological guiding principle would be considered adequate (in this connection) if it seeks a due solution through a Hegelian synthetic balance via sublation that keeps what are reasonable or appropriate from both guiding-­principleassociated perspective complexes (i.e., their eligible perspectives, maybe plus some adequate guiding principle from one perspective complex if any) while disregarding what are not, i.e., the inadequate guiding principle (or principles) in one (or both) of the perspective complexes. In contrast, it is considered inadequate (in this connection) if otherwise. (8) The dynamic-development-sensitivity condition. A methodological guiding principle is considered adequate (in this connection) if it guides the agent to be sensitive to the dynamic development (if any) of an object of study for the sake of realizing and understanding which aspects are still genuinely possessed by the object (thus which methodological perspectives are still eligible) and which ones not (thus which perspectives not eligible anymore). In contrast, it is considered inadequate in this connection if otherwise. This adequacy condition calls the agent’s attention and sensitivity to this: during the process of the dynamic development (if any) of an object of study, the object might develop some new aspect(s) while losing some of its previous aspect(s); consequently, the methodological perspective with regard to the previous aspect of the object might be not absolutely or permanently eligible, and a previously ineligible ­perspective might become eligible because of its pointing to the new aspect. This adequacy condition highlights the need for the agent’s sensitivity to the dynamic development (if any) of the object of study, one important front which can be easily ignored by an agent who is guided by an inadequate methodological guiding principle in this connection.

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Several notes are due. First, condition (1), given an object of study, is presupposed by the remaining kind of adequacy conditions as the truth pursuit (capturing the way the object is) is taken as one strategic goal against the radical “anything goes” relativism. Second, condition (2) is presupposed by the subsequent kinds of conditions (3) through (7). Third, however, to thoroughly fulfill conditions (1) and (2), condition (8) needs to be met if the object has its dynamic-development dimension. As emphasized at the outset, this set of adequacy conditions is suggested to serve two purposes here: first, it is to explain how it is possible to have adequate methodological guiding principles in cross-tradition philosophical inquiries; second, it is to provide readers with an engaging starting point or an effective stepping stone, which per se is not intended to be dogmatically imposed on readers but expected to be a target of critical examination in their own engaging exploration of the issue. * * * It is hoped that this “methodological” introduction to Part Two of the volume can provide readers with three related sorts of methodological resources. First, in Section 1, it has explained how the contributing essays are organized into this part in view of their coverage and contents and of how we have endeavored to reach a healthy and constructive balance in several connections with due emphases. Second, in Section 2, it has presented a cross-tradition “methodological” characterization of analytic and “continental” approaches in philosophy for the sake of aiding readers to understand how it is possible for those addressed resources from different traditions to constructively engage each other. Third, in Section 3, it has explained how it is possible to have adequate methodological guiding principles in cross-tradition philosophical inquiries by suggesting a set of adequacy conditions, which can also serve as a stepping stone and target of criticism for readers’ participating in the engaging discussion in this connection.5

5 I am grateful to Richard Tieszen for his thoughtful feedback to some ideas in Section 2 of this essay in our discussion and for his helpful suggestions on some language expressions in this writing.

CHAPTER EIGHT

PHILOSOPHY SANS FRONTIÈRES: ANALYTIC AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY— A VIEW FROM THE EAST Graham Priest 1. Introduction The distinction between “Analytic” and “Continental” philosophy is a vexed one. It is vexed because how to draw the distinction is not at all clear. It has nothing to do with philosophical analysis: a philosophical view which flourished briefly in England in the early years of the twentieth century. Nor does it have anything to do with whether the philosophers involved come from what the British quaintly call ‘the Continent’. It is also vexed because the supposed distinction has caused a good deal of vexation in the Western philosophical profession in recent years, philosophers from each side of the divide often denigrating what philosophers from the other side of the divide do, and even those philosophers themselves. My own view is that the distinction is of little philosophical interest. It is driven, intellectually, by matters of style, not substance, and, politically, by academic turf-wars. It is easy enough for philosophers of each, usually self-ascribed, kind to point to the failings of the other kind. Analytic philosophy is nit-picking and boring. Continental philosophy is intellectually sloppy and pretentious. And no doubt, the philosophers of each kind have typical vices. But, in the end, this is not a terribly profound observation. What we should be concerned with is interesting philosophy, however it is expressed; and neither side has a monopoly on this. The unimportance of the distinction is particularly clear if one views it from a suitable perspective: often, things that cannot be seen close-up, are patent from a distance. So it is if one views matters at hand from the perspective of the Asian philosophical traditions; the dispute between the two sides then appears simply a family tiff. Such, at least, is the import of this paper. I will make the point by describing both the relationship between Analytic and Continental philosophy, and the relationship between ­Eastern

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and Western philosophy in historical terms. This will mean covering an enormous amount of ground very fast.1 Nearly every topic I mention might be covered (and usually has been) at book length. So I must sweep many details and niceties under the carpet. Nearly every historical claim in what follows should be thought of as a sort of first approximation. In gross terms, however, I take the pictures painted to be accurate. 2. Twentieth Century Western Philosophy: The Constructive Phase Let us start by looking at the Analytic/Continental divide in the context of the development of twentieth century Western philosophy. We can divide this into three distinct phases: a constructive phase, a destructive phase, and a phase of fragmentation. Let us take these in turn.2 It is now a truism that twentieth century philosophy started by rebelling against German Idealism. But where and how did it rebel? To those with eyes to see it, the rebellion had started well before the turn of the century, in the writings of two philosophers who did more than any others to set the agenda for philosophy in the twentieth century. These were both German-speaking: Gottlob Frege and Edmund Husserl. Their common tongue was just the start of what these two thinkers had in common. Both thinkers’ initial concern was the nature of mathematics. For both, this led them to an analysis of the nature of logic. Both launched an attack on psychologism in logic. Both were driven to the problem of meaning: how do things mean, and in what way? In this way, they came to what was, I think, the most central and recurrent problem in twentieth century Western philosophy: the nature of representation in language and thought. Where the two thinkers differed was not so much in their agenda, as in the tools that they forged to attack their problems. The main weapon that Frege developed was what we would now call modern logic (both formal and the philosophy thereof): the theory of quantification, truth functions, and corresponding semantic doctrines concerning concept and object, sense and reference, and so on. The main weapon that Husserl developed,

1 There is no way that this material can be covered in an appropriately scholarly fashion in an essay of this length. So I will not even try. And if some be inclined to call the essay impressionistic, so be it. 2 Much of the following discussion comes from Priest (2003).

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by contrast, was phenomenology: the analysis of the nature of consciousness as it presents itself. How adequate these tools were for their intended application, we may still dispute. But what cannot be disputed is that the tools, once developed, took on a life of their own. In them, several generations of philosophers were to see the appropriate basis for attacking many important philosophical problems. The first phase of twentieth century philosophy proper—roughly the first half of the century—can be thought of as a time of optimism. Philosophers thought that by applying the new tools, they were going to forge ahead and break much new ground, possibly sorting out some old philosophical problems once and for all. The two tools that Frege and Husserl had forged defined our two traditions. The logic tool defined Analytic philosophy; the phenomenological tool defined Continental philosophy. On the Analytic side, we have Russell and Wittgenstein applying the new logic not only in the philosophy of mathematics, but in an analysis of the fundamental nature of reality, language, and mind. The logical positivists, such as Reichenbach, Carnap, Schlick, too, took up the new machinery, and applied it energetically to epistemology and the philosophy of science, hoping to do away with metaphysics altogether. The influence of empiricism played an important role here. One might think of logical positivism as positivism plus modern logic. Twentieth century positivism had its US version too, in the pragmatism of James and Dewey. On the Continental side of the divide, Heidegger adopted Husserl’s phenomenology, but rejected Husserl’s phenomenological bracketing of consciousness, allowing phenomenology to provide an analysis of much in the world itself—including, most importantly, what it is to be a person, Dasein. The project was taken up, developed, and changed by Sartre, and by other pheonomenologists, such as Merleau-Ponty. On this side of the ledger the influence of existentialism was felt. We might think of this tradition as Husserl’s phenomenology plus existentialism. 3. Twentieth Century Western Philosophy: The Destructive Phase So much for the constructive phase. What followed next—roughly the third quarter or the century, was a time of disintegration. By about the middle years of the century, or just after, the old visions were running out of steam. Too many cracks were appearing in the grand architectures. The two traditions were then subjected to telling attacks.

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Major attacks came from without. For example, on the Analytic side of the divide, the work of Kuhn devastated what was left of logical positivism, showing that science just didn’t work in the way that positivists had claimed. On the other side of the divide, and inspired by Bachelard and the Marxism of Althusser, Foucault was doing similar things. Indeed, Kuhn and Foucault play much the same role in their respective traditions. Both attacked their tradition’s foundationalism; both argued that knowledge comes in historical epochs separated by ruptures; both raised the spectre of relativism. Perhaps the most important attacks on the respective traditions were not external, however, but internal. On the Analytic side of the divide, Wittgenstein himself dismantled the Tractatus, the most solid achievement of that tradition. In a parallel move on the other side of the divide, Heidegger’s Kehre caused him to become less sanguine about his earlier project of answering “the question of Being”—or at least the way that he had earlier hoped to achieve it—and to articulate a critique of any straightforward way of doing so. Ultimately, perhaps the most important internal attacks were by people who developed the pertinent ideas to their logical conclusions, in a self-inflicted reductio ad absurdum. The key figures here are Quine and Derrida. Quine showed that the principles of the logical positivists (and pragmatists) ultimately entail the destruction of everything that they held dear. And Derrida extended the arguments of Heidegger about the inability of language to express Being, to conclude the inability of language to express any “transcendental signified”, that is, to have any determinate meaning. In fact, the upshot of the critiques of Wittgenstein, Quine, and Derrida, each in its own way, was, in a certain sense, the destruction of the very possibility of meaning. Think of Wittgenstein’s view that there is nothing to determine meaning as such, of Quine’s view of the indeterminacy of reference, and of Derrida’s view that language never breaks out of a vertiginous regress of self-reference. The key issue of how representation was possible, became shipwrecked on the pessimistic conclusion that it was not. So far, I have said nothing about ethics. Though some will disagree with me, I think that moral philosophy in the major traditions we have been concerned with so far is pretty barren. Nor is this an accident: these traditions leave little room for interesting moral philosophy. In positivism, for example, once one has said ‘Killing; boo’, and things like it, there is nothing much left to say. And existentialism, with its ‘You are free; choose’, is not much better.

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In fact, what interesting moral and political philosophy there was in the period we have been looking at was taking place in an academically marginal tradition: Marxism. This made a cameo appearance on both sides of the divide. It, too, though, showed the same pattern of an optimistic period, followed by a period of disintegration. In the first half of the century, the theoretical tools that Marx had forged were applied and extended. Lukács and Gramsci, for example, developed the ideas of class and class consciousness, of ideology and the power of culture. Marxism had a brief flowering in English-speaking philosophy departments in the 1960s and early 1970s, and a much more substantial presence in French and German-speaking universities, but it, too, collapsed under its own weight, just as Stalinism itself was to do a decade or two later. Marxism became articulated in so many different ways that it just ceased to be clear what it was any more, what was central to it, and what its fundamental doctrines meant. Who had it right?—members of the Frankfurt school, like Marcuse; Analytical Marxists, like Cohen; the old-fashioned Russians, like Ilyenkov; or philosophers, like Althusser, who were part of a general flourishing of structuralism in France at the time. Late in the century, Marxism, then, was in disarray too. 4. Twentieth Century Philosophy: The Phase of Fragmentation Quite generally, the picture I have drawn of philosophy in the major part of the twentieth century is one of the development and application of novel techniques, eventually collapsing under its own weight. What was the result of this collapse? Let me start to address this matter by asking: who were the most influential philosophers in the final phase of the twentieth century, it’s last quarter? (I do not ask who was the best, or who will be remembered longest; just who had most effect during the period.) Let us take this countryby-country. The most influential British philosopher, one would have to say, is Dummett. In the US, it is Kripke—or, if one is concerned with moral philosophy, Rawls. The most influential Australasian, it would seem to me, is Armstrong. The most influential French philosopher would have to be Derrida—or again, if one is concerned with moral philosophy, perhaps Levinas. The most influential German philosopher is, I guess, Habermas. Now, you might well disagree with some of these judgments, but I don’t think that it will change the picture much. The most striking thing about

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this collection of philosophers is the fact that, without exception, every one had a different philosophical agenda and a different pursuit: antirealism, modality and necessity, distributive justice, combinatorial metaphysics, deconstruction, responsibility to the other, reason and its social context. In a word, diversity and fragmentation. It could be suggested that this picture is simply a result of the fact that we are as yet too close to the period to have any sense of perspective. We do not yet know who can be ignored. (After all, there were many philosophers earlier in the century who were influential, but whom I have not mentioned, since they are not so central to the main story: Popper, de Beauvoir, Austin, to name but three.) To some extent, I am sure that this is true; but I think that the picture of fragmentation is not simply an artifact of the lack of perspective. The fragmentation is witnessed not only be the fact that these influential philosophers had such diverse interests, but by the number of new philosophical areas and topics that blossomed in that period. Here are, I think, some of the most notable. For a start we witnessed a renaissance of moral philosophy. For example, in pure ethics, the revival of virtue ethics is clear. We have also seen the development of the whole new area of applied and professional ethics (including environmental ethics). The striking developments in logic concern the development of many non-classical logics: intuitionist, quantum, relevant, paraconsistent. Three other areas of development would also have to be taken up by anyone writing a serious history of philosophy at the end of the century. One of these is feminist philosophy; another is cognitive science: the fruitful inter-meshing of philosophy, psychology, computer science and other disciplines. (It is here that the question of representation has taken refuge.) Both of these areas have already had a significant impact on the philosophical curriculum. The third area is Asian philosophy. This is now being taught and studied in the West in a way that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago. A final index of the fragmentation of philosophy concerns the two major print encyclopedias published in the last fifty years. The Macmillan Encyclopedia of 1967, edited by Edwards, and the Routledge Encyclopedia of 1998, edited by Craig. The first of these was published at the end of the period of optimism, and still reflects that optimism—mainly from an analytic perspective, it must be said. The Routledge Encyclopedia, by contrast, is a child of the fragmentation, taking up concerns that would never have found a serious place in the Macmillan Encyclopedia; but, for this very reason, lacking the focus of that Encyclopedia. As Ray Monk,

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­reviewing the Routledge Encyclopedia in the Times Higher Education Supplement (Sept. 11th, 1998), put it: . . . the encyclopedia fails to provide any coherent view of its subject. If philosophy lost its nimbus in the heyday of the analytic tradition, it now seems to have lost its centre. Where Edward’s work presented a clear and strong single vision of the discipline, the view here is refracted through the lenses of a plethora of widely divergent specialisms.

If it was to reflect the state of the discipline, it could hardly do otherwise. 5. And the Two Traditions? So much for the twentieth century. And even thought we are now well into the 21st century, I think things are still much as I described at the end of the twentieth. And how do our two traditions appear in this light? The two traditions grew out of the same set of concerns. And though they might come at answers from different directions, their problems have been much the same: at the core of both is the question of representation. How, and in what way, does language/mind represent the world? And within their traditions, certain philosophers play much the same role on each side of the divide: Frege and Husserl, the foundational figures; Heidegger and Witt­ genstein, who established the major problematics—as well as turning against them; Kuhn and Foucault, who historicised epistemology; Quine and Derrida, who took the positions to their ultimate points of collapse. These are not two different traditions so much as parallel rail tracks, going from and to the same places. What seems to me to be the most significant difference between the two traditions is, in fact, one that is not frequently remarked upon. This is that philosophers in the continental tradition have always had an eye on socio-political questions in a way that thinkers in the analytic tradition have not. There is a political dimension to Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida, that is entirely absent from Wittgenstein, Kuhn, Quine, and Kripke. This difference has now disappeared with the renaissance of analytic moral philosophy. Moreover, the fragmentation of philosophy has lead to a further destruction of any thought that there are two distinct approaches here. On the analytic side is hard to find any significant commonalities between the works of Rawls, Singer, and Nussbaum; and on the continental side between the works of Habermas and Levinas. Indeed, in many ways there

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are more similarities across the divide. Kant is a clear influence on both Rawls and Habermas, not so much the others. A concern for the wellbeing of others plays centre stage in Singer and Levinas, not so much the others. A final word on postmodernism, which some will associate with the Continental side of the ledger. Mistakenly, I think; not because it belongs on the other side, but because it does not belong on the ledger at all. To the extent that this is a philosophical view, there is nothing new about it: the attacks on truth, knowledge, and meaning, are all to be found in the Presocratics. The first relativists about truth were Greek (think of Protagoras); the first skeptics about knowledge were Greek (think of Pyrrho); the first people to deny meaning were Greek (think of Cratylus). Indeed, the sophist Gorgias is reputed to have said: there is no truth; but even if there were, you could not know it; and even if you could, you could not express it. And as far as I can see, many of the contemporary arguments that have been advanced for postmodern themes are no improvement on those of the Greeks—quite the reverse. In fact, I think that postmodernism is, in many ways, more of an aesthetic than a philosophy—as is witnessed by the fact that it is generally taken much more seriously in departments of literature, fine arts, architecture, etc., than of philosophy. In many ways, postmodernism is more of a reaction to the optimistic modernism of early twentieth century art, than to modern, that is, post-medieval, philosophy. Notably, virtually none of the philosophers often cited as postmodernists by non-philosophers, have accepted this label. And many (though not all) outside the profession who do claim the title manifest little knowledge of the history of philosophy, as well as a disconcerting philosophical naiveté. (My sense is that post-modernism has now run its course, and will soon disappear from the intellectual landscape.) As I have argued, then, when seen in historical perspective, the supposed difference between Continental and Analytic philosophy is much over-rated. 6. Turning East I will come back to the Analytic/Continental division in due course. But for the moment, let us shift topic to Asian philosophy.3 Nota bene: the epithet

3 Much of the following discussion comes from Priest (2011).

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‘Asian philosophy’, though standard (and I shall often use it), is rather inappropriate. There is no such thing as Western philosophy. There are many Western philosophies: compare the different styles and contents of Plato, Hume, Wittgenstein, Heidegger. Similarly, there is no such thing as Asian philosophy. There are many Eastern philosophies. Indeed, the situation is even less unified than it is in the West. At least there, the philosophies spring from a single culture, that of Ancient Greece. But in the East, they spring from two quite different great and ancient cultures: those of India and China. I need to start this part of the discussion with an apology; for there may well be people who think that Eastern philosophy is not philosophy at all. For a start, Eastern philosophy has not been a part of the curriculum in Western philosophy departments; so Western philosophers generally know little about it. The situation is obviously self-reproducing. But why has there been so little engagement with such traditions in Western philosophy departments? After all, philosophers tend to be curious people, and there was nothing stopping them finding out what they did not know. Or was there? Well, until the last couple of centuries, there has generally been little knowledge and understanding of Eastern cultures in Western countries. This is now, of course, no longer the case. But in more recent times, there have been other, and more insidious, barriers. The standard view of professional Western philosophers throughout most of the twentieth century was that “Asian philosophy” is not philosophy at all: it’s religion, mysticism, non-rational. The views, it must be said, were held by people, even thought they had not taken the trouble to read and engage with the material. Now, it is certainly true that much Asian philosophy has important connections with Asian religions, though certainly not all of it: Confucianism, for example is a secular philosophy. But the same is true of much Western philosophy. The great period of Medieval philosophy in the West was heavily connected with Christianity (not surprising, since most philosophers then were clerics); it was philosophy none the less. And, yes, there are parts of Asian philosophy that have connections with mysticism and the ineffable. But the same is true of Western philosophy. Leave the great Christian mystical philosophers like Eckhart out of this. There are definite mystical strands in Plato—and even in writings of two of the greatest twentieth century Western philosophers: Wittgenstein (in the Tractatus) and Heidegger (on Being).

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What is philosophy anyway? We could spend much time talking about this: it is itself a hard philosophical issue.4 For present purposes, we won’t go too far wrong if we think of it as the critical articulation of ethical and/ or metaphysical views. The word ‘critical’ here is crucial. All people and cultures have views about the nature of the world in which they live, and of how one should behave. This does not make them philosophers. Philosophy requires the intellectual scrutiny of such views. (Which is why it is such a valuable discipline.) Now, the Indian and Chinese traditions clearly have articulations of ethical and metaphysical views: to see this one need look no further than Buddhist metaphysics or Confucian ethics. But do the traditions have the appropriate kind of critical engagement? The answer concerning India, to anyone who takes the trouble to read the material, is an obvious “yes”. There is constant argument and counter-argument between Buddhists and Hindus, not to mention the critiques and counter-critiques between various Hindu schools and Buddhist schools themselves. Prima facie, the answer is less clear in the Chinese traditions. Indeed, if there is a split in world philosophy, it is not at the Euphrates, but at the Himalayas. Whilst the cut and thrust of philosophical debates is patent in Indian texts to anyone who reads them even superficially, the same is not true of Chinese texts. It is there, none the less. For example, there was much debate between Confucians, Daoists, Moists, and also between the various Chinese Buddhist schools. What may make this harder to pick up, is that the style of argument in many texts is often rather different from more explicit debate forms. Arguments are frequently made by analogy; and the consequences of the analogy may not be spelled out, but left for the reader to ponder. For the perceptive eye, though, critical engagement is clear. The view that Asian philosophy is not really philosophy is, therefore, a view that can really be held only out of ignorance. Fortunately, then, Western philosophers are finally shaking off this misguided view, and are starting to engage with Eastern philosophies. Slowly, as I have already noted, courses on Asian philosophy are starting to appear in Western philosophy departments. Of course, for Westerners to engage in these traditions is not easy. There are many barriers in the way. 4 I’ve had my say on the matter in Priest (2006).

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For a start, there is the language. The texts are in Sanskrit, classical Chinese, and other Asian languages. For scholarly purposes, it is clearly desirable to have a knowledge of these. Such languages are not taught in schools, and require hard work. Fortunately, then, much good philosophy can come out of reading the texts in translation. (Most Western philosophers deal with texts originally written in Latin, Greek, French, German, English, and other languages. Few of them speak all of these.) Many of the extant translations are not good, qua philosophy, since they were made by people who were not philosophers, but philologists or scholars of religion who lacked the appropriate philosophical sensitivity. But many key texts now have good translations; and the situation is getting better all the time, as more translations are being made by philosophers with the requisite language skills. The second problem is the style of writing and arguing. I have already noted that this tends to be quite different in Chinese texts; but even in the Indian traditions, the style of arguing can be somewhat scholastic and unfamiliar to someone who is used to reading only twentieth Western century texts—though those versed in the Presocratic or Medieval scholastic Western texts will feel at home very soon. The third problem is the culture. Philosophy is not written in a vacuum. To understand the philosophy of a text properly, one needs some appreciation of the culture in which it was generated. One needs to understand the assumptions that are being taken for granted, the allusions to historical events, religious customs, and so on. This is true of all philosophy, whether Eastern or Western, but Western people’s knowledge of Western cultures is evidently much greater than their knowledge of Eastern cultures, since they live in one. Someone from the West who wishes to understand Asian philosophies must be prepared to learn enough about the relevant culture without this advantage. So there are at least three hurdles to be jumped. But these are hurdles that philosophers are well used to jumping. Someone who has read only contemporary philosophy must jump these hurdles with respect to Ancient Greek philosophy, for example. But many do, and find much of importance on the other side. And what do we find on the other side of the Asian hurdles if we make the jump? We find a landscape that it at once familiar and unfamiliar. Any Western philosopher will immediately recognise familiar problems there. To name but a few: Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? How does this relate to language? How do I know these things? How should I live? How should the state be run? But Asian philosophers have often

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had singularly different takes on answers to these questions, or singularly different reasons for or against answers familiar in the West. 8. Indian Philosophy The Asian philosophical traditions, then, provide much interesting philosophy. But since most Western philosophers know little of these traditions, I will need to explain something about them.5 The following time line (Fig. 1) tells a (very sketchy) story about the development of Indian and Chinese philosophy. I add a third column concerning the development of Western philosophy for comparison. Since Western philosophy is probably well known to most readers of this volume, I will say little about it. Just two brief comments. The first is that for all the religious and political influence of Islam on Asia, Islamic and Arabic philosophy are part of Western philosophy. The great Arabic philosophers were working in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, just as much as the great Medieval Christian philosophers. Secondly, perhaps the single major difference between the Western traditions and the Eastern traditions is that the scientific revolution and the rise of capitalism had an enormous impact on the West, occasioning radical new developments (which I have not shown on the time-line). Nothing of a similar kind happened in the East. These things said, let us start with philosophy in India. The Indian philosophical traditions (Fig. 1, second column) emerge from a religious literature, the Vedas, going back well before 1000 BCE. The writings retain their religious content, but gradually become more philosophical through the later Upanishads and parts of the epic poems, such as the Bhagavad Gītā. A primary philosophical concern is god (Brahman) and the self (Ātman). In some sense, these are one. From this background emerge six schools of orthodox Hindu philosophy, just before the beginning of the CE and for the next several hundred years. These schools articulate the Hindu view in various ways, engaging with all the other questions which it raises. One of the most influential of these schools was that of Śaṇkara, Advaita Vedānta. According to this, the world of experience is a mere appearance, cloaking the identity of Ātman and Brahman. 5 Good introductions to the Asian philosophical traditions are still not easy to find. Kohler (2002) is not a bad place to start.

philosophy sans frontières Europe 2000 BCE | 1000 | 800 | 600 | 500 | 400 | 300 | 200 | 100 | 0 CE | 200 | 400 | 600 | 800 | 1000 | 1200 | 1400 | 1600 | 1700 |

India Early Vedas, 2000–1000

175 China Yi-Jing, ?10c

Homer, 7c

Upanishads, 800–400 Presocratics, 600–450 Buddha, 563–483 Socrates, 469–399 Mahāvīra, 540–468 Plato, 427–347 Aristotle, 384–322 Bhagavad Gītā, ?400–200 Stoicism, 300 BCE–200 CE

Lao Zi, ?6c Kong Zi, 551–479 Mo Zi, 470–391 Zhuang Zi, 399–295 Meng Zi, 371–295 Han Fei, 280–233

Orthodox Hindu Schools start to appear, 2c BCE

Nāgārjuna, 1–2c Augustine, 354–430 Ibn Sina (Avicenna) 980–1037 Aquinas, 1224–74 Rise of Modern Philosophy Descartes, 1596–1650

Vasubandhu, Asaṅga, 4c Śaṅkara, 788–822

Hui Neng, 638–713 Fa Zang, 643–712 Emergence of NeoConfucianism, c 1000 Dōgen, 1200–1253 ( Japan)

Figure 1: A sketchy timeline of Western, Indian and Chinese philosophy.

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Around the 5th Century BCE, a number of views emerged which reacted against the authority of the Vedas, and so rejected a number of their claims (though, naturally, others were preserved). These included Jainism, attributed to Mahāvīra, and Buddhism, founded by Siddhārtha Gautama. The most philosophically influential of these was Buddhism. This rejected both the existence of any god and of the self: a person is just a bunch of parts (physical and mental), which come together at a certain time, interact, change, and then fall apart. Buddhism developed in a number of early forms, only one of which now survives, Theravada Buddhism. Around the beginning of the CE, another form starts to emerge, Mahāyāna Buddhism. This had a much more radical analysis of the nature of reality than the earlier forms of Buddhism: everything is empty, śuṇya. The understanding of emptiness took different forms in the two schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism that emerged. One, Madhyamaka, was associated with probably the greatest Buddhist philosopher, Nāgārjuna (unknown dates; some time around the first or second century). He argued that to be empty was to be empty of self-existence (svabhāva). Everything is what it is only in relation to other things. The other, Yogācāra, was associated with the brothers Vasubandhu and Asaṅga. For them, to be empty was to be mind-dependent. This is a version of idealism. All things are conceptual constructions with no external reality. What is left if one strips off all concepts, ultimate reality, is a simple “thatness” (tathāta). Buddhism collapsed (or was crushed) in India with the advent of Islam. But, by this time, Theravada had moved into South East Asia, and the two forms of Indian Māhāyana had merged and taken root in Tibet. 9. Chinese Philosophy Let us now cross the Hamalayas and look at China (Fig. 1, third column). There are very definite ethical views articulated in Hinduism and Buddhism (which I have not mentioned), but I think it fair to say that for the Indian philosophers the centre of gravity is metaphysics. Classical Chinese philosophy is quite different. Though metaphysical issues are certainly present and debated, the centre of gravity is very much ethical, social, and political. Classical Chinese philosophy emerges from its own religious and literary tradition. Perhaps the book that exerted the greatest influence on it was the Yi-Jing (Book of Changes). This is a book, maybe first formulated about 1000 BCE, essentially for divination. A certain process is undertaken

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to produce a figure called a hexagram. The Yi-Jing provides a somewhat cryptic commentary on each hexagram, which is taken to guide future actions. The book is not a work of philosophy, but in it one finds the picture of reality as an ever changing flux, with two basic aspects, yin and yang, which wax and wane reciprocally. This provides the metaphysical backdrop of subsequent philosophy in China. Two philosophies, in particular, emerge around the fifth Century BCE. (It is a striking fact that this was a crucial time in the philosophical development of China, India, and Greece.) One of these was developed by undoubtedly the most influential Chinese philosopher of all time, Kong Zi (Confucius). For him, the state is a highly regimented place, ordered by customs and rites. Individuals flourish by knowing their place in society and sticking to the rules. The other philosophy was Daoism, associated with the name of Lao Zi—the probably fictional author of the DaoDe-Jing—and, a couple of hundred years later, Zhuang Zi. The Daoists rejected the regulation of the Confucians, and thought that one should “go with the flow” (the flow, that is, inherent in the cosmos, the Dao). They are naturally thought of as political anarchists of sorts. As an active philosophy, Daoism ended around the turn of the CE, when it transmuted into a popular religion concerned to find the elixir of life—though Daoist philosophy continued to exert an important influence on subsequent Chinese thought.6 Confucianism, however, continued to develop via the thought of subsequent Confucians, such as Meng Zi (Mencius), and critics such Mo Zi (a utilitarian) and Han Fei (a totalitarian). Out of this tempering emerges a Confucian view which is politically orthodox in China until the beginning of the twentieth century. (Though it underwent important developments later, in a form sometimes called Neo-Confucianism.) Mahāyāna Buddhism spread from India, north-west into central Asia, and thence, via the Silk Route, into China. It started to arrive in China in the early years of the CE, and was mistaken for an esoteric form of Daoism. Good translations of the Buddhist texts into Chinese start to appear in about the fifth century; and Chinese versions of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra appear, but they do not last long. Distinctively Chinese forms of Buddhism then develop, the influence of Daoism playing a large role here. Several schools flourished (only a couple of which now survive). One 6 It is standard to distinguish between Daoist philosophy, Dao-Jia, and Daoist religion, Dao-Jiao.

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of these was the Hua-yan of Fa Zang. But perhaps the most distinctive of these is Chan—or, as it is more commonly known in the West, Zen, it’s Japanese name. Perhaps the most influential thinkers here are the sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng—and, when the view goes in to Japan, the medieval philosopher, Dōgen. Chan is a strongly anti-philosophical school in many ways: all language is, in the end, an obfuscation of reality, to be ditched. It also developed a very sophisticated philosophy to justify this—just one of the many paradoxes that Chan juggles. 10. Traditions Mutually Informing One Another Before we return to Analytic and Continental philosophy, it will pay us to look a little closer at the development of Buddhism. As we have seen, this developed in India, but moved into China. Although versions of the Indian Mahāyāna schools of Buddhism flourished for a short period in China, they did not last. What emerged instead were the distinctively Chinese forms of Buddhism, such as Hua-yan and Chan. Though these certainly incorporated central aspects of Indian Buddhism, the incorporation of Daoist ideas as well produced a somewhat distinctive beast. Let me illustrate with three of the major differences. There had always been something of a tension between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. The Yogācāra notion of ultimate reality looked like a good candidate for something that has self-existence, and so falls foul of the Madhyamaka arguments that everything is empty. The influx of Daoist ideas helped to resolve this tension. The Chinese Buddhists could think of this ultimate reality as the ineffable Dao, which underlies all phenomena. The phenomena were a manifestation of the Dao, however. And one cannot have a thing without its manifestations any more than one can have the manifestations without the thing. Each depends on the other. In his famous Golden Lion Treatise, Fa Zang illustrated this with the analogy of the statue of a golden lion. The phenomena were like the shape of the lion; the ultimate reality was like the gold itself. You cannot have gold without shape, or shape without gold. Second, the Chinese developed a distinctive notion of enlightenment. In Indian Buddhism, enlightenment took a very long time, requiring many rebirths, and aeons of slow improvement. The Chinese realized that if every person had an underlying ultimate reality, uncontaminated by conceptual imposition—Buddha Nature, as they called it—there was a sense in which everyone was already enlightened. Enlightenment was

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not gaining something: it was losing something: conceptual imposition. And the right training could make the scales fall from one’s eyes in a sudden flash of enlightenment (which the Japanese Zen philosophers called satori). Indeed, the relationship in Indian Buddhism between suffering and ignorance is inverted. In Indian Buddhism, the main emphasis is on the elimination of suffering. Ignorance is a major cause of this. In Chinese Buddhism the major emphasis is on ignorance. The point of enlightenment is to see the world aright. An elimination of suffering will go along for the ride. Third, a novel picture of an enlightened person emerged. The awakened person in Indian Buddhism is free from attachments. The same is true of the Daoist sage, who just goes with the flow, whose behavior manifests a spontaneous wu-wei and zi-ran: no (forced) action and flowing mind. These became built into marks of enlightened person, especially in Chan Buddhism. 11. Analytic and Continental, East and West Let us return, at last, to the distinction between Analytic and Continental philosophy. Looking from the East, things appear like this. All the Western philosophical traditions have a common origin in the philosophy of Ancient Greece. Different strands emerge, intertwine, sometimes die out, sometimes are reincarnated. The differences that our favourite distinction points to had no significance before the twentieth century. Kant was as much influenced by Hume as he was by Leibniz; Frege’s review of Husserl’s first book occasioned his turn away from psychologism; and the dominant influence on English-speaking philosophy at the turn of the twentieth century was the German Idealism of Kant and Hegel—as a casual perusing of the English-language philosophy journals that were being published at that time (such as Mind, and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society) will demonstrate. And I have already argued that the supposed differences between the two traditions after the beginning of the twentieth century are much over-rated. If one comes from the Indian or Chinese traditions, the disputes between Analytic and Continental philosophy will appear as just in-house debates. Compare this with the distinction between two definitely very ­different traditions: those of India and China. These have different origins, languages, typical styles of argumentation. But because they deal with similar problems, they can interact and inform each other with novel and interesting

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results, as we have seen with the case-study of Buddhism. And if two such really different traditions can interact with philosophical interest, things separated by the minimal distance between the Analytic and Continental traditions of Western philosophy certainly can. Indeed, this is already happening to a certain extent. Witness, to take one obvious example, the comeback that Hegel has made in English-speaking philosophy over the last twenty years; or the interest that philosophers on both sides of the divide have taken in the later Wittgenstein in more recent years. The difference between Eastern and Western philosophy is clearly much greater than that between Analytic and Continental philosophy. Yet even that distance is closing fast. Because of Western imperialism and the export or Western technology, the East has already had to come to terms with many aspects of Western culture and philosophy. The British brought Western philosophy to the Raj. A hallmark of Nishida ( Japan, 1870–1945) and the Kyoto School he founded was its attempt to fuse Buddhist ideas with those from Western philosophy. And the philosophy that has had the biggest impact on China in the last 100 years is Marxism. Philosophy does not take place in a cultural and economic vacuum. As Marx pointed out, the group that has economic dominance also has cultural dominance. In this, he was quite right. (And the East has already felt the impact of this.) The world’s dominant economy for the last forty years has been that of the US; and just think of the global impact of Hollywood, MacDonald’s, CNN, and so on. The point is not restricted to popular culture. There is no doubt that the US is the centre of gravity of the Western philosophical world at the moment. Even when the philosophical views at issue come from elsewhere, as did logical positivism and deconstructionism, the US has appropriated them. One reason for this is that it can afford to buy good philosophers from elsewhere, either temporarily of permanently. And of course, good philosophers will want to go where other good philosophers are. So where will the economic centre of power be in the twenty-first century? Asia. China and India between them account for nearly half of the world’s population. China already has the world’s second largest economy, and India is also developing fast. Once the economies of these countries are fully capitalised, they will swamp the rest of the world, in the way that the US did in the second half of the twentieth century. The West will, therefore, come to terms with Asian cultures; and Western philosophers will have to be engage with Asian philosophical traditions. Indeed, as I observed above, this is already happening. Asian philosophical traditions

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are already being taught in many Western philosophical departments in a way that was unthinkable 30 years ago. I do not want to suggest that the engagement between Eastern and Western philosophy is a matter of crude economic determinism (though economic factors are certainly important). Material intercourse will bring Western philosophers into contact with the Asian traditions. And once this is done, they will come to see that the philosophical traditions of the East are rich and fascinating. Western philosophy has much to learn from the East; just as, I am sure, Eastern philosophy still has much to learn from the West. Indeed, what will happen in the twenty-first century, I believe, is that we will see not just economic globalization, but also the development of a global philosophical culture. This is not to say that there will be a bland uniformity, any more than there is in the West at the moment. But philosophers everywhere will become aware of their global heritage, and will draw on it all to produce things of which we cannot yet even guess. And what will happen to the distinction between Analytic and Continental philosophy in the process? Major traditional differences between Britain, France, and Germany disappeared with the development of the EU, in a way that was unthinkable in the two decades after the end of the Second Word War. They became irrelevant in the context of something bigger. In the same way, I suggest, to the extent that there are differences between Analytic and Continental philosophy, these will disappear, submerged in philosophical tidal swells of incomparably bigger magnitude.7 References Koller, J.M. (2002), Asian Philosophies, fourth Edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall). Priest, G. (2003), “Where is Philosophy at the Start of the Twenty-First Century?”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103: 85–96. —— (2006), “What is Philosophy?”, Philosophy 8: 189–207. —— (2011), “Why Asian Philosophy?”, Ch. 18 of G. Oppy and N. Trakakis (eds.), The Antipodean Philosopher (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books).

7 Many thanks to Maureen Eckert and Bo Mou for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

CHAPTER NINE

COMPARATIVE ASPECTS OF AFRICANA PHILOSOPHY AND THE CONTINENTAL-ANALYTIC DIVIDE Tommy L. Lott Long before Africana Philosophy gained official recognition by the Amer­ ican Philosophical Association as an area of study within the discipline, Western philosophy already had jelled into a rigid divide between conti­ nental and analytic schools. (Quinton, 1995) The engagement of continen­ tal and analytic philosophers interested in Africana thought suggests a model of how multifarious differences can be negotiated to mutual benefit. Although the term “comparative philosophy” often is based on compari­ sons between Eastern and Western philosophy, it is also sometimes meant to refer to comparisons between different orientations within these. (Mou, 2010) I consider several dimensions of such comparisons, with special emphasis on the interplay between various modes of philosophical exam­ ination and empirical inquiry. There are many well-established applied areas in philosophy, such as philosophy of language, education, law, and science, in which philosophi­ cal thinking is brought to bear on questions that arise within one of these disciplines. Some areas in philosophy, such as epistemology and aesthet­ ics, have generated theories that have been applied in other applied areas such as philosophy of perception and philosophy of art. I mention these applications of philosophy to other disciplines to point out that the over­ lap of philosophical concerns with empirical-contingent matters suggests a need to include the latter component (of many areas of philosophy) in the conceptualization of the purpose of a comparison between differ­ ent traditions. The idea of critical engagement between continental and analytic traditions often takes, as its purpose, a reconciliation of tensions arising from differences in style, or method. In this regard it is important to consider the extent to which interdisciplinary formations such as Marx­ ist Studies, Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies, Peasant Studies, and Postcolonial Studies have provided a basis for the emergence of new areas in philosophy, such as Africana and Native American philosophy. Given that the need to reconcile tension between continental and analytic

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orientations has had very little currency in these instances, the term “critical engagement” is somewhat misleading. Critical engagement in Africana philosophy is rarely focused on method, style, or orientation because philosophic research in this field, regardless of orientation, has had to accommodate its empirical grounding in disciplines outside of phi­ losophy. Rather than increasing tensions, this interdisciplinary feature has facilitated coalescence and hybridization of the two schools. This coalescence is especially noticeable in the attempt, by contempo­ rary philosophers, to articulate philosophical views found in traditional African cultures. Despite strong parallels with Native American philoso­ phy, the suggestion that a philosophic discourse existed in ancient Africa has engendered an extensive debate within African philosophy regard­ ing the definition of philosophy. (Brandt, 1954; Ladd, 1957; Appiah, 1992; Oruka, 1990; Hountondji, 1983) Differences in style, or method, between continental and analytic philosophy, however, have not been an issue in this debate. This is due mainly to the fact that the study of traditional African philosophy has been pursued by Western-trained philosophers, representing both orientations. (Wiredu, 1980; Hallen and Sodipo, 1986; Oruka, 1990) The study of traditional African philosophy is one of several strands of Africana philosophy engendered by interdisciplinary research that has played an important role as a primary source for the study of Africana thought. I focus primarily on a history of ideas, a problem-orientation, and a sub-area specialization as three important strands. Many topics in Africana philosophy are related to socio-economic problems faced by African-descended people throughout the diaspora, requiring multiple perspectives to accommodate the wide variety of social contexts (that include Latin America and Europe, along with Africa, the United States and the Caribbean) in which a given proposal will have different render­ ings. I highlight the manner in which Africana philosophy has benefited from the interplay of many intersecting factors. In particular, I indicate how, due to its inherently interdisciplinary nature, Africana philosophy is also inherently pluralistic, and that, as an area within the discipline, it came into being as a joint product of cross-pollination of continental and analytic traditions. The topics I discuss below represent my focus on the three strands I have identified above. They are drawn from African, Afro-Caribbean, and African American philosophy to represent specialists from different sub-areas and to include continental and analytic traditions. In various ways, the selected topics illustrate how insights advanced by continental

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and analytic philosophers alike have jointly enhanced our understand­ ing of central questions in the field. They also illustrate how the interdis­ ciplinary nature of Africana thought provides a source for philosophical ideas. Whether they are dealing with questions pertaining to language and meaning, ontology and epistemology, or to social and political values, philosophers representing both orientations have been concerned with the formulation of problems, the clarification of key concepts, the generation of pertinent issues, and the assessment of arguments for, or against, various proposals. In the cases I consider, this rather pragmatic concern with practical matters, and the high value placed on the genera­ tion of ideas, issues, or insights, that shed light on the question at hand, overrides concerns regarding orientation, method, or style. Discussions of differences in style, method, or orientation have not gained priority over discussions of ideas that advance thinking about a given problem. At this stage of its emergence, ideas and method have pride of place in Africana philosophic research. I first consider a selection of topics that have been addressed across differences in socio-historical contexts, sub-area specialization, and philo­ sophical orientations to indicate how various subjects have been enhanced by multiple perspectives reflecting these differences. I next consider the role of continental and analytic philosophers in the development of a canon in the field, to show how the development of Africana philosophy has been a joint undertaking. Finally, I turn to consider a turn-of-thecentury, African American philosopher, Alain Locke, to draw attention to the two versions of his dissertation as a methodological paradigm of how to navigate the continental-analytic divide by mastering both styles. The comparative aspects I discuss involve many areas where Africana philoso­ phy overlaps and intersects with other disciplines, as well as with various areas in mainstream and non-Western philosophy. With an eye to these intersections, I indicate the extent to which, in the case of Africana phi­ losophy, critical engagement is multi-faceted. 1. Cross-Currents within Africana Philosophy Cultural differences associated with geographic location have fostered a discourse in Africana philosophy representing multiple perspectives that aim to shed light on problems shared throughout the African diaspora. As a common source for a history of ideas, continental and analytic philoso­ phers alike have devoted careful scrutiny to views published by ex-slaves,

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by black abolitionists and emigrationists, by Pan-Africanists, and by phi­ losophers concerned with the impact of modernization on traditional aes­ thetics and cultural values. Slave narratives were written by Africans, such as Olaudah Equiano, Afro-Caribbeans, such as Mary Prince, and African Americans, such as Frederick Douglass. (Equiano, 1789; Prince, 1831; Douglass, 1848) In each case basic questions regarding human freedom, rights and dignity are raised, yet the predicament of slaves in each sociohistorical context is quite different. These basic questions are taken to be universal and to transcend the different contexts within the diaspora. For this reason, the discussion of slave narratives, and other writings by ex-slaves, in Africana philosophy has included specialists in all three sub-areas representing continental and analytic traditions. A topic’s status as universal is sometimes ambiguous, as when a pro­ posal that has been advanced to deal with a particular problem in a spe­ cific context seems to be at odds with what is proposed in a different social context. For example, in his well-known 1897 address to the Negro Academy on the conservation of races W.E.B. Du Bois introduced the Hegelian notion of double consciousness to argue that African Americans have a duty to retain their cultural identity. (Du Bois, 1897) His view of development and social progress is thoroughly imbued with, and deeply influenced by, a wide reading in continental philosophy. In particular, he displays his background in American pragmatism and German philoso­ phy when he deconstructs the biological notion of race and proposes a reconstruction along the lines of culture. In his recent book, Tradition and Modernity (1997), Kwame Gyekye argues, in analytic fashion, that individuals in African societies have a duty to transcend their specific cultural identities in support of a national culture. When taken together, the positions advocated by Du Bois and Gyekye seem to entail mutually exclusive imperatives that are contextspecific. Indeed, there seems to be a tension between Du Bois’s view that, in the American context of white domination, there is an impera­ tive for African Americans to retain their distinctive Africana culture and Gyekye’s view that, in the African context, there is an imperative for mem­ bers of different ethnic groups to adopt a national culture. The former promotes black pride to counter the negative effects of America’s legal segregation, whereas the latter promotes national unity by permiting indi­ viduals in African societies to adopt a national identity that transcends having specific ethnic identities. A two-phase account is needed to resolve

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the seeming inconsistency between these two views of cultural pluralism and social progress. Du Bois and Geyekye are not in disagreement given that, for both, only with the elimination of racial, or ethnic, domination can the option to transcend one’s specific ethnic identity be exercised. From the standpoint of the continental-analytic divide this seems to be a case in which the viewpoint of an African American specialist, trained in continental philosophy, is contrary to the viewpoint of an African spe­ cialist with an analytic orientation. Notice that each viewpoint is impor­ tant to consider and that, by contextualizing the problem, both proposals advance our understanding of the issues. Some apparent differences in doctrine that, perhaps, have been influ­ enced by diaspora location and sociohistorical context, cannot be so easily resolved. These differences are reflected in some of the ­nineteenth-century debates regarding emigrationism. Although the idea that ex-slaves would have to leave America to gain social equality was advocated by African Americans, such as Mary Ann Shadd-Carey and Martin Delany, their views were remarkably different from views held by Afro-Caribbean thinkers such as Edwin Blyden and Marcus Garvey. (Delany, 1849; Shadd-Carey, 1852; Garvey, 1923) These African American thinkers were less enamored with returning to Africa, often proposing Canada, Mexico and Haiti as possible sites, whereas the Afro-Caribbean thinkers I cite insisted upon a return to Africa as a necessary condition for emigration. Ideological differ­ ences of this sort, however, may not be influenced so much by diasporalocation as they are a reflection of the ambivalence prevalent throughout the diaspora towards Africa as a homeland for descendants. For many reasons, the much-contested African-centered nationalism in Africana thought displays the influence of sociohistorical context. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, at the height of colonialism in Africa, some version of pan-Africanism was widely supported by a vast majority of black intellectuals throughout the diaspora. Despite the popularity of Marcus Garvey in the 1920s, in post-colonial Africa, with the exception of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, it was never widely embraced by African heads of state. Representing a line of thought that is specific to the African American context, Tommie Shelby has proposed to replace the notion of an African-centered cultural nationalism with a notion of black solidar­ ity that he maintains is more pragmatic for African Americans. (Shelby, 2005) His revised notion is suited to focus strictly on ending antiblack racism in America without a commitment to maintaining Africana cultures. Although disagreement among philosophers on issues ­pertaining

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to nationalism and culture is, undoubtedly, influenced by many factors, sociohistorical context is often a determinant. While a proponent’s philo­ sophic orientation is relevant to understanding her method of arriving at a certain position, as well as her grounds for maintaining it, cross-currents involving these orientations have combined with other factors to generate new lines of thought that yield new insights, and new debates. 2. Shaping the Canon: Cross-Pollinating Continental and Analytic Traditions Some of the cross-currents that give rise to multiple perspectives on topics shared throughout the diaspora also have contributed to the establishment of a canon that includes classic texts commonly referenced by philosophers interested in a thinker’s ideas, or in a particular subject. The examples I cite below involve the treatment of a subject from multiple perspectives by sub-area specialists and the interpretation of a thinker’s ideas by phi­ losophers representing both traditions. Questions regarding the moral and political grounds of slavery and colonialism have been a source of philosophical reflection in Western philosophy since the time of the Greeks. (Williams, 1993) In Africana phi­ losophy, a critical examination of these subjects has been undertaken by continental and analytic philosophers throughout the diaspora. Almost everyone versed in Africana thought is familiar with C.L.R. James’s classic social and political account of the Haitian revolution in The Black Jacobins (1938). Hardly anyone knows, however, that it was presaged by Anna Julia Cooper’s lesser known French-language doctoral dissertation in 1925. Cooper was an ex-slave who earned her undergraduate degree at Oberlin in 1887 and her doctorate at the Sorbonne in 1925. She is better-known for her classic feminist text, A Voice From the South (1892). James was a Marx­ ist historian, well-known for his theoretical writings in political theory, especially his unpublished Notes on Dialectics (1948) and his masterpiece in social history, Beyond A Boundary (1963). Cooper’s analysis of the Hai­ tian revolution relies on French Enlightenment philosophy to account for the ideological grounding of slave resistance, whereas James’s Marxist analysis casts a skeptical glance at that tradition. Along with a comparison of an African-American female ex-slave viewpoint with an Afro-Caribbean Marxist male viewpoint as a complex set of factors influencing the respec­ tive accounts, in this case, multiple perspectives also include—as a ­factor

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equally influencing their views—the Anglophone context for James’s book and the Francophone context for Cooper’s dissertation. Whichever factors we choose to account for differences in their respective analyses ­notwithstanding, these two philosophers represent interdisciplinary think­ ers, each with a strong background in continental philosophy, who have advanced our thinking about a central topic in Africana philosophy. Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth is another classic text in Africana philosophy. In Fanon and the Crisis of European Man (1995), Lewis Gordon, an Afro-Caribbean specialist, employs his training in continental philoso­ phy, specifically Husserl’s phenomenology, to interpret Fanon’s thought. Analytic philosophers, such as Bernard Boxill, have also presented inter­ pretations of Fanon’s text. Boxill, a specialist in African American philoso­ phy, extracts a line of reasoning from Wretched of the Earth to spell out a moral argument regarding protest and self-respect. (Boxill, 1976) A quite different reading is presented by Nigerian philosopher, Oladipo Fashina. He presents a logically rigorous version of an argument in Fanon’s text that represents a non-humanistic line of thought. (Fashina, 1989) In this case, philosophers representing multiple perspectives, and trained in both traditions, have reflected upon a classic work in continental philosophy by a Francophone Afro-Caribbean philosopher, and have arrived at quite different interpretations. 3. Alain Locke’s Dissertation on Values: Merging Continental and Analytic Traditions Around the turn of the century, before the rise of logical positivism and the influence of the Vienna Circle on Anglo-American philosophers, W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke were studying at European universities. (Quinton, 1995) While at Harvard both were students of the well-known American pragmatist, William James. Pragmatism, as a school of thought associated with American philosophers influenced by Charles Peirce, John Dewey, as well as James, has broadly appealed to continental and analytic philoso­ phers alike. James stands out, with his experimental research in psychology, as an interdisciplinary thinker. In turn, James, an empirical scientist, was influenced by French philosopher, Henri Bergson. The reason for James’s high regard in both traditions, however, was not his scientific, or continen­ tal, leanings. Rather, his broad appeal is due more to his influence on two of the twentieth-century’s greatest philosophers—Edmund Husserl and

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Ludwig Wittgenstein. Research in Africana philosophy on two of James’s students, Du Bois and Locke, reflects these historical traces of American Pragmatism on continental and analytic traditions. As a Rhodes scholar at Oxford Locke wrote a dissertation on value the­ ory that displayed the influence of James’ teachings regarding the central­ ity of experience. Other than James, almost all of his sources were early twentieth-century continental philosophers, including Franz Brentano and Alexius Meinong. He mailed his dissertation to Oxford from Berlin, where he actually had written it during the spring and summer of 1910. Having begun coursework toward earning a doctorate at the University of Ber­ lin, he attended the lectures of many distinguished German philosophers, including Georg Simmel, and Ernst Cassirer. (Harris and Molesworth, 2008) Locke’s thesis was not accepted for several reasons. Most notable was his misfortune of having the logician, J. Cook Wilson, assigned to read it. When financial concerns became paramount, and Locke was unable to complete his doctorate at the University of Berlin, he accepted a teaching position at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Several years later, in 1917, he wrote another version of his Oxford thesis to satisfy requirements for a doctorate at Harvard. As an undergraduate at Harvard (and later at the University of Berlin) he had studied with Hugo Meunsterber. Another of his undergraduate teachers, Ralph Barton Perry, a specialist working in value theory, was his thesis advisor. Needless to say, Perry was much more suitable to read Locke’s dissertation—especially so, given Locke’s psychological focus on valuation. In the Harvard disserta­ tion, Locke transformed his original tome, “A Genetic Theory of Value”, which was lucidly written in a continental style, into a somewhat less ambitious analytic project, “A Classification of Values.” What is important to note here is that, he learned from his experience with Cook Wilson at Oxford how better to negotiate his decidedly continental orientation with Perry’s analytic leanings. The second version of his dissertation was a hybrid of continental and analytic philosophy. Given the hegemony of analytic philosophers in many departments, as well as throughout the professional organizations, the practice of recast­ ing insights derived from continental philosophy into an analytic mode of discourse is a familiar means of negotiating the continental-analytic divide. While most philosophers interested in Africana thought are trained specifically in one of the two traditions, the audience for their work rep­ resents both orientations. The fact that many of the major Africana phi­ losophers, such as Cooper, Du Bois, Locke, James, and Fanon, represent the continental tradition is an advantage for continental philosophers

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and indirectly fosters pluralism in the study of Africana philosophy. The merit of this inherent tendency toward pluralism cannot be overstated. For, an important lesson to be garnered from the two versions of Locke’s ­dissertation on values is that, on this particular subject, a wholly analytic, or continental, treatment is inadequate. Locke’s project on values was directly related to his later writings on aesthetics, art and music, for which he is much better known. In his self-proclaimed role as “mid-wife” to the Harlem Renaissance writers and artists he is acknowledged by Amie Cesaire and Leopold Senghor to have inspired the Negritude movement. (Kennedy, 1972; Senghor, 1977) Although this movement originated in the American context, it gained momentum mostly in Francophone regions of the Caribbean and Africa. Many questions regarding aesthetics are culturally specific. However, in the case of Negritude, differences in cultural values, influenced by sociohistorical context, did not hinder proponents from claiming a cross-cul­ tural application of their ideas throughout the diaspora. It is noteworthy that, although topics related to Negritude also raise important issues of great interest to analytic philosophers, even in its earliest American stage during the Harlem Renaissance, the movement was an interdisciplinary project involving philosophers who were grounded mainly in continental philosophy. (Sartre, 1948; Senghor, 1977; Bernasconi, 2001) 4. Critical Engagement and Interdisciplinary Concerns The need for critical engagement to bridge the continental-analytic divide is fairly non-existent in the case of Africana philosophy because often the two styles are immersed in cross-dialogue with a focus on the question at hand—rendering concerns about orientation, or style, less important. In addition to this pragmatic factor, I want to suggest a more fundamental rea­ son having to do with the interdisciplinary nature of Africana philosophy. With a focus on some of the major strands of Africana philosophy, I have already cited above examples of critical engagement involving exchanges between philosophers representing both orientations and specialization in the sub-areas. I have also cited examples of critical engagement involv­ ing exchanges between philosophers within each of the two schools re­ garding the interpretation of a classic text. I will conclude with a consider­ ation of intersections with various disciplines to acknowledge comparative aspects of Africana philosophy that involve overlap with interdisciplinary studies, e.g., Ethnic, Post-colonial, or Women’s Studies; with other areas of

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Western philosophy, e.g., Marxism, Latin American, or feminism; or with ­Non-Western philosophy, e.g., Asian, or Native American. The relation of Africana philosophy to other disciplines indicates a structural basis for the cross-dialogue between continental and analytic philosophers. The empirical circumstances of African people throughout the diaspora accounts for the social and political focus—specifically on socioeconomic problems—in Africana philosophy. Various disciplines in the social sciences, along with history, literature, art, and music are best suited to study and establish a body of empirical knowledge regarding these contingent matters. Africana philosophy draws upon all of these disciplines, but so do other categories of interdisciplinary studies, such as Women’s, Ethnic, Cultural, and Post-colonial Studies. Indeed, many subjects in Africana philosophy often have been topics of prior debates in Africana thought generally, or subjects previously discussed in related disciplines. In this important respect Africana philosophy overlaps other disciplines and is inherently interdisciplinary. There is a great deal of research, pursued in other disciplines, that involves a critical examination of issues pertaining to racism, slavery, and colonial oppression. Just as scholars in those disciplines have not estab­ lished an exclusive claim on these subjects, neither have philosophers who address issues of specific concern to philosophers, for empirical find­ ings that have a bearing on their philosophic concerns cannot be ignored. For this reason, debates and exchanges within Africana philosophy are not limited to the multiple perspectives influenced by, and reflecting, socio-historical context, area of specialization and continental-analytic orientation. On many topics such as race, affirmative action, criminal justice, punishment, health care, welfare rights and reparations, Africana philosophy also critically engages many mainstream philosophic concerns related to policy. This engagement can, in some cases, be a direct challenge to a view that is well-regarded in mainstream philosophy. An example of this would be Kawasi Wiredu’s appeal to the conceptualization of truth in his native Akan language to question whether Alfred Tarski’s semantic theory of truth is universal. (Wiredu, 1980) Unlike this philosophy of language case, involving a well-known philosopher’s theory of truth, more often this engagement is in the manner of applied philosophy. In these latter cases some subject outside of philosophy is critically examined by philosophers. For example, social scientists, such as Orlando Patterson and historians such as Eugene Genovese have been challenged by philosophers on their views of the injustice of slavery. (Lott, 1998; McGary, 1992) Relying on

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liberal democratic notions of paternalism and social justice, philosophers have raised questions regarding the social and political implications of empirical accounts by social scientists and historians. In certain instances of mainstream-Africana engagement, philosophers employ the views of historical European philosophers to interpret an Afri­ cana thinker, or text. Sometimes the aim is to establish a direct parallel. This strategy is employed by Jill Gordon in her comparative analysis of Malcom X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” speech and John Locke’s teachings on resistance in the Second Treatise. (Gordon, 1995) It is also employed by Julie Ward in her comparative analysis of arguments against slavery by Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano in which she traces many of their ideas to views expressed in the writings of specific European Enlighten­ ment thinkers such as Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, and James Ramsay. (Ward, 1998) Sometimes the aim of Africana-mainstream critical engagement is to appropriate and employ an argument, or line of reasoning, that can be found in a European philosopher’s text. In her lecture on Douglass’s slave narrative, Angela Davis employs Hegel’s master-slave parable to interpret the shift in Douglass’ consciousness that motivated his quest for freedom. (Harris, 1983) In a similar fashion, Bernard Boxill develops an argument for reparations based on John Locke’s view in the Second Treatise. ­(Boxill, 2003) What should be noted here is that Davis’s continental orientation and Boxill’s analytic style are equally important modes of arriving at insights that shed light, respectively, on Douglass’s text and the subject of reparations. The comparative aspects of Africana philosophy I have cited indicate the extent to which continental and analytic traditions have been equally important to the growth and development of this emerging field. No spe­ cial claim is being made for Africana philosophy in this regard, for other areas within the discipline may also represent similar contributions by representatives of both traditions. The domination of analytic philoso­ phy by logical positivism and linguistics and continental philosophy by phenomenology and hermeneutics is reminiscent of tensions between rationalists and empiricists in modern philosophy resulting from their different views of the role of reason and sense perception in epistemol­ ogy. What has gone unremarked in both cases is the extent to which the respective views bleed into each other, resulting in hybridization on both sides. Whether this bleeding process entitles us to speak of a “merging” of the two traditions is an empirical question to be decided by future devel­ opments within the field.

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tommy l. lott 5. Practical Handmaiden or Disappearance by Incorporation: Whither Research in Africana Philosophy?

I will conclude with a consideration of the main thrust of Africana phi­ losophy and the primary task with which it has been associated. So far I have emphasized how the interdisciplinary subjects prominent in Afri­ cana research have been examined from continental and analytic perspec­ tives, with a general tendency toward a coalescence of these. What about the relation of Africana philosophy, as a special area of research within the discipline, to the mainstream of philosophic research? The critique of views held by traditional philosophers from an Africana perspective, or the application of a contemporary philosopher’s ideas to issues in Africana phi­ losophy, are, no doubt, important contributions to the discipline. Never­ theless, as I have indicated above, these endeavors do not exhaust all of the objectives of research in Africana philosophy. If Africana philosophy is devoted, primarily, to addressing practical problems, does this limit its scope to a handmaiden function of raising moral and political concerns related to socioeconomic inequality? More­ over, once questions prominent in earlier discussions of Africana philoso­ phy, such as race, identity, affirmative action, and reparations, are later taken up by the mainstream, an erosion of the claim to a special area of research seems to set in. Hence, such achievement by scholars in Africana philosophy seems to contribute to a demise in the field’s distinctive status. I would urge that, rather than conceive of this kind of, as it were, co-opta­ tion as a threat, we should, instead, welcome mergers of this sort as an opportunity to introduce into the mainstream ideas derived from research in Africana philosophy. One important reason for welcoming Africana philosophy’s incorporation into the mainstream is that, by this means, its scope is expanded beyond the limits of an applied, ­policy-orientation. The introduction of research in Africana philosophy into the discipline was not simply for the purpose of providing a philosophic context for the circulation of ideas that have circulated previously in interdisciplinary contexts. The interdisciplinary grounding of Africana philosophy should be treated as a starting point, much like neurobiology, or physiological psychology, provide a starting point for reflection on topics in philoso­ phy of mind. In this regard, the discussion of reparations for slavery has been overly focused on questions regarding the establishment of a legal ground for reparations in the particular case of African Americans—at the expense of giving more attention to the general question of repara­ tions and compensatory justice. Simply because we begin with the ­specific

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policy issue of whether reparations for African American slavery is war­ ranted is not a sufficient reason to stop thinking further about this more general question. If we take the African American case to be only one among many such instances—there is, for example, a recently settled Japanese “sex slaves” reparations case—a discussion of moral and legal principles that apply to the wide variety of cases will require a rethink­ ing of the concept of compensatory justice with regard to reparations. I do not mean to discount the legion of research on compensatory justice, rather my point in using this example is to illustrates how the goal of Africana research is sometimes to arrive at a more adequate philosophic concept. Indeed, rather than simply address the policy issue in question, the task of Africana research in this case also includes the examination of a fundamental question that has not been given sufficient attention. The applied, policy-orientation of Africana philosophy, along with its interdisciplinary grounding. should be taken as a starting point for fur­ ther reflection. These multivarious sources of philosophic ideas facilitate a cross-breeding of thought that may not occur otherwise. Recent phil­ osophic research on identity has occurred within several domains that are not sufficiently conversant with each other. I will use the traditional problem of personal identity to illustrate a critical engagement function Africana philosophy can serve in this regard that goes beyond its policyorientation. In analytic circles, Derek Parfit’s ingenious treatment of fusion and fission cases in Reasons and Persons (1986), that proved so challeng­ ing beforehand, has yet to be superseded by anything better—despite a bevy of detractors. (Dancy, 1997) In Continental circles, Judith Butler’s constructionist view in Gender Trouble (1990), raised deep questions for feminism regarding sex and gender. The function I envision here is not a mere critique of, or critical incor­ poration of Parfit’s and Butler’s views into an Africana account of iden­ tity. To some extent, Butler has already critically engaged with Africana thought regarding the self in her discussion of Nella Larsen in Bodies That Matter (1993). A similar engagement of Africana thought regarding the self and Parfit’s view of personal identity seems yet to be in the offing. Although Anthony Appiah’s The Ethics of Identity (2005), had, as it’s start­ ing point, the question of racial identity raised by Du Bois in “Conserva­ tion of Races,” his focus is almost entirely on social identity. In Blackness Visible (1998), Charles Mills has written on the metaphysics of identity, but in that work he was not concerned with the implications of the issues he raises for Parfit’s account. An important task that remains is to connect these accounts so as to facilitate their incorporation into a rethinking of

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the problem of personal identity. These seemingly missed opportunities indicate that, while the interest in questions regarding identity and the self in Africana philosophy has been generated largely by policy concerns regarding race, discussions of the self in Africana philosophy have not been, and need not be, limited to these concerns.1 References Appiah, Anthony (1992), In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press). —— (2005), The Ethics of Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Bernasconi, Robert (2001), Race (Blackwell). Boxill, Bernard R. (2003), “The Morality of Reparations II”, in Tommy L. Lott and John P. Pittman (eds.), A Blackwell Companion to African-American Philosophy (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers), 134–54. —— (1992), Blacks and Social Justice Revised Edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little­ field). —— (1976), “Self-Respect and Protest”, Philosophy & Public Affairs 6: 58–69. Brandt, Richard (1954), Hopi Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Butler, Judith (1990), Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge). —— (1993), Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge). Carey, Mary Ann Shadd (1852), A Plea for Emigration, or Notes of Canada West (Detroit: G.W. Pattison). Cooper, Anna Julia (1892), A Voice From the South (Xenia, OH: The Aldine Printing House). —— (1925), L’Attitude de la France à l’égard de l’esclavage pendant la Révolution (Sorbonne, Ph.D. Thesis), translated by Frances Richardson Keller in (1988), Slavery and the French and Haitian Revolution (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen Press). Cugoano, Ottobah (1789), Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evils of Slavery (London). Dancy, Jonathan (1997), Reading Parfit (Oxford: Blackwell). Delany, Martin R. (1849), The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States (Wilmington, DE: n.p.) Douglass, Frederick (1848), Narrative of the Life of A Slave, in Narratives of Mary Prince, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, ed. H.L. Gates (New York: N.A.L. Penguin; 1987). Du Bois, W.E.B. (1897), “Conservation of Races”, Occasional Papers, No. 2 American Negro Academy. —— (1895), “Sociology Hesitant”, in Ronald T. Judy (ed.), boundary 2 27.3 Special Edition, 37–44. Equiano, Olaudah (1789), The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, in Narratives of Mary Prince, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, ed. H.L. Gates (New York: N.A.L. Penguin; 1987). Fanon, Frantz (1963), The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press). Fashina, Oladipo (1989), “Frantz Fanon and the Ethical Justification of Anti-Colonial Vio­ lence”, Social Theory and Practice 5(2): 179–212. Garvey, Amy Jacques (ed.) (1923), Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (New York: Universal Publishing House). Genovese, Eugene D. (1974), Roll, Jordon, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon).

1 I am grateful to my three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and criticisms.

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Gordon, Jill (1995), “By Any Means necessary John Locke and Malcolm X on the Right to Revolution”, Journal of Social Philosophy, 26 (1): 53–85. Gordon, Lewis (1995), Frantz Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences (New York: Routledge). —— (ed.) (1997), Existence in Black (New York: Routledge). Gyekeye, Kwame (1997), Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience (New York: Oxford University Press). Hallen, Barry and J.O. Sodipo (eds.) (1986), Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft (London: Eth­ nographica Press). Harding, Sandra and Uma Narayan (eds.) (2000), Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). Harris, Leonard (1999), The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield). —— (ed.) (1983), Philosophy Born of Struggle: Anthology of Afro-American Philosophy from 1917 (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt). Harris, Leonard and Charles Molesworth (2008), Alain L. Locke: The Biography of a Philosopher (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Henry, Paget (2000), Caliban’s Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy (New York: Routledge). Hountondji, Paulin J. (1983), African Philosophy: Myth and Reality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). James, C.L.R. (1935), The Black Jacobins (3d ed. 1980) (London: Allison and Busby). —— (1963), Beyond A Boundary (reprint 1993) (Durham: Duke University Press). —— (1948), Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin (reprint 2006) (London: Pluto Press). Kennedy, Ellen C. (1972), “An Interview with an Architect of Negritude: Cesaire”, in W.H. Robinson (ed.), Nommo (New York: Macmillan), 30–37. Ladd, John (1957), The Structure of A Moral Code: A Philosophical Analysis of Ethical Discourse Applied to the Ethics of the Navaho Indians (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Locke, Alain L. (1925), The New Negro (New York: Albert and Charles Boni). Lott, Tommy L. (1998), “Early Enlightenment Conceptions of Slavery”, in his Subjugation and Bondage (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), 99–129. McGary, Howard and Bill E. Lawson (1992), Between Slavery and Freedom: Philosophy and American Slavery (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press). Mills, Charles (1998), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell University Press). Mosley, Albert G. (1995), “Negritude, Nationalism, and Nativism: Racists or Racialists?” in his anthology African Philosophy: Selected Readings (Prentice-Hall), 216–35. Mou, Bo (2010), “On Constructive-Engagement Strategy of Comparative Philosophy: A Jour­ nal Theme Introduction”, Comparative Philosophy, 1(1): 1–32 . Nkrumah, Kwame (1964). Consciencism. (London: Heinemann). —— (1970), Class Struggle in Africa. (International Publishers). Oruka, H. Odera (1990), Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy (Leiden: Brill). Parfit, Derek (1986), Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Patterson, Orlando (1982), Slavery and Social Death (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Prince, Mary (1831), The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave. Related by Herself (3d ed.) (London: F. Westley and A.H. Davis, Stationers’ Hall Court). Quinton, A. (1995), “Analytic Philosophy” and “Continental Philosophy”, in Ted Honderich (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 28–30 and 161–63.

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Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1948), “Orphée noir” in Situations III (Paris: Gallimard), English transla­ tion by Samuel Allen (1962), Black Orpheus (Paris: Présence Africaine). Senghor, Leopold S. (1964), On African Socialism, translated by Mercer Cook (New York: Praeger). —— (1977), “Negritude and Modernity or Negritude as a Humanism for the Twentieth Century”, in Robert Bernasconi (ed.) (2001), Race (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers), 143–65. Shadd-Carey, Mary Ann (1852), A Plea for Emigration, or Notes of Canada West (Detroit: G.W. Pattison). Shelby, Tommy (2005), We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Ward, Julie (1998), “The Master’s Tools: Abolitionist Arguments of Equiano and Cugoano”, in Tommy L. Lott (ed.), Subjugation and Bondage: Critical Essays on Slavery and Social Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), 79–98. West, Cornel (1989), The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Mad­ ison: University of Wisconsin). Williams, Bernard (1993), Shame and Necessity (Berkeley: University of California Press). Wiredu, Kwasi (1980), Philosophy and an African Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­ sity Press). ——(1996), Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press).

CHAPTER TEN

MEANING AND REALITY: A CROSS-TRADITIONAL ENCOUNTER Lajos L. Brons 1 Different views on the relation between phenomenal reality, the world as we consciously experience it, and noumenal reality, the world as it is independent from an experiencing subject, have different implications for a collection of interrelated issues of meaning and reality including aspects of metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and philosophical methodology. Exploring some of these implications, this paper compares and brings together analytic, continental, and Buddhist approaches, focusing on relevant aspects of the philosophy of Donald Davidson, Jacques Derrida, Dharmakīrti, and Dōgen. Prima facie, these philosophers have little in common, and indeed the differences are vast. Even in case of the two Western thinkers there is a fundamental difference between Davidson’s ­anti-dualist identification of phenomenal, experienced reality with the noumenal, real, external world on the one hand, and the bracketing or elimination of noumenal reality at the base of Derrida’s thought on the other, which lead to radically different ideas with regards to (the possibility and nature of ) objectivity and our linguistic access to the real/external/noumenal world. Nevertheless, there are important similarities between Dharmakīrti’s theory of apoha and Davidson’s and Derrida’s theories of triangulation and différance respectively, and these similarities can be exploited to bridge some of the differences and attempt a constructive engagement. After briefly introducing analytic and continental approaches to meaning and reality (and Davidson’s and Derrida’s theories in particular) in section 2, and some relevant Buddhist approaches (including Dharmakīrti’s and Dōgen’s) in section 3, it will be argued in section 4 that Davidson’s theory of triangulation as a connection between the noumenal and the phenomenal needs Dharmakīrti’s theory of apoha as a complement, and that apoha is best understood through Derrida’s différance in turn. A further investigation into the implications of the resulting triangulation-différance-apoha integration in section 5 (and the concluding section 6) leads to a view on

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meaning and reality similar to the perspectivism advocated by the Japanese Buddhist philosopher Dōgen: the phenomenal is (mostly) necessarily noumenally real, but partial, one-sided, or incomplete. 2 Depicting a tradition of fruitless speculation about what lies beyond the horizon of experience, Kant wrote in the preface of the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787) that metaphysics is like “a battlefield seemingly intended for practicing one’s skills in play-fight, on which no combatant was ever able to conquer even the smallest bit of ground and to base permanent possession on victory.”1 Ironically, Kant’s Critique spawned another century of speculative metaphysics, reaching its apex in the neo-Hegelian absolute idealism of Bradley cum suis, which could only be followed by its antithesis: the unrelenting rejection of metaphysics in early analytic philosophy. Nevertheless, despite the nineteenth century idealist appropriation of parts of Kant’s philosophy and its coloring of early twentieth century Kant interpretation, Kant’s influence on modern philosophy can hardly be overstated.2 Kant is often considered to be the last common ancestor of analytic and continental philosophy, and much of the difference between those traditions can be better understood against the background of their respective treatments of the shared Kantian heritage. (Which should not be understood as implying that this fully explains those differences.) The key feature of Kant’s thought is his metaphysical dualism. Kant distinguished phenomenal appearances from noumenal things-inthemselves.3 The phenomenal is the world as we (consciously) experience it, and the noumenal is the world as it “really” is, independent from any experiencing subject. By definition, all experience is phenomenal, and the noumenal is beyond experience, and therefore, metaphysical speculation

1 (. . .) daß sie vielmehr ein Kampfplatz ist, der ganz eigentlich dazu bestimmt zu sein scheint, seine Kräfte im Spielgefechte zu üben, auf dem noch niemals irgend ein Fechter sich auch den kleinsten Platz hat erkämpfen und auf seinen Sieg einen dauerhaften Besitz gründen können. (Bxv) Except where noted otherwise, all translations in this paper are my own. The original fragments will be given in footnotes. 2 For a brief overview of the reception and interpretation of Kant’s thought in the 19th and 20th century, see Gardner (1999), ch. 10. 3 Whether this should be understood as a distinction of worlds (or realities) or aspects (of the same world/reality) is not entirely clear, however, and the last decades saw the growth of a sizable literature on this question.

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about the noumenal is pointless. (Hence, Kant’s above-quoted rejection of the “battlefield” of such metaphysical speculation.) Therefore, metaphysics should be concerned with the fundamental structure of the phenomenal world instead. Around the turn of the twentieth century, both in the Anglo-Saxon world and in continental Europe, philosophy turned away from metaphysical speculation, but different philosophers and different emerging schools of thought did by no means turn in similar directions. Phenomenology, which would become the dominant tradition in continental philosophy, bracketed the noumenal by explicitly and exclusively focusing on the phenomenal (hence its name). Early analytic philosophy, on the other hand, adopted a kind of ‘common sense’ realism according to which the experienced (phenomenal) world is the real, external (noumenal) world, and consequently, rejected the Kantian dualism (including the associated terminology). But by identifying the phenomenal with (or as) the noumenal, such anti-dualism similarly directs attention to phenomenal reality. A few decades earlier, Nietzsche had also rejected the Kantian dualism, but while (analytic) “common sense” realism identifies the noumenal with the phenomenal, Nietzsche rejected the idea of a noumenal, “true” world. Furthermore, in Götzen-Dämmerung (1889) he argued that with giving up the idea of a noumenal world, the idea of a phenomenal world makes no sense either, and thus, that we have to give up both. “We have abolished the true world: what world is left? the world of appearances perhaps? . . . But no! with the true world, we also abolished the world of appearances! ”4 This rejection of phenomenal reality (or realities), however, seems to be terminological more than substantial considering that Nietzsche’s perspectivism entails a multitude of perspectives, which are effectively different phenomenal realities. Hence, it is the concept of the phenomenal as part of the noumenal—phenomenal dualism that Nietzsche rejected, not the phenomenal as (an) experienced reality. What the different versions of the anti-metaphysical turn had in common was a shift of focus away from speculation about the noumenal, and towards the phenomenal. The phenomenal is conceptual, however; that is, phenomenal experience—the only kind of experience there is—is experience as: experience of cows as cows, of water as water, and of weddings

4 Die wahre Welt haben wir abgeschafft: welche Welt blieb übrig? die scheinbare vielleicht? . . . Aber nein! mit der wahren Welt haben wir auch die scheinbare abgeschafft! (§IV.6).

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as weddings; and this conceptuality of the phenomenal means that the exclusion of a distinct noumenal sphere from philosophical analysis comes with important consequences not just for metaphysics, but also for the philosophy of language and for philosophical methodology (meta-philosophy), or shorter: for philosophical thought about meaning and reality. The “common sense” realist identification of noumena and phenomena as in most of analytic philosophy implies that words or meanings are directly grounded in (noumenally) real things, and that language gives us direct access to the (noumenally) real world, which leads to a near ­dogmatic belief in the authority of ordinary language. (This does not mean that there can be no contexts or occasions in which ordinary language is deceptive, but that on the whole, ordinary language is a reliable guide to objective reality.) The bracketing or elimination of the noumenal as in much of twentieth century continental philosophy, on the other hand, detaches meaning from (noumenal) reality, which can ultimately only lead to relativism and/ or skepticism about language, about cognitive access to (noumenal) reality, and about the possibility of objectivity (regardless of whether these consequences were/are universally accepted). Nietzsche expressed such skepticism about language and about the belief in language as a reliable guide to objective truth and reality (the opposite point of view) with characteristic trenchancy in his Menschliches Allzumenschliches (1878): The meaning of language for the development of culture is situated in [the fact] that in language, man posited an own world next to the other [world], a place that man held to be so solid to, from it, lift the other world from its hinges and make himself its lord. In so far as man throughout long periods of time believed in the concepts and names of things as eternal truths, did he develop the pride with which he lifted himself above the animals: he really thought to have knowledge of the world in language.5

Among representatives of the analytic and continental traditions, Donald Davidson and Jacques Derrida stand out for the rigor of their inquiries into the implications for issues of meaning and reality of, respectively, analytic anti-dualism and continental “phenomenalism” or noumenal nihilism.

5 Die Bedeutung der Sprache für die Entwicklung der Cultur liegt darin, daß in ihr der Mensch eine eigne Welt neben die andere stellte, einen Ort, welchen er für so fest hielt, um von ihm aus die übrige Welt aus den Angeln zu heben und sich zum Herren derselben zu machen. Insofern der Mensch an die Begriffe und Namen der Dinge als an aternae veritates durch lange Zeitstrecken hindurch geglaubt hat, hat er sich jenen Stolz angeeignet, mit dem er sich über das Thier erhob: er meinte wirklich in der Sprache die Erkenntnis der Welt zu haben. (§I.11)

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Many of the main strands in continental philosophy—phenomenology, structuralism, Nietzsche, Hegel—come together in the work of Derrida, who in his theory of différance (1968), advanced what is probably the most thorough exploration of the consequences of bracketing or eliminating the noumenal. Meaning (then) cannot be grounded in (noumenal) reality, this is the unmentioned, implicit starting point of Derrida’s analysis, but that means that words and meanings can only point to other words and meanings. Meaning is deferred indefinitely into a network of differences, different words, different meanings: “Every concept is necessarily and essentially inscribed in a chain or in a system within which it refers to the other, to other concepts, by a systematic play of differences.”6 This deferment of meaning also applies to ‘différance’ itself, even though Derrida claims that this is “neither a word nor a concept” (p. 2), and consequently, his explanation illustrates more than defines, encircles more than pinpoints—it defers. The methodological implications of différance reach further than to its own elucidation, however: if meaning is always and necessarily deferred into a network of differences, attempts to fix meanings by means of definitions, and the conceptual rigor associated therewith, are misleading and concealing more than clarifying. And rather than constructing such concealments, they should be revealed, or deconstructed (see also section 5). Within the analytic tradition, Donald Davidson (although sometimes classified as a “post-analytic” philosopher) is one of the most outspoken critics of dualism. Most famously, Davidson rejected scheme—content dualism in his “On the very idea of a conceptual scheme” (1974), but underlying that rejection and his related arguments against subjectivity and massive error (e.g. 1988) is a more fundamental rejection of noumenal—phenomenal dualism (Brons 2011). The main argument for Davidson’s rejection of such metaphysical dualism is that “successful communication proves the existence of a shared, and largely true, view of the world” (1977, 201). This argument appears in different forms in many places in his work, and is in turn supported by the idea that “communication begins where causes converge: your utterance means what mine does if belief in its truth is systematically caused by the same events and objects” (1983, 151). Davidson elaborated this latter idea in his theory of “triangulation” (1982), which came to play a central role in his later philosophy (e.g. 1990; 1991; 1992;

6 Tout concept est en droit et essentiellement inscrit dans une chaîne ou dans un système à l’intérieur duquel il renvoie à l’autre, aux autres concepts, par jeu systématique de différences. (Derrida 1968, 11)

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1994). The theory of triangulation is a transcendental argument intended to establish that only in a process that involves (at least) two speakers and a shared object (of reference) a concept can have (or get) (empirical) content, and propositional thought and objectivity are possible. If (a substantial subset of) concepts are indeed necessarily formed in reference to shared objects, actually having concepts (and/or actually communicating) implies that this necessary condition must be fulfilled (that is the nature of a transcendental argument).7 This means, that—if Davidson’s argument is successful—communication simultaneously proves other minds, an external world, and the correspondence of our experience (or experiential categories) to that external world (Sosa 2003). In other words, it establishes the identity of the noumenal and the phenomenal. 3 Stepping back from the continental—analytic divide, we find in Buddhist philosophy a collection of traditions and schools of thought as concerned with questions of meaning and reality and as diverse in theories and points of view as the Western traditions. However, in Buddhism some answers are barred from the outset. According to the Buddha,8 the ‘right view’ is a middle path between the extremes of absolutism and nihilism. ‘Absolutism’ is the belief that conventional (phenomenal) categories are ultimately (noumenally) real,9 and that (conventional/phenomenal) concepts accurately grasp noumenal reality. This is essentially identical to the ­anti-dualism commonly found in analytic philosophy (including Davidson’s variant; see above). ‘Nihilism’ is the rejection of the conventional (phenomenal) because of its ultimate (noumenal) unreality. Contrary to Western/Nietzschean noumenal nihilism, the kind of nihilism rejected by the Buddha is

7 Although Davidson’s transcendental argument may seem to be related to the Kantian original, it is considerably more far-reaching. According to Kant, ‘the categories’ are necessary conditions for the possibility of empirical knowledge. According to Davidson, a shared external world is a necessary condition for that same possibility (and more, language and rationality specifically). Hence, while Kant’s necessary condition is still within the realm of phenomenal reality, Davidson’s argument brings the noumenal within reach. 8 “The Buddha” here refers to the mythical author of the ideas presented in the Pali Canon, not unlike, for example, Lao Zi’s (老子) mythical authorship of the Dao-De-Jing (道德經). 9 In Buddhist philosophical terminology, the concepts closest to noumenal and phenomenal reality are ultimate reality (paramārthasat) and conventional reality (saṃvṛtisat) respectively.

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phenomenal nihilism: where the latter rejects the phenomenal, noumenal nihilism affirms it (and rejects the noumenal instead). Like most of recent Western philosophy, much of Buddhist philosophy rejects dualism, but Buddhist non-dualism is of a very different nature than the Western variants. Rather than denying the philosophical relevance of the noumenal—phenomenal distinction or one of its “poles” or “levels”, Buddhist non-dualism accepts the distinction, but argues that ultimately, the two “poles” are not fundamentally different. For example, according to Yogācāra (or Cittamātra), everything—both the conventional/phenomenal and the ultimate/noumenal—is mind or consciousness only (which is what “cittamātra” means). Dualist schools, on the other hand, sharply contrast the two kinds or levels of reality. According to Sautrāntika, for example, behind the familiar phenomenal/conventional appearances hides a noumenal/ultimate reality consisting of svalakṣaṇa, unique spatiotemporally non-extended part-less “atoms”. Any strict distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal owes an explanation of the connection there between. The most rigorous theory of this connection within Buddhist philosophy can be found in the work of the “logicians” or “epistemologists” Dignāga (5–6th century) and Dharmakīrti (7th century). Dignāga and Dharmakīrti switched between Sautrāntika and Yogācāra in different parts of their work, but most of their epistemological writings are from a Sautrāntika perspective. In their philosophical system(s), phenomenal/conventional (conceptually determinate) experience and noumenal/ultimate reality are connected—through perception—by apoha (literally: “denial”, “negation”, “exclusion”, etc.). This concept of “apoha” plays a role in two different but related theoretical contexts: conceptual construction (kalpana) and concept formation. In the former we construct particular phenomena in opposition to what they are not—we perceive a particular cow as not non-cow; in the latter we create (pseudo-)universals rather than particular phenomena. Dignāga introduced the concept in the former context: conceptual construction (kalpana) is a form of inference (Pramāṇasamuccaya 5.1) which works by means of “exclusion”: apoha (id. 5.17). Dharmakīrti further elaborated Dignāga’s idea (and philosophy in general) and applied it to concept formation (mostly in the auto-commentary to his Pramāṇavārttika; Dreyfus 1997; 2011). (We will return to apoha in section 4.) Probably the most influential non-dualist theory is that by Nāgārjuna (2nd–3rd century), the founder of the Mādhyamaka school in Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nāgārjuna argued that con­ ventional (phenomenal) determinations (conceptualizations) are empty

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(of self-essence), but also that the emptiness of phenomena is itself empty, and therefore, that ultimate/noumenal truth/reality is (ultimately) conventional as well.10 Consequently, according to Nāgārjuna’s non-dualism, conventional reality is not any less real than ultimate reality and vice versa. Most of Chinese Buddhist philosophy (and its Japanese and Korean ofshoots) belongs to the Mahāyāna branch of Buddhism, and of the schools within that branch, Mādhyamaka has been the most influential. Chinese Buddhism, however, competed for attention with Daoism, which at least superficially seems to share many concerns and ideas (and which provided many of the terms for translation of Buddhist texts). This lead to a transformation of Buddhism in general, and Mādhyamaka non-dualism in particular (but also of Daoism, which borrowed many terms and ideas from Buddhism in turn). The general tendency of this process was a gradual shift from Nāgārjuna’s conventionality of the (ultimately) real to the (ultimate) reality of the conventional. The result—as summarized by Fung Yu-lan (馮友蘭; 1948)—was the idea that: The reality of the Buddha-nature [noumenal reality] is itself the phenomenal world, (. . .). There is no other reality outside the phenomenal world, (. . .). Some people in their Ignorance, see only the phenomenal world, but not the reality of the Buddha-nature. Other people, in their Enlightenment, see the Buddha-nature, but this Buddha-nature is still the phenomenal world. What these two kinds of people see is the same, but what one person sees in his Enlightenment has a significance quite different from what the other person sees in his Ignorance. (pp. 252–3, trans. Derk Bodde)

The process of transformation took many centuries, however, and can be roughly divided in three “phases”, although these are not nearly as neatly separable and distinct as the term “phase” may suggest (hence, the scare quotes). Representative of the “first phase” is Seng Zhao (僧肇; 4–5th century), a key figure in early Chinese Buddhist philosophy. Seng Zhao argued for a non-dualism similar to Nāgārjuna’s, but his strongly Daoist-influenced writings helped lay the foundations for the later Buddhist-Daoist entanglement and competition. Integrating Buddhist and Daoist skepticism about language as a reliable guide to (ultimate) reality,11 and planting the seed for 10 This idea is commonly known as the emptiness of emptiness, although that phrase does not occur in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Rather, the ‘emptiness of emptiness’ is a sloganesque summary of 24:18. It should further be noted that there is relatively little agreement in the (old and new) secondary literature on what exactly the ‘emptiness of emptiness’ entails. 11  On the Buddhist-Daoist entanglement and its origins in competition in the same attention space, see Sharf (2002). On skepticism about language in the Dao-De-Jing

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the ‘second phase’, he wrote in his Treatise on the Emptiness of the Unreal (不真空論; chapter 2 of the Zhaolun 肇論): A thing is not identical with its name, which does not approach/capture the [ultimately] real thing; a name is not identical with a thing, and thus does not lead to [ultimate] truth. And this being so, ultimate truth remains in silence, beyond description/elucidation by names. How could spoken or written words even recognize/distinguish it?12

The “second phase” is characterized by a quietism born from the idea that ultimate reality is beyond language and conceptual distinctions. Representative of this phase are the influential, heavily Daoist-influenced eighth century apocrypha, the Treasure Store Treatise (寶藏論; TST), and early Chan/ Zen (禪), but in its embryonic form, the main idea was already present in the ‘first phase’, as evident from the quote by Seng Zhao above. Ultimate reality “utterly transcends all perception and thus cannot be measured by thought. It utterly transcends all reckoning and thus cannot be captured in words” (TST, trans. Sharf 2002, 208). Nevertheless, the ‘second phase’ was not a dualism of conceptualized phenomena and an absolutely nonconceptual and non-differentiated ultimate (noumenal) reality (which this quote may seem to suggest), but still advocated non-dualism. For example, Chan/Zen patriarch Hui Neng (慧能; 7–8th century), who expressed similar views about the non-conceptuality and non-differentiatedness of ultimate reality and the associated quietism (albeit much more ambiguously), wrote in his Commentary on the Diamond Sutra (金剛經解義; Ch. 13) that “when one realizes that [ultimate] reality is deception [i.e. mere convention], one realizes that deception is reality. Then reality and deception disappear together, and there is/exists nothing else.”13 (Note the similarity to the first quote by Nietzsche above.) Nevertheless, there is some tension between the asserted non-dualism, and the apparent dualism, which would only be resolved in the “third phase”, completing the shift from the conventionality of the real to the reality of the conventional. As was the case before, the seed was already

(道德經), see Hansen (1992, Ch. 6); on skepticism in the Zhuang-Zi (莊子), see Ivanhoe (1993) and Kjellberg & Ivanhoe eds. (1996), especially the chapter by Loy. Particularly noteworthy in the Zhuang-Zi is that the only cases of objective knowledge of ultimate reality mentioned, are those of absolutely wordless knowing how, such as the famous story of the cook in chapter 3. 12 是以物不即名而就實、名不即物而履真。然則真諦獨靜於名教之外、豈曰 文言之能辨哉。 13 了真即妄。了妄即真。真妄俱泯。無別有法。

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planted in the prior phase. The non-dualist rejection of absolute difference between conventional and ultimate reality implies that “there is nothing to be realized, nothing to be attained, and yet if there is no realization or attainment, the mind will forever be confused” (TST, trans. Sharf 2002, 159). Building on this, the Japanese Zen philosopher Dōgen (13th century) wrote in the chapter Hosshō (法性) of the Shōbōgenzō (正法眼藏)14 that “opening flowers and falling leaves [the phenomenal world] is nature (such) as it is. However, fools think that there are no opening flowers and falling leaves in the world of Dharma-nature [ultimate reality].”15 In other words, the conventional is real, and there is nothing to be realized, except this higher-level realization, but this higher-level realization gives conventional phenomena a wholly different significance (see the quote by Fung/ Bodde above). Dōgen’s philosophy (or at least this aspect thereof) is a variety of what Bo Mou (2008) calls ‘objective perspectivism’ in distinction of the ‘subjective perspectivism’ most commonly associated with Nietzsche.16 The essential difference between these two kinds of perspectivism is that the former quite literally assumes that different perspectives (phenomenal realities) just reveal different sides or aspects of the same ultimate/noumenal reality, and thus that perspectival knowledge is not (ultimately) untrue, while according to subjective perspectivism there are just perspectives and nothing (noumenal) those perspectives are perspectives on. Superficially, objective perspectivism, such as Dōgen’s, may seem to be a form of absolutism, but that is not (necessarily) the case. Although Dōgen did not reject conventional (phenomenal) categories as ultimately (noumenally) unreal, he did not consider them to accurately grasp noumenal reality either. There are “opening flowers and falling leaves” in ultimate reality, but these conventional designations do not exhaust the ultimately real ‘natures’ of whatever they are pointing at. The remainder of this paper will argue (in section 4) that Davidson’s theory of triangulation as a connection between the noumenal and the phenomenal needs Dignāga and Dharmakīrti’s theory of apoha as a complement, and that apoha is best understood through Derrida’s différance

14 All further references to texts by Dōgen in this paper are references to chapters of the 75 and 12 chapter versions of the (kana) Shōbōgenzō. 15 しかあれば、開花葉落、これ如是性なり。しかあるに、愚人おもはく は、法性界には開花葉落あるべからず。 16 On Dōgen’s perspectivism, see, for example, Kim (2007) and Davis (2011).

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in turn; and (in section 5) that the resulting theory leads to a view on meaning and reality similar to Dōgen’s perspectivism. 4 As mentioned above, apoha was introduced by Dignāga in his account of conceptual construction (kalpana). According to Dignāga, we construct particular phenomena in opposition to what they are not: we perceive a particular cow as not non-cow. Words, therefore, do not directly refer to real things, but rather—as in Derrida’s différance—meaning is deferred into a network of different conceptual determinations. Dharmakīrti further elaborated and extended Dignāga’s philosophy, and applied apoha to concept formation, the creation of (pseudo-)universals rather than particular phenomena. Describing Dharmakīrti’s theory of concept formation, Dreyfus (2011) writes: “thought and language are causally related to our experiences of things and hence are grounded in reality” (p. 209). This, however, could (in the exact same terms) just as well be a description of Davidson’s theory of triangulation.17 Nevertheless, apoha is not some kind of combination of différance and triangulation, but significantly differs from both. Even so, the similarity is sufficient to act as a bridge (although perhaps more a bridge to something new that the three of them cross together (while conversing), than just a bridge between them). In “Dharmakīrti, Davidson, and knowing reality” (Brons 2012), I proposed an integration of apoha and triangulation. As suggested by the title, the focus was on Dharmakīrti and Davidson, and Derrida was only mentioned in passing. However, Derrida’s notion of différance plays a key role in the integration of apoha and triangulation proposed in that paper. Below, I will summarize its main argument, focusing more on the

17 In addition to the writings of Dharmakīrti and Davidson, the idea that language (or at least word learning or concept formation) is necessarily tied to the (noumenally) real world and to social use of words can also be found in the philosophy of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (see Leaman 1988) and possibly in Zhuang Zi’s (莊子) assertion that “a path is created by walking it, a thing is (called) as it is by it being called so” (2.6: 道行之而成、物謂 之而然). (Interestingly, the philosophy of both Averroes and Zhuang Zi can be interpreted as variants of objective perspectivism: Bo Mou (2008) does so explicitly in the case of Zhuang Zi, and especially the final chapter of Leaman’s book on Averroes strongly suggests such an interpretation.) What distinguishes Dharmakīrti’s and Davidson’s theories from those suggested by Averroes and Zhuang Zi, however, is that the former are more explicit about concept formation and are elaborated in much more detail (while especially Zhuang Zi’s is mere cryptic suggestion).

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identification of the contributions of the three philosophers involved (Dharmakīrti, Davidson, and Derrida) and their ideas (apoha, triangulation, and différance). The main addition to this argument is to be found in the next sections, where I will further explore the implications of the integration suggested. Of the three theories, Davidson’s theory of triangulation is the most elaborate and detailed, and most suitable as the backbone or general framework for integration. Triangulation, however, has been understood in many different ways, and has been linked to many different aspects of Davidson’s philosophy. In its simplest form, triangulation is a singular occasion of pointing out some object by one communicant to another by means of some ad hoc sign. These two communicating creatures and the shared stimulus are the three corners in the ‘triangle’ (see figure 1). Many of Davidson’s papers make use of a notion of triangulation in a less simple form, however: as (a model of ) a process of word learning by means of repeated similar signs in the (repeated) presence of similar stimuli (e.g. 1990; 1992; 1994). Either in its ‘simple’ or in its less simple form, triangulation involves the same triangle graphically represented in figure 1. Obviously, the term ‘triangle’ is a misnomer if triangles are considered to consist of nothing but three corners and three sides—triangulation involves a fourth element: language (S in the figure), which Davidson called the ‘base line’ on a number of occasions, but which is more properly characterized as the triangle’s pivot. These four elements are connected by six lines. A communicating creature U utters (wavy line) some sound S (which could in principle also be another kind of sign) in reference18 (double line) to some object, occurrence, or state of affairs O perceived (single line) by U.

18 “Reference” here, is nothing but the act (by the utterer) of referring to something; it should not be confused with the technical term.

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Triangulation further involves a second creature I that also perceives (single lines) the object (etc.) O, the sound S, and its utterer U, and the relationships between these three (uttering: U-S, reference: S-O, perception: U-O; but note that the awareness of these relationships is not graphically represented in the figure). By “correlating” these incoming lines, I finds or creates the meaning (or “content”) of S. Words (as a kind of sign S; but not necessarily all words) are learned by repetition of this process (often with different people in the roles of U and I at different occasions, and/or the same people switching roles): by repeated correlation of sufficiently similar verbal signs S, sufficiently similar objects O, and sufficiently similar utterers U (that belong to the same species and seem to speak a similar language, for example). Apoha comes into the picture when one realizes that S comes to designate a class of non-identical ‘things’. Consider the following very abstract example to illustrate this: a perceiver (in the role of I) has become aware of 9 particulars, which all have one and only one characteristic such that these characteristics are values on a single dimension, and each particular has a unique value on that dimension. Figure 2 shows the positions of the 9 particulars on that single dimension (the x-axis, ranging from 0 to 1). The perceiver perceives the difference between the 9 particulars, but at the same time notices that some are less different (or more similar) than others. The pair {d,e} is considerably less different than {c,h}, for example. Next, assume a second perceiver (in the role of U) who, in the presence of e (and nothing but e) utters ‘def ’, and does so again in the presence of d (and nothing but d), but utters ‘bac’ in the presence of b (and nothing but b). With this information alone (the utterings and the perceived relative differences), the first perceiver is able to construct two working concepts, ‘bac’ and ‘def ’, such that the first refers to {a,b,c}, and the second to {d, . . . ,i}. Further communication may refine these concepts—despite the gap between c and d, it is in principle possible that c is classified as ‘def ’ rather than ‘bac’, for example; and there may be a third concept ‘hig’ that refers to {g,h,i} and that restricts ‘def ’ to {d,e,f }. a

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Let us assume that further triangulations result in the latter restriction of ‘def ’ indeed. The formation of this concept makes those particulars seem even more similar, even identical in their ‘def ’-instantiating capacity, but that is mere phenomenal illusion. Having a concept ‘def ’ does not mean that the apparently similar elements of {d,e,f } are ‘def ’, that they share a property ‘def ’-ness, that such a universal ‘def ’-ness exists, or that defs (ultimately/noumenally) exist (as defs). All that the “things” we call ‘def ’, the phenomenal defs, share is that they are “not non-def ”. This ‘not non. . .’ is a central notion in apoha in its more specific sense as exclusion of difference. It should not be interpreted as a double classical negation ‘not not’, but available sources do not make clear how ‘not non’ should be understood exactly either (and consequently, there is little agreement in the secondary literature). The point of the formula ‘x is not non-X’ is avoiding the ontological commitment to a universal involved in ‘x is (an) X’. X marks a class, membership of which is determined by a universal, meaning, or intension, or something similar; and ‘x is X’ denotes membership of that class (x∈X), which implies that there is an X (that the universal X (or X-ness) exists). Any acceptable interpretation of ‘not non-. . .’, therefore, should not collapse into x∈X, and not commit to the existence of X (or other universals or classes determined thereby) by existentially quantifying over X. As mentioned in section 3, Dignāga originally introduced the notion of apoha in the context of conceptual construction (kalpana): we perceive a particular cow as not non-cow. As in Derrida’s theory of différance, words do not directly refer to real things, but meaning is deferred into a network of different conceptual determinations. Taking this connection between apoha and différance as starting point for a (re)construction of the apoha-ic ‘not non-. . .’ (in the context of concept formation) results in an interpretation that satisfies the two criteria mentioned. ‘Non-X’ then, is deferment into the network of prior triangulatory concept formations: it is a reference to the contextually salient past triangulations as something other than X, or more accurately: as something other than not nonX. Non-X is the loose collection of triangulations as not non-Y, non-Z, and so forth. ‘Not’ (in ‘not non-’) is classical negation, and thus, ‘x is not non-X’ means that x is not (sufficiently) similar to one of the members of that loose collection of triangulations as something else: it is not (not non-) Y, not (not non-) Z, and so forth. In other words, the formula ‘x is not non-X’ means that there is no * collection of previously triangulated notnon-somethings other than not-non-X, such that x is * similar to the * members of that collection; wherein each * can be replaced with ­‘subjectively

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contextually salient(ly)’. (See Brons 2012, 45–47 for a more detailed and somewhat formal explanation.) This interpretation does not result in a commitment to universals (or universal-like classes), but merely to collections of (remembered or reconstructed) particulars loosely bound together by that interpreter’s history of triangulations. An obvious objection would be that ‘similarity’ is too vague and subjective to guarantee success, but repeated triangulations (of similar particulars) progressively disambiguate (dis-)similarity and reduce subjectivity. Moreover, the whole process embeds any singular triangulation in the whole triangulation history of that interpreter, locking all words and concepts together in a single, (more or less) coherent whole; and coherence and incoherence with that history and its result (the web of concepts) also (progressively) disambiguate (dis-)similarity and reduce subjectivity. Of course it can always happen that the learner does not learn what the teacher has in mind, but as the number of instances increases, and interconnections with further sentences come into play, the chances of this rapidly diminish. (Davidson 1999, 194)

Essential to apoha, triangulation, and différance (at least in this interpretation) is that the meaning of a word or concept is not some kind of universal, but its embedded triangulation history, a history that, moreover, never stops. Rather, speakers/interpreters (one has to be both to be either) continuously further ‘atune’19 their words and concepts in further communication. And in ‘atunement’, at least some vagueness clears up. There is a second, perhaps more fundamental type of vagueness involved in concept formation: the vagueness of what counts as one particular. In addition to the negative classification of ‘things’ (as not-non-something), apoha similarly constructs (at least some of) the ‘things’ classified themselves. In the above example, illustrated in figure 2, there were nine clearly distinguishable and discrete particulars, and the process of concept formation merely added a convenient (negative) classification. However, as Dharmakīrti pointed out, singular concepts are either grounded in 19 This notion of ‘atunement’ is borrowed from Hall and Ames’s (1987) Thinking through Confucius, in which it is used for a similar process. Interestingly, their Derrida-inspired interpretation of Confucius has similarities with the integrative theory suggested here and in Brons (2012). “Classical Chinese is a system of differences, (. . .) The meaning of a given sign is (. . .) determined by its active and passive difference, and that meaning is never altogether present but deferred” (p. 293).

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(noumenally caused) singular effects, or are purely conventional (saṃketa).20 There are cases in which particular-hood itself is determined by (negative) classification, where the objects we (phenomenally) perceive are constructed (kalpana), and are, therefore, conventional. To illustrate this, consider again a rather abstract example. Figure 3 shows a continuum on one spatial dimension (the x-axis), and with one type of characteristic with infinite values between two extremes (0 and 1; the y-axis)—a bit like one-dimensional pumpkin soup with solidity on the y-axis. Given the right circumstances, an agent could form a concept ‘gu’ (as ‘not non-gu’), but in the same way that particulars could be grouped together differently in case of the previous example, in this case particularhood itself can be constructed differently. For example, there may be an absolute threshold, the dotted line in the figure, making the concept of ‘gu’ applicable to a, b, {c,d}, and e; or a relative threshold, which might exclude a, but include f; and depending on the convention constructed, different bumps in the line are called ‘gu’, and c and d may be considered one gu or two. Whatever the rule for distinguishing ‘gu’ from ‘non-gu’, it is nothing more than a (constitutive) rule, a convention (saṃketa). There are no real (discrete) noumenal gus (as a plural of gu); it is that convention that creates (constructs) phenomenal instances of ‘gu’. In other words, the thing-ness (or particular-hood) of (at least) some perceived ‘things’ is itself phenomenal. (And indeed, the 9 particulars in figure 2—as individual, discrete particulars—may be phenomenal, in which case triangulation adds a further layer of phenomenal classification.) It is, however, the same process of apoha-ic triangulation, outlined above that constructs such ‘thing-ness’, and by implication, in some cases this process simultaneously creates and classifies the phenomenon.

20 “Eka-vacanam api tad-eka-śakti-sūcana-arthaṃ saṃketa-paratantraṃ vā” (autocommentary (PVSV) at Pramāṇavārttika 1.141–142). Note that the expression ‘(noumenally caused) singular effects’ is not an accurate translation of “eka-śakti-sūcana-artha” but a summary of what this fragment refers to: the capacity of a collection of svalakṣaṇa (unique spatio-temporally non-extended part-less noumena) to have a singular effect.

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5 At bottom, Davidson’s and Derrida’s projects are deeply incompatible. Aside from differences in aims and purposes, they differ fundamentally with regards to issues of meaning and reality. Davidson’s anti-dualist identification of phenomena with noumena and the continental bracketing or elimination of the noumenal in which Derrida’s thought is rooted lead to radically different ideas with regards to objectivity and our linguistic access to the (real/external) world. Dharmakīrti’s theory of apoha-ic concept formation to some extent bridges the difference and provides a possible shared framework for constructive engagement, but the above interpretation and reconstruction of apoha is an interpretation through triangulation and différance in turn. Hence, the encounter is a three-way dialogue from the start. Furthermore, although this “apoha-triangulation-différance integration” seems compatible with these three theories if those are taken out of their context, it has implications for thought on meaning and reality that differ from Davidson, Derrida, and Dharmakīrti. The core idea of both triangulation and apoha-ic concept formation is that words and phenomena are grounded in the noumenal world through a conjunction of a number of conditions—there must be at least two agents that have the ability to communicate, and that are perceiving the same “things” and the same similarities and differences between those “things”, and at least one of those agents uses similar signs in the presence of (or to refer to) perceived to be similar objects. Where they fundamentally differ, is in the nature of classification of (relevant) experiences of “things”—while apoha as exclusion loosely groups experiences based on difference, or différance, Davidson implicitly assumes a non-constructive, similarity-based form of classification. Consequently, ‘def ’ is not defined by difference from ‘non-def ’, but by similarity between the things labeled as ‘def ’, which suggests perceiving them as instantiations of ‘def ’, as defs. In other words, contrary to apoha, classification based on similarity invites (but not justifies) the idea that having a concept ‘def ’ implies that there are defs, and therefore, that phenomena are noumena and that language gives us more or less direct access to the (real) world. And it is exactly this illegitimate conclusion that Dignāga and Dharmakīrti wanted to avoid. On the other hand, and this is a key point, having a concept of ‘def ’ does imply that there are shared experiences in which that concept is grounded, and as Davidson suggests (albeit not in these terms), the ultimate cause of such shared experiences can only be noumenal. Furthermore, the (Buddhist) rejection of a noumenal category corresponding with

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(phenomenal) ‘def ’ because of the non-identity of its supposed members implies that we are (or can become) aware of that non-identity. And if that is the case, we can triangulate and conceptualize the difference(s). Perhaps every ‘thing’ that is classified as (not-non-) ‘def ’ is uniquely different, and every ‘thing’ constructed as ‘gu’ is merely a conventional construction, and therefore, there really are no defs and gus, but we can be (or become) aware of those differences, conventions and constructions and describe those. Hence, conceptual categories are deceptive or illusory only to the extent of our (contingent) inability or unwillingness to ‘see’ beyond (ordinary) words. Aside from that contingency (or unwillingness), phenomenal perception can only be subjective, deceptive, or illusory in the minimal sense that Davidson (1988, 45) considered “mere empirical accidence without philosophical significance”. The necessary noumenal grounding of conceptual determinations also implies that they are not (completely) untrue, but merely incomplete (or partial) and/or too crude. Consequently, the phenomenal is (ultimately) real, but always one-sided, or perspectival. “The way of seeing mountains and waters differs according to the type of being”,21 wrote Dōgen (in Sansuigyō 山水經). Different beings, different contexts, different backgrounds and points of view involve different perspectives. From these different perspectives, different aspects of the same real ‘thing’ are perceived, leading to different conceptualizations, and “either in dust [as layman, seeing nothing but the ordinary phenomena] or outside the frame [as an accomplished monk, seeing beyond the ordinary], of all [these] numerous aspects, we can see and understand only those that we have developed the capability (eyes of learning) to” (Genjō-kōan 現成公案).22 Nevertheless, what we thus “see” from a particular perspective is not some kind of illusion to be erased by learning to “see clearly”. A thought before seeing clearly is just that, a thought before clarification, but that does not make it a wrong thought,23 and “at the time of seeing clearly that thought is not erased (made lost)” (Hosshō).24 21 おほよそ山水をみること、種類にしたがひて不同あり。 22 塵中格外、おほく樣子を帶せりといへども、參學眼力のおよぶばかりを 見取會取するなり。 23 That a conceptualization (determination) is not necessarily mistaken in Dōgen’s view is also evident from the occurrence of the term ‘correct determination/discrimination’ (正分別) in the chapter Ippyakuhachi-hōmyōmon (一百八法明門) of the 12 chapter edition of the Shōbōgenzō (but only there). 24 さきより脱出あらん向來の思量、それ邪思量なるにあらず、ただあきら めざるときの思量なり。あきらめんとき、この思量をして失せしむるにあら ず。

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It was argued above that conceptual categories are deceptive or illusory only to the extent of our (contingent) inability or unwillingness to “see” beyond (ordinary) words. This metaphor of ‘seeing beyond words’ is a central theme in many currents of Chinese and Japanese Buddhist philosophy, most famously Chan/Zen. It is often interpreted as conscious, nonconceptual perception (or experience), but it is controversial whether that is possible, and even though this interpretation may be correct for some Buddhist thinkers, it does not seem to be what Dōgen intended.25 The point here is not such conscious, non-conceptual experience, but a critical examination of the categories given in our (ordinary) language. Such “critical examination” necessarily takes place in language—determination of non-identity of the members of a conceptual class requires further triangulation(s) and conceptualization or description. “Seeing beyond (ordinary) words”, or “seeing clearly” to speak with Dōgen, does not erase (prior) conceptual determinations (see the quote from Hosshō above); it extends rather than rejects language, and it is still “seeing through words”, but “seeing through” in both senses of “through”. Derrida (1967; see also 1971) made a similar point with regards to deconstruction, which aims at revealing and overturning the inherent, but often hidden oppositions between pairs of concepts and/or the hierarchies between them (an idea he inherited from de Saussure’s and Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism). Deconstruction cannot go (completely) beyond such oppositions because the possibility of language itself depends on opposing what is x to what is not, to difference, différance, or apoha. Deconstruction can expose oppositions and the mis- and preconceptions they conceal, but in doing so it necessarily makes use of and/or newly creates further concepts that involve further oppositions. 6 The continental disconnection of language from (noumenal) reality has more far-reaching consequences than just the holistic deferment of meaning (section 2): it makes language impossible. Language, concepts, communication, but also rationality and objectivity require a shared noumenal

25 There is considerable disagreement among Dōgen scholars about this (see Heine 2012 for an overview), but the current consensus among academic (as opposed to monastic) Dōgen scholars seems to be that Dōgen did not think of Enlightenment as involving some kind of non-conceptual, or non-, extra-, or pan-perspectival perception.

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world to anchor words (section 4). Nevertheless, this anchoring or grounding through triangulation and/or apoha does not establish a necessary oneto-one identity between words (phenomenal categories) and discrete noumenally real things, but merely the necessity of some noumenal ground for our most basic phenomenal categorizations. Furthermore, triangulation and apoha anchor words in the world, but this can only work by simultaneously anchoring them in a network of different words, different conceptual determinations, different triangulations (section 4; see also Brons 2012). Hence, triangulation implies and leads to différance, to the deferment of meaning into that network, to the apoha-ic ‘not non’. Nevertheless, the necessary grounding of words in the real world implies that language cannot be radically deceptive, that conceptual designations are not necessarily and/or completely illusory, as Buddhist (and other) skeptics of language have suggested (section 3). Language is deceptive to some extent, that much can be granted, but only to some extent, and the necessary (social) grounding of words in the (ultimately) real world also implies the possibility of uncovering “deception” (section 5). It enables further triangulations, changes of perspective, further explorations and analyses in an attempt to “see beyond (ordinary) words”, but any such exploration can only proceed within the network of similar and different words, simultaneously confronting that network, stretching it, deconstructing it. Thus conceived, further triangulations and deconstruction, although diametrically opposed in their original theoretical foundations, serve the same purpose: attempting to look further, uncovering deception, getting closer to truth and reality (but without ever completely arriving). Language is not radically deceptive; words are (ultimately) grounded in the noumenal world, and the phenomenal is real,26 but any phenomenal reality is just one way of grasping (or pointing at) the noumenal, just one perspective, and therefore, one-sided, partial, incomplete. Dōgen pointed out that we can only see and understand what we have learned to see and understand (section 5), but that is an invitation to learn to see more, not a condemnation to ignorance. We can learn to see further; only “foolishness” stands in the way: Although people now have a deep understanding of the contents (heart) of seas and rivers, we still do not know how dragons and fish understand and

26 Note that this is just another way of phrasing the outcome of the transformation of Chinese Buddhism sketched in section 3, summarized as a gradual shift from the conventionality of the real to the reality of the conventional.

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use water. Do not foolishly assume that all kinds of beings use as water that what we understand as water. (Sansuigyō)27, 28

References Bao-Zang-Lun [Treasure Store Treatise], T45n1857; trans. Sharf (2002). Brons, L.L. (2011), “Applied Relativism and Davidson’s Arguments against Conceptual Schemes”, The Science Of Mind, 49: 221–240. —— (2012), “Dharmakīrti, Davidson, and Knowing Reality”, Comparative Philosophy 3.1, 30–57 . Davidson, D. (1974), “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme”, in (1984), 183–198. —— (1977), “The Method of Truth in Metaphysics”, in (1984), 199–214. —— (1982), “Rational Animals”, in (2001), 95–105. —— (1983), “A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge”, in (2001), 137–159. —— (1984), Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon). —— (1988), “The Myth of the Subjective”, in (2001), 39–52. —— (1990), “Epistemology Externalized”, in (2001), 193–204. —— (1991), “Three Varieties of Knowledge”, in (2001), 205–237. —— (1992), “The Second Person”, in: (2001), 107–122. —— (1994), “The Social Aspect of Language”, in: (2005), Truth, Language, and History (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 109–125. —— (1999), “Reply to A.C. Genova”, in Hahn, L.E. (ed.), The Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Chicago: Open Court), 192–194. —— (2001), Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Davis, B.W. (2011), “The Philosophy of Zen Master Dōgen: Egoless Perspectivism”, in J.L. Garfield & W. Edelglass, The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 348–360. Derrida, J. (1967), De la Grammatologie (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit). —— (1968), “Différance”, in (1972), Marges de la Philosophie (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit), 1–29. —— (1971), “Positions: Entretien avec Jean-Louis Houdebine et Guy Scarpetta”, in (1972), Positions (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit), 51–133. Dharmakīrti, Pramāṇavārttikasvopajñavṛtti (PVSV). Dignāga, Pramāṇasamuccaya. Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō, 75 and 12 chapter editions. Dreyfus, G. (1997), Recognizing Reality: Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy and Its Tibetan Interpretations (Albany, SUNY Press).

27 いま人間には、海のこころ、江のこころを、ふかく水と知見せりとい へども、龍魚等、いかなるものをもて水と知見し、水と使用すといまだしら ず。おろかにわが水と知見するを、いづれのたぐひも水にもちゐるらんと認 ずることなかれ。 For the opposite kind of “foolishness”, see the quote by Dōgen in section 3. These two kinds of foolishness are related to the Buddha’s rejection of absolutism and nishilism (see section 3). The “foolishness” mentioned in section 3 (discarding phenomena as ultimately real) is comparable (but not identical) to nihilism, while the ‘foolishness’ of the quote in this section (ignoring other perspectives) is related to absolutism (as absolutizing one’s own perspective). 28  I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper.

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—— (2011), “Apoha as a Naturalized Account of Concept Formation”, in Siderits, M., T. Tillemans & A. Chakrabarti (eds), Apoha: Buddhist Nominalism and Human Cognition (New York: Columbia University Press), 207–227. Fung Yu-Lan (1948), A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, translated and edited by Derk Bodde (New York: MacMillan). Gardner, S. (1999), Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason, London: Routledge. Hall, D.L. & R.T. Ames (1987), Thinking Through Confucius (New York: SUNY Press). Hansen, C. (1992), A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: a Philosophical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Heine, S. (2012), “What is on the Other Side? Delusion and Realization in Dōgen’s ‘Genjōkoan’ ”, in Heine (ed.), Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 42–74. Hui-Neng, Jin-Gang-Jing-Jie-Yi [Commentary on the Diamond Sutra], X24n0459. Ivanhoe, P.J. (1993), “Skepticism, Skill, and the Ineffable Tao”, Journal of the American Academy of Religions, 61(4): 639–654. Kant, I. (1787), Kritik der Reinen Vernunft [Critique of Pure Reason], second edition. Kim, H.-J. (2007), Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: a Reflection on His View of Zen (Albany: SUNY Press). Kjellberg, P. & P.J. Ivanhoe (eds) (1996), Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi (New York: SUNY Press). Leaman, O. (1988), Averroes and his Philosophy (Richmond: Curzon). Mou, Bo (2008), “Searle, Zhuang Zi, and Transcendental Perspectivism”, in Bo Mou (ed.), Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement (Leiden: Brill), 405–430. Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā [Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way]. Nietzsche, F.W. (1878), Menschliches Allzumenschliches [Human, All Too Human]. —— (1889), Götzen-Dämmerung [Twilight of the Idols]. Seng-Zhao, Zhao-Lun, T45n1858. Sharf, R.H. (2002), Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: a Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise, Honolulu: Kuroda Institute / University Of Hawai‘i Press. Sosa, E. (2003), “Knowledge of Self, Others, and World”, in K. Ludwig (ed.), Donald Davidson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 163–182. Zhuang Zi, Zhuang-Zi.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE BUDDHIST CHALLENGE TO THE NOUMENAL: ANALYZING EPISTEMOLOGICAL DECONSTRUCTION Sandra A. Wawrytko A clear line of analytical thought can be traced back to the historical Buddha, whose succinct chain of argumentation concerning the human condition is encapsulated in the Fourfold Noble Truth. It begins with a diagnosis: life is perceived as dysfunctional (duḥkha), that dysfunctionality is caused by cravings (taṇhā/tṛṣṇā), and hence to remove the dysfunctionality we must remove the cravings. The final point prescribes the antidote, the Eightfold Path, outlining the way to deconstruct our deluded thinking processes (right understanding, right thought), instill salutary behavior patterns (right speech, right action, right livelihood), and initiate mental discipline to stave off future delusion (right effort, right awareness, right concentration). A case can be made that Buddhism resonates more with science than religion. Professor of chemistry J.K.P. Ariyaratne observes: “Buddhism and science are not revelations benevolently gifted and mercifully showered on humankind for their salvation. . . . [but] are both intellectual edifices built on the same base, namely, human experience and endeavour [sic]” (Ariyaratne 2001, 42). Unlike most world religions, Buddhism claims no divine source of inspiration, is not dependent on any deity, has no sacred texts, ideology, or universal codes of conduct. The founder, Ṥākyamuni Buddha, makes no claims of divinity, but rather promotes an open-minded, even skeptical approach to his claims. Paralleling the empirical method of science, individual experimentation in the laboratory of the mind is encouraged, toward the end of first challenging and then duplicating the Buddha’s results. This “Charter of Free Inquiry” is expounded in early Buddhist texts such as the Kālāma Sutta (Soma Thera 1981). In this regard Buddhism qualifies as a “truly scientific philosophy” sought by Bertrand Russell, in being “capable of accepting the world without the tyrannous imposition of our human and temporary demands” (Russell 1917, 30–31). This chapter will outline the Buddhist methodology of the Wisdom Gone Beyond (Prajñā-pāramitā) presented in such texts as the Diamond

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Cutting Sūtra and Heart Sūtra, and further developed by Chan practitioners as a form of radical empiricism qua epistemological deconstruction. We begin with a brief survey of the phenomenal/noumenal divide (1), tracing how early philosophers evolved abstract thinking to construct a dualistic paradigm that explains the competing claims of phenomena and noumena. W.V. Quine’s “Empiricism Without the Dogmas” (1.1) as well Popper’s critical empiricism and critical rationalism (1.2) resonate with Buddhism’s critique of abstract views (dṛṣṭi). While abstraction allowed for a deeper understanding of the assumed reality hidden beneath fleeting and often deceptive appearances, it also promoted deluded visions of a perfect and stagnant realm beyond physical experience. Gradually Newtonian science’s faith in universal, eternal laws of Nature is giving way to the fluidity of quantum mechanics. Amidst this daunting paradigm shift, physicist Brian Greene advises “a number of basic concepts essential to our understanding of the familiar everyday world fail to have any meaning when our focus narrows to the microscopic realm. As a result, we must significantly modify both our language and our reasoning when attempting to understand and explain the universe on atomic and subatomic scales” (Greene 2003, 87–88). The fruits of abstract thinking were challenged much earlier than the twentieth century. In the fourth century BCE the Greek philosopher ­Pyrrho accepted the fact that we experience phenomena, while suspending judgement regarding their noumenal underpinnings. The connection between Pyrrhonian philosophy and Buddhism elucidates the function and application of a skeptical lifestyle (2). David Hume and William James were inspired by the Pyrrhonian project of “true philosophy,” although both eventually capitulated to Custom and habit (2.1). However Buddhist philosophers persevered on the path of vigilant awareness to deconstruct the phenomenal/noumenal divide born of abstraction, implementing the careful attentiveness of meditation (2.2). A perceptual revolution is required to reveal the nonduality of reality (3). Realizing that our conceptual frameworks can be more deceptive than our perceptions, a threefold process allows us to progress from Great Faith to Great Doubt, ending in the Great Death of delusion (3.1). The epistemological pedagogy of clear perception is illustrated in the dynamic teaching strategies of Buddhist masters (3.2). We will conclude our discussion with suggestions for possible areas of creative engagement between Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophers in carrying forward the common goal of understanding and insight into reality (4).

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1. The Phenomenal/Noumenal Divide Like most philosophers, Buddhist philosophers were clearly cognizant of the deceptive testimony often provided by sense data. This revelation led many early thinkers to propound a dualistic worldview that not only pitted phenomena against noumena, but also privileged the latter over the former. In rare cases this strategy escalated into a monism centered on the “purity” of conceptual constructs. Clearly the ability to think abstractly had survival value, and these ancient speculations can be credited with creating the foundation for scientific thinking. Yet they also provide fodder for numerous distortions and dogmas. Seeking to escape enthrallment to “omnipotent matter [that] rolls on its relentless way” (Russell 1917, 54), humans across cultures contemplated the possibility of something that defied the natural forces of change. The Upaniṣads set forth a metaphysical hierarchy extending from the senses to sense objects, mind, and intellect, until arriving at the peak of the “soundless, touchless, formless, imperishable,/Likewise tasteless, constant, odorless,/Without beginning, without end” that allows for liberation from death (Radhakrishnan 1957, 47). The Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, warning that the senses are “bad witnesses to men, if they have souls that understand not their language,” urged people to awaken to the abstract “Word” (Logos) that underlies cosmic flux (De Santillana 1961, 49).1 Parmenides goes even further in On Nature, consigning sense data to the Way of Opinion that ought to be rejected as unthinkable and unspeakable NotBeing. Only by following the Way of Truth can one discern the logically necessary, eternal, uncreated, indestructible, uniform, immutable, immovable Being. Building on their insights, in book seven of the Republic Plato proposes his grand scheme differentiating between what can be known but not sensed (the knowledge/epistēmē of “pure” forms/eidos accessible through intuition/noesis and discursive reason/dianoia) and what can be sensed but not known (mere opinion/doxa, dependent on mere belief [pistis] and imagination [eikasia]). The phenomenal/noumenal divide is predicated on the power of abstraction to decipher reality through thought and language. The etymology of the word ‘abstraction’ can be traced to the Latin abstrahere, 1 Heraclitus would likely be very disappointed to learn that an ability to think abstractly is not exclusive to human beings. Studies have demonstrated it is shared with other primates and even with some birds. Pigeons are capable of using abstract rules regarding numbers on a par with monkeys (Scarf, Hayne and Colombo 2011, 1664).

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a conjoining of abs-, ab- (to drag away) and trahere (to pull or draw out). Plato’s Allegory of the Cave mimics this imagery by drawing the philosopher out of the darkness of presumed reality (doxa, opinion) and into the light of real reality (epistēmē, knowledge). Parmenides summarily rejects anything that contradicts the absolutist logic imparted by his goddess (Themis, embodiment of law and order). Centuries later American pragmatism’s progenitor, Charles Sanders Pierce, cast himself in the role of logic’s “worthy knight and champion”: “The genius of a man’s logical method should be loved and reverenced as his bride, whom he has chosen from all the world. . . . her from the blaze of whose splendors he draws his inspiration and his courage” (Pierce 2003, 389–390). The underlying either/or assumption is more easily discerned by non-philosophers; Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, professors with expertise in the field of business, observe: “There’s a philosophical tendency in the West, following Plato, to conclude that if a theory isn’t working, there must be something wrong with reality” (Nonaka and Takeuchi 2011, 3). In this same vein, Immanuel Kant defended the theory/reality continuum against “a smart aleck [who] could concede the value of theory for academic purposes, perhaps as an exercise of the mind, but then at the same time assert that things work quite differently in practice; that when one goes from school out into the world one will discover that one has pursued empty ideals and philosophic dreams” (Kant 1949, 413). 1.1 Quine: “Empiricism without The Dogmas” Quine rejects more sophisticated manifestations of a phenomenal/noumenal divide in the form of David Hume’s rationalist/empiricist Fork and Immanuel Kant’s doctrine of analytic and synthetic truths, identifying them as one of empiricism’s two dogmas. The other dogma, reductionism, assumes a correspondence theory of truth that pairs statements with logical propositions, although he declares them “at root identical” (Quine 1962, 118). Quine’s de-dogmatized view resonates with Buddhism’s cautionary approach to abstract concepts: As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. . . . in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind.

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Among these “cultural posits” Quine includes “the abstract entities which are the substance of mathematics . . . myths on the same footing with physical objects and gods, neither better nor worse except for differences in the degree to which they expedite our dealings with sense experience” (Quine 1962, 120). Niels Bohr agrees: “there is no quantum world, there is only an abstract quantum description” (Herbert 1985, 22). The dualistic divide at the core of ancient Greek philosophy has thus been called into question by analytic thinkers as well as theoretical scientists. The noumena, whether Parmenides’ Being, the Platonic Forms, or Kant’s Ding an sich, do not qualify as foundational realities. Instead they are mental maps of what we conceive reality to be. This reflects the etymology of the Greek term, nooumenon, derived from noein (to think or conceive) and nous (mind), referring to the constructs of thought. As philosophers began to scorn sense data while equating the ideas generated by reason with reality, the noumena assumed a more exalted position, even being equated with Reality itself. In contrast, for Buddhist philosophy “there is no absolute splitting of reality into good and evil, pure and impure, or into two levels or categories of being. All bifurcations are in the final analysis mental in nature and they become one of the basic sources of what Buddhism calls ‘ignorance’ (avidya)” (Inada 1969, 105). The nondualistic Twofold Truth acknowledges our dualistic perceptions and conceptions without subscribing to them. Reality is not denied, however our attempts to conceive of it or confine it to convenient linguistic formulas are at best skillful means (upāya). This includes nebulous terms for reality, such as Emptiness (śūnyatā, kong-xing 空性) or Suchness (tathāta, ­zhen-ru 眞如). Under this analysis, due to the fundamentally flawed assumptions of the discriminating mind, thought-based noumena are not what has come to be regarded as noumenal, that is ultimately real. The true reality can neither be thought nor expressed in language. Underscoring the inherent limitations of the abstraction and conceptualization process, the Diamond-Cutter Sūtra ­(Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra, Jingang bore boluomiduo jing 金剛般若波羅蜜多經) a key exposition of Mahāyāna epistemology, applies the formula “x is not x, and therefore is called x” to a host of Buddhist concepts. In getting beneath the dualistic dialectic of ‘is” and “is not,” bodhisattvas, buddhas, attainment, and even the teaching of the Buddha are consigned to the same mythological realm as Quine’s Homeric gods, physical objects, and mathematical concepts. Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation of the sūtra title, The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion, reflects its complex deconstruction

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of language. Mu Soeng, quoting Gerald Doherty, describes it as “a selfdeconstructive text,” adding that it does not merely critique logocentrism, but further presents “Mahayana deconstruction [that] aims to free the mind even from its own sense of context. . . . not merely to play with words” (Mu Soeng 2000, 66–68). In this vein Prajñā-pāramitā was depicted as the mother of all buddhas since only wisdom that has gone beyond allows for true awakening. The dialogue between Ṥākyamuni and his disciple Subhūti in the Diamond Sūtra begins with the latter’s request concerning where to “stand” or “abide” (sthiti, zhu 住) in regard to bodhisattva practice (Conze 2001, 13). Although Subhūti was known for his expertise on emptiness, this line of questioning reveals a fixation on the conceptual or “noumenal” level of understanding. In the course of the discussion Subhūti comes to realize that his initial request presupposes that one can “abide” in a stagnant concept or mental construct. Instead, the dynamic experience of reality must be constantly renegotiated. Thus “the Bodhisattva, the great being, should produce an unsupported thought, i.e., a thought which is nowhere supported, a thought unsupported by [“phenomenal”] sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touchable, or [“noumenal”] mind-objects” (Conze 2001, 45). Accordingly, it is said in the Heart Sūtra that the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Contemplation Free of Delusion) “depends (leans on) the wisdom gone beyond (prajñā-pāramitā), then the mind is without hindrances (obstructions, worries). Without hindrances then is without fears. Far removed from mental confusion (daydreams), [one] finally realizes Nirvana” (the final three stages of bodhisattva practice).2 Ludwig Wittgenstein famously concluded his Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus by labeling his foregoing propositions “elucidations” comparable to rungs on a ladder: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

However Wittgenstein also advised that we “pass over in silence” what cannot be spoken (Wittgenstein 1972, 150). While silence did function on occasion as a pedagogical device in Buddhism, it was not required. Buddha and his successors excelled at applying language as a form of “skillful 2 My translation from the Chinese.

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means” (upāya) (Wawrytko 2000). Beneath the dialectic of the “is” and the “is not,” what is expressed in language and what cannot be expressed, what is thought and unthought, the true message of Buddhist epistemology, the teaching of no words, can be indicated, but only upāyically by ostensive definition or artistic evocation. 1.2 Popper: Critical Empiricism/Critical Rationalism Arguing for “Knowledge Without Authority,” Karl Popper proposes a crucial shift from ascertaining the sources of knowledge (which presupposes an authoritative and ultimately authoritarian origin) to detecting and eliminating errors, what Buddhists refer to as delusions. The resulting approach, which he designates as simultaneously critical rationalism and critical empiricism, aims to “merely put the finishing touch to Kant’s own critical philosophy. And this was made possible by Einstein, who taught us that Newton’s theory may well be mistaken in spite of its overwhelming success” (Popper 1985, 53). Abiding in the Newtonian paradigm, Kant’s genius was stymied and confined to the realm of the “als ob.” Elsewhere Popper proposed a “pluralist view,” which “recognizes at least three different but interacting sub-universes”—physical objects, subjective experiences, and human constructs (Popper 1978). The Dalai Lama has noted the “curious convergence” between Popper’s three worlds and the three realms recognized by Buddhist philosophers (Dalai Lama 2005, 127). Buddhism’s three realms (triloka, 三法界) are—the realm of sensuous desire (Kāmadhātu 欲界), the realm of form (Rūpadhātu 色 界), and the formless realm (Arūpadhātu 無色界). In more contemporary parlance we can recognize these as reality perceived by one’s psychological state, from the standpoint of materialism, and as constructed by the abstractions of the mind respectively. While many philosophers in the ­Amero-eurocentric tradition are likely to claim the third, “noumenal” perspective constitutes an objective assessment of reality, for Buddhist philosophers all three realms ultimately are delusions that must be seen through, or emptied out. Such an analysis challenges the core assumption of Parmenides’ pronouncement that “it is the same thing to be thought and to be” (De Santillana 1961, 91). Research by cognitive scientists supports the critiques of Quine, Popper, and Buddhist philosophers. Although the complex process of seeing reality has not yet been fully explained or understood, physicist and Nobel Laureate Francis Crick reports “seeing is a constructive process, meaning that the brain does not passively record the incoming visual information.

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It actively seeks to interpret it. . . . What you see is not what is really there; it is what your brain believes is there” (Crick 1994, 30–31). Neuroscientists have verified that our deluded views of reality are not primarily fueled by the long-derided phenomena, but rather are due to “cognitive illusions” and episodes of “inattentional blindness” that proliferate in direct correspondence to the degree of discrimination in one’s mind. This situation is reflected in the contrasting “realities” of children and adults: “Children are notoriously difficult to deceive . . . because they’re not sophisticated enough to be fooled. They have not built up bulletproof models of probability and impossibility” (Macknik and Martinez-Conde 2010, 153). The foundational “Laws of Thought” espoused by Amero-eurocentric logic—the Principles of Identity (p → p), Non-Contradiction (~ (p & ~p)), and Excluded Middle (p v ~p)—were once assumed to encode the “natural” modes of human psychology. The simplistic dualism of such formulations, which narrowly focuses our cognitive attention, is now seriously challenged by post-modern science (as distinguished from modern science, dating from the seventeenth century). “Fuzzy logic” and “complexity theory” are better able to explain organic systems in general and human interactions in particular.3 Hence Quine observes “Revision even of the logical law of the excluded middle has been proposed as a means of simplifying quantum mechanics; and what difference is there in principle between such a shift and the shift whereby Kepler superseded Ptolemy, or Einstein Newton, or Darwin Aristotle?” (Quine 1962, 119). 2. The Skeptical Methodology: The Pyrrhonian Connection Like Quine and Popper, Buddhist philosophers do not succumb to the temptation to propound and uphold a “true” conceptual framework. Kenneth Inada rightly defends Buddhist philosophy against assorted miscategorizations representative of philosophical fixation—pessimism, nihilism, monism, dualism, pluralism, monotheism, polytheism, atheism, pantheism, agnosticism, relativism, and asceticism. In pursuing its deconstructive task “the Buddhist middle path is not simply a refined balancing act. Its essence is the achievement of that insight which crushes all views (dṛṣṭi)

3 The quintessentially dualistic Principle of Excluded Middle—either it is or it is not— is the foundation of the other two Laws of Thought. The Principle of Identity can be derived from the Excluded Middle using the Replacement Rule of Implication while the Principle of Non-Contradiction follows from DeMorgan’s Law.

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that might become obstacles to the normal flow of life, whether of the two extremes or even of the middle itself ” (Inada 1969, 108). The closest parallel we have in ancient Greek philosophy is associated with the skeptic’s skeptic, Pyrrho of Elis (ca. 360–270 BCE). It has long been assumed that Pyrrho accompanied Alexander the Great in his travels east, where he reportedly met “Gymnosophists” in India as well as with Persian “Magi” (Kuzminski 2007, 482). Adrian Kuzminski has made a case for a specific influence from Mādhyamaka Buddhists in Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism. The dogmatism rejected by Pyrrhonists is compared to the Buddhist rejection of “ ‘attachment,’ or ‘clinging’ (upādāna) to a fixed ‘view’ (dṛṣṭi)” concerning what is considered noumenal existence (Kuzminski 2007, 497). Pyrrho’s philosophy is known to us through Outlines of Pyrrhonism by Sextus Empiricus, which discusses the seven steps of the skeptical lifestyle (agōgē) (Sextus 1990). (1) Recognition of contradiction between appearances (phenomena) and how we think about appearances (noumena) leads one to question whether knowledge exists and whether truth is knowable; frustration gives rise to indecision, thence to a commitment to seek truth and put an end to doubts. (2) Three options emerge—the dogmatist view, which is overly optimistic in asserting that truth is known; the academic view, which pessimistically concludes there is nothing to know (unreflective skepticism); and the true skeptic’s view of philosophy, a middle path between the previous extremes that reflects intellectual honesty. (3) An ongoing search ensues based on equilibrium of evidence (isosothenia), whereby we examine all sides of an argument and continue to suspend judgement (acatalepsia). Paralleling Mādhyamaka Buddhism’s “middle path between affirming and denying,” “both A and non-A are equally suspended, leaving the subject in a noncommittal state” (Kuzminski 2007, 498). (4) When suspension of judgement becomes habitual, we stop (epochē) making judgements and remain open-minded. (5) Peace of mind (ataraxia) arises due to our release from previous frustrations, replacing our original goal to possess the truth. (6) A non-disruptive lifestyle is adopted following socially acceptable standards of conduct, as one abstains from the extremist positions avowed by those who claim to know the truth. (7) The open-ended, ongoing search is maintained, since we cannot even know that we cannot know. For our purposes it is instructive to examine how Pyrrho’s possible influences from Buddhism were received, indicating which aspects of Buddhist epistemology were deemed unacceptable. Two key factors in this reticence seem to be “conservatism” and “the quest for simplicity” that

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Quine blames for “our vaguely pragmatic inclination to adjust one strand of the fabric of science rather than another” to accommodate “recalcitrant experience” (Quine 1962, 121). In other words, there are perceived limits to what some philosophers are willing question, causing them to take refuge in the cozy confines of custom or habit. 2.1 Hume and James: Capitulation to Custom and Habit Perhaps the most famous proponent of Pyrrhonian skepticism in the ­history of European philosophy was David Hume. His groundbreaking critique of metaphysics and epistemology, A Treatise on Human Nature, laments the state of philosophy in his day: Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them, want of coherence in the parts, and of evidence in the whole, these are every where to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself (Hume 1975, xiii).

A worthy precursor to Quine and Popper, Hume assiduously examined the claims of both the empiricists and the rationalists. No assumptions, presumptions, or wish-fulfilments were allowed to obscure the analytical process. Hume demonstrates first, with regard to reason, that “all knowledge degenerates into probability” (Hume 1975, 180). Moving on to the senses, he concludes that our confidence in the existence of material objects is due to the complacency of naïve realism, while personal identity is a mere fiction. The existence of external reality and internal reality were heavily debated topics among Buddhists philosophers as well. Hume’s Fork has haunted the epistemological exercises of succeeding generations of philosophers. If belief and ultimately knowledge must be justified by either reason or the senses, as has long been assumed, and neither provides sufficient justification, then how can we answer Hume’s charges that the former is irrelevant to the real world and the latter unreliable? While Hume’s conclusions would seem to mandate skepticism, as required by intellectual honesty, he was forced to abandon his carefully crafted defense of skepticism. He not only counsels capitulation to Custom, but assumes it is unavoidable: “nature breaks the force of all skeptical arguments in time . . . . the sceptic still continues to reason and believe, even tho’ he assert, that he cannot defend his reason by reason” (Hume 1975, 187). Thus he exclaims “Carelessness and in-attention alone can afford us any remedy” (Hume 1975, 216–18). In moving toward what some have labeled anti-rationalism, Hume’s reliance on the survival value of natural instinct does in its own way liberate us from the dictates of

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abstract constructs. However, this strategy also requires a capitulation to the comforting claims of common sense. Like Hume, William James was attracted to the Pyrrhonian stance, proclaiming “There is but one indefectibly certain truth, and that is the truth that Pyrrhonistic skepticism leaves standing—the truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists” ( James 1962, 249). Yet he can hardly be classified as a skeptic. One of his most famous works is “The Will to Believe,” a defense of “the lawfulness of voluntarily adopted faith” ( James 1962, 241). An entire chapter of James’ The Principles of Psychology is dedicated to inculcating habit, in emulation of the “immutable habits” of natural laws ( James 1971,68). Habit is praised as society’s “most precious conservative agent” ( James 1971, 79). It also simplifies our life, but at the cost of the hierarchical dualism of body and mind. By consigning many of life’s tasks to “the effortless custody of automatism,” James argues, “our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.” He does not regard suspension of belief as a means to ataraxia, but rather sees only misery for “one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision” ( James 1971, 80). 2.2 The Buddhist Philosopher’s Careful Attentiveness Could there be a third prong to Hume’s Fork? Can we escape the dualistic grip of empiricism and rationalism? Such would seem to be a constructive project worthy of philosophical engagement. In fact, surrendering to Custom is the antithesis of the Buddhist method of carefully attending to and disengaging the automatic pilot of habit. Unconscious incompetence, not even knowing that we don’t know, causes us to hold a false view. If we persevere this gives rise to conscious incompetence, knowing that we don’t know. We then can progress through a nuanced skeptical methodology from “nonrealistic” doubt to equilibrium of doubt, finally arriving at “realistic” doubt. Conscious competence, rightly knowing we know something, awakens conviction bolstered by a rational inference. It is important to emphasize that reasoning is not summarily rejected in the Buddhist approach. It plays a key, albeit transitional, role, in some ways echoed in Kant’s recognition of the limit of reason. This is clear from the Buddha’s pedagogical method of engaging audience members in a critical evaluation of his claims while consciously eschewing dogmatic pronouncements. The final stage of unconscious competence, knowing in what Spinoza might regard as an intuitive way, gets beneath abstraction, allowing for “a nonconceptual valid awareness” (Hayward and Varela 1992, 39–40). The Atthakavagga (IV.11.13) seems to elaborate on this awareness:

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sandra a. wawrytko There is a state where form ceases to exist. It is a state without ordinary perception and without disordered perception and without no perception and without any annihilation of perception. It is perception, consciousness, that is the source of all the basic obstacles (Saddhatissa 1985, 102).

Krishnamurti’s description of what is involved here resonates with Pyrrhonian skepticism: “Observe that you have belief, you cling to the belief, belief gives you a sense of security [conservatism?] and so on. And that belief is an illusion, it has no reality” (Krishnamurti and Bohm 1985, 55). By giving thought preeminence, Krishnamurti argues, we have “slipped into” irrationality, an irrationality that forces us to respond with extreme rationality (Krishnamurti and Bohm 1985, 61)—the “hypertrophy of the logical faculty” Nietzsche ascribes to Socrates (Nietzsche 1968, 475). Hence, thinking what we take to be the known is reduced to a habitual response (Krishnamurti 1996, 216–217). Krishnamurti’s antidote to our irrational ingrained habits is “choiceless awareness” or meditation, “the emptying of consciousness of its contents” (Krishnamurti 1996, 285). Two common meditational practices in Buddhism involve the epistemological deconstruction necessary for such awareness to arise: calming the mind (śamatha in Sanskrit; Chinese zhi 止) and clear observation (vipaśyanā; guan 觀). Scientific studies have demonstrated that meditation stimulates neuroplasticity in the brain, rewiring the brain through focused attention that leads to “attentional stability” followed by “attentional clarity” (Begeley 2007, 214). Extensive neurological studies by James H. Austin have tracked mental development through meditation that allows the mind (like a dustless mirror) to become a clear reflector of reality or Suchness (Austin 1998, 2009). 3. Perceptual Revolution Criticizing idealistic philosophy as “thin, lifeless, and insubstantial,” Bertrand Russell argues that it “is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit; divorced from it, they remain barren” (Russell 1917, 7). Nondualism heals the human-imposed rift between world and ideals, phenomena and noumena. Buddhism’s perceptual revolution removes our addiction to concept-driven purposefulness by expanding our epistemological horizons. While the mental habits of the discriminating mind spawn ideologies and intolerance, the purposeless non-discriminating mind avoids preconceptions and prejudices.

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By ‘purposelessness’ is not meant mere absence of things where vacant nothingness prevails. . . . it transcends both subject and object; it responds empty-mindedly to environmental vicissitudes and leaves no tracks. . . . you make no choice between right and wrong, like and dislike, and are above [or beneath] all forms of abstraction.” (Suzuki 1959, 433–434).

The deconstructive process through which this becomes possible has been discussed under the headings of Great Faith, Great Doubt, and Great Death. 3.1 Faith → Doubt → Death of Delusion Too often superficial readings of Buddhism confound and conflate it with philosophically suspect manifestations of religious mysticism. However the Buddhist’s perspectival shift is distinct from a religious “leap of faith,” freely acknowledged to be absurd by Søren Kierkegaard. Identifying a Buddhist Master as a manifestation of Kierkegaard’s “knight of faith,” while tempting, fails to recognize the logic underlying seeming absurdity. Kierkegaard’s conflicted, dualistic viewpoint assumes we must choose between the either/or, and thus endure the existential Angst of fear and trembling. Abraham’s teleological suspension of the ethical in the planned sacrifice of his son entails that, as an exemplar of the fact that “the single individual is higher than the universal,” he is “either a murderer or a man of faith” (Kierkegaard 2003, 268–269). In sharp contrast, Buddhist nondualism rests on an awareness that does not impose a hierarchy on nor discriminate between phenomena and noumena, individual and universal. Accordingly, D.T. Suzuki warns philosophers “that there is something which refuses to be subsumed under either category, idealism or realism, and this something we are to see face to face in order to get to the very foundation of our life” (Suzuki 1959, 422). Most importantly, there is a fundamental contradiction between Kierkegaard’s dismissal of the aesthetic, as a wallowing in hedonistic pleasures, and the high valuation of the arts in Buddhist practice. Kierkegaard’s threefold categorization of the lowly aesthetic, the middling ethical, and the superior religious is inverted in Chan Buddhism. Religion constitutes the entry level stage of Great Faith, while the ethical must undergo the scrutiny of the Great Doubt to arrive at the Great Death of delusion. Buddhist art manifests non-discriminating awareness, not as an escape from the cave of sensuous appearances, but as a dis-solution of the selfimposed constraints of concepts (inclusive of Plato’s Eidos).

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The deconstructive process begins with Great Faith in the Buddha (the Awakened One) as a role model, the Dharma (his teachings) that provides guidelines for one’s own awakening, and the Sangha (the supportive community of seekers). By adopting Buddhist doctrine one poses the initial challenge to common sense reality. One intellectually accepts and believes (is emotionally attached to) that doctrine as a means to the end of radical attitudinal adjustment. Note that this roughly corresponds to Kierkegaard’s ultimate realization. The second stage of Great Doubt introduces the corrective of skepticism. Dependence on second hand reports of a deeper reality, even coming from Śākyamuni Buddha himself, is gradually eliminated. The fallacious appeal to authority is removed in preparation for ultimate self-reliance and self-discovery. One is satisfied with what reality is not—it is not what one had assumed it to be, is not consistent with the social and intellectual constructs one has been conditioned to accept. In the dialectical template of the Diamond Sūtra, “x is not x and therefore is called x.” In the final stage of the Great Death of delusion one awakens not to but as reality (Hixon 2004, 129). The mystery is that there is no mystery— “being-as-it-is, with nothing extraordinary about it, nothing wonderful, is the great wonder” as Master Sessan declares (Schloegl 1976, 56). Mystery itself is deconstructed, revealed to be a product of the deluded, habituated mind. Saṁsāra is (and always was) Nirvāṇa, and Nirvāṇa Saṁsāra, phenomena noumena and noumena phenomena. Satori is “an awakening from a dream” of mental constructs, and thereby ‘seeing into one’s own being’ (Suzuki 1959, 435). 3.2 The Epistemological Pedagogy of Clear Perception Chan literature contains numerous examples of pedagogical techniques designed to support the meditational experience of stopping conceptual accretions to the end of provoking or invoking clear observation. This often requires a creative and upāyic use of language. Huang-bo Xi-yun (黄檗希运) taught the cessation of conceptual thought is the way. . . . halt the concept-forming activities of your own mind. . . . ‘Buddha’ and ‘sentinent beings’ are both your own false conceptions. It is because you do not know real Mind that you delude yourselves with such objective [abstract?] conceptions (Addis 2008, 41).

Those sickened by conceptualization still need medicinal concepts. However people can become sick because of the medicine, so to continue to

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feed them concepts only invites addiction. At some point Great Faith (even faith in Buddhist concepts) must give way to Great Doubt to open the way for the Great Death of delusion. Mazu Daoyi (馬祖道一) demonstrates the dynamic interaction with students that is necessary to provide the approach that corresponds to their specific level of delusion. For those at the Great Faith stage he would proclaim “The Mind is the Buddha,” a seemingly coherent linguistic statement, that is in fact intended to “stop the crying of a baby.” When the crying has stopped in those who have progressed to Great Doubt he taught “Not mind, not Buddha.” Great Death of delusion requires a nondiscriminating mind, “the mind of no mind,” and thus avoids being mired in either language or other intellectual constructs. So when asked “How do you teach a man who does not uphold either of these?” Mazu replied “I would tell him, ‘Not things.’ ” The questioner persisted, “If you met a man free from attachment to all things, what would you tell him?” At this point one must delve beneath both words and concepts, and thus Mazu merely advised such a person to “experience the Great Tao” (Chang 1969, 150). That is, “nonconceptual valid awareness.” Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (白隠 慧鶴) faced a similar challenge when confronted by the distinguished samurai Nobushige. The warrior inquired “Is there really a heaven and a hell?” Instead of offering a simple yes or no answer, as expected, Hakuin put Nobushige on the defensive by asking “Who are you?” Proudly identifying himself as a samurai, Nobushige is again challenged by Hakuin—“What lord would employ you? You look like a beggar!” Thus provoked, the samurai fell back on his warrior instincts, drawing his sword to strike his tormentor. But now the astuteness of Hakuin’s approach was revealed, for he had succeeded in getting Nobushige to stop his futile conceptualizing. Hakuin has indeed taken the original question seriously and now proclaims “Here open the gates of hell.” With the sudden dawning of clear perception Nobushige lowers his sword and bows, leading Hakuin to observe “Here open the gates of heaven” (Reps and Senzaki 1985, 71–72). In daring to challenge common sense assumptions about reality, Buddhist philosophers demonstrate the six characteristics of a creative personality that are consistent with epistemological deconstruction: 1) openness to new and complex data from one’s environment, 2) a capacity for “defocused attention,” 3) introversion, 4) independence, autonomy, unconventionality, and possibly iconoclasm, 5) a broad range of interests (intellectual, cultural, and aesthetic), and 6) cognitive and behavioral flexibility (Simonton 1999, 90–92). Neurologist Kenneth Heilman argues that

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creativity not only involves coming up with something new, but also shutting down the brain’s habitual response, letting go of conventional solutions (Heilman 2005). A clear example of a creative artistic application of Chan’s epistemological reorientation is found in Japan’s haikai tradition. The tightly controlled conciseness of the haiku mandates that poets restrict themselves to three lines, ideally limited to seventeen syllables (5–7-5). The general structure calls for an opening line reporting the present condition or situation. The second line introduces a jarring break (kireji, “cutting word”) from the automatic pilot of concepts, constructs, and expectations, paralleling the meditational practice of stopping. The final line offers the resulting insight, following the meditational practice of clear observation. The best haikai demonstrate compassionate interpenetration with the subject, such that the poet has disappeared from the poem and become a transparent person through which we see reality as it is. There is a striking resemblance here to George Orwell’s observation that “Good prose is like a window pane” (Orwell 1968-I). The universally recognized master of the haiku, Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉), demonstrates a deep awareness of the three characteristics of reality recognized by Mahāyāna Buddhism—impermanence (anitya), nonself (an-ātman), and the fullness of emptiness (śunyata). Jane Reichhold explains the basis of Bashō’s literary achievement: “Only by stepping aside, by relinquishing the importance of being the author, can one capture and transmit the essence—the very is-ness—of a thing” (Bashō 2008, 9). This seems to resonate with the Henri Bergson’s intuitive knowledge, characterized as “entering into” the object to be known, which is deemed “absolute.” However, the nondualism of Buddhism simultaneously allows for intellectual knowledge acquired by “going around” what is to be known, assumed to “relative” (Bergson 1962, 303). Such a nondualistic experience is presented in a haiku written a mere month prior to Bashō’s death: A flash of lightning; Through the darkness goes The scream of a night heron.

Interpenetrating phenomenon and noumenon, poet and environment, are engaged in a dynamic interaction: “Out of silence comes sound; out of darkness comes light. The silence charges the sound; the darkness charges the light” (Aitken 1996, 102). The title of this verse, “The Goi,” reveals an unexpected philosophical depth. It refers to what Hakuin called the “main

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­ rinciple of Buddhism and the essential road of sanzen [Zen practice]”— p Wu-Wei (五位), Goi in Japanese, five degrees or positions. They trace possible relationships between what is perceived to be particular (relative, multiple, phenomenal) in contrast to the assumed universal (absolute, one, noumenal). Stereotypically, the universal is regarded as straight and true, clear, dynamic, and awake, opposed to the bent, off-center particular, which is assumed to be distorted, stagnant, asleep. Dong-shan is credited with a series of poems encapsulating their interpenetration: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

“The Bent within the Straight” [particular within the universal] “The Straight within the Bent” [universal within the particular] “The Coming from within the Straight” [emerging from the universal] “The arrival at the Middle of the Bent” [emerging from the particular] “Unity Attained” [universal together with the particular] (Domoulin 1988, 224–226).

As in Bashō’s haiku, the particular emerges from the universal, the light from the darkness, only to return. Accordingly, an enlightened practitioner both is and is not a serial killer, as in the well-known case of Aṅgulimāla (whose name refers to the “garland of fingers” gathered from his victims). While searching for his one thousandth victim Aṅgulimāla began to chase the Buddha, who eluded his grasp. Finally he called on the Buddha to stop. The Buddha replied that he had already stopped and now it was up to Aṅgulimāla to do the same. Obviously this was not a reference to simply stopping his killing spree, since the Buddha had never been engaged in such a practice. Rather it is the same kind of stopping involved in śamatha, stopping the habitual flow of concepts and constructs, in this case the self-imposed and socially-endorsed construct of being nothing more than a murderer. The key components of the “haikai imagination” support the epistemological deconstruction practiced in Buddhism: “pleasure in recontextualization . . . in defamiliarization, in dislocating habitual, conventionalized perceptions; and in refamiliarization . . . . a constant search for ‘newness,’ for both new perspectives and new sociolinguistic frontiers . . . . the ability to interact in playful, lively dialogue.” (Shirane 1998, 8). In this way “Enlightenment comes not from teaching but through the eye awakened inwardly” (Kawabata 1969, 55). Rather than offering what passes as a realistic picture of reality, an artist like Bashō functions as an ophthalmologist who helps us to see reality clearly, inspiring our own deconstructed seeing. American composer John Cage, who studied with D.T. Suzuki,

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s­ imilarly sought to share his artistic insights with his audiences. Originally he saw music “as a means of changing my own mind,” but his Buddhist studies expanded his vision: I saw art not as something that consisted of a communication from the artists to an audience but rather as an activity of sounds in which the artist found a way to let the sounds be themselves. And, in being themselves, to open the minds of people who made them or listened to them to other possibilities than they had previously considered (Kostelanetz 1988, 42).

Cage aimed not at imparting understanding, but stimulating awareness (Kostelanetz 1988, 212). The work of artist Robert Irwin also rests on “the primacy of perception . . . . a ‘precogito,’ which is the originary premediated perceptual field”; “All I try to do for people is to reinvoke the sheer wonder that they perceive anything at all!” (Weschler 1982, 180, 203). 4. Creative Engagement The goal of creative engagement holds much promise for enriching ­global philosophy. Analytical and continental approaches to philosophy can help remove the stigma of mysticism from Buddhism that has too often unjustly excluded it from serious consideration in philosophical circles. We can benefit from the analytical and scientific credentials of philosophers like Russell, Popper and Quine to suggest fresh ways to approach and interpret Buddhist epistemology that challenge stagnant stereotypes. Indeed, Buddhist philosophy avoids two of the four beliefs Russell associates with mysticism. Since it is remains skeptical about the process of conceptualization, it does not believe in “the conception of a Reality behind the world of appearance and utterly different from it”; nor does it cling to unity or refuse “to admit opposition or division anywhere” (Russell 1917, 9). Being nondualistic, Buddhism’s Twofold Truth recognizes that a tendency toward division is inherent in the discriminating mind, an evolutionary adaptation that cognitive scientists have shown to be dysfunctional in such cases as inattentional blindness. Scientists are actively engaged in ongoing dialogues with Buddhists to critically evaluate strategies devised to clarify and correct the delusions arising from dualistic paradigms. This rapport stands in stark contrast to the mutual disdain that has been expressed by scientists and philosophers. Physicist Lawrence M. Kraus writes “When it comes to the real operational issues that govern our understanding of physical reality, ontological definitions of classical philosophers are, in my opinion, sterile. . . . Empirical

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explorations ultimately change our understanding of which questions are important and fruitful and which are not” (Kraus 2012). These comments arose from the dismissive reception philosophers gave to Kraus’ book, A Universe From Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing.” Non-Buddhist philosophers also can contribute to the search for more coherent and persuasive ways to discuss Buddhist epistemology, enriching its upāyic vocabulary. A variety of terms for reality have been suggested over the centuries, including the negatively tinged “blowing out” of Nirvāṇa and Emptiness, as well as the affirmative expansiveness of Suchness. Recent suggestions have included devoidness, momentariness, transitoriness, newness, and transparency. We also need to explore forms of creative hermeneutics to test and decipher the meaning of the Buddhist claim that one can awake as, rather than to, reality. Kant famously concluded in the Critique of Pure Reason that we can think but not know noumenal reality: “though we cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in position at least to think them as things in themselves” (wir eben dieselben Gegenstände auch als Dinge an sich selbst, wenn gleich nicht erkennen, doch wenigstens müssen denken können) (Kant 1968, 27). However his conclusion was predicated on a dualistic worldview as well as his assumptions about the inherent limitations of reason and the human mind. If it were possible to be “liberated” from the narrow constraints of rationality and species identity, as Buddhism claims, what could the third prong of “nonconceptual valid awareness” refer to? Buddhism also can advance Russell’s goal of a “truly scientific philosophy” that is “capable of accepting the world without the tyrannous imposition of our human and temporary demands” (Russell 1917, 30–31). Like Popper and Quine, Buddhist philosophers have long addressed the problems posed by dogmatism and appreciated the crucial role of the skeptical method. In today’s ideologically driven world where ideas can maim and kill, the distortions and delusions inherent in abstract thought and our obsession with concepts demand our attention. Too often the human mind, confronted with myriad conceptual frameworks, assumes a choice must be made so we may align ourselves with the one Truth. The answer of the Buddhist philosopher is an open-ended “none of the above.” Among the most sophisticated areas of Buddhist philosophy are those that involve the analysis of consciousness. Wallace argues “Buddhism offers something fresh and in some ways unprecedented to our civilization, and one of its major contributions is its wide range of techniques for exploring and transforming the mind through firsthand experience”

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(Wallace 2003, 6). Aided by ongoing research from the cognitive sciences, we are acquiring a better understanding of the means to and benefits of “stopping” our mental barrage to invoke clear insight, as distinguished from the “automatism” that perpetuates dualism and estrangement from the full scope of reality. References Addiss, Stephen, Lombardo, Stanley and Rottman, Judith (2008), Zen Sourcebook: Traditional Documents from china, Korea, and Japan (Indianapolis: Hackett). Aitken, Robert (1996), Zen Wave: Basho’s Haiku & Zen (New York: Weatherhill). Ariyaratne, J.K.P. (2001), Two Buddhist Sutras Viewed from Science (Pannipitya, Sri Lanka: Stamford Lake Ltd.). Austin, James H. (1998), Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Zen and Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT Press). —— (2009), Selfless insight: Zen and the Meditative Transformations of Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT Press). Begley, Sharon (2007), Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves (New York: Ballantine). Bergson, Henri (1962), “An Introduction to Metaphysics”, in William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (eds), Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: An Anthology, vol. 3 (New York: Random House), 303–331. Chang Chung-yuan (trans.) (1969), Original Teachings of Ch’an Buddhism (New York: Pantheon Books). Cleary, Thomas (trans.) (1993), No Barrier: Unlocking the Zen Koan (New York: Bantam Books). Conze, Edward (2001), Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra (New York: Vintage Books). Crick, Francis (1994), The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons). Dalai Lama (2005), The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality (New York: Morgan Road Books). De Santillana, Giorgio (1961), The Origins of Scientific Thought: From Anaximander to Proclus, 600 B.C. to A.D. 500 (New York: Mentor). Domoulin, Heinrich (1988), Zen Buddhism: A History, Vol. I India and China (New York: Macmillan). Doherty, Gerald (1983), “Form is Emptiness: Reading the Diamond Sutra”, Eastern Buddhist, 16 (2). Eysenck, H.J. (1995), Genius: The Natural History of Creativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Greene, Brian ( 2003), The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (New York: W.W. Norton & Company). Hayward, Jeremy W. and Varela, Francisco J. (1992), Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind (Boston: Shambhala). Heilman, Kenneth (2005), Creativity and the Brain (New York: Psychology Press). Herbert, Nick (1985), Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics (New York: Anchor Press). Hixon, Lex (2004), Mother of the Buddhas: Meditation on the Prajnaparamita Sutra (Delhi: Alchemy). Hume, David (1975), A Treatise of Human Nature, L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press). (Original work published 1739)

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Inada, Kenneth K. (1969), “Some Basic Misconceptions of Buddhism”, International Philosophical Quarterly, 9 (1): 101–119. James, William (1971), The Principles of Psychology (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.). —— (1962), “The Will to Believe”, in William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (eds), Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: An Anthology, vol. 1 (New York: Random House), 241–258. Kant, Immanuel (1968), Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin’s Press). —— (1793), “Theory and Practice: Concerning the Common Saying: This May Be True in Theory But Does Not Apply in Practice”, in Carl J. Friedrich (ed), The Philosophy of Kant: Immanuel Kant’s Moral and Political Writings (New York: Modern Library, 1949) 412–29. Kawabata, Yasunari (1969), Japan the Beautiful and Myself, trans. Edward G. Seidensticker (Tokyo: Kodansha International). Kierkegaard, Søren (2003), Fear and Trembling, in William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (eds), Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: An Anthology, vol. 1 (New York: Random House) 267–275. Kostelanetz, Richard (1988), Conversing With Cage (New York: Routledge). Kraus, Lawrence M. (2012), “The Consolation of Philosophy”, Scientific American, April 27 (240), . Krishnamurti, J. (1996), Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti (San Francisco: Harper). Krishnamurti, J. and Bohm, David (1985), The Ending of Time (San Francisco: Harper). Kuzminski, Adrian (2007), “Pyrrhonism and the Madhyamaka”, Philosophy East and West, 57 (4): 482–511. —— (2010), Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books). Lehrer, Jonah ( Jan. 16, 2008), “The future of science . . . is art?”, Seed Magazine, . Macknik, Stephen and Martinez-Conde, Susana (2010), Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions (New York: Henry Holt and Company). Matsuo Bashō (2008), Basho: The Complete Haiku, trans. Jane Reichhold (Tokyo: Kodansha International). Mu Soeng (2000), The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications). Nietzsche, Friedrich (1968), The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Viking Press). Nonaka, Ikujiro and Takeuchi, Hirotaka (2011), “The Wise Leader: How CEOs can learn practical wisdom to help them do what’s right for their companies—and society,” Harvard Business Review, May, 3–11. Orwell, George (1968-I), “Why I Write”, in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds), The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell, vol. I (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World). Pierce, Charles Sanders (2003), “The Fixation of Belief ”, in Forrest E. Baird (ed.) and Walter Kaufmann, Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (Upper Saddle river, New Jersey: Prentice Hall), 379–390. Plato (1958), The Republic, trans. Francis MacDonald Cornford (New York: Oxford University Press). Popper, Karl (1985), “Knowledge without Authority”, in David Miller (ed.), Popper Selections (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 46–57. —— (1945), The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I The Spell of Plato (London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.). —— (1978), “Three Worlds”, Tanner Lecture on Human Values, University of Michigan. .

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Quine, W.V. (1962), “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, in William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (eds), Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: An Anthology, vol. 3 (New York: Random House), 102–121. Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli and Moore, Charles A. (eds) (1957), A Source Book in Indian Philosophy (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press). Reps, Paul and Senzaki, Nyogen (1985), Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (Rutland: Tuttle). Russell, Bertrand (1917), Mysticism and Logic (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor). Saddhatissa, H. (trans.) (1985), The Sutta-Nipata (London: Curzon Press). Scarf, Damian, Hayne, Harlene and Colombo, Michael (2011), “Pigeons on Par with Primates in Numerical Competence”, Science, 23 December, 1664. Sextus, Empiricus (1990), Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. R.G. Bury (New York: Prometheus Books). Shirane, Haruo (1998), Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho (Stanford: Stanford University Press). Simonton, D.K. (1999), Origins of Genius (New York: Oxford University Press). Soma Thera (trans.) (1981), The Instruction to the Kalamas (Anguttara Nikaya, Tika Nipata), Mahavagga, Sutta No. 65 (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society). Suzuki, Daisetz T. (1959), Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Wallace, Alan (ed.) (2003), Buddhism & Science: Breaking New Ground (New York: Columbia). Wawrytko, Sandra A. (2000), “Language and Logic in the Lotus Sūtra: A Hermeneutical Exploration of Philosophical Underpinnings,” Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal, 13: 63–95. Weschler, Lawrence (1982), Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin (Los Angeles: University of California Press). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1961), Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuiness (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).

CHAPTER TWELVE

A DAOIST PERSPECTIVE ON ANALYTICAL AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHODOLOGIES IN THE ANALYSIS OF INTUITION Marshall D. Willman 1. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to examine, ultimately from a Daoist point of view, differences in the methodologies of analytic philosophy and phenomenology as they might apply to a specific issue in contemporary cognitive science, that of the role of intuition in both knowledge and action. A host of recent studies in cognitive science appear to confirm the view that intuition plays a vital role in both how we come to understand the world around us and how we are able to act successfully within it. Intuition seems to play a central role in so-called “experiential” or “procedural” knowing—in part knowing how to do something in a way that enables immediate action—as opposed to knowing that something is the case, so-called “rational” knowing (Epstein 1999), or knowing the world in virtue of a set of propositions. It appears to influence our thoughts about the world (Jacoby et al. 1989), our preferences or desires (Wilson 1979), and our behavior (Bargh et al. 1996; Bechara et al. 1997). An important debate on the role of intuition in human decision making has followed a series of studies done by Antoine Bechara and colleagues in 1997 that involved a simple card game known as the “Iowa Gambling Task.” Bechara et al. have claimed that these studies corroborate the view that human decision making is often assisted by non-conscious emotion-related signals (“somatic markers”) that serve to indicate the goodness or badness of the outcomes of different courses of action. Notably, these markers are conceived as non-intentional, unlike the knowledge of facts, options, outcomes, and strategies that is said to be involved in conscious or deliberate decision making (Bechara et al. 1997). In this paper I will take the putative results of the Iowa Gambling Task (hereafter the IGT) as my point of departure and examine how the results of these studies might be interpreted (or reinterpreted) in light of

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the methodologies of both analytic philosophy and phenomenology. As a case study I consider the analytic philosophy of Searle, whose general analysis of intentionality has important ramifications for the understanding of human intuition. What Searle realizes is that it is possible to give an analysis of intentionality in which intentional states are distinguished not by any qualitative or phenomenological features that we might sense or feel in consciousness (as one would expect with somatic markers, whose name implicates processes of bodily feeling), but by more abstract semantical criteria that do justice to their “logical” status as objects that are intrinsically directed towards states of affairs or other objects in the world. In Searle’s view, to properly analyze intentionality, we do well to assume a method that analyzes the semantics of language.1 The principal advantage of Searle’s theory, at least in light of the aims of this paper, is that it makes room for an ontology of unconscious intentional states. This is a richer theory and is a considerable advance, I think, over the model proposed by Bechara and colleagues, which simplifies the phenomena of the mind in a framework that is, for all intents and purposes, dualistic and incapable of handling the nuances of intuition. But Searle’s views are not without their limitations either. Being informed by the methods of analytic philosophy, Searle’s views are, not surprisingly, analytic: they divide the phenomena of mind into discrete units and weigh their logical consequences more or less independently of one another. The limitation here is rooted in the fact that the analytical methods Searle is utilizing to account for the mind are grounded in the logical analysis of language, in Searle’s case particularly in the analysis of speech acts. Here we run up against the very limitations of natural language itself, the digitized medium that is indispensable to the development and defense of theories in science. On this note the phenomenologist Martin Heidegger would have important things to say, but so would Zhuang Zi, approaching the matter from the perspective of a Daoist. In line with their views I will argue that mere conjectures about the existence of somatic markers must be regarded as inconsequential, for the very articulation of the theory of somatic markers presupposes the conceptual framework of an already 1 My own analysis of intentionality has been highly influenced by Searle, but the basic ideas presented here are commonly defended in the philosophical literature on mental states. (Searle, furthermore, was heavily inspired by J.L. Austin in this regard.) For further elaboration, see Searle 1979, 74–92, or Searle’s 1992 book The Rediscovery of the Mind. On the other hand, I depart from Searle quite definitively in maintaining that our talk of intentional states is grounded in a form of language that may be significantly misleading in its capacity to accurately describe many of the nuances of our mental life.

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problematic language of intentional states. Moreover, I will suggest that the language of intentionality presupposed by Searle and other analytic philosophers is burdened with connotations from ordinary discourse that are simply not fine-grained enough to deal with the more intuitive forms of human experience. 2. Intuition and Analytic Philosophy I suspect it is common in cognitive psychology, when attempting to model mental states that apparently involve intuition, to favor analyses that treat intuition phenomenologically, in terms of qualitative features that we might sense or feel in consciousness. An example is the so-called “somatic marker hypothesis” advanced by cognitive psychologists Antoine Bechara and Antonio Damasio following a controlled experiment known as the Iowa Gambling Task. The experiment involves a simple card game in which players receive rewards and penalties by drawing cards from four decks.2 What Bechara and Damasio claim to find is that in simple versions of the experiment participants are able to make advantageous decisions based on emotional signals, or somatic markers, before realizing consciously which strategies are most effective at securing the greatest possible reward. Much of the evidence for the view that these markers are genuinely “somatic” rests on psychophysiological data gathered during the study showing that normal participants in general had higher skin conductance responses just prior to making bad or risky choices. Moreover, data from these participants were compared with those gathered from patients with prefrontal cortex damage. Patients with this condition failed to develop skin conductance responses when considering bad or risky decisions. Apparently they also behaved disadvantageously not only before realizing which decisions were risky but also after acquiring explicit knowledge about disadvantageous choices. These results were explained, according to Bechara and Damasio, on the hypothesis that the relevant 2 In the game players are given decks of cards and a loan of $2000 in facsimile U.S. bills. The goal of the game is to lose the least amount of money and win the most. As players turn cards, they receive rewards and penalties. Some cards provide an immediate reward ($100 in decks A and B and $50 in decks C and D), whereas other cards carry a penalty (which happens to be large in decks A and B and small in decks C and D). Playing mostly from decks A and B leads to an overall loss, whereas playing from decks C and D leads to an overall gain. The conditions of the game are restricted so that players are unable to calculate with precision the net gain or loss from each deck. They are also uninformed of the duration of the game, which stops after 100 cards are selected.

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somatic markers in the patients with prefrontal damage were missing, so they were not assisted by these means to make the right choices. Psychophysiological data notwithstanding, it is still evident that the somatic markers thought to be at work here are conceived essentially in phenomenological terms. Bechara and Damasio refer to them as “special instances of feelings generated from secondary emotions” (Damasio 1994, 174). They are conceived as emotion-related “signals” that serve to indicate, in consciousness or in its margins, the goodness or badness of the outcomes of different courses of action. Furthermore, they are thought to be the cause of at least a few of those “gut feelings” that we sometimes claim to have, feelings which seem to lead to advantageous behavior before we have ready-at-hand the sort of conscious knowledge that we would otherwise use to clearly assess which decisions are in general advantageous. As feelings or emotions, they are generally conceived or presupposed to be non-intentional, not about or directed toward anything in particular, unlike the knowledge of facts, options, outcomes, and strategies that is said to be involved in conscious or deliberate decision making. Indeed, Bechara and colleagues appear to underscore this point by presupposing a model of mental states that plays upon the suggested dichotomy: they acknowledge, as far as I can tell, only two basic types of mental states, one involving conscious, intentional mental states that are the basis of proposition- or reason-based knowledge, and the other involving mostly peripherally conscious, non-intentional, emotion-related signals (the somatic markers).3 Unlike proposition- or reason-based knowledge, 3 Bechara, et al. describe this proposition- or reason-based knowledge as “declarative,” and say that it is based “on facts pertaining to premises, options for action, and outcomes of actions that embody . . . pertinent previous experience” (1997, 1293). They contrast this knowledge with “non-declarative dispositional knowledge related to the individual’s previous emotional experience . . .” (1294), which is based on somatic markers. In a more recent work, they draw this contrast more sharply: “Somatic markers are a special instance of feelings generated from secondary emotions. These emotions and feelings have been connected by learning to predicted future outcomes of certain scenarios. When a negative somatic marker is juxtaposed to a particular future outcome the combination functions as an alarm bell. When a positive somatic marker is juxtaposed instead, it becomes a beacon of incentive” (Bechara et al. 2005, 160). They further claim that “to be conscious of a [somatic marker] is a very different issue from being conscious of the knowledge of facts, options, outcomes, and strategies involved in deciding” (ibid. 160). There can be no doubt here that Bechara et al. are conceiving somatic markers as intrinsically non-intentional (not directed toward or about anything), analogous to other non-intentional mental states such as pains, tickles, and itches. In connection with this, the view that declarative knowledge of facts pertaining to premises, etc., is conceived as conscious is evident from the fact that Bechara et al. do not consider in their model any place for unconscious intentional states. Moreover, they claim that “the process of pondering decisions . . . is always a

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somatic markers are conceived to have a qualitative feel that is, presumably, the basis of our means of identifying and individuating them. Methodologically, analytic philosophy will take a very different approach here. To the extent that it takes on intuition as an object of study, it is likely that its analysis will involve not phenomenology so much as semantics and logic: individuating states of intuition by more abstract semantical criteria and attempting to logically analyze these states in terms of these criteria. For example, it will treat intuition as involving concepts and propositions. I might intuit that two equals two, just as I might believe that two equals two. In this sense, my intuition is a propositional attitude exhibiting intentionality. The attitude is a psychological state directed toward a certain proposition that is about something. If intuition is a species of belief, then the difference between intuitions and other beliefs may simply be that the former are thought to be not derived from anything else, that is to say, non-inferentially known or believed, whereas the latter may be believed as a consequence of one’s endorsement of other beliefs. In any case, the intuition is conceived as having a structure, the structure of a proposition. From this point of view, normal participants of the Iowa Gambling Task would be conceived as having, at various stages of the game, an intuition that decks C and D are advantageous, and another intuition that decks A and B are not. Each intuition would involve a proposition with structured content exhibiting intentionality. Indeed, in analytic philosophy, the analysis of intuition is often considered to be a part of the more general analysis of intentionality, something undertaken largely independently of considerations of the qualitative features of consciousness. An example of this is found in the work of Searle, where an attempt is made to analyze intentional states according to more abstract semantical criteria, criteria that do justice to their status as “logical objects” that are intrinsically directed towards states of affairs or other objects in the world. The analysis treats intentionality independently of phenomenological considerations by seizing on the parallels that apparently exist between conscious process, whether knowledge about the task is absent . . . or available. However, the process leading to anticipatory [skin conductance responses] is mostly non-conscious, although it might become conscious in the form of a ‘gut feeling.’ ” (ibid. 160, italics in original). It must be noted here that the former claim is either trivially true or plainly false, depending on how we define the term “pondering.” If “pondering” necessarily involves consciously thinking about something, then it is trivially true; if it just involves acquiring intentional states of various kinds associated with the general process of making a decision (which need not be conscious), then it is plainly false.

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intentional states and speech acts. Like the speech act of reporting or stating that p, which underwrites the basic distinction between propositional content and illocutionary force, beliefs and other intentional states are conceived in ordinary discourse, at least implicitly, as having propositional content and psychological modes. I can report that the room is warm, or predict that the room is warm, or request that the room is warm; what is common to all of these acts of speech is the propositional content that the room is warm. But they differ in terms of their force: one has the force of a report, another the force of a prediction, and a third the force of a request. The same holds of intentional states. I may believe that the room is warm, or hope that the room is warm, or desire that the room is warm. The propositional content is that the room is warm and the modes are believing, hoping, and desiring, respectively. Speech acts and intentional states also appear to be logically dependent on one another. In general, if I make a report that p, I express a corresponding belief that p, by the very fact.4 Furthermore, since the condition of satisfaction for the report that p is its truth, the report that p is satisfied if and only if p. Next to this, the condition of satisfaction for the belief that p is its truth; hence, the belief that p is true if and only if p. For this reason it may be said that my statement is true if and only if the belief which I express through the performance of the corresponding speech act is also true. The logical connection consists in the fact that the belief is a condition of sincerity on the performance of the act of making the report, and both the report and the belief have precisely the same conditions of satisfaction. Similar connections hold between other intentional states and speech acts. It seems that we can find a good deal of support for this view if we just consider the ways in which we are inclined to attribute intentional states to one another in ordinary language. Most of the time we do so without any consideration of whether these states are actually presently conscious. It does no violence to our ordinary speech practices to say that I have plenty of beliefs about arithmetic, bacteria, U.S. history and other things that I am not presently dwelling on in consciousness. Indeed, the analysis of the logical character of even the simplest of actions requires that we attribute intentional states which are, for the most part, never conscious. We are compelled to attribute them because it seems essential

4 I could be lying about it, of course, but then the speech act would be insincere in a way that would warrant the claim that it has not been successfully performed.

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to the rationalization of our actions, yet we also recognize that if we were to become conscious of these actions, it would often upset or impede our ability to perform them smoothly or efficiently. A professional cellist finds no use in reflecting on every movement of her string fingers, moment by moment, treating each one as a separate, willed action. Her overriding intention while playing, to the extent that it is conscious, is to play a piece by Mozart or something else; she does not make any conscious effort to move her string fingers synchronously with her bow, or slur a sequence of notes, or stress one note and play softly another. For all that, we are reasonably inclined to construe her actions as intentional down to the very roots of her ability to play, in that her higher-level intention appears to cover all of her lower-level ones, those governing each sub­ sidiary action.5 The point is that in our ordinary speech practices we attribute intentional states to one another even when they are only potentially conscious, or accessible to attention only in highly specific conditions. They are implicitly accounted for in terms of capacities to have thoughts of different sorts or to respond in specific ways in different environments. One can be said to have adopted a particular belief provided that one is generally disposed to act as though it were the case. Or one might argue that one has adopted a certain assumption p provided that one has a disposition to assent to utterances of the sentence ‘p’ in the right sorts of circumstances, a disposition which can be verified through suitable means of interrogation. An extreme version of this view consists in the claim that what is fundamental to beliefs, assumptions, and the like, is nothing more than some set of observable patterns of actual and potential behavior. This is a version of behaviorism, but the analysis need not go this far. Stopping short of behavior, we can maintain that unconscious mental states are to be analyzed in terms of various capacities of the brain to generate 5 For example, as she plays, we say that she “intends” to adjust her string fingers in a certain way, “desires” to stress a sequence of eighth notes, “believes” that a certain bowing motion will emit a more pronounced sound, and so on. This is not just a mindless concession to our common speech practices; it is a recognition of the fact that the everyday language we use to explain and rationalize our behavior is rigorous enough to embody its own implicit logic, which can be teased out when we think through the implications of intentional states being directed toward different conditions of satisfaction. The cellist knows, for instance, that the intention to stress a sequence of notes is satisfied when the behavior of stressing these notes has been “carried out.” Moreover, it is evident in the fact that if she were interrupted while playing and asked why she stressed a series of notes, she would answer by explaining the conditions she implicitly anticipated would satisfy her intention.

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conscious thoughts and actions. Such capacities might be coincident with all sorts of actual verbal behavior. When we describe Jill as possessing a certain unconscious mental state (e.g., as maintaining the belief that 7 + 5 = 12 while sound asleep), we are not describing her brain as though it were the cause of an occurrent mental event—the physical instantiation of a representation of some kind. Perhaps we are simply characterizing its causal capacities to produce appropriate thoughts and behaviors in certain circumstances. Such causal capacities could be grounded in neuro­ physiological states and processes. But Jill’s state of mind may still warrant the description of being mental in the sense that it will always at least be possible for her to be conscious of it.6 To be sure, there are important differences here between the more extemporaneous, unrehearsed activity that is observed in the IGT and the highly practiced technique that is involved in one’s ability to play the cello skillfully. But what is observed of players in the IGT is, I think, even less like the kind of spontaneous, kneejerk reactions that people exhibit when they respond to experiences arising out of mental phenomena that are more obviously somatic and non-intentional, such as pains, tickles, and itches. Players of the game are not mere passive respondents to stimuli. They are, arguably, goal-oriented agents intentionally committed to securing the highest payoff possible in accordance with the prescribed rules of the game. For this reason we can expect that the beliefs, desires, intentions, and other states they acquire in the course of the game will be commensurate with the one overriding intention of securing this payoff. That we can describe these states as “intentional” (in a way that would do no violence to our ordinary speech practices) is obvious from the fact that our explanation of players’ behavior only makes sense on the assumption that these players are goal-oriented agents whose actions are underwritten by mental states that are directed toward certain conditions of satisfaction, and from the fact that these players can be carefully questioned in ways that demonstrate their tacit endorsement of them. It is for these reasons that, at least from an analytical point of view, the term “somatic markers” is entirely misleading as a label for the phenomena that make possible 6 This is the sort of view that Searle defends. For Searle, if a given mental state is not conscious, then the only plausible explanation of its being is in terms of neurophysiological states and processes. But these processes must always have the potential of serving as the ground of our conscious awareness of the mental states that are associated with them. “[In] order for a state to be an unconscious mental state it must be the sort of thing that could be conscious in principle” (Searle 1979, 81).

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the advantageous behavior that players exhibit, seemingly unaware, in the IGT—if by that we mean things that are fundamentally non-intentional. Intentional action extends down to the very roots of one’s physical ability to play the game, to all the behavioral and physiological minutiae involved in it. The key advantage of the analytical approach, then, is that it explains, or at least provides a consistent description of, our apparent ability to retrospectively rationalize our actions. I play the piano and shift one of my fingers to a certain position. I call it an “intuition” because I do not really think of any reasons at the time of doing it for why it is done. It feels like it just happens. However, it is also evident that I have an ability to stop playing at any point thereafter and explain why, or for what purpose, I shifted my finger. To be sure, it might not be easy to do that. Perhaps it would require some concentrated thought and a bit of guesswork. In any case, if my intuition here were merely a consequence of the presence of a non-intentional somatic marker, then it would not be about anything, or directed toward any conditions of satisfaction. Insofar, it could not be rationalized as a constituent of my intentions. Yet I do seem to be able to consistently rationalize my behavior here by explaining it as a consequence of my more general intention to play the piano. 3. Phenomenological Considerations I suggested in the previous section that, when we adopt an analytical point of view, there is reason to assume that intentional action extends down to the very roots of one’s ability to perform actions efficaciously. The reason why we should take an analytical point of view on our actions is because it allows us to individuate the intentional states that underwrite these actions, and the individuation of intentional states is essential for the description, explanation, and rationalization of our actions. On the other hand, the views above implicate the non-exclusivity of intentionality and unconscious automaticity, and this notion does have counterintuitive consequences. It may be problematic to insist that somatic markers must be non-intentional when explaining IGT players’ advantageous behavior, but it cannot be denied that these players often reveal a capacity to choose advantageously without much awareness of it, at least in the initial stages of the game. In retrospect this seems odd because the language of “choosing” seems to involve connotations of deliberateness, and this is inappropriate for behavior that is genuinely spontaneous

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and unpremeditated. In choosing, one wants to say, one selects an option among alternatives with costs and benefits in mind. But can this really be unconscious? Can one really weigh options, costs, and benefits without any consciousness of doing so? There is a fundamental problem here, and I think it is that our vocabulary of mental states, which is grounded in our folk psychological jargon about the mind, seems unsuitable as a vehicle for conveying many of the nuances that are involved in engaging in complex cognitive and behavioral activity. I suggested in the previous section that many of our unconscious intentional states are not instantiated by occurrent mental representations of any kind. Plausibly, the ontology of these states is grounded merely in the brain’s dispositional capacities to generate specific kinds of thought and behavior. Such forms of intentionality, construed as dispositions, would have to be causally inert, and these could very well be behaviorally indistinguishable from those intentional states that are physically instantiated in the brain in the form of genuine representational structures, structures that have causal efficacy, but which are unconscious or only in the margins of consciousness. It seems that much of the IGT players’ ability to perform advantageously in the game is due to the capacities of the more primitive visual and sensorimotor systems of the brain that facilitate the ascertaining of subtle, temporally-extended patterns in perception involving loss and reward and the brisk hand movements necessary to respond to these patterns in moderately time-pressured circumstances. There is a good deal of evidence in support of the view that much of what we are capable of responding to in our visual field is unconscious.7 The point is that the systems that process information of this sort seem to do so in analog, as it were, in patch-wholes that are fine-grained and continuously variable. This is quite unlike the proposition-based encoding that goes on in the brain’s higher-order language processing modules, which work in digital, not analog, by packing information into discrete units and stringing them together in accordance with syntactical rules that are instantiated linearly. If we ask players to “explain in detail what they know about the game,” we are asking them to translate what they know intuitively from the pattern-based visual and sensorimotor data that they acquire as they play the game into a sequence of sententially-structured entities that carry their

7 For a lengthy defense of this point, the reader may refer to Goodale and Milner 2004.

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own distinctive ontology, and this is reason for suspicion. We should not, I think, expect that this ontology will be faithful to the phenomenology of the visual and sensorimotor systems. Inevitably, there will be falsification or distortion of data. These conclusions should not surprise us, I think. It is arguable from a sociobiological point of view that the language of folk psychology evolved in accordance with the demands of selection in connection with our drive for survival and propagation. Much of this probably depended critically on our capacity for group cooperation. To the extent that our language was advantageous to this end, there would have been no need for it to develop any greater degree of precision than what was expedient or necessary to attribute a rationale to others’ behavior and make successful predictions about it. If we are to do justice to the experimental data acquired in the IGT and other experiments on intuition of a similar nature, then we will have to be willing to abandon much of our ordinary talk of intentional states in favor of a more precise technical vocabulary. But is one possible? Advances in the conceptual models of neurobiology would be necessary. But even then, I think, we would face basic limitations, for much of what we grasp in intuition would continue to resist expression in wholly different mediums of human awareness. It is considerations like these that make phenomenology, as a set of methods for analyzing the structures of conscious experience, a practicable complement to the techniques of analytic philosophy. I use the word ‘complement’ advisedly: I am not suggesting that we abandon analytic philosophy in favor of phenomenology. Rather, I think the methods of phenomenology can help us become more mindful of the limitations of analytical thinking by helping us to realize what might not be revealed, or what might be obscured, when we try to comprehend the nature of experience in the abstract, in terms of semantical, logical, or other abstract criteria independently of considerations of consciousness. Heidegger’s definition of phenomenology, presented early in Being and Time, evinces its radical departure from more traditional, analytical methodologies: we are “to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself ” (1927, 34).One of Heidegger’s premises here is that that which shows itself is inadequately captured in the discourse of science: the language of science, with its many systems of classification, draws things out of the world, individuates their properties, and forces them into categories. We acquire theoretical knowledge, an abstract representation of the world, but at the expense of a lucid appreciation of the more intuitive understanding that is involved in everyday,

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practical living. The kind of truth that is of interest in phenomenology is found not by means of an abstract theory but in a cultivated sensitivity to that which “shows itself ” in experience. For this reason the primary aim of Heidegger’s phenomenology, in the words of S.J. McGrath, is not theoretical, but hermeneutical: “[It is] the provisional thematization of that which cannot be directly accessed through reflection but which must be gestured to indirectly by means of deliberately indeterminate terms.” (2008, 33) Phenomenology seeks to elucidate the fore-theoretical and contextual, the concrete richness of our everyday experience of being-in-theworld, but doing so requires that we employ language only provisionally. We must abandon the aim of an ideal language of science, with its precise definitions and taxonomies, and return unencumbered to what is simply given in experience. In this regard, when one claims that players of the IGT have acquired an intuition that decks C and D are advantageous, we have to be cautious. We have, by implication, severed the world into two distinct periods, the time before the intuition was acquired and the time after. “Acquisition” is vague, of course, but the analytic treatment generally assumes that the intuition was acquired more or less instantaneously, and that there are conditions which have been satisfied, phenomenological or otherwise, that distinguish it from mental states in which no intuition is present. However, the world of perception is not presented to us in the form of a grid in which each space is a qualitatively undifferentiated bit, and the feelings that arise in response to our perceptions are not felt to have any satisfaction or individuation conditions built into them. If we want to be faithful to the nuances of the experiences of players of the IGT, then it will have to recognized that the language of science, the structures of grammar that support it, indeed, the very parts of speech themselves will have inherent and irremediable inadequacies. Thinking analytically, we can distinguish states of experience of which we feel more self-reflectively or apperceptively aware from those of which we are only passively aware, those characteristic of more habitual patterns of action. But the distinction here is arbitrary. Attention shades off in subtle ways into the margins of consciousness, it can be more concentrated or less so, and it can change in a variety of ways suddenly. Indeed, many of the alterations of attention would have to occur almost inappreciably because any attempt to make them more distinct to conscious awareness would destroy their phenomenological character and transform them into something different. To describe them as they are, we will have to abandon the assumption that we can speak about them in literal terms, and allow ourselves a

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more flexible use of language, one embracing, perhaps, metaphor, analogy, equivocation, and other poetic devices. 4. The High Road of Daoism Those familiar with Daoism may have in mind a number of remarks in the Zhuang-Zi that appear to express sentiments similar to those of the previous section. There is the obvious point about one’s failing to see when one attempts to understand the world by making discriminations among things: [T]hose who divide fail to divide; those who discriminate fail to discriminate. What does this mean you ask? The sage embraces all things. Ordinary men discriminate among them and parade their discriminations before others. I say those who discriminate fail to see. (Watson, trans. 2008, 39)8

There is also a famous remark about clarity, which was probably intended as a claim of sorts about the limitations of language: Words are not just wind. Words have something to say. But if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say something? Or do they say nothing? People suppose that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn’t there? . . . When the Way relies on little accomplishments and words rely on vain show, then we have the rights and wrongs of the Confucians and the Mohists. What one calls right the other calls wrong; what one calls wrong the other calls right. But if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights, then the best thing to use is clarity. (Ibid., 34)

What exactly is “clarity” here? Zhuang Zi does not say. But we can guess that it involves, at least partly, an implicit recognition of the limits of abstract conceptual models in representing reality, and of the view that there may be “facts of the matter” that language cannot exhaustively represent. In this regard Heidegger and Zhuang Zi can be said to have a lot in common. But whereas Heidegger advances a philosophy that is systematic and terminologically inflexible, Zhuang Zi appears far more willing to float freely among alternative points of view without asserting the absolute truth of any particular one. Indeed Zhuang Zi often expresses his ideas by speaking paradoxically, and I suspect that there are advantages

8 I have modified Watson’s translation slightly, dropping the conclusion indicator “so” at the beginning of the last sentence, which I think is misleading.

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to this over any form of rhetoric that is advanced under the pretense of being free from inconsistency. Consider the Daoist characterization of wú-wéi (无为), a normative ideal prominent in the classic Chinese text Dào-Dé-Jīng and other ancient Chinese works, like the Zhuang-Zi. Among its many interpretations it is often described as the absence of purposeful activity, the very opposite of intentional causation. More literally, it means doing nothing—a paradoxical notion characterizing a seemingly impossible feat because “doing” surely implies something done.9 In any case, it is indisputable that many Daoists conceived of this as a normative ideal for all human activity. We find it exalted in the context of claims about the elimination of personal ambition and initiative, and the abandonment of civilization, education, social norms, and even language. It is said to involve a state of “stillness” or “calm” that is brought on by the reduction or elimination of desire (Liu 1997). For this reason, an individual in a wú-wéi-like state is said to exhibit an unmotivated or unpremeditated response to the natural passing of circumstances. Furthermore, being in a wú-wéi-like state is sometimes said to involve “losing oneself ” and conforming spontaneously to the natural order of the world. “Being natural” is thus a central normative concept in understanding what it is like to be wú-wéi (Liu 1998; Lai 2007). I shall ignore here the more arcane metaphysical and sociopolitical views with which this concept is often associated, and consider it simply as a description of the subsidiary actions that make up the efficacious performance of a skill or activity that is governed by a single, overriding intention.10 Thinking analytically, as we did above, we might say that these subsidiary actions are all intentional. That would make the Daoist notion of “non-intentional action” a kind of metaphor. If consciousness always has mental content directed at conditions of satisfaction, and action, by its very nature, involves doing something in accordance with these conditions of satisfaction, then it would be impossible to engage

9 I agree with A.C. Graham here in using the paradoxical expression “doing nothing” over more innocuous-sounding phrases like “non-action”, “effortless action”, and the like (Graham 1991, 232). The Daoists surely had other expressions at their disposal and would have used them if consistency was their aim (like the Mohists), but they did not do this. Their preference for paradoxical phrasing warrants the explanation that they believed that language is fundamentally limited in its capacities communicate certain notions directly and that it has to be used artfully if it is to succeed at all. 10 This conception of wú-wéi is defended at length in Fraser 2008, 63–92. In this article Fraser highlights some interesting features of wú-wéi from the perspective of Searle’s views on intentional states.

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in non-intentional action. To the extent that I am conscious at all, one wants to say, I have beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, and so forth, and having these states makes possible my very status as an agent who does things, as distinguished from an object to which things merely happen. Still, to think of wú-wéi simply as a metaphor is to miss the point. When the Daoists speak of wú-wéi they are attempting to communicate something that they know cannot ultimately be communicated: what it is like to experience the successful performance of an action in a situation whose basic conditions are complex and constantly changing, faster than higher-order, proposition-based systems of cognition are able to keep pace. The Daoists made a normative ideal of the concept of wú-wéi because they clearly believed that proposition-based information about facts, options, outcomes, and strategies held in conscious form may actually be an impediment to genuinely efficacious action, and that a more wú-wéi-like attitude may enable one to handle many of the problems one faces more effectively. For this reason they advocated a more perceptionguided, procedurally-grounded attitude toward life in virtue of which the body is allowed to respond to complex patterns of stimuli more spontaneously. Such patterns may be better grasped holistically, independently of the inconveniences and difficulties that would emerge in attempts to articulate them in language, and even independently of the gropings of conscious attention. If so, then much of the feeling of “doing nothing” may appropriately be described as “unintentional” or even “unconscious.” Importantly, I use the term ‘unconscious’ here, but only provisionally. ‘Consciousness’, of course, is extremely difficult to define; hence also the problem of defining what is “unconscious”. It is probably best to think of it as highly polysemous, warranting in our best efforts to be analytical a number of subtly distinct types. But even then, as suggested elsewhere in the paper, we face challenges in the fundamental limitations involved in the very business of classifying things (events? processes?) of this nature into types. The point is that while I am here describing wú-wéi as possibly “unconscious”, I am using it only as a convenient contrast to the kind of consciousness that we seem to have or experience when deliberating carefully, slowly, and with the aid of our capacities to formulate our thoughts in natural language. Wú-wéi, in other words, could be a conscious state, too, I submit—but it would be a kind of consciousness rather different from the sort that accompanies our efforts to be highly deliberate, purposeful, or rational. Here, again, I succumb to a language of “kinds” or “types”—but only with the cautiousness and reservation that goes with the recognition (or belief ) that the structural order imposed by language

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onto the world of being is ineluctably artificial at some level of its application. We find our way about in a world of complex and rapidly changing phenomena as much, or more, by observing what language does not reveal (or obscures or hides) as by recognizing what it does. The contrast I am invoking here between “conscious and deliberate” and “unconscious and spontaneous” is thus artificial. However, I think it is not uselessly so: it orients us on a path that we might then follow without the encumbrances of language and through sustained personal observation. When we follow this path, we acquire a more acute awareness of a kind of action that feels more “natural”, less forced, and, in a certain sense, less conscious. When we reflect on these views charitably, we are encouraged to consider the possibility that the Daoists spoke in a language of paradox precisely because they were aware of how limited we are in describing intuitive action in natural language. This is not to say that natural language or the language of science is useless. It is to say that its faithfulness in describing mental events is limited by the very fundamental categories that make assertion, predication, and the like, even possible. In this regard, I think, the Daoist philosophical orientation rises above even the acute observations of the phenomenologists. For all its value, phenomenology is still advanced under the pretense that natural language can be used to represent the structure of being perspicaciously. For Heidegger, that meant abandoning the ordinary lexicon and replacing it with technical terms intended to convey a variety of semantical nuances apparently not possible in ordinary language. Yet, even Heidegger’s philosophy is still advanced in the context of a natural language grammar, with its nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, and the like. It is to the credit of the Daoists to have realized that the very application of words like these may obscure as much as they reveal, because their very function is to classify. The Daoists, of course, are not encouraging us to abandon language and live in silence. They are trying to get us to think about it more playfully. When we do so, we will be more inclined to recognize the possible value of alternative models and philosophical methods in spite of apparent inconsistencies. Using a theory of somatic markers as a case study, I have suggested in this paper that common explanations of acts of intuition, in both psychology and analytic philosophy, involve a language of intentionality that is burdened with connotations from ordinary discourse that are simply not fine-grained enough to handle the intuitions being represented. Moreover, phenomenological studies face similar limitations to the extent that they assume that intuition has a structure that can be perspicuously

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represented in a natural language grammar. For these reasons I shall close here with a Daoist plea for more cautious theorizing, based on the following considerations: (1) M  ore unpremeditated initial observation of the processes of nature prior to hypothesis formulation (2) More descriptive accounts about observable natural patterns instead of explanations about hidden causes (3) More sensitivity to the limitations of natural language grammar in describing continuity in natural process (4) More willingness to recognize the possible value of alternative models in spite of apparent inconsistencies (5) Recognition that some knowledge may be better understood through embodied, skilled practice In spite of the common characterization of Daoism as an “anti-rationalist” philosophy, I suggest that these points be taken as consistent with the hypothetico-deductive model of science. Scientific inquiry still proceeds through the formulation of hypotheses that have the capacity to be falsified by observational or experimental data. However, commitment to any one of these hypotheses, and to the business of confirmation and falsification, will have to be regarded as forever provisional. To a certain extent, pragmatic considerations will supersede the representation of fact. This is not to suggest a form of ontological relativity or indeterminacy. Approximation of the truth may still be within reach. But the forms of illumination we seek will have to go beyond the theoretical knowledge of science to embrace other possibilities, very different facets of the totality of human experience.11

11 A shortened version of this paper under the title of “A Daoist Perspective on Analytical and Phenomenological Methodologies in the Analysis of Mind” was presented at the APA Committee on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies, APA Pacific Division Meeting in San Diego, CA, on April 20, 2011. I especially wish to thank Bo Mou, Mario Wenning, Sandra Wawrytko and Chung-ying Cheng for their helpful discussion on the topic of intuition, both during and after the meeting. I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for this anthology who carefully read an earlier draft of this paper and provided helpful comments.

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Bargh, J., Chen, M., Burrows, L. (1996), “Automaticity and Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43: 437–449. Bechara, A., Damasio, A.R., Damasio, H. and Tranel, D. (1997), “Deciding Advantageously Before Knowing the Advantageous Strategy”, Science, 275: 1293–5. —— (2005), “The Iowa Gambling Task and the Somatic Marker Hypothesis: Some Questions and Answers”,Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9 (4): 160. Damasio, A. (1994), Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (Putnam: New York). Epstein, S. and Pacini, R. (1999), “The Relation of Rational and Experiential Information Processing Styles to Personality, Basic Beliefs, and the Ratio-Bias Problem”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76: 972–987. Fraser, Chris (2008), “Wú-Wéi, The Background, and Intentionality,” in Bo Mou (ed.), Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement (Leiden: Brill), 63–92. Goodale, M. and Milner, D. (2004), Sight Unseen: An Exploration of Conscious and Unconscious Vision (New York: Oxford University Press). Graham, A.C. (1991), Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (La Salle: Open Court Publishing Company). Heidegger, M. (1927), Sein und Zeit, trans. Macquarrie, J. and Robinson, E. (1962), Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row). Jacoby, L., Woloshyn, V. and Kelley, C. (1989), “Becoming Famous Without Being Recognized: Unconscious Influences of Memory Produced by Dividing Attention”, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118: 115–125. Lai, Karyn (2007), “Ziran and Wuwei in the Daodejing: An Ethical Assessment”, Dao, 6: 325–337. Liu, Xiaogan (1997), Laozi, Taipei: Dongda Publishing. —— (1998), “Naturalness (Tzu-jan), the Core Value in Taoism: Its Ancient Meaning and its Significance Today”, in Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (eds), Lao-tzu and the Tao-teching (Albany: State University of New York Press), 211–228. McGrath, S.J. (2008), Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company). Searle, John (1979), “What Is an Intentional State?” Mind, 88: 74–92. —— (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press). Wilson, W. (1979), “Feeling More Than We Can Know: Exposure Effects Without Learning”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37: 811–821. Zhuang-Zi, trans. B. Watson (2008) (New York: Columbia University Press).

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DAOISM AS CRITICAL THEORY Mario Wenning 1. Introduction The legend of the origin of the proto-Daoist text Dao-De-Jing (道德經) dates back to the historian Sima Qian (司馬遷) (145–85 BC). It is likely to be more fiction than fact.1 However, even though the legend remains historically unverifiable, it is nevertheless important to recount, since it has given rise to a philosophically rich effective history. Daoist philosophy is said to rest on an act of exchange. The sage Lao Zi (老子) was determined to leave the middle kingdom after a long and, despite dissatisfaction with the norms of his day, good life. He approached the Western border of the kingdom of Zhou where he encountered Yin Xi (尹喜), who was the ancient version of a customs and border control officer. Yin Xi asked Lao Zi to pay his dues. Since the sage was not an affluent man and did not possess anything dispensable, he was politely asked to pay for his passage by writing down what he had discovered during his philosophical wayfaring. After giving into this request, Lao Zi left the kingdom to move West, where he died much later at the magnificent age of 160. According to this legend, it is thus only by accident, or, to be more precise, through a generous act of exchanging the right of passage for the codification of Daoist philosophy, that the five thousand words divided into the 81 chapters we know under the title of Dao-De-Jing have been passed down to us. During his exile from Nazi Germany, the Marxist poet Bertolt Brecht carried a painting depicting the scene of Lao Zi riding a water buffalo toward the border with him. Brecht’s captivating poem from 1938 about the “Legend of the Origin of the Book Dao-De-Jing on Lao Zi’s Road into Exile” was circulated widely among those persecuted by totalitarian regimes. The poem sparked a sense of hope in the midst of historical catastrophe.

1 Most recent scholars agree that the different versions of the Dao-De-Jing were probably collections of aphorisms edited by various people in the 4th and 3rd centuries AD. We do not possess any reliable information about the historical person Lao Zi.

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Did Brecht’s adaptation of the legend simply present an unwarranted and sufficiently exotic consolation for the victims of an atrocious history, who, if they were lucky, could escape, or does it indeed contain a philosophically significant content, an explosive message in a bottle? When the boy accompanying Lao Zi was asked by the pragmatic gate keeper in Brecht’s poem what the sage had discovered, the boy responded: “he learnt that soft water, by way of movement over the years, will grind strong rocks away. In other words: that hardness succumbs.”2 Drawing on the at-thetime, common trope of the power of water to overcome the seemingly greatest of obstacles,3 what Brecht’s border-crosser Lao Zi had discovered was an understanding of what could be called “liquid resistance.” In contrast to firm materials, formless water does not overcome obstacles by way of direct confrontation, but through seemingly unintended, effortless, and unpredictable processes of emulation and changing course whenever necessary. Rather than provoking resistance through acts of direct engagement and confrontation, water is efficacious in overcoming obstacles by way of yielding and acquiescing to them. It purifies itself by standing still and finds its way by naturally floating to the lowest point. The captivating poem by Brecht, and its equally rich effective history, poses the vexing question: what is the critical potential of Daoist philosophy that motivated Brecht and other social critics identifying with the fate of the most abject, degraded, and precarious forms of existence to be swayed by its message? The message seems radically different from the typical Marxist call to arms in the service of historical struggle to create an early kingdom of equality and thereby complete history. Brecht’s adaptation of Daoism seems all the more perplexing given the conception of Chinese philosophy in the West. One common critique leveled against Chinese philosophical traditions goes something like this: rather than providing another alternative foundation for Enlightenment reason, Confucianism and Daoism are essentially incompatible with 2 Bertolt Brecht 1981, 660–663. The cited quotation from stanza 5 reads in the original: “Daß das weiche Wasser in Bewegung/ Mit der Zeit den mächtigen Stein besiegt. / Du verstehst, das Harte unterliegt.” See also Heinrich Detering 2008. 3 The water imagery is developed in chapters 4, 7, 43, and, most extensively, in chapter 78 of the Dao-De-Jing: “In all the world, nothing is more supple or weak than water/ Yet nothing can surpass it for attacking what is still and strong./ And so nothing can take its place./ That the weak overcomes the strong and the supple overcomes the hard/ These are things everyone in the world knows but none can practice” (chapters 78, 81). Sarah Allan (1997) persuasively traces the way in which water serves as a root metaphor to illustrate the principles governing human conduct in classical, pre-Qin, Chinese philosophical traditions.

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individual autonomy and equality, the pillars of the Enlightenment project. The alleged deficit is then attributed to a difference in philosophical outlook. The age of critique, announced in a tone of philosophical audacity by Immanuel Kant, claims philosophical singularity and superiority with regard to its East Asian contenders. While Western philosophical traditions in the Enlightenment tradition call into question established webs of authority, the emphasis on cosmic harmony in Confucianism and Daoism is said to rest on an acceptance of unquestioned relationships of power. In other words, harmony is emphasized at the expense of a capacity for individual resistance and critique. If autonomy and equality are the pillars of Enlightenment reason, the capacity to resist is its muscle. If Daoism just gives in to established authorities, it does not possess the capacity for resistance, thus making it unsuitable for emancipation emphasized in the wake of the Enlightenment. Following this line of critique, two specific strains of objections against Daoism’s emancipatory potential and Enlightenment deficit thus need to be addressed up front before discussing in what sense Daoism can be interpreted as a critical theory. One line of critique is addressed through Daoism’s primitivist naturalism while the other set of objections focuses on the proposed technique of emulation. The first group of critics conceives of Daoism as a reactionary movement propagating a return to nature. On this account, Daoists claim that the present is fallen when compared to an allegedly earlier, blissful state in need of being restored once again. The emulation of a constantly changing yet static environment envisioned by Daoists is criticized as a form of imitation of, or a call for a return to, a primary state of nature. The natural world is being romanticized, critics contend, as idyllic and ethically superior. This line of critique hardly does justice to the gist of the normative ideals we find in the oldest Daoist texts. Rather than advocating a return to a simplicity that allegedly existed in some prior historical period, Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi (莊子) draw on what they describe as “natural” processes in order to delineate structures of present flourishing in the midst of “historical” crises. Nature is not what happened prior to the fall from paradise to civilization, but is the spontaneity that is ever again threatened to be covered up by webs of social domination and misguided authority. That the pervasive reference to nature in Daoist texts is not the kind of naturalism the first group of critics take it to be becomes clear if we turn to the first readers of the classical Daoists, who stressed that emulation is not to be misunderstood as imitation. Guo Xiang (郭象) already emphasized in his commentary on the Zhuang-Zi (莊子) that blind imitation of

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an allegedly natural condition is useless, fruitless, and harmful. Imitation is useless because the world is in constant flux and different times require different responses. Imitation is also fruitless since the very act of imitation presupposes a conscious effort. Conscious effort, however, stands in the way of achieving the naturalness envisioned. Moreover, finally, imitation is said to be harmful in that it manifests a constant striving to overcome one’s limits. This overcoming of, rather than acknowledging of one’s limits stands in the way of optimal, we could also say, non-reified practices of self-, other-, and world-relationships.4 The term ‘zi-ran’ (自然), which is translated as “natural,” offers itself as a denominator for such processes of spontaneous flourishing. Just as optimal forms of action seem to be performed as if by themselves and without an ulterior end, nature also is not equipped with a fixed trajectory while revealing a sense of flourishing and fittingness. The reference to naturalness serves as a critique of artificial forms of “second nature” in the form of reified conceptions of morality and straining activism. In the case of an occasional reference to an allegedly better past—for example, to the utopian village in chapter 80 of the Dao-De-Jing—what is depicted is not a historical past of perfected human beings who live in harmony with nature. As A.C. Graham has shown, Daoist utopianism is not located in a historical scheme: “rather it is of the nature of a political ‘myth’ (in the sense of Sorel’s ‘myth of the general strike’), an unrealizable goal intended to focus the objectives of all who want minimalized government in the present.”5 The utopia depicted in chapter 80 and related images serve as mythic, utopian evocations of a mode of being, and power-execution, which is significantly different, and more sophisticated than that found in societies which use up all resources in acts of instrumental activism.6 In the case of the utopian village, what is depicted is not a primitive community before the fall. The depicted village possesses tools such as ships, and carts, armor, and weapons, but the inhabitants “have no reason to deploy them.”7 The reader is presented with the image

4 Fung Yu-Lan 1976, 226–227. 5 A.C. Graham 1979, 89. 6 Viktor Kalinke (1999, 90) writes, “it is apparent that the emphasis of what has been does not aim at an objective historiography, but at the decelleration (Verzögerung) of action. A reflection and comparison with what is comparable is being called for. It has a psychological function, which is expressed in the German word ‘nachdenken’ (re-membering or after-thought).” 7 Dao-De-Jing, trans. Ivanhoe (chapter 81).

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of a community that is technologically highly advanced while preserving the freedom not to use the prosthetic means at its disposal. The members of this community live a decelerated life in the present while leaving the technological choices at their disposal unused whenever their application is not absolutely necessary. The inhabitants live in a relatively small, selfgoverning, political regime in order not to be ruled by a distant government that they do not have an obvious connection to. The imagination is used here as a laboratory to provide impulses in order to enrich conceptions of chosen, communal, and sophisticated passivity in the present, rather than the primitive innocence, or unreflective activism directed at the future. Apart from the charge of primitive naturalism, a second, perhaps more forceful strain of objections against Daoism’s critical potential concerns what is seen as the opportunistic strategy or set of techniques arising out of the ethics of emulation. While the first group of critics objects to Daoism’s alleged primitivism, the second group objects to the proposed forms of emulation. This second strain of objections contends that Daoism essentially reconciles actors to the pathological structures of their age rather than empowering them to understand, oppose, and, ultimately, transform, or abolish these structures. This critique reflects a long tradition of accusing Daoism of promoting a problematic form of quietism. Rather than resisting problematic processes of change, Daoists have been said to accept these phenomena as unchangeable. The best one can do, Daoists seem to suggest, is to use what is problematic to one’s advantage. The enfant terrible of contemporary philosophy, Slavoi Zizek, rehearses this line of critique leveled against both Daoism and Buddhism: The recourse to Taoism or Buddhism offers a way out of this predicament which definitely works better than the desperate escape into old traditions: instead of trying to cope with the accelerating rhythm of the technological progress and social changes, one should rather renounce the very endeavor to retain control over what goes on, rejecting it as the expression of the modern logic of domination—one should, instead, “let oneself go,” drift along, while retaining an inner distance and indifference towards the mad dance of the accelerated process, a distance based on the insight that all this social and technological upheaval is ultimately just a non-substantial proliferation of semblances which do not really concern the innermost kernel of our being . . . One is almost tempted to resuscitate here the old infamous Marxist cliché of religion as the “opium of the people,” as the imaginary supplement of the terrestrial misery: the “Western Buddhist” meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamics, while retaining the appearance of mental sanity. If Max Weber

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mario wenning were to live today, he would definitely write a second, supplementary, volume to his Protestant Ethic, entitled The Taoist Ethic and the Spirit of the Global Capitalism.8

While Zizek agrees that Daoism is not a form of primitivist romanticism, he argues that contemporary appropriations of Eastern thought, in particular Daoism, are a psychic symptom of neoliberal capitalism rather than promising conceptual and practical tools to understand and transform it. Rather than coming to terms with the accelerating logic of late modern societies, Daoist patterns of action, on Zizek’s account, at best help to wander at ease within these pathological structures. They keep up the illusion of equanimous mental sanity in the midst of steadily increasing catastrophic madness. Just as with the charge against Daoism’s alleged primitivism, Zizek’s interpretation is mistaken. It might be a legitimate response to certain “Eurodaoist”9 forms of lifestyle philosophies and new age wisdom literature propagating that a spiritual change will automatically lead to a transformation of the environing system parameters. What the objection fails to acknowledge and do justice to, though, is the emancipatory impulse behind Daoism. Rather than opposing one’s changing environment with outdated images of bliss, by emulating this environment in constantly readjusting ways, just as a river adjusts its course, actors reclaim naturalness in their action, and become empowered. Such an empowerment does not proceed by mastering the world through one’s purposive efforts, but constitutes an emancipation through responding to the environment in the form of adjusting to dynamic processes in refined and often subversive ways.10 Perhaps the most prominent and promising critical concept of Daoism is the guiding conceptual metaphor of wu-wei (無爲). It captures what this liquid resistance means in terms of concrete actions. Wu-wei is commonly

8 Slavoi Zizek 2001. Zizek missed the fact that Max Weber (1989) did indeed write a second, less known sequel to the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he explicitly addresses Confucianism, and the heterodox dimensions of Daoism, while arguing for their responsibility for the precarious condition of China around the turn to the twentieth century. 9 Peter Sloterdijk (1989). 10 The revolutionary force of Daoism is documented by various episodes in Chinese history. The Yellow Turban Rebellion and the Taiping Rebellion are only the most prominent examples of revolutionary movements inspired by Daoist conceptions of anarchic governance. I am indebted to Günter Wohlfart for this reference. See also Graham (1979) for the political influence of Daoist inspired utopianism in the movement of the tillers.

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translated as “non-doing” or “non-action.” Following Liu Xiaogan (劉笑 敢), we can say that, “naturalness is the core value of the thought of Lao Zi, while wu-wei is the principle or method for realizing this value in action.”11 This essential action-theoretical concept fills an important lacuna in contemporary critical theory. A charitable reconstruction could be immensely productive in contemporary debates in critical theory and the philosophy of action both in the contemporary analytic and continental traditions.12 Such a reconstruction would rescue philosophical Daoism from its alleged Enlightenment deficit. Even a cursory look at the writings of the classical Daoists, Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi, suffices to reveal their emancipatory potential. Due to their hermeneutic openness, Daoist sources have been interpreted at different times as primitivism, religious mysticism, military strategy, advice to emperors, manuals for religious initiation and self-cultivation, normative and epistemic relativism, precursors of postmodernism, anarchism, linguistic skepticism, or simply as a collection of incoherent poetic sayings, which defy the systematizing and rigorous logic common to mainstream contemporary philosophy.13 In what follows, I would like to add one more interpretation and suggest that the spirit of Daoism is captured best when it is understood as a form of critical theory. Daoists propose a different Enlightenment and a different critical theory, thereby presenting us with what Bert Brecht called a device of bringing forth a defamiliarization and estrangement (Verfremdungseffekt). The interpretative hypothesis that Daoism is best understood as an alternative form of critical theory can serve as a prolegomena to a future research project. To make such a project not only plausible but also fruitful, I would like to show that Daoism, understood as a distinctly other form of critical theory, is capable of providing impulses that could be taken up in addressing one of the most pressing issues facing critical theorists today. Daoism, I argue, can be helpful in conceiving of a form of non-instrumental action, and, thereby, can reawaken a sense of potentiality, which

11  Xiaogan Liu 1999, 211. 12 Edward Slingerland 2006 interprets the conception of wu-wei understood as effortless action. It might be argued that certain theories of action in the European canon point in similar directions. Aristotle’s conception of praxis, for example, and its reception by Hannah Arendt, and others come to mind. I will show on a different occasion that these conceptions retain the temporal framework governing purposive actions, motivating a more radical break such as the one provided by an updated account of Daoist effortless action. 13 For a detailed account of the history of Daoism see Livia Kohn 2000 as well as Russell Kirkland 2004. For a systematic introduction, see Hans-Georg Möller 2001.

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helps to uncover a blind spot at the basis of conceptions of time and action, as we find in contemporary critical philosophy. A charitable reinterpretation of the Daoist concept of wu-wei allows us to conceive of a form of practical reason and action, which embodies a promising alternative to instrumental rationality. A reorientation of critique resulting from a constructive engagement with Daoism would have to arise out of an acknowledgment that one of the underlying ideologies of modernity consists precisely in a problematic preoccupation with either the past, or the future at the expense of acknowledging perfecting forms of effortless action as they reveal themselves in the present. To make this claim intelligible, it is necessary to call to mind three basic dimensions of critical theory. 2. The Threefold Structure of Critical Theory First, it is necessary to outline what is meant by “critical theory” before pursuing the question as to whether, and in what sense, Daoism can legitimately be understood as another critical theory. Critical theory usually combines diagnostic, explanatory, and emancipatory dimensions. In analyzing societies in times of crises and destitution, deeply seated pathologies are uncovered. These range from exploitation of the underprivileged strata of the population and consumerism, to the environmental and social costs of neoliberal market economies. Not only are these pathologies revealed but their root causes and social functions are also traced, explicated, and, if possible, the means of practically overcoming them are pointed out. Pathologies are social and psychological deformations on a structural level manifesting themselves in social institutions, individual patterns of beliefs, motivations, and practices. To claim that they are structural means that these pathologies are not caused by and thus cannot be overcome by changes of intention in a few individuals. The pathologies that critical theory has been diagnosing can be summarized, following Marx, Lukacs, and Weber, as a combination of reification, disenchantment, and acceleration. In the process of increasingly understanding intersubjective-, self-, and world-relationships primarily from the perspective of exchanging equivalent commodities in a market governed increasingly, and sometimes exclusively, by a competition for these commodities, individuals become systematically estranged from the objects they produce,

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the process of production, themselves, and from the community of fellow human beings surrounding them.14 The pathology of reification (Verdinglichung) arising from the exchange principle governing ever more dimensions of society has been analyzed, starting with the early Marx and Lukacs analyses, from a variety of perspectives.15 Originally, reification referred to the process of making singular human beings and experiences similar and exchangeable by abstracting from their unique qualities. While the concept seemed outdated for a long time due to its implicit assumption of a historically invariant human essence from which one could become estranged, it made an astonishing comeback. Whether it is a critique of the reification/distortion of communication,16 the reification of relationships of intersubjective recognition,17 the reification of gender roles,18 or the reification of conceptions of the self,19 what is being criticized are relationships that are primarily controlled by a fixed logic of instrumental reason and strategic bargaining processes rather than mutual understanding, recognition, care for the self, love, and other preconditions of leading a good life within the constraints of justice. Apart from the attempts to shed light on reification as a major form of pathology in modern societies, the significant contribution from recent work in critical social theory consists in emphasizing that not all pathologies of modernity can be reduced to intersubjective pathologies of communication and reification.20 People in late modern societies do not just suffer from being used rather than understood, or from being invisible rather than recognized. They also suffer from what Max Weber called “disenchantment” (Entzauberung). In the process of increased rationalization, traditional sources of meaning that were sedimented in inherited religious traditions, social institutions, and other practices conducive to the formation of a sense of identity have lost their power in orienting lives. Finally, the process that reification and the vanishing of resources of meaning have been engaged in is one of an increasing acceleration (Beschleunigung) in which, as Marx puts it, “everything that is solid melts

14  Karl Marx 1973, 108–111. 15  See, for example, Axel Honneth 2005. 16  Jürgen Habermas 1984. 17  Axel Honneth 1996. 18  Judith Butler 1999. 19  Michel Foucault 1977. 20 See J. M. Bernstein 2001; Nikolas Kompridis 2006.

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into the air.” We have witnessed a progressively increasing speed not only of technological innovation but of social change since the late medieval period. While there was an intergenerational speed of change in the early modern period, and a generational speed of change during classical and high modernity, late modernity is characterized by an intragenerational speed of change in which the basic parameters of coordinating one’s life change within a lifetime. Nowadays, people increasingly feel that they have to constantly speed up their lives in order not to lose their current social and economic standing. In this latest stage of an acceleration without substantive changes, the only thing that is certain is that what is taken to be certain today might not be certain tomorrow.21 This acceleration is both subjectively experienced and corresponds to objective modes of accelerated life ranging from processing information, the transportation of goods and people, and voting behavior, to the change of significant others, and professions. Increased change of environments and values undermines traditional forms of identity formation since actors are forced to constantly reassess and readjust their forms of life, practices, and sets of convictions. All three pathologies constitute forms of social injury. While the psychological impact of reification leads to systematic forms of forced inclusion or exclusion, of being restricted to, or being left out of fixed identities, and the process of disenchantment corresponds to a sense of existential absurdity in a world devoid of binding and stable resources of meaning, the pressures of increasing acceleration are experienced in terms of existential exhaustion and anxiety. As a consequence, there is an increased sense of superfluousness and being antiquated, a fear to be left behind in, or fall outside of the rushing hamster’s wheel of late modern societies. However distinct these pathologies might appear, it is crucial to notice that there is a close linkage between these three, briefly outlined pathological tendencies of modern societies. Not only are reification, disenchantment, and acceleration historically connected, they also imply each other on a conceptual level. Reification consists in seeing the world primarily from the vantage point of being a means or a toolbox from which means can be utilized in order to bring about a desired end. In this objectifying process, the end justifies the variable means and is the only factor taken to be intrinsically valuable. This end, then, is understood as not presently realized but as a future possibility, the reality of which depends on the 21 Hartmut Rosa 2005, chapter 5.

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implementation of one’s plan of action. Bernard Williams, the eminent, British moral philosopher, stresses this point by arguing that without projecting an aim into the future, life would become meaningless. He argues that “the idea of a man’s ground projects providing the motive force which propels him into the future, and gives him a reason for living.”22 If it were the case that our very existence would be safeguarded only as long as we intentionally pursued future-directed goals and projects in increasingly rationalized ways, it would mean that actors would be doomed to be increasingly alienated from a present they could at best regard as offering instrumentally useful, but intrinsically insignificant means for a supposedly meaningful future. Seen from the temporal horizon of the actor engaged in instrumental reasoning and action, the present events, actions, objects, and subjects lack any intrinsic value. They are regarded as merely “useful for” certain projects rather than significant by virtue of what they are. The moment a project is realized, the satisfaction vanishes, since it is not futural anymore. By presupposing such a restricted conception of projective action as the reason for living, the present environment an actor navigates in to realize his projects is transformed into pure immanence, in which prediction becomes possible to the point of resembling an analytic judgment: assuming that we know what we want, and if we can do what we want while nobody keeps us from doing it, what we want will finally become realized. Novelty is reduced to the discovery of new implications of what has already been familiar. Effort is generated once we see the end of our action as external to our spontaneously generated attachments. It grows out of the attempt to realize the stipulated end in ever more innovative, efficient, and predictable ways. Spontaneity is, at best, cultivated for strategic purposes. The goal to which effort is directed often drops out of focus during the acceleration process or it loses its appeal. It seems external to the actor who has been trapped in a means–ends apparatus. This rationalization process increasingly becomes independent from the specificity of ends pursued and becomes impossible to get out of. With every rationalized act, the actor moves deeper into the quicksand of a world of suppressed significance.

22 Bernard Williams 1982, 13. Harry Frankfurt objects to Williams on this point by arguing that, “our interest in living does not commonly depend upon our having projects that we desire to pursue. It’s the other way around: we are interested in having worthwhile projects because we do intend to go on living, and we would prefer not to be bored.” Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting it Right (2006, 36–37).

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The consequence of this seemingly autonomous rationalization process, famously described by Weber as an “iron cage,” is that the present is being downgraded as insignificant in its own terms when compared to the future gains one promises oneself as the payoff for one’s actions. Processes of innovation become the norm and speed up because actors hope to do, and achieve ever more goals in increasingly shorter segments of emptied time. Actors rush to a future, which can, in principle, never be actualized. Paul Virillio fittingly described this blind acceleration process of chasing structurally elusive future goals at increasingly higher speeds of innovation adequately as a “rushing standstill.” From within the “iron cage” of modernity, true innovation, which would have to be different from mere acceleration or enhancement, and would require deliberating about alternative present ends, seems increasingly impossible.23 The new is transfigured into the only variable that is to be expected. Instrumental action as the reified forgetfulness of the meaning resources of the past and the present for the sake of the projected future thus seems without alternative. The consequence is what Hermann Lübbe refers to as a “Gegenwartsschrumpfung,” a continuing shrinking of the present under the complimentary pressures of the tendencies of melancholic musealization of irretrievably lost and reified pasts, and forced innovation so as to run after structurally elusive futures.24 The dilemma that critical theorists see themselves confronted with is that whatever emancipatory tendencies—be they introduced as forms of resistance, mutual understanding, recognition, etc.—are being proposed as the means for a future end, instrumental action is reenacted under a normative guise, and the domination of the future over the rest of time is thus further sedimented. As soon as instrumental actors propose emancipatory forms of action, they replicate and reenact the same temporal logic that was originally diagnosed as the problem of modernity; that is, the belief that the future can be mastered through acts of projective planning and administering. The problem with this projective planning mentality is not that things often turn out differently than planned, but that the actor sidesteps, and thereby undermines the significance of the present, and sees it simply as something to be used for future ends. In other words, by downgrading the present, including its modes of action, to being “for the sake of the future,” critical theory denigrates the present

23 Paul Virillio 1999. 24 Hermann Lübbe 1994.

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to the status of a pre-future, a state of emptiness that is used as a resource rather than lived in. A theory exposing and explaining social pathologies is keen on pointing to the inescapable mechanisms preventing the emancipatory use of reason through action. Such an exclusive focus on the diagnosis and emergence of pathologies coincides with developing an ethics of melancholy that emphasizes the inescapable specter of instrumental reason. Looking back in a melancholy state of mind over the long history of failed revolutions, it only sees what has been irretrievably lost in the wake of histories of catastrophes.25 The present is now seen as an appendix to a past larger than life: an after-past. By replacing the search for an alternative mode of present potentiality with a focus on the traumatic experiences of history, it forecloses the possibility of emancipatory action in the present, and thereby reverses the temporal logic of modernity. By replacing the infatuation of the projected future over the present, a new domination— that of the past over the present—is being introduced and sedimented. While the former domination—that of the future over the present— corresponded to forms of blind activism, the latter—that of the past over the present—leads to a state of passivity, an inhibition, which replaces the engagement with the present for the contemplation of mnemonic art. The consequence is not a liberation of the past (which is, in principle, impossible) or a liberation of the present, but an extension of the temporal pressure put on the present. While the classical modernists only had to justify themselves with respect to the future, late modernists also have to justify themselves with respect to the past. This detour is intended to show that the instrumental actor finds himself in a dilemma that seems impossible to get out off. The shrinking of the present arising out of instrumental action constitutes a theoretical as well as practical impasse. A transcultural engagement with Daoism, understood as another critical theory, could turn out to be fruitful, given that it emerged within a cultural context in which instrumental action has not been the only, or even primary form of action. First, however, it needs to be asked whether and in what sense it is at all legitimate to interpret Daoism as another critical theory.

25 Gillian Rose 1979; Gregg M. Horowitz 2001.

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mario wenning 3. Daoism as Another Critical Theory

In the second part of the paper, I will first show that Daoism can be understood as a critical theory, and then discuss whether it offers an insight that could overcome the uneasy relationship between critical theory, and emancipatory action with a focus on the present. The goal is to show that the proto-Daoists, Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi, commonly referred to as “Lao-Zhuang,” provide a promising path, which points to an alternative approach of addressing the vexing problem of instrumental action expressing itself in the pathologies of reification, disenchantment, and acceleration. At the risk of engaging in anachronistic hermeneutics by applying texts from a different tradition and time, the benefits of tapping rich, conceptual sources providing a new insight into entrenched, philosophical preconceptions are overwhelming. Compared to European traditions, Daoism’s long history of addressing phenomena of reification and change in theoretical, as well as practical ways, provides an immense richness not only for a reorientation of critical theory, but also in terms of envisioning emancipatory practices. The insight into the fluidity of social dynamics and the fluid subjectivity of actors anticipates many of the developments of late modern societies. At the same time, Daoism offers us correctives to these developments. The early Daoist acknowledgment of the value of idling and uselessness, for example, allows us to level a critique of the pathologies of reification, disenchantment, and acceleration deriving from a reduction of action to instrumental action. A critical theory in the spirit of Daoism would not simply disclose pathologies. It would also offer constructive resources to critically address and, as far as possible, overcome these pathologies without providing yet another reifying project that sells out on the potentiality of the present for the sake of the future. Before focusing on how Daoism could help to address the connection between suffering from reification, disenchantment, and acceleration, let us first step back and consider the all but self-evident proposal to conceive of Daoism as a form of critical theory. I will only briefly mention the diagnostic and explanatory dimensions because they are the weakest and least developed parts in Daoist thinking, while the emancipatory dimension offers a way to address the question concerning the difficulty arising from the attempt to overcome instrumental rationality without replicating its underlying temporal logic. First, Daoism is critical in the most obvious and widely acknowledged sense in that it presents a response to the destitution of China during the late Zhou dynasty in which war and social disintegration threatened the

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stability of society.26 Apart from this historical reason, exposing certain parallels with today’s crises-ridden global order, both Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi are critical of the philosophical attempts to address this destitution, especially the attempt by Confucius, and his successor, Mencius. Whereas Confucius and his followers propagated the cultivation of the virtuous human being with the goal of integrating him or her into a hierarchically ordered social organism through the subjection to principles of love and filial piety, the Daoists pursued a conscious retreat from commonly accepted social norms, and rejected the starting point of normative theory understood as outlining universal, context-independent principles of social obligation and cultivation more generally: “Filial piety, brotherliness, benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, trust, honor, integrity—for all of these you must drive yourself and make a slave of Virtue.”27 While the Confucians aim at cultivating the individual to fulfill the duties springing from his or her fixed position in the web of social relationships, the Daoists propagate an unlearning process, with the indirect goal of interrupting webs of social integration, including the desire for social recognition. The individual is strengthened in his or her capacity to resist with regard to commonly accepted values of the community. However, the liquid, readjusting self, propagated by Daoism, is not an autonomous, deliberative, firm subject commonly known in the Western philosophical traditions. Rather, it is a flexible or liquid self, which refuses to adhere to contextindependent moral principles while responding to its environment in emancipatory ways.28 By focusing on outlining context-independent moral obligations, Confucian benevolence only addresses the pathologies of the age at the surface level, while leaving the deeper causes of alienation from the dao, the patterns of spontaneous flourishing, untouched: “When the great Way is abandoned, there are benevolence and righteousness. When wisdom and intelligence come forth, there is great hypocrisy. When the six familial relationships are out of balance, there are kind parents and filial children. When the state is in turmoil and chaos, there are loyal ministers.”29 As a form of proto-ideology critique, Daoism thus reveals how moral systems of belief serve as justifications for the underlying pathological practices 26 Hubert Schleichert and Heiner Roetz 2009, 113–114. 27 Zhuang-Zi (1968, book 14, 156). 28 The “postmodern” conception of such a liquid self is seen primarily as a problem rather than a potential by Bauman (2006) and Sennett (1998). 29 Dao-De-Jing (2002, chapter 18).

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rather than adequately addressing and, wherever possible, transforming them. The point made by Daoists is that it is not helpful to change the moral convictions of the time if one does not also change the underlying practices. In the earlier analysis of the logic of instrumental action, we have seen that by way of trying to master the present for the sake of a future project, the openness of the present is closed, and the present shrinks. Constant innovation becomes a quasi-automatic means in order to desperately try to gather more experiences and rush after fugitive goals in ever-shorter time spans. Critical theory has been incapable of addressing the pathology of acceleration in theoretically plausible and practically promising ways by failing to see through the temporal structure underlying instrumental, purposive action. This becomes particularly obvious when we turn to the third dimension of a critical social theory, that of opening up or at least pointing to transformative dimensions. In order to distance itself from the norms prevalent in society, critical theory, in a Daoist spirit, has to point to something that is not only significantly different, but also significantly better. Only when it is possible to disclose possibilities that promise to overcome, or at least significantly ameliorate the diagnosed pathologies as forms of social injury are we dealing with a progressive rather than reactionary force. The emancipatory dimension distinguishes mere cultural critique from critical theory. In what way, then, does a reconstruction of the Daoist conception of the relationship between optimal action and time point towards a transformative potential in the present? A charitable reconstruction of the concept of wu-wei would, without doubt, have to abandon certain metaphysical background assumptions common to ancient Daoism. In particular, it is necessary to dismiss the conception of a basic harmony of the cosmos as well as the possibility of retreating from societies, including the norms governing these societies. It is not plausible to assume that the moderns have simply lost the right path or dao, because this would presuppose that there once was, or always is a right path one could be led astray from. Rather, we might say metaphorically that the dao itself has gone astray in expressing that social structures take on pathological forms. In other words, many of the pathologies of late modern societies are not directly to be attributed to the decisions of individual actors, but are structural dimensions governing all spheres of society in as much as these spheres are reproduced through human action. Actors cannot simply leave behind an unhealthy for a healthy dao, but have to uncover dimensions within dao, dimensions pointing to forms of actions, which allow for flourishing

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and transformation from within. Given these ramifications, a charitable interpretation of wu-wei could provide valuable insights for contemporary action theory in the context of critical social theory. I have suggested that wu-wei, understood as pertaining to the form of an action performed in an effortless and spontaneous way, provides a radically different conception of optimal action from that of purposive, instrumental activity. As a key normative concept, wu-wei could perhaps be better translated as, following Ames and Hall, “non-coercive action,” or, following Eric Sean Nelson, as “effortless non-calculative responsiveness”30 to avoid the passive and quietist implications associated with the literal translation of “non-action” or “non-doing.”31 Since the term appears in many different contexts and different texts, it can at best serve as an umbrella concept covering a potentially unlimited set of practices, which have some things in common and diverge in other respects. It is fair to say that due to its high valuation in classical Chinese texts, activities or forms of responsiveness referred to as displaying the structure of wu-wei present an achievement. They are optimal forms of comportment. While they can be cultivated, they do not follow the same means–end rationality, which reduces the means to being only instrumentally useful, and have a tendency of wearing subjects out in accelerating processes of a forgetfulness about the spontaneously fulfilling present. While the most classical Chinese philosophers from Confucius to Xun Zi stress the need to impose technical, manipulative, goal-directed action on life (sheng, 生), and strive for completion (cheng, 成), for Daoists, achieved action “transcends technical action and the drive towards completion.”32 It has been argued by Chris Fraser, among others, that it is misleading to conceive of wu-wei as a form of effortless action, and that it would be better to interpret it as non-intentional action instead.33 To understand

30 Ames and Hall 2003, 44–45; Eric Sean Nelson 2009, 294–316, and 396. 31  For the purpose of this paper, I will ignore the use of wu-wei as literally doing nothing and relegating tasks to subordinates in the context of good governance, depicted in the figure of the emperor who, by relegating all his authority and responsibilities to his inferiors, constitutes the invisible, and inactive center of power. See Roger Ames 1994. 32 Eske Møllgaard 2007, 52. 33 Chris Fraser proposes to adopt a diachronic model of action in which “acquisition begins with deliberate exertion, but eventually we internalize the skill and develop the ability to act automatically and sometimes effortlessly” (2007, 101). Such a quasi-Aristotelian, two-phase model of action (first effortful acquisition and habituation, then effortless exertion of a skill) might fit some of the examples in Zhuang-Zi, including that of butcher Ding. It is not in line with wu-wei as the instantaneous transformation of the nature of one’s character and action as it is introduced in the respective passages from Dao-De-Jing.

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why it is nevertheless justified to understand wu-wei as involving effortless dimensions rather than focusing on non-intentionality, it is essential to distinguish between two different senses of effort. This will allow us to avoid the misunderstanding that wu-wei would be an irrational, nonpurposive state of simply letting oneself go without conscious focus. Wuwei interrupts a certain form of effortful striving. When referring to effort, we often conflate objective effort with subjectively experienced effort. While the former includes the exercise of physiological processes (physical effort) as well as thought processes (mental effort), the latter refers to the subjective feeling of exertion and exhaustion.34 When translating wu-wei as a form of “effortless non-calculative responsiveness” (rather than non-intentional action), what is meant is not the absence of objective effort, but a decreasing amount of subjectively experienced strenuousness. Such forms of performing an action without exhausting oneself coincide with the deliberate and often skilled performance of a practice. Often, effortless actions tend to coincide precisely with an increased form of identification with highly complex forms of skilled action ranging from playing chess and juggling, to speaking a natural language fluently. These actions are intentional in the sense that when being asked why an actor engages in them, he could provide a reason for his action as an answer.35 However, when wu-wei-like actions are conducted well, the consciousness of these reasons, and especially the conscious fixation on future goals, which needs to be actualized through significant degrees of subjectively felt exhaustion, drops out of the field of experience of the actor. One classic example to illustrate the structure of wu-wei-like actions is the famous story of cook Ding (丁), recounted in Zhuang-Zi. The cook perfected the skill of cutting up oxen by learning how to use a knife with the greatest subtlety, avoiding any unnecessary friction. Ding did so by “using his cultivated intuition rather than his eyes” to cut up the ox

In our context, the two-phase model would be incapable of explaining the transition from a perfectionist, future-oriented form of cultivation to an effortless and skillful engagement with the present. Effortless action is not the goal of causally necessary forms of antecedent acts of cultivation, but it constitutes a transfiguration of the very form of the action that an actor is involved in. It could happen at any moment and could also be lost again when moving from attentive spontaneity to a blind following of rules or projected plans. 34 The distinction is introduced by Brian Bruya in the introduction to the rich collection of interdisciplinary essays on effortless attention (2010, 5). 35 The thesis that an action is distinct from a mere physiological occurrence in terms of the answer that would be given by an actor or observers about the intention embodied in the action is developed in G.E.M. Anscombe 1957.

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according to his joints, avoiding all unnecessary resistance, and thereby transforming an instrumental skill into an effective and context-sensitive art, an ars contextualis.36 He perfected the art of butchery to the point of not having to blindly follow rules in a subjectively as well as objectively (with regard to the sharpness of the blade of the knife) exhausting way. This does not mean that cutting up the ox does not confront the butcher with challenges. Otherwise, he would not even need a knife and would not be a master of his art. It also does not mean that Ding could not provide reasons for what he was doing. After all, he explains his philosophy of intuitive mastery to Lord Wen Hui (文惠). However, when challenges arise, Ding stops for a moment to “size up the difficulties” and focuses on the activity in the present in a slow and calm manner rather than wasting his energies in forms of overly strenuous and hasty acts of applying a context-independent method. The story does not simply illustrate the benefits of wu-wei-like action, but offers a normative model, which “goes beyond skill,” and, in Lord Wen Hui’s words, illustrates “the secret of caring for life.”37 This secret, we may infer, is that the mastery of practices does not rest on analyzing or reasoning from principles, but in spontaneously attending to a situation intuitively, and with a high degree of effortless concentration, and attentive dedication. What is significant for our context is the specific temporality of engaging in wu-wei. What the concept wu-wei designates is a perfection in the moment of present action rather than a perfection, the goal of which is being projected into the future. The vital organ of decision-making processes is the heart–mind xin (心) rather than the disembodied intellect. “For the ancient Chinese,” A.C. Graham remarks, “the heart, not the brain, is the organ of thought. Most men use it to plan ahead, but the sage uses it only to reflect the situation as it objectively is, before he responds. Like a mirror, it reflects only the present; it is not stuffed with past information which it ‘retains’ (ts’ang [cang 藏] ‘stores, hoards’) at the cost of being trapped in obsolete attitudes. The sage perceives and responds to every situation as new.”38 Seen from a temporal perspective, wu-wei is intended to free the futurecreating presence as it discloses itself from the perspective of an actor who is pursuing his task in a skillful and whole-hearted fashion in the

36 Roger T. Ames 1989. 37 Zhuang-Zi, chapter 3. 38 A.C. Graham 1983, 9.

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ever-new and newly experienced present. The actor is fully absorbed into performing an action well to the point of forgetting himself, the passage of time, as well as extrinsic goals of the action. It is easy to see that an action carried out in this way is also self-rewarding while being indirectly efficacious. The actor forgets the passage of time and is not inhibited by the anxiety connected to goal fixation, while he might nevertheless indirectly realize goals that are important to him. Being in a state of fully absorbed, meaningful, and skilled action includes a heightened responsiveness to the constantly changing potential of the context surrounding the action. Rather than acting only locally by detaching a certain task, instrument, or goal from its context, the actor mirrors the situation in its entirety. By freeing the attention for the demands of the present moment from the weight of a recollected past and the demands of a not-yet-present future, it allows an action to be spontaneous rather than being guided by a fixed plan, the goal of which is projected beyond the here and now. The actor is not wearing himself out in the process of being plagued by a deadline attached to his project. Rather, he effectively utilizes his energies in the mastery of the art of perfecting action. Based on the concept of wu-wei, a critique of the temporal logic underlying instrumental action that is lacking in critical theory becomes possible. In contrast to the inactivity of an apathetic person, the actor practicing wu-wei engages the present in non-instrumental ways. Rather than limiting non-instrumental action to the aesthetic realm, as has been common in the European tradition from Schiller until Adorno, or reducing it to norm-governed intersubjectivity, as in the tradition from Kant, to Habermas, and Honneth, the domains in which actions can be practiced in a wu-wei-like manner is virtually unlimited. Drawing on insights arising from analytic philosophy of mind and action, Chris Fraser has shown that wu-wei can be understood as what John Searle refers to as “the Background.”39 The ‘Background’ is a term of art referring to the various tacit capacities, abilities, and know-how an actor always already draws on whenever performing an action in real time. These unthematized background conditions allow for an action to be successful while facing constantly changing challenges that could not be solved through slow acts of detached premeditation. Classic examples include the intuitive operation of a car’s transmission or speaking a language fluently. These actions are performed without having to calculate 39 Chris Fraser 2008.

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which gear is appropriate for which speed, or consciously having to apply the rules of grammar. Fraser ultimately criticizes wu-wei-based normative accounts of action, since they proclaim to do away with the kind of higher-level deliberation that he rightly considers fundamental to engaging in moral reasoning and other deliberating practices. I agree with Fraser that it is necessary to account for these forms of intentional deliberation, while I disagree with him in excluding higher order intentional deliberation from the realm of potentially wu-wei forms of activities. What Fraser’s reductivist analysis of wu-wei understood as non-intentional action fails to see is that reasoning is an action as well, a thought-action.40 Thought-actions also always pre­suppose a background of tacit assumptions, including normative assumptions, rules of inference, meanings, and associations of concepts, etc. A contemporary reconstruction of the concept of wuwei understood as effortless non-calculative responsiveness (rather than non-intentional action) can thus also be applied to cognitive thoughtacts. In the mentioned story of butcher Ding, as well as in other stories, Zhuang Zi emphasizes that the person who knows what he is doing often engages in thinking before he makes his moves. However, such thinking does not decide between alternative courses of action by applying rules in judgment (bian 辩). Rather, as A.C. Graham points out, such a form of attentive thinking is a an intuitive sorting out (lun 論).41 Accordingly, artificial forms of deliberation, which are nonspontaneous, strenuous, and fixated on following predetermined principles and future goals, are then to be distinguished from those kinds of genuine thought-actions which are conducted in a skillful, responsive, and spontaneous manner with a heightened attention for, and awareness of the specific needs of the evolving present. Daoism would espouse the latter while dismissing the former practices. Free intentional deliberation consists in an open encounter with intentional contents. Searle’s assertion that “intentionality reaches down to the bottom level of the voluntary actions”42 thus needs to be extended by adding that spontaneity and effortlessness receptivity also reaches all the way up to the level of intentionality.43 Only by acknowledging that

40 Christopher Peacocke 1999. 41 See Angus C. Graham 1983, 7–8; for the meaning of “lun” see also A.C. Graham 2004, 28. 42 Cited by Fraser 2008, 90. 43 The importance of spontaneity for intentional action and judgment has been worked out by John McDowell 1994.

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wu-wei potentially applies to all actions, including thought-acts, do we get an insight into the scope and impact of Daoist spontaneous naturalism. Once we acknowledge that many of our thought contents, as Galan Strawson puts it, “just happen,”44 the question becomes whether we can make any general claims about how to relate to them in a relaxed, and yet responsive and responsible manner. Actors are not simply confronted with neutral, occurring episodes entering and leaving their field of attention, but stand to their streams of consciousness in a relationship that Harry Frankfurt aptly characterizes as one of caring.45 In the process of wu-wei-like action, the actor does not distinguish between an instrumental value of intermediary goals and an absolute value of the future attached to a final goal. Rather, as Graham shows, the only imperative of the Daoist critic of imperatives is to “respond with awareness of what is objectively so.” If an action is performed in a wu-wei-like manner, the actor does not only, and not even primarily, care for the realization of the goals of his action, but also cares about how well, in the sense of how attentive, the action leading to such a realization is being performed. Daoists agree that if an action is carried out well, the actor responds to streams of inherently interconnected mental and physical events in a focused and context-sensitive manner. He is in a state of acquiescence to the specificity of the task performed and the context in which it is performed. In other words, he stops seeing these events as unacceptable intruders that need to be sorted out anxiously according to given rules and reified plans, but as providing occasions or invitations for actions, actions that are simultaneously responsive, sensitive, and focused. The implications of conceiving of optimal intentional action as not being one of an overtaxing, future-directed effort, but one that effortlessly focuses on the demands of the present, are far reaching. An action, which is not based on the logic of striving for future goals but on performing a practice well in the here and now, is the most efficacious form of practice, since it does not waste its energy in fruitless confrontation. This is not to say that wu-wei-like actions could not be executed quickly. Wu-wei concerns the form rather than the speed in which an action is carried 44 Galen Strawson 2003, 228. Strawson stresses that thought processes are not correctly characterized as primarily consisting of conscious actions as much as they are activities, thus echoing the literal translation of wu-wei as a form of non-doing or an “action which is not an action.” 45 Harry Frankfurt writes: “In my view, it is only in virtue of what we actually care about that anything is important to us. The world is everywhere infused for us with importance; many things are important to us” (2006, 20); see also Frankfurt 1988.

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out. Whether an action is being performed quickly—such as juggling— or slowly—such as meditating—does not determine whether it is performed in an absorbed and responsive way. Sitting still, for example, in the context of meditation, can be non-wu-wei-like in involving a lot of effort when the person meditating forces himself to sit still for ulterior goals. The skilled mastery of the juggler over his cascades or the immersion in a lively conversation, on the other hand, might be performed quasi-naturally, even if involving quick and spontaneous responses. Conscious deceleration, be it through eating at a slower pace, or turning to meditation, might further perpetuate the temporal logic of the instrumental calculus if it is performed with too much effort and connected to a focus on an extrinsic concern. The efficacy of effortless action is not one measured by calculating future gains against present costs, but one that takes into account how far the acting individual is in fact in tune with the rhythm of his or her environment by responding to challenges of that environment as they arise in ever-readjusting forms. Such a process of being “in tune” combines mastery and responsiveness, engagement and receptivity, coordination and spontaneity, purpose and disinterestedness. Effortless action is thus not subject to following a universal set of norms, as the Confucians (or Kantians) would have it. Rather, a person performing actions well, generates singular norms that arise from, and do justice to the concrete situation. The state of mind that a person is in while exercising non-calculative and responsive action has been compared to what psychologists have described as “flow experience.” Flowing action provides an antidote to the accelerating, reifying, and disenchanting logic that drives instrumental action. It comes as no surprise that Zhuang Zi’s story concerning cook Ding’s perfected carving of an ox serves as a prominent example in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s classic Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience in which you (遊) is translated as “flow.”46 Flow comes about when human actors are absorbed in the present tasks at hand. The present tasks at hand are seen as providing living potentials rather than dead means for ulterior ends. When actors in flow states are confronted by a challenging task, the completion of this task lets the actor forget the past and the future. Interrupting ordinary strenuous comportment, an actor undergoing flow experiences also overcomes a reified sense of self, thereby “dereifying” or liquefying, reenchanting, and decelerating his relationship to the objects 46 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 2008, 255. See also Chris Jochim 1998.

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he produces and engages with, himself, the act of production, and his fellow human beings. Flow arises out of a balancing act that is in constant danger of collapsing either into becoming a rote routine of blind rulefollowing, or an overtaxing effort to realize a future goal. The overtaxing effort brings forth unnecessary forms of reactions, while the rote routine lacks the sense of freedom and potential. The art of wu-wei thus consists in successfully striking and sustaining a balance between extreme effort and passive rule-following. If an actor is capable of sustaining such a balance, there is a harmony between his desires and will. In this sense, wuwei-kinds of actions are free actions, as characterized by Frankfurt: “a free act is one that a person performs simply because he wants to perform it. Enjoying freedom of action consists in maintaining this harmonious accord between what we do and what we want to do.”47 As different as the underlying temporality is, the guiding ideal of effortless, attentive actions provides a surprising overlap with the guiding Western ideal of positive freedom understood as a self-realization. Let me end by returning to the legend concerning the origin of the Dao-De-Jing. According to this legend, the book was written down by Lao Zi through his student as a form of road toll in order to pass the tollkeeper at the Han Pass when moving west. It is an irony of history that perhaps the first critique of the principle of exchanging the present for the future was passed down to us based on an operation of exchanging the written word for the right of passage. Lao Zi, the first critic of the assumption that we could once and for all fix the living knowledge necessary to traverse the changing way with timeless principles,48 paid for his final passage by writing down, and thus codifying the idea according to which water defeats the stone. Walter Benjamin, perhaps the most Daoist member of the Frankfurt school of critical theory, wrote a brief commentary on Brecht’s poetic image of this scene. The commentary stresses that Lao Zi’s friendliness and cheerfulness interrupted the principle of equivalent exchange by “rendering a great service as if it were trivial.” We might also say, as if it were non-calculative, effortless, and responsive. Lao Zi, Benjamin continues, thus “places these world-historical days under the motto: ‘All right—just a brief stop.’ ” It is the act of an effortless giving, and thereby interrupts the journey without leading to a standstill that is

47 Harry Frankfurt 2006, 14. 48 “A Way that can be followed is not a constant Way. A name that can be named is not a constant name.” Dao-De-Jing, trans. Ivanhoe (chapter 1).

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forcefully conjured up in this anecdote. Capturing the spirit and the specific presenting temporality of effortlessness, Benjamin asks, “and what use would his wisdom be if he who forgot the valley (which he had just looked on with pleasure again) when he rounded the next corner did not also forget his anxieties about the future almost as soon as he felt them?”49 Critical theory has yet to come to terms with the radical potential of such seemingly small, spontaneous, effortless, friendly, forgetful, and anxietyfree acts in the midst of precarious times.50 References Allan, Sarah (1997), The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue (Albany: SUNY Press). Ames, Roger (1994), The Art of Rulership (Albany: SUNY Press). —— (1989), “Putting the Te Back into Taoism”, in J. Baird Callicott and Roger T. Ames (eds.), Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought. Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: SUNY Press), 113–44. Anscombe, G.E.M. (1957), Intention (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP). Bauman, Zygmunt (2006), Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty (Cambridge: Polity). Benjamin, Walter (2003), “Commentary on Poems by Brecht”, in Selected Writings, vol. 4, 1930–1940, trans. Edmund Jephcott (2006), (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Bernstein, Jay M. (2001), Disenchantment and Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Bewes, Timothy (2002), Reification, or the Anxiety of Late Capitalism (London: Verso). Brecht, Bertolt (1981), Gesammelte Gedichte, vol. 2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Bruya, Brian (ed.) (2010), Effortless Attention: A New Perspective in the Cognitive Science of Attention and Action (Cambridge MA: MIT Press). Butler, Judith (1999), Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge). Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2008), Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics). Dao-De-Jing [The Daodejing of Laozi], trans. Philip J. Ivanhoe (2002), (Indianapolis: Hackett). Dao-De-Jing [Dao De Jing. A Philosophical Translation], trans. Roger Ames and David Hall (2003), (New York: Ballantine). Detering, Heinrich (2008), Bertolt Brecht und Laotse (Göttingen: Wallstein). Foucault, Michel (1975), Surveiller et punir, trans. Alan Sheridan (1977), Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison (New York: Pantheon). Frankfurt, Harry (2006), Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting it Right (Stanford: Stanford University Press). 49 Walter Benjamin 2003, 248. 50 The paper has greatly benefited from discussions during the 2011 APA Committee Session “Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy: From the Point of View of Asian Philosophy” as well as the 2011 “Beijing Roundtable on Contemporary Philosophy.” In addition to the participants of these discussions, I would also like to thank the editor Bo Mou, and the three anonymous referees from Comparative Philosophy for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.

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—— (1988), The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Fraser, Chris (2008), “Wú-Wéi, the Background, and Intentionality”, in Bo Mou (ed.), Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement (Leiden: Brill), 63–92. —— (2007), “On Wu-wei as a Unifying Metaphor”, Philosophy East and West, 57 (1): 97–106. Fung, Yu-lan (1976), A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. A Systematic Account of Chinese Thought from its Origins to the Present Day (New York: The Free Press). Graham, Angus C. (2004), Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press). —— (1983), “Taoist Spontaneity and the Dichotomy of ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’ ”, in Victor H. Mair (ed.), Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press), 3–23. —— (1979), “The ‘Nung-chia’ 農 家 ‘School of the Tillers’ and the Origins of Peasant Utopianism in China”, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), vol. 42 (1): 66–100. Habermas, Jürgen (1984), Theory of Communicative Action (Boston: Beacon Press). Honneth, Axel (1996), The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge: Polity Press). —— (2005), Verdinglichung (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Horowitz, Gregg M. (2001), Sustaining Loss. Art and Mournful Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press). Jochim, Chris (1998), “Just Say No to ‘No Self ’ in Zhuang Zi”, in Roger Ames (ed.), Wandering at Ease in the Zhuang Zi (Albany: State University of New York Press), 35–74. Kalinke, Viktor (ed.) (1999), Studien zu Laozi-Daodejing. Laozi-Daodejing. Eine Erkundung seines Deutungsspekturms. Anmerkungen und Kommentare, vol. 2, (Leipzig: Leipziger Literaturverlag). Kirkland, Russell (2004), Taoism: The Enduring Tradition (London: Routledge). Kohn, Livia (ed.) (2000), Daoism Handbook (Leiden: Brill). Kompridis, Nikolas (2006), Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future (Cambridge MA: MIT Press). Lao Zi (2002), The Daodejing of Laozi, trans. Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis: Hackett). Liu, Xiaogan (1999), “An Inquiry into the Core Value of Lao Zi’s Philosophy”, in Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Lao Zi (Albany: SUNY Press), 211–37. Lübbe, Hermann (1994), “Gegenwartsschrumpfung”, in Klaus Backhaus and Holger Bonus (eds.), Die Beschleunigungsfalle oder der Triumph der Schildkröte (Stuttgart: SchäfferPoeschel), 129–64. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels (1973), Ökonomisch-philosophischen Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844, trans. Martin Milligan (1988), Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (London: Lawrence & Wishart). McDowell, John (1994), Mind and World (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press). Möller, Hans-Georg (2001), In der Mitte des Kreises (Frankfurt: Insel). Møllgaard, Eske (2007), An Introduction to Daoist Thought: Action, Language, and Ethics in Zhuangzi (London: Routledge). Nelson, Eric Sean (2009), “Responding with Dao: Early Daoist Ethics and the Environment”, Philosophy East and West, 59 (3): 294–316. Peacocke, Christopher (1999), Being Known (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Rosa, Hartmut (2005), Beschleunigung (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Rose, Gillian (1979), The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno (New York: Columbia University Press). Schleichert, Hubert and Roetz, Heiner (eds.) (2009), Klassische Chinesische Philosophie (Frankfurt: Klostermann). Sennett, Richard (1998), The Corrosion of Character, The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism (London: Norton).

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Slingerland, Edward (2006), Effortless Action. Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sloterdijk, Peter (1989), Eurotaoismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp). Strawson, Galan (2003), “Mental Ballistics or the Involuntariness of Spontaneity”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 103: 227–56. Virillio, Paul (1999), Polar Inertia, trans. Patrick Camiller (1999) (London: Sage). Weber, Max (1915), Konfuzianismus und Taoismus, trans. Hans H. Gerth (1951), The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (New York: The Free Press). Williams, Bernard (1982), Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Zhuang-Zi [The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu], trans. Burton Wason (1968), (New York: Columbia University Press). Zizek, Slavoi (2001), “Self-Deceptions. On Being Tolerant—and Smug”, Die Gazette, 27 Aug.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ON DAOIST APPROACH TO THE ISSUE OF BEING IN ENGAGING QUINEAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN APPROACHES Bo Mou One of the jointly concerned fundamental metaphysical issues is that of being, which consists of a series of closely related issues concerning being, such as these: Are there many kinds of beings? What are the relations between them? Which kind of being is fundamental? Are there different kinds of being? How are the different kinds of being related (if any)? What is the relationship between being and non-being?. . . . In this essay, I intend to explore how the Daoist approach in the Chinese philosophical tradition can contribute to our understanding and treatment of the issue of being in constructively engaging the Quinean “analytic” approach and the Heidegrerrian “Continental” approach in the Western tradition in view of their own engaging background.1 My strategy is this. In Part 1, I present and characterize the engaging background: I first present the relevant main points of the Quinean approach, as suggested by Quine (1948 and 1951) and subsequently elaborated by Lewis (1983) and Sider (2009), in the contemporary analytic metaphysics; I then examine the Heideggerian approach in the “Continental” tradition (relevant resources in Heidegger’s Being and Time) in view of its engagement with the Quinean approach, 1 For a detailed explanation of the “constructive-engagement” strategic goal and methodology of cross-tradition philosophical inquiry (in comparative philosophy as understood in a broad, philosophically interesting way), see Mou 2010. It is noted that the constructive-engagement strategic goal and methodology can be manifested and implemented in various ways, with distinct focuses and/or at different levels that are sensitive to the needs and purposes of specific research projects, instead of being restricted to one fixed pattern or merely at one level. Indeed, one ideal situation is that engaging parties like conversation partners who all attend the same event at the same time will directly talk with each other and learn from each other (or explicitly “bi-directional”) at various engaging levels while addressing various relevant aspects of their jointly-concerned issue or subject. However, more often, engaging parties make joint contributions (directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly) through their respective constructive impacts or roles in enhancing our understanding/treatment of distinct aspects of the jointly-concerned issue/subject at different engaging levels; one can thus have the involved engaging parties jointly contribute to a further account (in a broader framework or with a new vision), which integrally includes reasonable and eligible elements, more or less, from each side.

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largely by way of McDaniel’s elaboration (2009) in contrast to Tonner’s (2010), and also comment on the involved issue of philosophical interpretation. In Part 2, in the foregoing engaging background, I examine the Daoist approach to the issue of being, as suggested in the two classical Daoist texts, the Dao-De-Jing and the Zhuang-Zi, in five connections and explain how, in these connections, the Daoist approach can constructively engage the Quinean and Heideggerian approaches and contribute to our understanding and treatment of the issue of being in philosophically interesting ways. In so doing, I also intend to show (though in an implicit way, with consideration of the major goal here) how the Quinean and Heideggerian approaches can jointly contribute through some eligible perspectives in treating distinct aspects of the issue of being while in view of their limits from a Daoist vantage point. Part I. Engaging Background: Quinean and Heideggerian Approaches 1.1 The Quinean Approach One mainstream approach in the contemporary analytic metaphysics as represented by the Quine-Lewis line needs to be understood in the background of the Carnap-Quine dispute in the early 1950’s. The basic points of Rudolf Carnap’s approach (1950) are well-known and can be presented in this way. (1) A (linguistic) framework is something like a set of terms in a language along with rules or “ways of speaking” that govern their use. A framework is a language fragment. Different “frameworks” employ different meaning-rules governing language use. (2) There is the distinction between internal questions and external questions. An internal question is one about whether a sentence is true in/within a given language (e.g., whether ‘There are numbers’ is true in English); an external question is about the framework (its descriptive and prescriptive dimensions). (3) According to Carnap, there are two sorts of external questions. A pragmatic sort concerning (say) what kind of language/framework to speak/use and/or whether a framework is empirically adequate, which is legitimate and can be answered (e.g., “What kind of language to speak”); A non-pragmatic sort concerning which framework is the right one or concerning “the existence or reality of the system of entities as a whole”, which is a “metaphysical” pseudo-question and cannot be answered (and so metaphysical existence claims are “meaningless”), according to his positivistic position.

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In contrast, W.V. Quine’s approach (1948, 1951) can be characterized in terms of the following theses concerning meta-ontology.2 (1) Being is not an activity; it is not something we do. The seemingly-activity-indicating expressions ‘to be’ and ‘to exist’ can be eliminated in favor of quantifier expressions like ‘something’ and ‘everything’. (2) Being is the same as existence. Thus there are no things or objects that do not exist: to say ‘they are’ (or ‘there are’ or ‘some’) just is to say that they exist. (3) The terms ‘being’ and ‘existence’ are univocal (the semantic-ascent characterization of the previous point): we are not using different senses of ‘exist’ (‘being’) when saying ‘numbers exist’ (‘there are numbers’) and ‘trees exist’ (‘there are trees’). (4) The single sense of ‘being’ and ‘existence’ is adequately expressed by the formal first-order existential quantifier, which is the only one (existential) quantifier expression that is privileged and basic; this point is often highlighted in terms of the slogan “to be is to be the value of a bound variable”.3 (5) The reasonable way to pursue ontological disputes (the method of metaphysics) is through the Quinean criterion of ontological commitment, or to extract existence commitments from our best theory (to see what the bound variables must range over for the result to be true in our best theory). It is usually considered that the Carnap-Quine debate on the issue of existence has ended with Quine being then awarded the victory. One indication of that is this: the Quinean view of task and method of metaphysics has become currently dominant as the mainstream analytic meta­physics, which is considered well manifested in the works of Lewis (1986 and 1999) and, more recently, in those of Sider (2001, 2009), though there are internal disagreements (such as the dispute between Lewis/Sider and Van Inwagen) and though there is the current challenges from a scattering of neo-Carnapians, such as Price (1997) and Chalmers (2009). But both sides still share some things common. They together influence the currently mainstream orientation of contemporary (analytic) metaphysics, which can be characterized in terms of what constitute the primary concern (the issues of existence, persistence, etc.), substantial-view coverage (contemporary peers’ work in the analytic tradition, instead of ancient thinkers’ work, neither in Western tradition and nor in other traditions, and of contemporary peers’ views in other styles of doing philosophy), object-type focus (existent objects instead of non-existent objects) and most effective 2 Cf., Van Inwagen 2009; Sider 2001, xix–xxiv. 3 See Appendix.

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methodological approach (analytic one) in contemporary metaphysics. However, within the analytic tradition, there are also challenges to the aforementioned basic orientation of contemporary (analytic) metaphysics, the challenges primarily to what constitutes the primary concern (say, the issue of what ground what)4 or what substantial views we need to focus on (as suggested, there also needs to focus on some ancient thinkers’ views such as Aristotle’s,5 and, as further discussed in the next section, some Continental philosophers’ views in Western tradition)6 or how to treat non-existent objects of intentionality.7 It is emphatically noted that the foregoing recent challenges are carried out still with the contemporary analytic tradition, both in a constructive sense of the phrase ‘analytic tradition’ and in an objective orientation of the metaphysical outlook of the contemporary analytic tradition to this extent: within which it is both that meaning analysis, conceptual clarity, precise formulation, or rigorous argumentation are paid attention to and that reality/the world is talked about in a no-nonsense objective way (neither in a radical “anything-goes” relativistic way8 nor in an idealist subjectivist way) at least by a silent majority of the philosophers of the tradition. (Addressing this is related to my subsequent critical evaluation on some contemporary philosophers’ interpretations of Heidegger’s approach in the next section.) With the foregoing understanding of the background and the main points of the mainstream analytic metaphysics as represented by Quine’s approach, let me highlight some relevant further points made by the Lewis-Sider approach. One of the philosophically interesting ­developments

4 Cf., Shaffer 2009. 5 Cf., Shaffer 2009; Koslicki 2008. 6 Cf., McDaniel 2009. 7 Cf., Parsons 1980, Fine 1982, Zalta 1988, and Routley 1982/Priest 2005. These accounts are essentially various further defended versions of Meinong’s approach (1904/1960), though there are significant differences among them. It is noted, given the aforementioned Quinean theses (2) and (3), that non-existent objects are sometimes labeled as ‘non-being’, as in the case of Routley’s and Priest’s noneism, although they categorically reject the foregoing Quinean thesis (4) (i.e., “to be is to be the value of a bound variable”) and take it that quantifiers are existentially neutral, which can quantify over non-existent objects, and that existential commitment, when required, has to be provided explicitly via an existential predicate (see Priest 2005, Ch. 5). 8 By ‘a radical “anything goes” relativistic way’ I mean a radical “anything goes” version of conceptual relativism: given an object of study, it renders relevant and eligible any (methodological or substantial) perspective so long as that perspective is projected from the subjective agent (or its validity merely being relative to the subjective agent’s conceptual scheme is sufficient for its relevance and eligibility), whether or not the perspective really points to (some aspect of ) the object.

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that David Lewis makes is his suggested conception of naturalness to distinguish the property that carves nature at the joints from that which does not (a difference that admits of degree) (1983; 1986). Theodore Sider further elaborates Lewis’s conception of naturalness when he suggests his version of ontological realism (2009). Sider almost uses naturalness to characterize the fundamental nature of the unrestricted existential quantifier or use it to unify a variety of different ways of being via the unrestricted existential quantifier. When using the term ‘almost’, I mean that Sider still at least “formally” maintains the unrestricted character of the existential quantifier of the standard first-order logic that is to carve at the joints of the world, though such an “unrestricted” character is not really unrestricted but already naturalized via Sider’s version of the Lewisian conception of naturalness in his ontological realism. There is more discussion on this below in the background of the three-way debate under examination here. 1.2 A Heideggerian Approach Before Heidegger’s approach or the Heideggerian approach as suggested in his Being and Time9 is presented via certain recent interpretations of his account, let me first highlight some pre-theoretic facts and introduce some conceptual resources for the sake of better understanding his position in the engaging background. I then primarily focus on a recent interpretation of Heidegger’s approach by Kris McDaniel (2009), an analytic philosopher with sympathetic attitude towards some relevant points in Heidegger’s works, who resorts to relevant resources from Heidegger and directly engages the Quine-Lewis style mainstream approach in the contemporary analytic tradition. I also pay attention to another recent interpretation of Heidegger’s approach on the issue by a scholar of the 9 The text of Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit [Being and Time, 1927] on which I primarily rely for this writing is John Macquarrie’s and Edward Robinson’s English translation of the German book (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). One main reason that I have chosen this text is this: it is widely available and actually used by many scholars in their relevant academic discussion so that the reader can easily find the text for check. I do not pretend to be an expert in the Heidegger philosophy (or the texts of Heidegger); I am thus not entitled to judge whether or how this English translation accurately delivers the German original. As the primary concern of this article is about the philosophical issue and allow appropriate philosophical interpretation, this English translation at least can be rendered Heideggerian if not exactly Heidegger’s. In this way, if a Heidegger expert would feel unsatisfactory about some of the translations in this English text, the phrase ‘Heidegger’s approach’ can be read as ‘Heideggerian approach’ unless the English text gives obvious erroneous translations of the key passages.

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“Continental” tradition, Philip Tonner in his (2010), whose central view (indirectly) engages McDaniel’s in one central connection, although Tonner’s work is largely exegetic with less critical evaluation of the adequacy of Heidegger’s own position and without addressing the mainstream approach in the contemporary analytic tradition on the issue of being. Some relevant pre-theoretic linguistic facts include the following. (1) Generally speaking, many predicates (say, ‘is hard’ and ‘is healthy’) are used in different senses in different contexts of sentences where they appear. (2) The various senses are not merely accidentally related to each other; rather, they are systematically related to each other. (3) There are several ways to unify various senses of one term: a term is “pros hen equivocal” or has “focal meaning”: the term has its focal meaning just in case it has several senses each of which is supposed to be understood in terms of some central meaning of that expression; a term that expresses p has a “generic sense” (such as ‘be healthy’): the reason that some things are p differs from case to case; each is p simpliciter; various senses are unified by virtue of a complex web of relationships obtaining between the various kinds of p. Many medieval philosophers call such expressions of both case and case ‘analogical’. McDaniel calls an expression ‘analogical’ just in case : it applies to objects of different sorts in virtue of those objects exemplifying different features. One might as well call the former ‘analogical with a focal meaning’ while the latter ‘generically analogical’. In this way, one might indicate the closeness degrees among several senses of a term in such a rank (‘>’ below means being stronger): univocal > pro hen equivocal (with some central meaning and others being understood in terms of the central meaning) or analogical with a focal meaning > (generically) analogical > polysemous (different but closely related) > ambiguous (distinct meanings that need not to be related). With the foregoing conceptual resources and pre-theoretic linguistic facts, Heidegger’s view on the issue (or the relevant aspects and layers of his view as focused on by McDaniel) can be summarized in the following points. (1) Ontologically speaking, there is a multiplicity of modes of being: among others, the term ‘existenz’ or ‘life’ for the kind (way) of existence had by living objects like you and me, whom Heidegger calls ‘Dasein’;10

10 Heidegger, Being and Time, 67. Surely, Heidegger had quite a few sayings on his crucial conception of Dasein in the Being and Time, some of which are intrinsically related

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the term ‘presence-at-hand’ or ‘extantness’ for the kind of existence had by objects primarily characterized by spatiotemporal features;11 the term ‘subsistence’ for the kind of existence enjoyed by abstract objects such as numbers and propositions.12 (2) However, there is a general generic concept of being that covers every entity that there is: “there are many things which we designate as ‘being’, and we do so in various senses. Everything we talk about, everything we have in view, everything towards which we comport ourselves in any way, is being.”13 As McDaniel points out, this generic concept of being is indispensable in two connections: first, one can use it to express or talk about our belief that some things (say, biological species) are even though we can’t say how they are (kinds of individuals or mereological sums of individuals); second, one can avoid the sense-kind confusion.14 (3) Although technically (at surface level) the general generic notion of being “unifies” all kinds (ways) of being, Heidegger is concerned with what unifies various ways of being (or by virtue of what various ways of being are unified) into the generic concept of being; he actually thinks that they are unified by analogy: “Given this radical distinction of ways of being in general, can there still be found any single unifying concept that would justify calling these different ways of being ways of being?”;15 “. . . I can only speak of both God and the world as entities analogously.”16 However, what is at issue is how to understand the identity of such analogy: as mentioned above, there is the distinction between the stronger notion of to Heidegger’s treatment on the issue of being but clearly do not fit the common concern or basis on which McDaniel can effectively engage the advocates of the mainstream approach of the contemporary analytic metaphysics, such as those on the [subjective] priority of Dasein among a various modes of being and the relation between Dasein and death, as Heidegger says: . . . This guiding activity of taking a look at Being arises from the average understanding od Being in which we always operate and which in the end belongs to the essential constitution of Dasein itself. . . . a priority of Dasein has announced itself. (Ibid., 27–8) Care is Being-towards-death. We have defined “anticipatory resoluteness” as authentic Being towards the possibility which we have characterized as Dasein’s utter impossibility. In such Being-towards-its-end, Dasein exists in a way which is authentically whole as that entity which it can be when ‘thrown into death’. (Ibid., 378) McDaniel (intentionally, I believe) avoids resorting to such resources about Dasein for his purpose and focuses on giving his philosophical interpretation of Heidegger’s approach to the issue of being, an interesting feature on which I has some comments at the end of this section. 11 Op. cit., 121. 12 Op. cit., 258–9, 382. 13 Op. cit., 26. 14 Cf., McDaniel 2009, 299–300. 15 Heidegger, Basic Problem of Phenomenology, 176. 16 Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, Prolegomena: 173–4.

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analogy with a focal meaning and the weaker notion of generic analogy. McDaniel thinks that it is generic analogy that plays such a unifying role. (4) Therefore, semantically speaking, words or phrases like ‘being’, ‘existence’, ‘exists’, ‘is an entity’, and ‘there are’ are (generically) analogical. On the one hand, the generic sense of ‘being’ is not metaphysically fundamental: it is akin to a mere disjunction of the metaphysically basic ways of being; mere disjunctions are less metaphysically basic than that which they disjoin; on the other hand, the generic sense of ‘being’ cannot be merely the disjunction of the various specific senses of ‘being’, as being is “unified by (generic) analogy”. (5) Logically speaking, the generic concept of being, or the generic sense of ‘being’, can be represented in (first-order) formal logic by the unrestricted existential quantifier, which ranges over whatever there is, regardless of which kind of being the thing enjoys; however, the generic unrestricted quantifier should be understood (or be defined) in terms of the restricted quantifiers, which are semantically primitive and whose meanings are prior to that of the generic unrestricted existential quantifier; so, restricted quantifiers are metaphysically more basic and more natural than the unrestricted quantifier, In this way, there are only a few restricted quantifiers that are metaphysically basic and that capture the real ontological structure of the world.17 Now, in view of the previously identified analytic approach, a philosopher like Sider who takes the mainstream analytic approach would respond this way: (1) exactly one existential quantifier expression is privileged; no quantifier expression is metaphysically special; (2) the generic unrestricted quantifier is more metaphysically fundamental than the restricted ones; the former is prior in meaning to the latter (if any); (3) the ways of being that Heidegger favors are mere restrictions of the metaphysically basic notion of existence, which is expressed by the unrestricted existential quantifier. In response to this, McDaniel elaborates Heidegger’s view this way: “A language is defective if its primitive predicates are not fundamental. So it is mistake to think that language must mirror reality in the sense that one is guaranteed that there will be a correspondence between our words and the world. But it is no mistake to think that language ought to mirror reality.”18 McDaniel suggests the following sufficient conditions for believing in ways of being. As he sees it, there are possible meanings

17 See Appendix. 18 McDaniel 2009, 308–9.

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[if there are the referential meanings] for semantically primitive restricted quantifiers: (1) each restricted quantifier has a non-empty domain that is properly included in the domain of the unrestricted quantifier; (2) none of these [restricted quantifiers] domains overlap; (3) each meaning is at least as natural as the meaning of the unrestricted quantifier; on the Heideggerian view, there are restricted quantifiers that are even more natural than the unrestricted quantifier. Now let me move onto Tonner’s recent engaging interpretation of Heidegger’s approach to the issue of being. Tonner argues that “there is an underlying univocal sense of being in Heidegger’s philosophy” (2010, 65). He agrees that “Heidegger was indeed concerned with the unity of being and there is evidence that he found this unity in terms of analogy”; however, analogy “is just not the full story [in Heidegger’s approach]”, for “in any determination of analogy, a univocal conception of being is presupposed” (114). At this point, McDaniel would disagree based on his foregoing line of interpretation of Heidegger. What is at issue here is this: Tonner actually interprets Heidegger as talking about analogy in a stronger sense of the term as addressed above, i.e., analogy with a focal meaning, instead of mere generic analogy, which focal points to the underlying univocal sense of being in Heidegger’s works: The analogy of being operates in terms of its focal reference or meaning to a particular fundamental reality. . . . For Heidegger, the meaning of being is constituted in Dasein’s understanding and this means it is ultimately grounded in the temporal structure underpinning that understanding. The only possible access to being, including the being of animals and rocks, is through Dasein’s understanding of being and that understanding of being is conditioned by temporality. (114)

One concern with Tonner’s interpretation of univocality of Heidegger’s account is this: if his interpretation is faithful to what Heidegger literally means, Heidegger’s conception of univocality is essentially subjective in character. It seems that most of Heidegger experts would not deny the subjective character of Dasein (or the meaning of Dasein’s being that lies in the transcendental horizon of being—temporality) and thus subjective character of univocality (if any), as some central textual facts seem in support of this judgment. Then one question is this: would McDaniel be guilty of neglecting some basic textual facts in Heidegger’s major works or of intentionally choosing only what seem to him reasonable? Two notes are due here. First, what is reflectively interesting is this: although McDaniel and Tonner seem to present different pictures of Heidegger on the issue of being, their distinct interpretations are not necessarily incompatible;

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as shown in the relevant citations from Heidegger’s works, Heidegger was indeed concerned with the unity of being and found this unity in terms of both generic analogy and analogy with the focal meaning; the latter intrinsically points to an underlying univocal sense of being, which is characterized in terms of his essentially subjective conception of univocality through the conception of Dasein in his philosophy of being and time. Second, as I see it, out of the principle of charity in philosophical evaluation of others’ works, it would not be the case that McDaniel fails to see Heidegger’s subjective conception of univocality because of his careless neglect; rather, in his philosophical interpretation of Heidegger’s work, I guess he intentionally ignores that part of Heidegger’s account, i.e., his subjective conception of univocal as Tonner identifies, through a Hegelian sublation: in his philosophical interpretation of Heidegger’s approach, McDaniel sets out to maintain what seems to him reasonable in Heidegger’s account while discarding what is not and weave a coherent Heideggerian account for the sake of critically engaging the mainstream approach in the contemporary analytic tradition on the issue of being. There seem two considerations here. First, as emphatically indicated in Section 1, there is a general “objective” orientation of the metaphysical outlook among the majority of philosophers in the contemporary analytic tradition, which McDaniel shares though he disagrees with Quine-Lewis’ line. Second, for the sake of argument in the debate with the advocates of the mainstream line of the contemporary analytic metaphysics, he seeks the reasonable common base for the sake of effective dialogue and critical engagement. In this way, from the point of view of appropriate philosophical interpretation, McDaniel’s “analytic” interpretation of Heidegger’s approach on the issue of being is both legitimate and constructive, while Tonner’s interpretation is also reflectively interesting and engaging in view of the “historical” purpose of his writing. Part 2. Lao-Zhuang’s Daoist Approach In this part, I intend to explain why Lao-Zhuang’s classical Daoist approach as suggested in the Dao-De-Jing and the Zhuang-Zi can constructively engage the Quinean’s and Heideggerian approaches on the issue of being in several connections that are both philosophically interesting and significant. Before my explication, three notes are due. First, when I say these connections are “philosophically interesting”, I do not claim that Lao-Zhuang’s views or treatments in these connections must be exclusively adequate; rather, I mean that they can at least enhance

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and stimulate our understanding, and might enrich our treatment, of the philosophical issue of being. Second, what I plan to do here is to present a philosophical interpretation of some relevant points in the context of the Dao-De-Jing and Zhuang-Zi, whose purpose is neither to give a purely historical description of what actually occurred in Lao Zi’s and Zhuang Zi’s heads nor to merely identify what historical resources the ancient thinkers actually employed; rather, the goal in discussing these ancient thinkers’ relevant points here is to elaborate the ancient thinkers’ relevant ideas and due implications of their texts for the sake of exploring how they can jointly contribute to our understanding and treatment of the philosophical issue under examination; in so doing, it is not merely illegitimate but expected for a philosophical interpreter to resort to some needed conceptual and explanatory resources in contemporary philosophy that can be used to elaborate the ancient thinkers’ points as suggested in the texts for the sake of enhancing our understanding of them. Third, for the sake of the purpose of the article as highlighted at the outset, I focus on some relevant ideas which are essentially shared by Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi or which are explicitly suggested by one while there is no textual evidence to show that the other think otherwise, though the two classical Daoist thinkers’ ideas are not exactly the same and have their distinct emphases. I thus use ‘Lao-Zhuang’ as a convenient compound name to designate the two thinkers who speak for those relevant ideas; I might thus make relevant citation(s) from either of the classical texts (not necessarily from both) regarding certain addressed points.19 In the following, respectively in Sections 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5, I examine Lao-Zhuang’s Daoist approach to the issue of being in five connections, and explain how, in these connections, the Daoist approach can constructively engage the Quinean and Heideggerian approaches and contribute to our understanding and treatment of the issue of being in philosophically interesting ways. In so doing, as indicated at the outset, I also intend to show how the Quinean and Heideggerian approaches can jointly contribute through some finite but eligible perspectives (with their associated sophisticated resources) in treating certain distinct aspects of the issue of being while in view of their limits from a Daoist vantage point, though such work is done here basically in an implicit and indirect way

19 If one doubts whether some involved views are essentially shared by both thinkers, in this context, one can simply take ‘Lao-Zhuang’ as a disjunctive compound name, instead of a conjunctive compound name, regarding these views.

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(say, when I state something like “Lao-Zhuang would partially agree . . .”), with consideration of the major purpose of this article. 2.1 On “Unrestricted” and “Restricted” Character of Fundamental Unifying Being Lao-Zhuang would agree with Heidegger about different ways of being to the extent that, at the level of the wan-wu (萬物) manifestation of the unifying dao, the dao manifests itself into different types of wan-wu that exist in distinct ways, i.e., “having their distinct [or restricted] principles” (“ge-you-yi-zhe 各有儀則”, Zhuang-Zi, chapter ‘Tian-Di’), such as distinct ways between the existence of oneself (shen 身) [as an individual person] and the existence of a state (bang 邦) [as a collective institutionalized community], which can be identified if one looks at things as they are [“yi-tian-xia-guan-tian-xia 以天下觀天下” Dao-De-Jing, chapter 54]. However, disagreeing with Heidegger’s approach, Lao-Zhuang would categorically deny that the connection among different ways of being is merely the generic analogical one which is posterior (thus secondary) to different ways of being; rather, Lao-Zhuang maintain that there is one fundamental metaphysical dao that as a whole is both logically (though not metaphysically) prior and metaphysically primary to the particular wanwu in regard to fundamentality: the dao fundamentally unifies different ways of being, though the dao metaphysically immanently and simultaneously exists in and consists in the particular wan-wu. At this point, LaoZhuang would partially agree, and partially disagree, with the Quine-Lewis approach to this extent. On the one hand, Lao-Zhuang would agree with the Quine-Lewis line that what unifies different ways of being is univocal and can account for the senses of ‘being’ that Heidegger identifies, instead of merely generic or analogically equivocal. However, on the other hand, Lao-Zhuang would disagree with the Quine-Lewis line that renders such a unity of being unrestricted and takes its counterpart or representation in formal first-order logic as the unrestricted existential quantifier. With their “restricted” characterization of the metaphysical dao, Lao-Zhuang would find the tension between the Quine-Lewis line’s substantial metaphysical position in this connection and their representation of the position in the language of quantification logic: the notion of the unrestricted primitive quantifier is supposed to range over all in the domain, instead of merely some proper subset of it, which might include things that would be rendered too unnatural and unacceptable (due to lack of any “formal” substantial restriction). Lao-Zhuang’s point here is not that one is not allowed to use the “unrestricted” label or ideology to identify one aspect

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or dimension of the fundamental being but that it would be problematic for the Quine-Lewis line to take the unrestricted and the restricted as absolutely separate and dualistically opposed. Indeed, Quine would not take such a concern too seriously as he maintains the criterion of existence “to be is to be the value of a variable” plus his pragmatically-oriented best-theory approach, without “formally” worrying about the ontological nature of the domain, while Lewis and Sider feel need to take it seriously and render a mere “formal” criterion insufficient in substantial metaphysical discourse. I think such a kind of concern constitutes one major motivation for Lewis’ notion of naturalness and Sider’s further elaboration of it. However, they would still treat the standard first-order logic with the unrestricted primitive quantifier as one correct characterization of our world because it is considered to “carve at the joints of the world” (a point to be further addressed below), although they actually introduce the “naturalness” as one “informal” substantial restriction. At this point, Lao-Zhuang would see no reason to reject one restricted primary/fundamental quantifier, as one “formal” presentation of the unifying dao in logical language, which is to unify all secondary or derivative quantifiers. Let me label such a unifying quantifier the “immanent-transcendental” quantifier (or simply labeled “dao” quantifier) that has both its “restricted-immanent” dimension/character and its “unrestricted-transcendental” dimension/character. On the one hand, it is restricted because its domain is fundamentally restricted to “natural” things in the sense that all of them are to fundamentally model themselves upon what is natural (chapter 25 of the Dao-De-Jing), and what it symbolizes, the dao, is immanent because the dao exists in, instead of above and beyond, wan-wu (ten-thousands of particular concrete things in the world); on the other hand, it is unrestricted because eligible things in its domain are not restricted by any constraints other than what is natural (surely not by any of those restrictions that a Heideggerian approach would impose on various “local” ways of being), and what it symbolizes, the dao, is transcendental because the dao as a whole is not limited to any ad hoc types/ways of being and because the dao as the fundamental unifying force goes beyond any particular things that are unified by the dao. Lao-Zhuang would thus reject identifying the “dao” quantifier (or the dao-existential quantifier) as absolutely “restricted” or “unrestricted”.20

20 See Appendix.

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2.2 On What Grounds What What undergirds the foregoing Daoist treatment of the fundamental “dao” unifying force21 lies in the fundamental “grounding” nature of the dao. That is, in treating the issue of whether and how the fundamental being as a unifying force works, Lao-Zhuang also address the metaphysical issue of what grounds what because, as they see it, the two issues are intrinsically related. This strategy is significantly different both from the Quinean approach and from the Heideggerian approach. As indicated before, for Heidegger, the unifying generic conception of being is not metaphysically fundamental: it is akin to a mere disjunction of the metaphysically basic ways of being; mere disjunctions are less metaphysically basic than that which they disjoin; in this way, it is neither the case that what such a generic conception of being is intended to cover can be really ontologically grounded by multiple more basic modes of being nor the case that the issue of what grounds what can be raised for the relationship between ontologically primitive modes of being.22 In Quine’s case, though the unrestricted existential quantifier is considered to be metaphysically fundamental in the “formal” sense that it is semantically basic, logically prior, and quantificationally unrestricted and thus privileged, what it is supposed to cover is not deemed to provide the substantial ontological foundation for other secondary beings. In this way, the ontological issue of being consists essentially in the “quantificational” question; for the case of each kind of objects in question, we are asking whether there is an object of this kind. This Quinean mainstream approach has been recently challenged by some scholars within contemporary analytic metaphysicians like Schaffer and Fine. They think the primary issue in metaphysics

21  The term ‘force’ might be taken as a metaphysically loaded term, while I use it here (in ‘unifying force’) as a pre-theoretic folk term to designate a kind of unifying natural power that is shown/ illustrated via natural phenomena and can be appreciated through people’s long-term life experience. 22 Indeed, for Heidegger (say, as interpreted by Tonner), the being of Dasein as univocality is to unify all other modes of being through its temporality as the transcendental horizon of being—temporality; Dasein thus subjectively grounds all other ways of being. However, as stressed before, in the current context of critical engagement, any attempt to conflate what there is (or reality) with what one think there is (or epistemologized reality) is deemed to fail to engage the other two competing approaches in this connection and thus rendered engagingly irrelevant. In this way, it might be the case that Heidegger under Tonner’s interpretation would be more close to the historical Heidegger; but what is addressed here is clearly not such a historical issue.

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should be that of what grounds what or what is (more) real (i.e., what really exist as the fundamental grounding for phenomenal, or less real, things), instead of what is.23 Now, for Lao-Zhuang, the issue of being is intrinsically related to the issue of what grounds what: on the one hand, the fundamental unifying force of the dao lies in its fundamental grounding power in generating ten-thousand particular things (‘the generating grounding power of the unifying dao’ for short); on the other hand, the very identity of the dao cannot be separated from but consists in and of (or, in this sense, is grounded by) its ten-thousand particular manifestations (‘the identity grounding power of manifested dao’ for short). This might sound a bit mysterious but actually not when one captures Lao-Zhuang’s resources in the two classical texts as a whole: the dao is the nature as a whole (including the human society and the created “second” nature in various “natural” senses) with its immanent unifying power in all particular things in the nature. Lao-Zhuang’s approach thus distinguishes itself not only from the Quinean and Heideggerian approaches in this regard but also from the aforementioned Quine’s critics who render primary the issue of what grounds what (like Schaffer and Fine) in two connections. First, Lao-Zhuang would not render the direction of what grounds what exclusively one-directional (“real” existing things grounds “phenomenal” existing things) but bi-directional: on the one hand, through its “generating grounding power”, the dao grounds its manifestations; on the other hand, via its “identity grounding power”, the manifested daos (ten-thousand particular things that manifest the dao) grounds the dao. Second, Lao-Zhuang would not treat the so-called phenomenal existing things like chairs as some things that do not enjoy real existence and should be reduced to their (more) “real” scientifically identified things (say, more basic particles); rather, they have their own powers as manifested daos in their distinct specific forms of being. 23 For example, Kit Fine criticizes Quine this way: “I think that [Quine’s approach] is a mistake. In asking these ontological questions, we are not asking about what there is but about what is real. . . . The quantificational questions are relatively straightforward—they are to be answered by common sense or by science. . . . But the questions about reality are deeply philosophical and it is only through having a conception of reality, . . . that they can be answered. Reality is what accounts, in the most perfect way possible, for everything that is the case. Suppose, for example, that I thought that the existence of a chair consisted in nothing more than certain atoms arranged in the shape of a chair. Then this would strongly suggest that reality did not include the existence of a chairs, since I could account for their existence in other terms.” (Fine 2012).

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I contend that Lao-Zhuang’s points here are philosophically interesting and insightful. First, instead of exclusively focusing on one-directional (causal and/or some other) linkage, Lao-Zhuang provides insightful vision of how to look at the complementary and mutually supplementary connections among things in a holistic and comprehensive way that cannot be exhausted by one-directional causal relationship. Second, the “real” identities of so-called “phenomenal” things need to be “naturally” determined, instead of being indiscriminately and exclusively specified in one (finite) perspective, say, one finite “scientific” perspective. One might note that, in several appearances of the term ‘natural’ or ‘naturally’, I put them within double-quotation marks: I thus both emphasize what this key term means and indicate that it is used in some specific sense to be clarified. In Lao-Zhuang’s way, I cannot give an indiscriminate universal definition of ‘being natural’ but treat it as one primitive parameter and have its due meanings sensitive to specific contexts and situations where relevant groups or communities of language users can dynamically bring about its adequate uses in view of natural identities of natural things. For example, the natural identity of a chair to its normal users is a chair instead of certain particles arranged in a certain way; naturally, chair cannot be indiscriminately reduced to particles as specified in physics. As the metaphysical issue of what grounds what has recently reappeared as one significant concern in contemporary studies of metaphysics, Lao-Zhuang’s Daoist approach in this connection is both philosophically interesting and engaging. 2.3 On Carving Things as Joints Although, as indicated in the preceding sub-section, the Quinean mainstream analytic metaphysics does not give due emphasis on the issue of what grounds what, that does not amount to saying that the issue has been totally ignored by all the advocates of the Quinean approach. As addressed in sub-section 2.1, Lewis and Sider intend to characterize being in terms of natural properties. This actually addresses the issue of what grounds what to this extent: (1) being is to be grounded on being natural; (2) our ontological account should carve nature at its joints. For these two points, those who are familiar with classical Daoism as delivered in the Dao-De-Jing and the Zhuang-Zi would feel at home: the first point seems to literally capture what chapter 25 of the Dao-De-Jing delivers (“The dao models itself on what is natural”), while the second point seems to literally echo what Zhuang Zi’s “carving at the joint” allegory as presented in

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inner chapter 3 of the Zhuang-Zi. Whether or not Lewis and Sider had read Lao-Zhuang’s relevant sayings when making their points,24 what is philosophically interesting here is this: Lao-Zhuang and Lewis-Sider can agree upon the fundamental character of being natural to some substantial extent; they might jointly contribute to our understanding and treatment of the issue with their distinct resources. For Lao-Zhuang, the dao that unifies all things in the natural world is not something mysterious above and beyond them but both consists in them and models itself fundamentally upon what is natural (chapters 25 and 51 of the Dao-De-Jing; and chapter 12 “Tian-Di” of the Zhuang-Zi.). For Lewis-Sider, natural properties and relations are “reference magnets” that carve at the joints of the natural world and play a fundamental role in the law of nature. [Cf., Lewis (1983) and Sider’s elaboration in (2009).] To my knowledge, Zhuang Zi perhaps is the first thinker who has ever explicitly suggested the metaphysical thesis “carving a thing at its joints” via his story “Cook Ding carving the ox” as given in inner chapter 3 “YangSheng-Zhu”: What I [Cook Ding] favor is to pursue the dao; the pursuit goes beyond mere mechanic technique. When I first began to cut up the ox, what I saw is just a whole ox. Three years later, I no longer saw an ox as a whole ox. . . . I follow the natural grain, letting the knife find its way through the many hidden openings, taking advantage of what is there, never touching a ligament or tendon, much less a main joint . . . A good cook changes his knife once a year because he cuts, while a mediocre cook has to change his every month because he hacks. I have had this knife of mine for nineteen years and have cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the edge is as if it were fresh from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints. The blade of the knife has no thickness. That which has no thickness has plenty of room to pass through these spaces. Therefore, after nineteen years, my blade is as sharp as ever.25

24 Probably not, given their academic focuses and backgrounds; rather, it is more probable that they have read Plato’s similar “carving” metaphor in treating the reality of Forms (Phaedrus 265e) to the effect that the world comes to us predivided. 25 The English translation is from Zhuangzi: Basic Writings, trans. B. Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003) and modified by this author based on the Chinese original as follows: “庖丁釋刀對曰：「臣之所好者道也，進乎技矣。始臣之解牛 之時，所見无非牛者。三年之後，未嘗見全牛也。 . . .依乎天理，批大郤，導大 窾，因其固然。技經肯綮之未嘗，而況大軱乎！良庖歲更刀，割也；族庖月更 刀，折也。今臣之刀十九年矣，所解數千牛矣，而刀刃若新發於硎。彼節者有 間，而刀刃者无厚，以无厚入有間，恢恢乎其於遊刃必有餘地矣，是以十九年 而刀刃若新發於硎。”

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There are two major metaphysical points made in the story. (1) After three years of fine training, Cook Ding saw an ox no longer as a whole ox but as a pack of flesh and bones; for Zhuang Zi, Cook Ding is not mistaken: what he saw is real, though the object was certainly also an ox. The point is: an ox can be recognized not only as an individual ox with its ox-essence constitution [as one looks at it from a certain scientific perspective which biologically identifies and distinguishes the ox-essence from the essences of other big animals], but also as a pack of flesh and bones; as a being, the object is both an ox and a pack of flesh and bones. Zhuang Zi would render eligible both the essence-aspect-capturing perspective and Cook Ding’s pack-of-flesh-bones-aspect-capturing perspective; in so doing, Zhuang Zi encourages us to have a complete account of various aspects of the ox. (2) Given a certain purpose and focus, and thus once a certain (finite) perspective is taken to fulfill the purpose, it is not the case that anything goes; rather, one needs to carve the object at its joints, as Cook Ding “follow[s] the natural grain, letting the knife find its way through the many hidden openings, taking advantage of what is there, never touching a ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.” What undergirds these two metaphysical points concerning Zhuang Zi’s “carving a thing at its joints” thesis is his general methodological strategy, which will be expressly addressed in sub-section 2.5 below. What is reflectively interesting is this: besides the credit that Zhuang Zi seems to deserve to be the first making the point of “carving a thing/ nature at its joints”, what else can the Daoist thinker contribute in this connection? Along with Quine’s line, Lewis and Sider view the nature as the four-dimensional physical world and treat it in a scientifically oriented perspective. In contrast, as explained in the preceding passage, Zhuang Zi actually does not take as the exclusive perspective what is literally delivered by the “carving at point” discourse in regard to the “pack of flesh and bones” identity of the ox; rather, he treats it just as one of multiple finite (eligible) perspectives that would give distinct identities of the ox via their pointing to distinct aspects of the ox. For example, there is also one perspective taking “an ox as a whole ox” [with its biological essence], which is essentially taken by Aristotle and which Zhuang Zi would render equally finite, instead of exclusively par excellence, while equally eligible. Relative to each of the finite but eligible perspectives, there is a certain distinct content of “carving [the target aspect to which the perspective points] at its joints”. In this way, although Zhuang Zi’s “carving at the joints” allegory has been now quite widely known among (at least) those philosophers in

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the West who study the issue of natural kinds in metaphysics and science,26 its genuine point needs to be fully appreciated in the whole context of the Zhuang-Zi: relative to each of eligible perspectives that points to and specifies a certain aspect of an object under examination, there are its own natural joints to carve. In so saying, what counts as being natural is thus sensitive to contexts and situations where distinct (finite) eligible perspectives are taken for certain purposes and with certain focuses. Notice that, while one carving an “natural” object (or one “naturalaspect” identity of the object as identified by one’s certain eligible perspective) at its joints, in general metaphysical terms, one thus focuses on a certain identity of being (‘the target being’ for short), any negation of the target being constitutes a non-being in contrast to the target being: surely, one way that points to the same aspect of the object but fails to carve the aspect of the object at its joints constitutes one (token of the type of ) “unreal” non-being in contrast to the “real” being identity of the target being. However, there can be three types of “real” non-beings: the nonbeing that is identified from another (eligible) perspective associated with some other purpose and focus; the non-being that constitutes the origin of the current target being, which generates but itself differs from the current target being; the non-being that is characterized in terms of the “global” identity of the whole object in contrast to the “local” specific identity of the target being. Then how to look at the relationship between being and non-being? In the next sub-section, I intend to explain how, in some philosophically interesting way, Lao-Zhuang’s Daoist approach can contribute to the issue, which the Heideggerian approach has partially attended while the Quinean approach has yet to address. 2.4 On You (Being) and Wu (Non-Being/Nothing) Lao-Zhuang’s approach to the issue of being significantly enriches our understanding of a variety of kinds of being through the Daoist metaphysical categories of you 有 (being) versus wu 無 (non-being, nothing).27 26 Cf., a recent anthology entitled ‘Carving Nature at Its Joints: Natural Kinds in Metaphysics and Science’ (Campbell et al. eds. 2011) whose “Introduction” begins with Zhuang Zi’s “carving at the joints” allegory, followed by Plato’s “carving” metaphor (Phaedrus 265e). 27 The issue of the relation between you (being) versus wu (non-being) in Chinese philosophy partially overlaps the cross-tradition issue of the relation between being versus becoming as understood in the Western philosophical tradition but has its distinct aspects

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Although all the three representative approaches under examination in this essay talk about various ways of being, they have distinct understandings and treatments of the due coverage of ways of being, which reflect their distinct methodological approaches and different substantial metaphysical outlooks. In this regard, their respective attitudes and treatments of how to understand the identity and characteristic features of nonbeing or nothing highlight their distinctive approaches. Given the definite senses of ‘being’ and ‘nonbeing’ (or ‘nothing’), and given that the characteristic feature of the analytic methodological perspective that is intended to point to and capture something certain, stable, constant, regular, definite, coherent, universal or unchanging aspect (or the being-aspect in a narrow sense of ‘being’ in contrast to that of ‘becoming’) of an object of study (or of its conceptual/linguistic characterization as a meta-level object),28 the Quine-Lewis approach does not take nothing or nonbeing to be a kind of being. Such a treatment can be reasonable and effective given that a reflective inquirer’s purpose in her pursuit is to capture what the analytic methodological perspective is intended to capture. However, if one is to take a becoming-aspect-concerned methodological perspective or a multiple-aspect-concerned methodological perspective (i.e., a methodological perspective complex that is intended to capture multiple aspects including becoming/changing aspect of an object of study), both Heidegger’s approach and Lao-Zhuang’s approach are insightful: as Zhihua Yao argues, both consider at least a certain form of nonbeing or nothing as one distinctive kind of being.29 However, in contrast to Heidegger’s treatment identifying only one aspect/dimension of such a kind of nothing as being, Lao-Zhuang’s treatment further distinguishes three kinds of wu (nonbeing

that are not exactly covered by the latter issue. The term ‘you’ literally means being or there existing like an existential quantifier, while the term ‘wu’ literally means non-being, nonexistence or there being not (the negation or denial of being), or simply nothing. 28 For this kind of characterization of the analytic methodological perspective, see Mou 2009a, 2–5. Also see a further elaboration of it in section 2 of my “Introduction” to Part Two of this volume. 29 See Yao 2010. Yao identifies and characterizes three different types of nothing: (1) privative nothing, commonly known as absence; (2) negative nothing, or absolute nothing; and (3) original nothing, or the nothing that is equivalent to one kind of being. He explains how Heidegger treats original nothing (‘nihil originarium’) as one kind of being. He further argues that the conception of wu (nothing) in the Dao-De-Jing falls under the category of original nothing or nothing as being but in a distinct way: Lao Zi refers to both ontological or horizontal dimension (“being and nonbeing/nothing give rise to each other”) and cosmogonical or vertical dimension (“Being arises from nothing”) of original nothing, while Heidegger focuses on the former only.

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or nothing) as three distinct ways or aspects of nonbeing as being.30 In the following, I explain these three aspects of wu as three ways/aspects of one kind of being in terms of three aspects of the issue of the relation between you versus wu, which are well demonstrated and illustrated by some relevant resources in Lao Zi’s the Dao-De-Jing.31 A. The issue of the constitutional relation between being and nonbeing as becoming (as the ‘constitutional-opposite’ negation of being) concerning the fundamental constitution and basis of the world. This aspect of the issue of you versus wu is essentially a Chinese way of delivering the cross-tradition perennial issue of being versus becoming. The yinyang metaphysical vision that renders being and non-being (as changing/ becoming) interdependent and complementary is well delivered in such passages in the Dao-De-Jing as “you (being) and wu (non-being/becoming) give rise to each other; difficult and easy complement each other; long and short offset each other; high and low incline turn into each other; sound and tones harmonize with each other; before and after follow each other” (Ch. 2). B. The issue of the generational relationship of non-being (as the ‘origintracing’ negation of being) to being in regard to the origin of the world. One view takes non-being (or the undifferentiated thing) as the ultimate origin of being [all differentiated existent things, including both being and non-being as constitutional contributors in the sense explained in A. above], as highlighted in the passage “you comes from wu” (Ch. 40). The Neo-Daoist Wang Bi further postulated that wu was the “original reality” while you was a variety of functions of wu.32 C. The issue of the local-global relation between being (as the “local” specific/particular being) and non-being (as the “holistic” negation of “local” being) concerning the dynamic and holistic nature of the world.

30 In comparison and contrast to Yao’s account given in Yao 2010, this author [in Mou 2009a, 179–182] identify three (instead of two) distinct ways of wu (nonbeing, nothing): i.e., besides wu as the “constitutional-opposite” negation of being and wu as the “origintracing” negation of being, there is a third type of wu as the “holistic” negation of “local” being. However, I then did not characterize them in terms of original nothing as one kind of being; in the account to be given below, agreeing with Yao’s line of identifying Lao Zi’s wu as a kind of being, I now treat the three aspects of wu as three distinct aspects of wu as one kind of being, whether or not it would be better labeled ‘original nothing’. 31 The following content is an adaptation of the partial content of entry “you 有 (being) versus wu 無 (non-being)” in Mou 2009a, 179–182. 32 Another view proposed by Guo Xiang, another Neo-Daoist, maintained that wu could not be the gateway to anything but makes sense only relative to you (only not this being or not that being) and that you must be self-engendered and eternal.

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In this context, ‘you’ means some or any “local” specific being, either a specific shape or a specific tone or, in a semantic-ascent way,33 a specific descriptive name. The term ‘wu’ does not simply mean having not but being not limited to or being not exhausted by, any “local” or “specific” being. Lao Zi looks at the relation essentially in terms of the yin-yang way of thinking concerning complementarity and harmonious balance. On the one hand, the dao cannot exist beyond and above, or independent of, wan-wu (ten-thousand specific/particular things). Lao Zi thus said: “The great dao flows everywhere” (chapter 34) and, expressing the same point but in a semantic ascent way, “The dao can be talked about [in language via specific names]” (the first statement, ‘dao-ke-dao’ 道可道, of the opening sentence of the Dao-De-Jing, chapter 1). On the other hand, “[the dao that has been specified via specific descriptive names in language] is not identical with, or do not exhaust, the eternal dao” (the second statement, ‘fei-chang-dao’ 非常道, of the opening message of chapter 1);34 “The great image [as a whole] is not limited to [or cannot be exhausted by] any [specific] shape; the dao is hidden [beyond what any specific descriptive names can capture] and cannot be exhausted by any [specific descriptive] names” (‘da-xiang-wu-xing; dao-yin-wu-ming’ 大象無形﹔道隱無名, chapter 41; it is noted that, in this context and in view of Lao Zi’s whole thought in the text, ‘wu’ does not means absolute and indiscriminate denial of any specific being).35, 36 33 The phrase ‘a semantic-ascent way’, simply speaking and understood broadly, means a way of (indirectly) talking about some object(s) under examination through (directly) talking about linguistic or conceptual items that signify the object(s). 34 For my detailed discussion of the philosophical points of the opening message (the first two opening statements) of the Dao-De-Jing, see Mou 2003. 35 Nevertheless, another view or interpretation actually only takes the latter side of Lao Zi’s whole vision: it renders the dao (or the great image) metaphysically unrelated and irrelevant to specific/particular manifestations (or shapes) and denies the positive and indispensable contribution of specific and particular beings to the metaphysical constitution of the dao. This view is closely related to the “meaning-delivery-beyond-speech-capacity” approach (taken by Xi Kan) in yan-yi-zhi-bian (the debate on the relation between speech and meaning during the Wei-Jin period. 36 As indicated in footnote 7, within contemporary analytic philosophy, there is the challenge to the Quinean treatment of non-existent objects of intentionality. Such nonexistent objects are treated as non-being objects in some accounts like Priest 2005, which thus addresses the notion of non-being. However, the notion of non-being thus addressed needs to be distinguished from the conception of wu/無 whose ususal English literal translation is ‘non-being’ or ‘nothing’, although Priest employs the Chinese phrase ‘趋[趨]向 空無’ as the Chinese translation of the book title of his 2005 (i.e., using ‘[空]無’ as the counterpart of the English term ‘non-being’). It is noted that the basic meaning of wu/無 as one metaphysical category in the context of the Chinese classics (say, in the context of the Daoist classic Dao-De-Jing,) does not cover what Priest et al. means by ‘non-being’

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2.5. On Methodological Strategy in Reflection on Beings In this ending section, I explain how, in more comprehensive methodological terms, Lao-Zhuang’s basic methodological strategy can contribute to our understanding and treatment of the issue of being with the vantage point of methodological vision. Lao Zi’s basic methodological strategy is highlighted in chapter 77 of the Dao-De-Jing as follows: “reduce what is excessive (損有余 sun-youyu) while supplement what is insufficient (補不足 bu-bu-zu)”, which thus might as well be called the ‘sun-yu-bu-que’ (損余補缺) strategy; it is one key to understand Lao Zi’s various specific treatments (with their distinct emphases in view of what were insufficient in his times) of different specific topics and issues.37 Zhuang Zi’s basic methodological strategy is well presented in inner chapter 2 “Qi-Wu-Lun” (齊物論 The Equality of Things) of the Zhuang-Zi and highlighted in the following passage: Everything has its that aspect and its this aspect. One cannot see the this aspect of one thing if one looks at the thing from the perspective of the that aspect; one can see the this aspect if one looks at the thing from the perspective of the this aspect. Therefore one can say that the that and the this come from each other. Thus, the sage is not limited to looking merely at the this or that aspect [from the finite point of view] but looks at all the aspect of the thing in the light of Nature. The this is also the that, and the that is also the this . . . When the this aspect and the that aspect cease to be viewed as opposite, it is called ‘the pivot of taking the Dao point of view’ [道樞]. One’s capturing the pivot is like one’s standing at the center around which all things revolve in endless change: one can deal with endless change from the Dao point of view. Therefore it is said that the best way is to look at things in the light [of Nature].38

[i.e., non-existent objects of intentionality that “simply do not exist”, “simply are not” or do not have any form of being (cf., Priest 2005, vii, 106)], although the issue of non-being as addressed by Priest et al. within contemporary analytic metaphysics can be viewed as one sub-issue of a more general cross-tradition philosophical issue of being versus non-being, and although the latter has been addressed in classical Chinese philosophy in terms of the issue of you/有 versus wu/無. 37 For example, in some passages that illustrate the conception of wu-wei, Lao Zi emphasizes effortless which, in the case of human morality, is manifested as (the higher level of ) spontaneous morality (shang-de 上德) in contrast to excessive implementation of deliberate cultivation (xia-de 下德); however, this does not mean Lao Zi indiscriminately rejects any deliberate and disciplined conscious cultivation. 38 The English translation was made by this author based on the Chinese original as follows: “[物無非彼﹐物無非是。自彼則不見﹐自知則知之。故曰﹕彼出於是﹐是 亦因彼。 . . .是以聖人不由而照之於天﹐亦因是也。是亦彼也﹐彼亦是也﹐ . . .彼 是莫得其偶﹐謂之道樞﹔樞始得其環中﹐以應無窮。 . . .故曰﹕莫若以明。 ”

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Zhuang Zi’s point here is essentially a kind of objective perspectivism as his basic methodological guiding principle in treating various reflective issues.39 For, instead of “any perspective goes”, Zhuang Zi bases relevance and eligibility of a perspective (given an object of study) upon whether it points to some aspect that is really or objectively possessed by the object of study. There are two significant points that are related. (1) Each thing has its various aspects, and one can take a finite perspective [as a working perspective] to look at one aspect to which the finite perspective points: one can look at its this aspect, from a this-aspect-concerned perspective, and sees it as a this, and one can also look at its that aspect, from a that-aspect-concerned perspective, and sees it as a that. Its metaphysical foundation is this: various aspects, the this aspect and the that aspect, ontologically depend on each other; various (eligible) perspectives, the this-aspect-concerned perspective and the that-aspect-concerned perspective, thus complement each other; (2) for the purpose of looking at the connection of various aspects of a thing and/or of having a comprehensive (balanced) understanding of the thing, Zhuang Zi also encourages us to look at things from a higher point of view which transcends various finite points of view [in the thinking background]; in this way, those different aspects cease to be viewed as opposite or incompatible but complementary. Zhuang Zi’s basic methodological strategy might as well be labeled ‘dao-shu-qi-wu’ (道樞齊物) strategy.40 Though the two thinkers’ basic methodological strategies go with their distinct emphases and thus appear different, they are essentially two distinct but closely related dimensions of the same methodological strategy for three related considerations. First, their distinct emphases respectively point to the two crucial features or needs of the yin-yang way of thinking, i.e., capturing complementarity of (contributing parts of ) contraries (as stressed in Zhuang Zi’s strategy) and seeking their harmonious balance in a whole (as emphasized in Lao Zi’s strategy), which themselves are intrinsically and closely related. Second, though with respective emphases on one of the two crucial features of the yin-yang way of thinking, their methodological strategies per se also include or resort to the other

39 For my detailed discussion of Zhuang Zi’s version of objective perspectivism, see Mou 2008. 40 For my elaboration of Zhuang Zi’s methodological strategy, see Mou 2008. For a complete account of transcendental perspectivism as a meta-philosophical methodological framework whose partial content can be viewed as my elaboration of Zhuang Zi’s strategic point, see Mou 2009b, section 6.2.2, 168–73.

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feature, explicitly or implicitly: in Lao Zi’s case, seeking “harmonious-balance” as addressed in chapter 77 needs to be fulfilled by capturing and implementing complementarity of contraries as manifested and treated in many chapters of the Dao-De-Jing; in Zhuang Zi’s case, the second point of his strategy quite explicitly addresses the “harmonious-balance” need. Third, as any scholars who are familiar with the two classical Daoist texts can tell, the yin-yang way of thinking as a whole deeply influences the two thinkers’ specific treatments of a series of issues. I thus rather refer them as the two dimensions of the same Lao-Zhuang’s basic methodological strategy. As I see it, the foregoing two dimensions of the general Daoist methodological strategies can contribute to an adequate methodological guiding principle concerning the meta-metaphysical issue of how to explore the basic metaphysical issue of being (and its related issues) on two fronts: (1) they can contribute to how we look at various aspects of the issue of being and the relationship between distinct approaches to the issue; (2) they can thus contribute to our evaluation of the debate between the Quinean approach and the Heideggerian approach. Indeed, generally speaking, it is one thing to “abstractly” admit or accept a sounding-great general methodological strategy, while it is another thing to “substantially” implement this methodological attitude to elaborate a substantial treatment. At this point, two notes are due. First, many cases (both positive and negative ones) in the reflective practice of philosophy inquiry have already shown that one’s explicitly (or with reflective consciousness) holding an adequate methodological guiding principle (like the foregoing Daoist methodological points which are arguably adequate) when one starts reflective exploration would be (at least) one significant first step to help open one’s critical mind in the process of philosophical inquiry and have one’s views (including one’s evaluation of some others’ views) subjected to reflective criticism (including self-criticism), instead of dogmatically maintaining one ad hoc view alone while indiscriminately dismissing other different but also eligible perspectives. Second, in the current case, the preceding discussions of how the LaoZhuang approach can contribute to our understanding and treatment of the issue of being in the four specific connections, as a matter of fact, constitute substantial implementations and illustrations of the Daoist general methodological strategy. For example, one significant and prominent manifestation of this general methodological strategy lies in this: it pays due attention to those elements/parts of seemingly competing contraries

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that can be complementary for the sake of capturing the way things are, in a wider context and/or from a higher vantage point; and thus it renders them not absolutely separated and dualistically opposed but capable to be complementary and harmoniously balanced in a complete account for the sake of capturing the way things are.41 This methodological vision regulates and undergirds Lao-Zhuang’s treatments of a range of sub-issues within the general metaphysical issue of being as discussed in the preceding four sub-sections: as discussion in 2.1, unlike the Quinean and Heideggerian approaches, Lao-Zhuang would not treat the unrestricted and the restricted to be absolutely separate and dualistic opposed; rather they would treat them as complementary dimensions of the same dao; as discussed in 2.2, the Lao-Zhuang approach to the issue of what grounds what is bi-directional in terms of double-grounding relationship the oneway absolutely fixed; and such a two-way grounding relations are simply two unseparate but complementary dimensions of the same dao; as discussed in 2.3, distinct perspectives with their distinct ways of “carving at the joints” are not absolutely separated but complementary; as discussed in 2.4, you (being) and wu (non-being) are not absolutely separate but complementary in three connections. All these point to one characteristic non-dualistic methodological vision which per se is undergirded and eventually based on the foregoing Daoist general methodological strategy.42

41  In this long statement, to have a complete presentation and avoid possibly incomplete reading, I intentionally have the phrase ‘for the sake of capturing the way things are’ appear twice: the truth pursuit or the dao pursuit is highlighted here as one strategic goal and one key evaluative criterion. For my detailed discussion of the truth pursuit as one strategic goal and its relationship with the dao pursuit, see Mou 2006, whose relevant points are further elaborated in a broader background in Mou 2009b, Chapters 4 and 5. 42 Earlier versions of this essay have been presented at (1) the workshop on “Constructive Engagement of Analytic and ‘Continental’ Approaches in Philosophy: From the Point of View of Chinese Philosophy,” the 2010 term of ISCWP’s Beijing Roundtable on Contemporary Philosophy, co-sponsored by Institute of Foreign Philosophy, Peking University and SJSU Center for Comparative Philosophy (Beijing, China, August 6, 2010) and (2) the session “Constructive Engagement of Analytic and ‘Continental’ Approaches in Philosophy: From the Point of View of Asian Philosophy” of the APA Pacific Division 2011 Meeting (San Diego, April 21, 2011); I am thankful to the audience for their oral comments and engaging discussions on scene. I am especially grateful to the following colleagues for their helpful critical comments on earlier versions of this article: Lajos Brons, Linhe Han, Marshall Willman, and Xianglong Zhang.

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Appendix A Semi-Formal Presentation of the Quinean, Heideggerian and Lao-Zhuang Daoist Treatments of the “Existential” Quantifier To give a (partially) more accurate characterization of the Quinean, Heideggerian and Lao-Zhuang Daoist treatments of the “existential” quantifier in their distinct approaches to the issue of being, and to give a clearer presentation of their engaging distinctions in this connection, a semi-formal account of their treatments is given below. (The semi-formal notations giving the Quinean and Heideggerian treatments are not new; their presentations can be more or less found in the previous literature such as Sider 2009 and McDaniel 2009 and are thus given here briefly). (1) Quinean Approach Many ontologists (such as Quine, Van Inwagen, and Sider) take the language of first-order logic as the canonical language for formulating ontological disputes. The generic concept of being is presented in first-order formal logic by unrestricted existential quantifier, which ranges over whatever there is, regardless of which kind of being under examination: ∃x: the unrestricted quantifier For all x, ∃y (y = x)

For any specific kind of being, one can introduce a special predicate, ‘Px’ that objects in the domain of “∃x” satisfy if and only if they enjoy that special kind of being, which is attached to the unrestricted existential quantifier ‘∃’ and can be symbolized as “∃α: φ” (read as “some φ”); in this way, to express “Some thing that enjoys the specific being P is F”, one can simply say: (*) ∃x (Px ∧ Fx)

For a Quinean ontologist, there is no need to introduce a separate special restricted quantifier ‘∃p’ to resulting in (**) ∃px Fx

For (*) and (**) are necessarily equivalent and consequently equally good ways of expressing exactly the same facts about the world. (2) Heideggerian Approach According to Heidegger, first, Being is not a being; second, the various ways of existing are not themselves entities. Therefore, any procedure that

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identifies ways of being with entities would not work. For example, for the specific kind of being “existenz”, one cannot introduce a constant symbol (say, ‘e’) plus a “having” predicate (say, ‘H’) to stand for it via having existenz (some things have existenz): ∃ x Hxe.

Furthermore, it seems to a Heideggerian that ways of being are not merely special properties that some entities have and that other entities lack and thus that ways of being cannot be appropriately represented by special “existence” predicates (say, ‘E’) that serve as restrictions on the unrestricted existential quantifier. A Heideggerian would think, first, the specific senses of ‘being’ are best represented by restricted quantifiers which range respectively over only some proper subsets of that over which the unrestricted quantifier ranges; second, such restricted quantifiers are considered to be metaphysically prior to the unrestricted existential quantifier and semantically primitive and prior in meaning to the unrestricted quantifier, such as: ∃existenz x: the restricted “existenz” quantifier for a Dasein ∃subsistance x: the restricted “subsistential” quantifier for a number or some other abstracta . . . . . .

In contrast, ∃x: the unrestricted quantifier which is only secondary and metaphysically posterior to the restricted quantifier.

(3) Daoist Approach There are two subdomains which are intrinsically related (can be formally represented in the resources in many-sorted predicated logic in which the domain is divided into a number of sub-domains, each of which contains some particular things): The domain of entities (‘Domain E’ or ‘E’ for short; the term ‘entity’ here is understood in a broad sense in logic): all particular individual things (and their sets) which are unified by the dao and over which are ranged by the primitive “natural” quantifier ‘∃N’ which might as well be called ‘the dao-existential quantifier’): d1, d2,. . . ., dn, . .  . . .

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(As the number of the entities in E is considered to be infinite, we can introduce the monadic quantifier ‘∃N∞’ to express “there are infinitely many”.) The domain of attributes (‘Domain A’ or ‘A’ for short): all particular attributes which are actually or (logically) possibly possessed by the entities in the domain E and over which (and whose subsets Pi) are ranged by ‘∃N’ (by using the resources in second-order logic in which quantifier can rang over attributes/properties): d11, d12, d13, . . ., d1m, . . . d21, d22, d23, . . ., d2m, . . . . . . ., dn1, dn2, dn3, . . . dnm, . . . . . . . . P1, P2, P3, . . .  Pm, . . .

Let Pi is a set-collection (a subset in A): {d1i, d2i . . ., dni . . .}; Pi is expressed by a “universal” predicate and/or its noun cognate. For example, one of such set-collections is what might be identified as red property, which is expressed by ‘is red’ and ‘redness’. Red (property) consists in and of all particular red attributes that are possessed by particular entities; red as universal per se does not substantially exist in the material natural world but only nominally exists in our conceptual system (as the concept of red) and in our language (‘redness’); semantically, ‘redness’ refers to a collection of various particular red attributes. The relationship between the domain E and the domain A can be expressly indicated via the notational means: among di1, di2, di3, . . ., dim, . . . in A, those that are actually possessed by di (i.e., diA1, diA2, diA3, . . ., where A1, A2, A3, . . . are identified among 1, 2, 3, . . . based on whether or not di1, di2, di3, . . . are actually possessed by di) are symptomizing parts of di in E; ontologically they cannot stand alone but supervene on the particular individual object di, although they are formally detached into a separate domain for the sake of logical need of quantification. di is neither merely a set of {diA1, diA2, diA3, . . . } nor, generally speaking, a mere sum of diA1, diA2, diA3, . . . but is more than that; we might as well call ‘the unifying force’ what is more than the sum of its parts; it is the power of the entity di as a whole that provides the structure unifying its parts. The entity di as a whole might as well be called a “thick” object whose “thickness” lies both in its rich symptomizing attributes and in its unifying force that is beyond the mere sum of its parts.

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The master “natural” quantifier ‘∃N’ unifies all entities (natural things) and all (actual) symptomizing attributes (ontologically via their symptomizing “thick” entities and formally or logically via its directly ranging over attributes in A) in the whole domain. There are degrees of naturalness (or being natural), as suggested in Lao Zi’s conception of wu-wei (e.g., there is the distinction between wu-wei as a non-excessive but still consciously endeavored natural way and a highly developed natural way in an effortless and spontaneous state) and as characterized by David Lewis in terms of N (φ, ψ) operator. In contrast to both Quinean and Heideggerian approaches, the “natural” quantifier is both restricted and unrestricted, and thus resists the dualistic characterization of its identity, in the sense as specified in the main text of this essay. References Campbell, John, Michael O’Rourke and Matthew Slater (eds.) (2011), Carving Nature at Its Joints: Natural Kinds in Metaphysics and Science (MIT Press). Chalmers, David, David Manley and Ryan Wasserman (ed.) (2009), Metametaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 77–129. Carnap, Rudolf (1950), “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontoloty”, Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 4: 20–40; reprinted in his (1956), Meaning and Necessity (2nd edn.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Fine, K. (1982), “The Problem of Non-Existents I—Internalism”, Topoi, 1: 97–140. —— (2012), “Metaphysical Kit”, interview article edited by Richard Marshall, 3: AM (online magazine) of 23rd March 2012 [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/metaphysical-kit/]. Koslicki, Kathrin (2008), The Structure of Objects (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Heidegger, Martin (1962), Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie’s and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row). From the German original of 1927. —— (1982), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, translated by Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). From the German original of 1975. —— (1992), History of the Concept of Time, Prolegomena, translated by Theodore Kisel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). From the German original of 1925. Lao Zi, the Dao-De-Jing《道德經》(the Chinese original text). Lewis, David (1983), “New work for a theory of universals”, The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61, 343–77; reprint in Lewis (1999), 8–55. —— (1986), On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Basil Blackwell). —— (1999), Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). McDaniel, Kris (2009), “Ways of Being”, in Metametaphysics, edited by David Chalmers et al. (2009), 290–319. Meinong, A (1960), “The Theory of Objects”, in Realism and the Background to Phenomenology, edited by R. Chisholm (London: Allen & Unwin), Ch. 4. From the German original of 1904. Mou, Bo (2003), “Eternal Dao, Constant Name, and Language Engagement: On the Opening Message of the Dao-De-Jing”, in Comparative Approaches to Chinese Philosophy, edited by Bo Mou (Aldershot: Ashgate), 245–62. [This article is a substantial expansion of a

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previous article “Ultimate Concerns and Language Engagement: A Re-Examination of the Opening Message of the Daodejing”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 27 (4): 429–39.] —— (2006), “Truth Pursuit and Dao Pursuit: From Davidson’s Approach to Classical Daoist Approach in View of the Thesis of Truth as Strategic Normative Goal”, in Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement, edited by Bo Mou (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers; 2006), 309–49. —— (2008), “Searle, Zhuang Zi, and Transcendental Perspectivism”, in Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement, edited by Bo Mou (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers; 2008), 405–30. —— (2009a), Chinese Philosophy A-Z (Edinburgh University Press; reprint with revisions 2010): entries “analysis/analytic methodology”, “being versus becoming”, “wu-wei”, “you versus wu (being versus nonbeing)” 2–5, 8–12, 161, 179–82. —— (2009b), Substantive Perspectivism: An Essay on Philosophical Concern with Truth (“Synthese Library” monograph series, vol. 344; Springer). —— (2010), “On Constructive-Engagement Strategy of Comparative Philosophy”, Comparative Philosophy 1(1): 1–32, . Parsons, T. (1980), Nonexistent Objects (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press). Price, Huw (1997), “Carnap, Quine and the fate of metaphysics”, Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 5: . Priest, Graham (2005), Towards Non-Being: The Logic and Metaphysics of Intentionality (Oxford University Press). Routley, Richard (1982), “On What There Isn’t”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 43: 151–78. Quine, W. V. (1948), “On What There Is”, Review of Metaphysics, 2: 21–38. —— (1951), “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, Philosophical Review, 60: 20–43. Schaffer, Jonathan, “On What Grounds What”, in Metametaphysics, edited by David Chalmers et al. (2009), 347–383. Sider, Theodore (2001), Four-Dimensionalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press). —— (2009), “Ontological Realism”, in Metametaphysics, edited by David Chalmers et al. (2009), 384–423. Tonner, Philip (2010), Heidegger, Metaphysics and the Univocity of Being (Continuum). Van Inwagen, Peter (2009), “Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment”, in Metametaphysics, edited by David Chalmers et al. (2009), 472–506. Yao, Zhihua (2010), “Typology of Nothing: Heidegger, Daoism and Buddhism”, Comparative Philosophy, 1(1): 78–89, . Zalta, Edward (1988), Intensional Logic and the Metaphysics of Intentionality (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). Zhuang Zi, the Zhuang-Zi《莊子》(the Chinese original text). [For the English reader, see Zhuangzi: Basic Writings, trans. B. Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).]

INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS* absolutism 204 abstraction 112–113, 116, 123 Adorno, Theodor W. 280 aesthetics/aesthetic 170, 183, 191, 280 Africana philosophy (African, Afro-Caribbean, and African American philosophy) 183–196 Aitken, Robert 236 Allan, Sarah 262n Althusser, Louis 166, 167 Ames, Roger 213n, 277, 277n, 279n Analects 《論語 》 (Lun Yü) 154, 155 analytic/analysis analysis (versus synthesis), 153 -continental divide, passim. method/methodological approach passim. methodological guiding principle (guiding-principle method)  151–152, 156 methodological instrument (instrumental method) 151, 153–154 methodological perspective (perspective method) 151–157 analytic (as a generic type)  153–154 “continental” (as a generic type) 154–155 statements (versus synthetic statements) 153 philosophy (analytic style/orientation of doing philosophy) passim.  contemporary/post-Kantian 2, 156 in other (culture-associated) traditions than the Western tradition 147–319 in the Western tradition (analytic tradition in Western philosophy)  7–144, 156 Anscombe, G.E.M. 278n

apodictic justification 15 apoha (denial, negation, exclusion, etc.)  199, 205, 208–209, 215 Appiah, Anthony 184, 195 Aquinas 175 Argumentation 179, 193 Aristotle/Aristotelianism 156, 175, 292 Ariyaratne, J.K.P. 221 Armstrong, David 167 Augustine 175 Austin, John L. 71, 79–80, 81, 168, 244n Averroes 209n Bachelard, Gaston 125, 127, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 143, 166 Baker, G.P. 77 Bargh, J. 243 Bashō, Matsuo 236 Bauman, Zygmunt 275n Bechara, Antoine 234–6, 246–247n Bedeutung  45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51 Benjamin, Walter 284–285 Bennett, M.R. 81, 83, 86 Bergson, Henri 189, 236 Bernasconi, Robert 191 Beyer, Christian 11–31 becoming (versus being) 153–155, 154n See also being (versus becoming) Being, see also existence, non-being, you 有 and wu 無 as existence 290–1 as non-existence 292n (versus becoming) 153–155, 154n issue of 289–318 non- 292n, 310 Bhagavad Gītā 175 Blyden, Edwin 187 Bodhisattva 92 Bohr, Niels 225

* The English translations of non-English terms, primarily Chinese ones, are given either following the relevant authors’ paraphrases in certain contexts or merely tentatively for heuristic purposes. The transliterations of Chinese terms are given their originals when available.

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BonJour, L. 22–26, 30 boundaries between disciplines 126, 127, 134 Bourdieu, P. 127 Boxill, Bernard R. 189, 193 Bradley, Francis Herbert 200 Brandt, Richard 184 Brecht, Bertolt 261–262, 267, 284 Brentano, Franz 11, 91, 107, 190 Brons, Lajos L. 148, 199–220 Bruya, Brian 278n Buddhism 92, 93, 97, 99, 137, 172, 176–180, 199–219, 221–240, 265 and natural science 121–122 Fourfold Noble Truth 221 Indian 178–179. See also Theravāda Buddhism Mahāyāna Buddhism 177, 178, 205–206 Chan 禪/Zen, see Chan Buddhism Hua-Yan 華嚴 178 Madhyamaka School 177, 178, 205–206 Yogācāra School/Consciousness-Only Buddhism 177, 178, 205 Theravāda Buddhism 176 Butler, Judith 195 Buddha, the  175, 204, 204n, 225. See also Buddhism Cage, John 237 Campbell, John 307n Camus, A. 41, 47 Canguilhem, G. 127, 129, 131, 133 Carnap, Rudolf 103, 105, 106, 132, 165, 290–291 Cartesian 141, see also Descartes dualism, see dualism self, see self Cassirer, Ernst 103, 127, 133, 190 Cavarero, A. on narrative conception of self 64–68,  69, 70 Chalmers, David 291 Chan 禪/Zen Buddhism 178, 179, 207–219, 221–40. See also Dōgen Hakuin Ekaku 白隠慧鶴 235 Huang-bo Xi-yun 黄檗希运 234 koan [in Japanese or gong-an (kung-an) 公案 in Chinese] 216 Matsuo Bashō 松尾芭蕉 236 Mazu Daoyi 馬祖道一 235 The Sixth Patriach: Hui Neng 慧能 178 Chan, Wing-tsit 陳榮捷 (Chen Rong-jie)  120

Chang Chung-yuan 235 Chinese philosophy 148–149, 171, passim in 221–306. See also Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism Chisholm, R. 23 Clarkson, Thomas 193 Cohen, Gerald 167 comparative philosophy passim Confucianism 儒家 (Ru, Ru-Jia, Ru School)/Confucian 137–139, 141, 142, 171, 262, 263, 275, 283 Neo-Confucianism 175, 177 rites 129, 137–143 Confucius 孔子 (Kong Zi; given name ‘Qiu’ 丘) 137, 138, 140, 154, 155, 175, 177, 213n, 275, 277 Cooper, Anna Julia 189–190 consciousness 21, 91–101, 108 and intentionality see intentionality basic 93, 96, 99 nibbanic 93, 98 transcendental  97 constructive-engagement (goal and methodology) passim “Continental” philosophy passim methodological approach of methodological perspectives  154–158 Conze, Edward 226 Craig, Edward 168 Cratylus 170 Crick, Francis 227–228 critical (engagement) 172, 184, 185 critical theory 149, 261–285 Daoism as 261–285 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly 283 Cugoano, Ottobah 193 Dalai Lama, the 99, 122, 227 Damasio, A. 245–246 Dancy, Jonathan 195 dao 道 300–304, 316. See also Dao-De-Jing and Daoism Dao-De-Jing《道德經》(Tao Te Ching)  120, 121, 204n, 261–262, 262n, 264, 290, 298–301, 304, 309–311, 313 Daoism philosophical Daoism 道家 120, 148–149, 155, 177, 178, 206, 243–259, 289–290, 298–318 as critical theory 261–285 religious Daoism 道教 177n Dasein 14, 43, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 106, 154, 165, 294, 294–295n, 297–298

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Davidson, Donald 199–219 theory of triangulation 199–219 Davis, Angela 193 de Beauvoir, Simone 168 deconstruction/deconstructionism 168, 180, 186, 217, 218, 221–222, 225, 233–234, 237 Delany, Martin R. 187 DeRose, K. 18, 19 Derrida, Jacques 121, 154, 166, 167, 169, 199, 202–203, 209–217 theory of and différance 199, 209–217 De Santillana, Giorgio 227 Descartes, René 12, 85, 91, 110, 153n, 156, 157, 175 Detering, Heinrich 262n Dewey, John 165, 189 Dharmakīrti 199, 205, 205–217 Theory of apoha 199, 205–217 Difference, see Derrida Dignāga 205, 209–212, 215 Dijksterhuis E.J. 131 Dilthey, W. 45 Dōgen, Kigen (Japanese Zen philosopher)  175, 178, 199, 208–219 Douglass, Frederick 186, 193 Dretske, F. 13, 23 Dreyfus, G. 205, 209 Dreyfus, H. 119 Drummond, J. 98 dualism 225 anti- 199–219 metaphysical 200 non- 207–208 Du Bois, W.E.B. 186, 187, 189–190, 195 Dummett, Michael 103, 167

Erhard, C. 16 ethics 149, 166, 167, 168, 172 environmental 168 virtue 168 existence 298–318. See also being and you 有 non- 292n, 310n existentialism/existentialists 38, 39, 40, 165, 166 and humanism 39, 43 atheistic 47

Eckhart, Meister 171 Edwards, Paul 168–169 Eliot, T.S. 38 empathy 27, 28, 100, 101 empathetic experience 27, 28 empathic reconstruction 100, 101 See also intersubjectivity empiricism 165, 193, 224 British 156 Enlightenment 127–129, 178, 179, 263, 267 epistemology 149, 165, 169, 183, 185, 193 history of epistemology 127 epoché  91. See also phenomenological reduction Epstein, S. 243 Equiano, Olaudah 186, 193

Galileo 110, 113 Gallagher, S. 67 Gardner, S. 200n Garvey, Marcus 187 Genet, J. 40, 41 Genovese, Eugene D. 192 Gleim, W. 37 global philosophy 119–123 Glock, H-J. 71 God  39, 40, 47 Gödel, K. 106–107 Goethe, J.W. 128 Gongsun, Long 公孫龍 155 Goodale, M. 252n Gordon, Jill 193 Gordon, Lewis 189 Gorgias 170

façon de parler problem 86–88 Fanon, Frantz 189, 190 Fashina, Oladipo 189 Fa Zang 法藏 175, 178 feminism 168, 188, 192, 195 Feyerabend, P. 132 Fine, Kit 292n, 303, 303n first-person perspective 91, 122 First philosophy 11, 20, 28–29 Føllesdal, D. 119 Foucault, Michel 127, 128, 129, 130, 138, 166, 169 foundationalism 22, 25, 30 founded/founding distinction 112, 113, 115, 116, 117 Frankfurt, Harry 271n, 282, 284 Frankfurt school 167, 284 Fraser, Chris 256n, 277, 277n, 280–281 freedom in existentialism 40, 41, 42, 43 Frege, Gottlob 45, 103, 157, 164–165, 169, 179 Friedman, M. 103 Fung, Yu-lan 馮友蘭 206, 208, 264n

324

index of names and subjects

Graham, Angus, C. 256n, 264, 266n, 279, 281, 281n, 282 grammatical reminders 85, 86, 88 Gramsci, Antonio 167 Greene, Brian 222 Grice, H.P. 33–34, 77 Guo, Xiang 郭象 263, 309n Gyekeye, Kwame 186, 187 Habermas, Jürgen 167, 169, 280 Hacker, P. critique of Austin 79–81 on nature of philosophy 71, 72, 76–78, 83–89 Hall, David L. 213n, 277 Hallen, Barry 184 Han Fei 韓非 175, 177 Hansen, Chad 207n harmony (he 和) 279, 313 Harris, Leonard 190 Hegel, G.W.F./Hegelian/Hegelism  126, 128, 161, 179, 180, 193, 200, 203 neo-Hegelism 200 Heidegger, Martin 12–13, 14, 33, 42–46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 103, 105, 106, 121, 128–157, 165, 166, 169, 171, 244, 253–255, 258, 289–290, 292–303, 308, 308n, 313–316 Heilman, Kenneth 235–236 Heraclitus 223 Herbert, Nick 225 hermeneutics 193, 239 Higgins, K. 45 higher-order monitoring 94 Hinduism 174–176 holism 30 Honneth, Axel 269n, 280 horizon 26, 27, 28 inner/outer 27 Horowitz, Gregg M. 273n Hountondji, Paulin J. 184 Hui Neng 慧能 207 humanism and existentialism 39, 42 Hume, David 171, 179, 222, 224, 230, 231 Husserl, Edmund 11–31, 45, 91, 94, 97, 98, 103, 107, 108, 112, 113, 117, 118, 154, 157, 164–165, 169, 179, 189 and holism 30 as a realist 12, 14, 18, 26, 29 not a foundationalist 25 Ibn Sina (Avicenna) 175 idealism 200, 292. See also Hegelism German 164, 179

idem-identity 58, 59, 60, 69 identity cultural 186 ethnic 186 (issue of ) personal 195, 196 racial 195 Ilyenkov, Evald 167 Inada, Kenneth K. 225, 228–229 Indian Philosophy 148, 171, 174–176 Hinduism 172–6 Indian Buddhism, see Buddhism Jainism 176 inner awareness (consciousness) 94, 95, 96, 98, 99 intentionality 11–12, 13, 14, 16, 24, 25, 26, 27, 107, 116, 117, 245–254 non-existent objects of 292 interdisciplinary studies/projects 183–184 cultural 183 ethnic 183 Harlem Renaissance 191 Marxist 183. See also Marxism peasant 183 post-colonial 183 intersubjectivity 28, 99, 101 see also empathy introspection 87, 94 introspective judgment 23, 24 intuition 243–59 Iowa Gambling Task (the IGT) 243, 245–247, 250, 253 ipse-identity  60, 69 Irwin, Robert 238 Ivanhoe, Philip J. 207n Jacoby, L. 243 James, C.L.R. 188 James, William 165, 189, 190, 222, 231 Jansenists 139, 141 Jesuit mission to China 129, 137–143 Jochim, Chris 283n justice 168, 192–193 justification contextualist view of 18 See also apodictic; meta-justification Kant, Immanuel (Kantianism) 156, 157, 169, 179, 200–201, 224–225, 227, 239, 263, 280, 283 Kawabata, Yasunari 237 Kierkegaard, Søren 232 Kircher, A. 138 Kirkland, Russell 267n Kjellberg, P. 207n

index of names and subjects knowledge 170, 245–6. See also epistemology certainty of 153n Kohn, Livia 267n Koslicki, Kathrin 292n Kostelanetz, Richard 238 Koyré, A. 129 Kraus, Lawrence M. 238–239 Kripke, Saul 167, 169 Krishnamurti, J. 232 Kuhn, Thomas 130, 132, 133, 166, 169 Kuzminski, Adrian 229 Ladd, John 184 Lai, Karyn 256 language 217–8 philosophy of 149, 183, 199, 202 Lao-Zhuang 老莊 274, 298–318. See also Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi and Philosophical Daoism Lao, Zi 老子 (Lao Tzu; given name ‘Dan’ 聃)/Lao-Zi《老子》 175, 204n, 261–3, 299. See also Dao-De-Jing Larsen, Nella 195 Latour, B. 128 Leaman, O. 209n Leibniz, G.W. 138, 139, 140, 179 Levi-Strauss, Claude 217 Levinas, Emmanuel 167, 169 Lewis, David 289, 290–293, 300–301, 304–306, 308 lifeworld 29, 30, 31, 112, 117 linguistic exclusivism (LE) 72, 73–76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 89 philosophy 71, 73, 89. See also linguistic exclusivism Liu, Xiaogan 劉笑敢 256, 267 lived body (Leib) 115 Locke, Alain L. 185, 189–191 Locke, John 110, 193 logic 168, 228 modern 164, 165 non-classical 168 Lott, Tommy 148, 183–198 Lübbe, Hermann 272 Lukács, G. 167, 268–269 Lun Yü 《論語》 See Analects Macknik, Stephen 228 Makkreel, R.  45 Malcom X 193 Malebranche, N. 139, 141 Marcuse, Herbert 167

325

Martinez-Conde, Susana 228 Martinich, A.P. 33–53 Marx, Karl 141, 167, 180, 268–270 Marxism/Marxists 39, 166, 167, 180, 183, 192, 261–262 mathematics in ancient China 136, 142 May, Todd 55–70 McCulloch, G. 87 McDaniel, Kris 290, 293–298, 315 McDowell, John 281n McGary, Howard 192 McGrath, S.J. 254 McIntyre, A. 55, 60 meaning 170 and reality 199–219 communicative (non-natural) 33–34, 35, 37, 38, 49 intentional 33 natural 33, 34–35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52 of being 44 of life 33, 38, 52 See also meaning-as-significance; meaning of life meaning-as-significance 35–38, 41, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 meditation 91–93, 96, 99 Meinong, Alexius von/Meinongianism  190, 292n Melville, H. 37 Mencius 孟子 (Meng Zi; given name ‘Ke’ 軻’) 140, 175, 177, 275 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 67, 165 meta-justification of realism 16, 18, 22, 31 see also justification metaphysics 149, 165, 172, 185, 199, 289–318 Aristotle’s 292 combinatorial 168 issue of being and non-being, see being  and non-being issue of what grounds what in 291, 302–304 methodology (method/methodological approach), passim. analytic, see analytic methodological guiding principles  (adequate or inadequate) 151–162   adequacy conditions for 159–162 methodological instruments (more or less effective) 151, 158 methodological perspectives (eligible or ineligible) 151–152, 158

326

index of names and subjects

 of analytic approach in philosophy,  see analytic of “continental” approach in philosophy, see “continental” philosophy of comparative philosophy and passim Meunsterberg, Hugo 190 Mills, Charles 195 Milner, D. 252n mind/body problem 115 Moby Dick 37 modality 168 Mohism 墨家 155, 177, 256n Molesworth, Charles 190 Möller, Hans-Georg 267n Møllgaard, Eske 277n Monk, Ray 168–9 Montaigne, M. de 91 Moor, G.E. 12 Mou, Bo 牟博 3, 10, 147–162, 183, 208, 209n, 289–319 Mo Zi 墨子 175, 177 Mu Soeng 226 Nāgārjuna 175, 205 Nagel, T. 97 narrative conceptions of self 55–70 and analytic/Continental split 55–56, 69–70 diachronic view 56, 64 dialectical view 56, 59, 69 social character of  68 natural attitude  17, 18, 29 natural science, see science naturalism 263–264, Nature/natural 263, 283 necessity 168, Nelson, Eric Sean 277 Nietzsche, Friedrich 128, 201–203, 207–208 nihilism 204–205 Nirvana 226, 234, 239. See also Enlightenment Nkrumah, Kwame 187 non-being, see being noneism 292n Nussbaum, Martha 169 object 159–160, 159n, 304–307 natural 304–307 objectification levels of 113 objectivity/objective 159, 204, 208, 217, 292, 298

about subjectivity 118 subjectivity and 110, 113, 114, 115, 117 Oedipus  65–66 ontology, see metaphysics Oruka, H. Odera 184 Orwell, George 236 Other, the 28 other minds, problem of 82 Overgaard, Søren 71–90 Pacini, R. 243 Parfit, Derek 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 195 Parmenides 223–225, 227 Parsons, T. 292n Patterson, Orlando 192 Peacocke, Christopher 281n Peirce, Charles 189, 224 perspectivism 208–209 objective 208, 209n 312 scientific 304 subjective 208. See also (radical) conceptual relativism transcendental 312n Perry, Ralph Barton 190 personal identity 56, 57 phenomenalism 165, 202 phenomenological attitude 17, 18, 25, 26 descriptions 87, 88 epoché 15 reduction 15, 16 reflection 99, 101 phenomenology 11–31, 71, 72, 74, 75, 89, 91–94, 96, 98–101, 118, 189, 193, 202, 243–259 philosophical problems Hacker on nature of 77 philosophy, passim Africana 148, 157, 183–96 and science 104–123, 130–134 Arabic 174 Asian 168, 170–81, 192. See also Chinese philosophy and Indian philosophy analytic approach in, see analytic philosophy boundaries of 135, 137–143 Buddhist, see Buddhism Chinese, see Chinese philosophy “Continental” approach in, see “Continental” philosophy Eastern 148, 170–181. See also Asian philosophy feminist 168, 192 German 186

index of names and subjects global, see global philosophy Greek 170, 179, 188 Indian, see Indian Islamic 174 Latin American 192 moral, see ethics Native American 183, 192 naturalized 104 of action 149 of art 183 of education 183 of language, see language of law 183 of mathematics 165 of perception 183 of science 165, 183 social-political 149, 167 Western, see Western philosophy philosophy of mind 108–118 Plato 40, 43, 49, 156, 171, 175, 223–225, 233, 305n, 307n Plessner, H. 12 pluralism 184, 191 Popper, Karl 131, 168, 222, 227, 238–239 Porphyry 39, 40 positivism 165, 166 logical 165, 180, 189, 193 postmodernism 170 pragmatism/pragmatic 165, 185, 186, 189, 191, 224, 259, 262 prereflective experience 21, 113, 116 present-at-hand 49, 51 Presocratics 175 Price, Huw 291 Priest, Graham 148, 163–181, 292n, 310–311n primary/secondary qualities 110–111 Prince, Mary 186 Protagoras 170 Proust, M. 99–100 psychologism 179 Pyrrho 170, 222, 228–232 quietism 207, 265 Quine, W.V.O./Quinean 107, 119, 132, 154n, 166, 169, 222, 224, 225, 228, 238–239, 289–293, 298–308, 313–315, 318 Quinton, A. 183 Ramsay, James 193 rationalism 193, 224 rationality 217 Rawls, John 167, 169

327

ready-to-hand 49 realism anti- 168. See also idealism critical 12 naïve 12 reality 174, 199–219, 225 meaning and 199–219 noumenal 199–219 phenomenal 199–219 social 159 ultimate 174, 178 Brahman (in Hinduism) 174 Buddha Nature (in Buddhism) 178 dao (in Daoism) 300–301 reference 156, 210n indeterminacy of 156 self- 156 Reichenbach, Hans 165 relativism 166, 170, 267 radical “anything goes” 159, 162, 292, 292n religion Asian 171 Christianity 171 representationalism 13, 14 Ricoeur, P. 56 on narrative conception of self 56, 58–61, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69 Roetz, Heiner 275n Rosa, Hartmut 270n Rose, Gillian 273n Routley, Richard 292n Royaumont conference 71, 72, 74, 76, 79 Russell, Bertrand 132, 157, 165, 221, 223, 232, 238–239 Ryle, G. 71, 74 same-order monitoring 94 Śaṅkara 175 Sartre, Jean-Paul 21, 33, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 47, 95, 165, 169, 191 Saussure, Ferdinand de 217 Schectman, M. on narrative conception of self 56, 57–58, 60, 61, 63, 64, 68, 69 Schiller, Johann C.F. 280 Schleichert, Hubert 275n Schlick, Moritz 165 science and philosophy 104–123, 130–134 cognitive 168, 239, 243 computer 168 hypothetico-deductive model of 259 limitations of 114–118

328

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origins of 109–114 psychology 168, 189 scientism 123 Searle, John R. 119, 244–245, 246–250, 250n, 256n, 280 Background 280 Intentionality 247–251 speech acts 248–9 self 195–196 in Hinduism (Ātman) 174 Buddhist conception of  56, 57, 61 See also narrative conceptions of the self self-consciousness (awareness) 21 modal model of 95, 96 Sellars, W. 22–23, 112 Senghor, Leopold S. 191 Seng, Zhao 僧肇 206–7 Sennett, Richard 275n Sextus Empiricus 229 Shadd-Carey, Mary Ann 187 Shafffer, Jonathan 291n, 303 Sharf, R.H. 206n, 207 Sharp, Granville 193 Shelby, Tommy 187 Shirane, Haruo 237 Sider, Theodore 289, 291–293, 301, 304–306, 315 Sima, Qian 司馬遷 261 Simmel, Georg 190 Singer, Peter 169 Sinn  44, 45, 48, 50 skepticism 16, 170, 202, 206n, 228–232, 238, 239, 267 Buddhist 228–232 Humean 230 Linguistic 267 Pyrrhonian, see Pyrrho Slingerland, Edward 267n Sloterdijk, Peter 266n Smith, David Woodruff 91–102 social and/or political philosophy  183–196 Socrates 153n, 154, 156, 157, 175 Sodipo, J.O. 184 Sokal hoax 107–108 solipsism 28 Soma Thera 221 Sosa, E. 23 speech acts 248 Spinoza, Benedictus de 139, 231 Stalinism 167 Stein, E. 100

Stephenson, N. 129 Stoicism 175 Strawson, Galan 282 on narrative conception of self 61–64,  65, 66, 68, 69 Strawson, P.F. 71, 74, 75, 76, 78 structuralism 167, 203, 217 Su, Shi 蘇軾 3, 3n subjectivity/subjective 203, 208, and objectivity 110, 113, 114, 115, 117 sublation (aufheben) 161 Suzuki, D.T. 233, 237 synthetic/synthesis, see analytic/analysis synthesis (versus analysis) 153 statements (versus analytic statements)  153 Tarski, Alfred 192 Taylor, C. 126 theists and meaning 47 third-person perspective 114, 122 ti 體 (physical body), -yong 體用 (origins and their applications) tian 天, see heaven Tieszen, Richard 3, 7–10, 103–124, 162n Tiles, Mary 125–44 time consciousness (inner) 20–21, 26, 98 Tonner, Philip 290, 294, 297–298 transcendence problem of 15, 16, 26 triangulation see Davidson Trismegistus, H. 138 truth 159–60, 162, 170, 192, 229, 259 pursuit as strategic goal 159–160, 162 semantic theory of 192 understanding cross-tranditon, passim Upanishads 175 upāya 225, 234 Urmson, J.O. 71 utilitarian 177 Van Breda, H.L. 71, 75 Van Inwagen, Peter 290n, 291 Vedas 175 Vienna Circle 189. See also positivism (logical) vipassana 92

index of names and subjects Virillio, Paul 272 Virtue Benevolence 275 (filial) piety 154–155, 275 Voltaire 140, 141, 142 Wallace, Alan 239 Wang, Bi 王弼 (Wang Pi) 309 Ward, Julie 193 Wawrytko, Sandra A. 148, 221–242 Weber, Max 266n, 268–269, 272 Wenning, Mario 148, 261–287 Weschler, Lawrence 238 Western philosophy 1–12, 171, passim ancient (Greek) 171 medieval 171 Willman, Marshall D. 148, 243–260 Williams, Bernard 41 188, 271 Williams, M. 18, 19, 30 Williamson, T.  82 Wilson, Cook 190 Wilson, W. 243 Wiredu, Kwasi 184, 192 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 45, 87–88, 165, 166, 169, 171, 180, 189, 226 ‘World’ senses of 48 world philosophy, see global philosophy

329

wu 無 (to have not, non-being, nothing)  307–10, 310n. See also being, non-being and you 有 wu-wei 無為 (nonaction/doing things in a natural or non-excessive way) 179, 256–257, 266–268, 276–284 wu-wei 五位 237 xin 心 (heart, mind, heart-mind) 279 Xun, Zi 荀子 (Hsün Tzu; given name ‘Kuang’ 況) 277 Yao, Zhihua 姚志華 308–309n Yi-Jing (Book of Changes)《易經》/ Yi-Jing philosophy 175–177 yin-yang 陰陽 177, 309, 312–4 you 有 (to have, being) 307–310. See also being, wu 無, being, non-being and existence Zahavi, D. 98 Zalta, Edward 292n Zhuang, Zi 莊子 (Chuang Tzu; given name ‘Zhou’ 周)/Zhuang-Zi 《莊子》 175, 207n, 209n, 244, 255–256, 263, 290, 298–299, 304–307, 311–313 zi-ran 自然 179, 264. See also nature Žižek, Slavoj 265–266, 266n