Nothingness and Emptiness

Steven W. Laycock

Description

This sustained and distinctively Buddhist challenge to the ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness resolves the incoherence implicit in the Sartrean conception of nothingness by opening to a Buddhist vision of emptiness. Rooted in the insights of Madhyamika dialectic and an articulated meditative (zen) phenomenology, Nothingness and Emptiness uncovers and examines the assumptions that sustain Sartre's early phenomenological ontology and questions his theoretical elaboration of consciousness as "nothingness." Laycock demonstrates that, in addition to a "relative" nothingness (the for-itself) defined against the positivity and plenitude of the in-itself, Sartre's ontology requires, but also repudiates, a conception of "absolute" nothingness (the Buddhist "emptiness"), and is thus, as it stands, logically unstable, perhaps incoherent. The author is not simply critical; he reveals the junctures at which Sartrean ontology appeals for a Buddhist conception of emptiness and offers the needed supplement.
Acknowledgments
The Radiance of the Lotus

Chapter One. Dancing with the Light

Chapter Two. Light upon Light

Chapter Three. Questioning Sartrean Questions

Chapter Four. Nothingness

Chapter Five. Emptiness

Chapter Six. Making Nothing of Something

Chapter Seven. The Myth of Repletion

Chapter Eight. The Possibility of the Possible

References

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Éthique et morale
• Ethique et morale
• Metaphysics
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791490969
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

nothingness and emptiness

a buddhist engagement with the ontology of jeanpaul sartre

steven w. laycock

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Nothingness and Emptiness

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Nothingness and Emptiness

A Buddhist Engagement with the Ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre

Steven W. Laycock

State University of New York Press, Albany

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2001 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatso- ever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including elec- tronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Laycock, Steven William Nothingness and emptiness : A Buddhist engagement with the ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre / Steven W. Laycock. p. cm. ISBN 0-7914-4909-2 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-4910-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sartre, Jean Paul, 1905– I. Title.

B22430.S34 N64 2001 111'.092—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2. Sunyata. 3. Nothingness (Philosophy)

00-056275

Contents

Acknowledgments The Radiance of the Lotus

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight

References Index

Dancing with the Light Light upon Light Questioning Sartrean Questions Nothingness Emptiness Making Nothing of Something The Myth of Repletion The Possibility of the Possible

vii 1

9 35 65 83 107 131 155 175

197 211

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Acknowledgments

The author is gratefully indebted to the following publishers for permission to reproduce copyrighted material:

Passages fromAgainst Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction,copyright © 1993, by John D. Caputo. Used by permission of Indiana University Press.

Passages fromThe Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarikaby Nagarjuna, translation copyright © 1995 by Jay L. Garfield. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

Passage fromOut in the Open,copyright © 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, by Margaret Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.

Passages fromZen: Poems, Prayers, Sermons, Anecdotes,translation copy- right © 1963, by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto. Used by permission of Doubleday Press.

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