AUSTRALASIAN SOCIETY FOR ASIAN AND COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY

ASACP CONFERENCE 2017

10-12 JULY 2017 AT DEAkIN UNIVERSITY, DEAkIN DOwNTOwN 727 COLLINS ST, MELbOURNE, AUSTRALIA.

ASACP 2017 Conference Program

10-12 July 2017

Deakin University, Deakin Downtown 727 Collins St, Melbourne, Australia.

Keynote SpeakersProfessor David R. Loy

Professor Jin Y. Park, American University, Washington DC

Professor John Powers, Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University

The conference will present papers in all areas of Asian and Comparative Philosophy, with a special focus on the following streams:

Nonduality in Asian and Western Thought

Engaging Asian Philosophical traditions - why it is important to Philosophy

Methodology in Comparative Philosophy

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Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy Conference

Deakin University 10 -12 July 2017

Deakin Downtown Level 12, Tower 2, 727 Collins Street, Melbourne Victoria 300

Acknowledgement

We would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations, the traditional owners of the land on which we are gathered. We pay our respects to the local people for allowing us to have our gathering on their land and to their Elders: past, present and future.

Special Thanks To

The Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalization especially to Sandra Kingston, Arlene Pacheco, Sylviane Savanah and Kerry McEwin for their administrative support.Our postgraduate volunteers Sarah Wyld, Andy Kirkpatrick and Kane Simpson for their help at the conference.Professor Brenda Cherednichenko (The Faculty of Arts and Education Executive Dean) and Professor Matthew Clarke (Head of School, Humanities and Social Sciences) for their help and support.Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions. Springer Publishers and Bloomsbury Publishers. Quirin Press for assistance with the conference website and the typesetting.

About the Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (ASACP)

ASACP is a professional society of researchers and thinkers on the frameworks, ideas and approaches of different traditions in Asia. We believe that the Asian traditions of thought hold significant insights that continue to have contemporary relevance. We seek to explain these insights, and to engage with Western and continental European philosophical traditions so as to gain a richer and more diverse understanding of life, the earth, environment and spirituality.The ASACP is affiliated with the Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP) and has previously held conferences in conjunction with other academic societies and institutions, including the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (SACP), the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, and the International Society for Chinese Philosophy (ISCP). The ASACP is committed to holding biennial conferences. It also has a long-standing partnership with the peer-reviewed journal, Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions.Visit the ASACP website

ASACP 2017 Conference Organising Committee:

Dr Leesa S. Davis, Deakin University (chair)Dr Peter Wong, Sophia, International Journal of Philosophy and TraditionsDr Monima Chadha, Monash UniversityA/Prof Karyn Lai, University of New South Wales

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Keynote Address – Monday 10 July 10:30 – 12:00

Professor Jin Y. ParkAmerican University

Derrida and Buddhism: or “Learning to Live Finally”

The last interview Jacques Derrida ever gave appeared in Le Monde on August 19, 2004, two months before his death. A book entitled Apprendre à vivre enfin (Learning to Live Finally, 2005) is the result of that interview, which begins with a discussion of Derrida’s statement “I would like to learn to live, finally.” The phrase appears in his seminal work Spectres de Marx (Specters of Marx, 1993). It is noteworthy that Derrida’s first explicit engagement with Marxism begins with a seemingly apolitical question: how to learn to live. What would it mean to learn to live? And finally? I would like to consider this question while engaging both Derrida’s philosophy and Buddhist philosophy. Buddhism is an Asian religious philosophical tradition with a 2500-year history; Derrida is a 20th-century French philosopher. Why do we want to consider them together? What do they have in common, and how do they differ? What do the differences tell us about each tradition and about our theme? Comparative philosophy—which some people now prefer to call “intercultural philosophy”—is a mode of philosophizing through which we reconfirm fundamental issues shared in different traditions of thought as we seek a meaningful way to live.It is also a means of marking the boundaries of a philosophical tradition. Scholars have noted the similarity of worldview in Buddhism and in Derrida’s deconstruction. Buddhist concepts of dependent co-arising, emptiness, and logic of Catuṣkoṭi (four-cornered logic) have been compared to Derrida’s différance, trace, text, and so on. In this presentation, I will focus on Derrida’s last interview to explore what deconstruction, together with Buddhism, can teach us about being human and living with others in our politically and socially turbulentworld.

Respondent: Professor Jack Reynolds (Deakin University)

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THE 2 ND BIENNIAL Max Charlesworth Lecture

Professor Max Charlesworth, AO FAHA (1925-2014), was the Foundation Dean of the School of

The Second Biennial Max Charlesworth Lecture is also a keynote address for the 2017 Australasian

11 July 4.00 - 6.30 pm

Professor David R. LoyBesl Family Chair Professor of Ethics, Religion and Society - Xavier University (Retired)

“When I think of all the books I have read, and of the wise words I have heard spoken, and of the anxiety I have given to parents and grandparents, and of the hopes I have had, all life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens” (W. B. Yeats).

tends to happen, and what the alternative might be.

The event is free and all are welcome. leesa.davis@deakin.edu.au

Keynote Address – Tuesday 11 July 4:00 – 6:30Introduced by: Deakin Vice-Chancellor Professor Jane den Hollander AO

and Executive Dean Faculty of Arts Professor Brenda Cherednichenko

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Keynote Address – Wednesday 12 July 10:00 – 12:00

Professor John PowersDeakin University

Cross Cultural Philosophy at the Crossroads: “Where Do We Go From Here?”

Th e fi eld of comparative philosophy has made significant strides over the past several decades, but there is still a long way to go before it is recognised as part of the mainstream of philosophy and fully integrated into the curriculum of the major. Th is address will discuss some prominent fi gures who have denigrated comparative philosophy in the past and chart the trajectory of such ideas into the present. Concluding remarks will look at which strategies have proven eff ective in advancing the discipline and possible future directions.

Respondent: Professor Jay Garfi eld (Smith College) via SKYPE

Monday 10 July 3:30 – Presentation ofGraduate Essay Prize Winners

1st Prize: Jan Mihal (University of Melbourne)

Exploring How Avidyā Operates in Advaita Vedānta through Th e Model of Repression

2nd Prize: Songyao Ren (Duke University)

Th e Zhuangist Views on Emotions

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Abstracts (in alphabetical order)

Greg Bailey (La Trobe University)Is non-duality really important in ancient Indian thought?

The present paper has as its source the hugely influential Sanskrit epic the Mahābhārata and asks the question whether duality as a description of existence is more important than non-duality, and explores the implications of this for social behaviour. Whilst non-duality broadly understood as the conceptual grasping of an ontology of self (ātman/puruṣa) or non-self (nirātman, or per-haps śūnyatā) as the intuitive and undisputable sense of true existence and permanency in a world of constant movement or saṃsāra, to what extent did this influence those outside of the con-templative circles that propagated these ideas? Was the other side of duality, life in the world of society and obligations, regarded as more fundamental than an ontological and epistemological understanding of the permanent self ?

In the Mahābhārata ideas associated with non-duality are concentrated mainly in the third, fifth and twelfth books, but overwhelmingly emphasis throughout the rest of this huge text is placed on right conduct (sadācāra, samyagvṛtti) within the tight parameters of dharma or the ‘normative conduct within the world.’ It is on the viability of this conduct for upholding the dharmic construction of the world that philosophical and ethical argumentation seems to be so often placed, rather than on the ontological nature of the permanent self as designating some kind of condition beyond action.

Petra Brown (Deakin University)Moral education: overcoming the East-West divide

There has been a perceived division between Eastern and Western approaches to higher education, often viewed as a distinction between education understood as rote learning and education understood as critical thinking. The former has been viewed as growing out of traditional and restrictive Confucian values, the latter as emerging out of modern and liberating Enlightenment values. However, in recent years, education as critical thinking has also come under threat in the West due to marketization of the contemporary university, accompanied by a technocratic approach that views education as a utilitarian tool in service of economic ends.

This paper argues that Socratic (explored through Hannah Arendt) and Confucian approaches both challenge the contemporary technocratic approach to education. This paper looks at how these approaches can cross the binary divide between East-West divisions of education, to find common ground in a view of education that is more than driven by technocratic utilitarian ends, concluding that both Socratic and Confucian approaches to education foster moral development and a vision of personhood that provides an important critique of the modern global higher education institution.

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Adam Buben (Leiden University)Personal Immortality in Transhumanism and Ancient Indian Philosophy

Transhumanism has much in common with religion as traditionally conceived. James J. Hughes claims that “a variety of metaphysics appear to be compatible with one form of transhumanism or the other, from various Abrahamic views of the soul to Buddho-Hindu ideas of reincarnation to animist ideas.” Most notably, the range of technologically optimistic views held by transhumanists shares with many religions a longing for transcendence of our presently frail and limited situation. In contrast to the doctrines of many traditional religions, however, transhumanist salvation will not come from divine intervention, but solely from our own ingenuity. Thus, the prevailing view has been that transhumanism adopts and secularizes religious tropes, but is importantly hostile to many traditional religions. Nonetheless, there is a growing number of voices arguing that shared interests in elimination of suffering, immersion of individual minds in a universal intelligence, or remaking the universe itself, indicate that certain construals of transhumanism might actually be continuous with certain religious traditions. I focus on one common transhumanist goal—personal immortality—that seems inherently opposed to the core philosophical foundations of at least two major religions, which suggest that any yearning for extension of individual personalities will ultimately be problematic.

Heawon Choi (University of British Columbia)Nonduality in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism: Its Relation to Native Thought

My paper discusses nondualistic thinking as reflected in Chinese Buddhist thought during the Six Dynasties era (220–589), also called early medieval China. Buddhism, which was introduced into China around the first century CE, began to penetrate the mode of thinking and life of Chi-nese people during the Six Dynasties era. Buddhist doctrine and sutras were popularly accepted by Chinese literati of the time who noticed kinship between Buddhist and native ideas. The Chi-nese intellectuals were particularly interested in the Buddhist teaching of nonduality as explicated in Mahāyāna Buddhist literature, such as the Prajñāpāramitā sutras; the Buddhist teaching re-minded the Chinese of similar concepts found in their native philosophy. I examine the Buddhist concept of nonduality as understood and interpreted by early medieval Chinese Buddhists. In so doing, I address the ways in which the Chinese understood and explained Buddhist teaching in close relation to indigenous concepts. In addition, I show that the Chinese Buddhist discussion of nonduality led to the conclusion that emphasizes non-duality between conventional and ultimate truth and, further, that refutes the dualistic view distinguishing mundane from otherworldly life. I take this as reflecting the influence of a traditional Chinese worldview that values a life of reality and this world, thereby distinguished from Indian Buddhism and its worldview.

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John Claridge (Adelaide University)The transcendence of being: the transience, sensuality and power of human association.

Why do people laugh or cry? My initial answer – we are embodied in human relations and social situations. But, what gives us discharge from this view? In this paper I wish to explore the appar-ent, but false dichotomy between the situated existence of human beings and the “emptiness” and non-inherence of living. As a trained social anthropologist I am confronted by the fact that people believe in different realities. Just whose reality is correct? A misinformed question, as my realty is just as affirmational as yours, or anyone from a different culture. In response to this I explore the relationship between the concrete experience of living and its transcendence in given situations, including extreme illness and such mundane activities as going on a wine tour. This paper incorporates the Advaya interpretation regarding the nondualist position of conventional and ultimate truth in Madhyamaka Buddhism, but goes further in asking: how is the phenomena of being transcended in the emplacement of experience - the phenomenology of being (Casey 1996: 22).

References: Casey, Edward S. How to get from space to Place. In Senses of Place, S. Feld and K. Basso eds., pp. 4-13. New Mexico: School of American Research

Leesa S. Davis (Deakin University)The Live Word: Dynamics of Nonduality in Chan/Zen Buddhism

Chinese Chan Buddhism (and later Japanese Zen) is famous for iconoclastic teaching stories that are driven by the performative use of paradox and negation. For some scholars of Buddhism, Chan texts are examples of a kind of “anti-philosophy”- illogical at best and vague mystical utterances at worst. However, it is the contention of this paper that Chan discourse is grounded in the dynamic nondual philosophy of the Mahāyāna sutras and the Chan dialogues employ key Mahāyāna de-reifying and non-substantializing strategies.

Using select paradigmatic teacher-student exchanges this discussion explores the dynamics of paradox and negation in Chan’s teaching strategies and demonstrates how they are dynamically structured to experientially disclose “things as they are” (yathābhūtam) i.e., nondual (advaya). Seen in this light, the Chan teacher-student exchanges are dynamic attempts to experientially ignite nondual philosophical and spiritual understandings and are examples of philosophy in action.

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Aaron Grinter (PhD Candidate, Swinburne University)The Grand Titration: Contemporary Discussions of the Comparative Philosophy of Joseph Needham

The problem of integrating western and Asian thought has long been a hurdle for philosophy. Joseph Needham composed the most substantial contribution to solving this problem in 1954, Science and Civilisation in China. The multi-volume historiography (presently 27 volumes) rep-resents an awe-inspiring triumph of painstaking scholarship, and remains the most significant ef-fort to synthesise Chinese and western thought, systematically detailing 25 centuries of Chinese discovery in mathematics, physics, chemistry, technology, medicine, and metaphysics. As well as documenting Chinese history, his magnum opus asks a major question: “Why did modern sci-ence, the mathematization of hypotheses… with implications for advanced technology, take its meteoric rise only in the West?” Needham sought to uncover why, despite centuries of prolific discovery, China was overtaken by the west and, consequently, why Asian thought is seen to be antiquated in comparison? Though Needham was unable to answer this question, he nonetheless transformed the western perspective of Chinese science and thought and catalysed the apprecia-tion of Asian philosophy. The aim is to recapitulate Needham’s work and argue that what is re-quired in the present global situation is a re-appreciation of diverse cultures and the construction of a post-Eurocentric comparative philosophy with a greater appreciation for the biosphere.

GUAN Yinlin (PhD Candidate, University of Edinburgh) The methods of having the goodness of human being – Comparative study between Plato’s Timaeus and the Laozi

What is the goodness of human being to Plato and the Laozi? This question is tricky for both of them. Plato would say it is not relevant to the actions or decisions of human beings, nor health, wealth or any other external conditions, but the goodness of human being is only relevant if they aspire to become gods. There is, for sure, a turning point in Platonic philosophy from a philo-sophic and virtuous focus to a cosmological focus from dialogue to dialogue. In order to have the goodness of the human being, the rational soul of the tripartite soul needs to function in a well-ordered assimilation with the revolution of the heavens. The observation of the revolution of the heavens is the core for bringing a human being’s rational soul back to cognitive health from disturbance motions. For the Laozi however, it seems that the goodness of human being is like the function of the Dao. It bears common features of the Dao like no-desire, acting with the flow, and no artificial purpose oriented, human being should like the simplest life merely for the fulfil-ment of their basic functional needs away from extra desires. The reasons, in the text of the Laozi, for the fulfilment of the their basic functional needs are on the one hand acting like the Dao, on the other hand, having held the least desire/ no desire towards external goods, it is the best way to survey (觀 guan) what the Dao is and how the Dao functions. This in turn also affects on how human beings act in order to have the goodness of themselves.

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The methods of having the goodness for the human being are either the observation of the revo-lution of the heavens in Plato or survey (觀 guan) the Dao in the Laozi. In this chapter, I will examine the Timaeus with regard the relation between the observation of the heavens and the macro-micro analogue; and the concept of 觀 guan to survey in the Laozi. I will argue that there is profound relation between the goodness of human being and the observation of the cosmos and the Dao in order to become like god/ the Dao. Furthermore, I will also examine the concept of 觀 guan in the Laozi to argue that the method to learn, understand and emulate the Dao is by 觀 guan. I will do this by means of a close textual analysis of, reviewing historical commentaries on, and comparing and contrasting the concept of, 視 shi to see with, the concept of 觀 guan, and I will take it a step further by arguing that 觀 guan to survey is not simply a sensational perception but also involves the process of cognition, understanding, and formulating the knowledge of the sensational perception. Although both Plato and the Laozi take it for granted that the goodness of a human being should be finally to ‘become god-like/ the Dao’, but the targets are foundationally different in terms of ontological existence in that Plato holds dualist thought but the Laozi holds monist thought. That is to say, the rational soul eventually will go back to its own star without exceptions if it func-tions well and is well-ordered. It will run away from the mischievous body. However, the Laozi holds the belief that human beings will finally die without any condition, and the purpose of hav-ing/ emulating the function of the Dao is having longevity to hold the body as long as possible, not getting the body harmed from any external conditions.

Jarrod Hyam(PhD Candidate, University of Sydney)The Body Divine: Bauls of Bengal and Embodied Tantric Praxis

This essay presents an interdisciplinary analysis of psycho-physiological healing modalities among the Baul minstrels of West Bengal, India. Applying “Baul” as a designating term is itself controver-sial, as these minstrels form a non-systematic group of practitioners. Defying any singular philo-sophical or religious paradigm, Bauls are deeply interwoven with the Sahajiya tradition of West Bengal, India and Bangladesh. The Sahajiya milieu of Bengal illustrates a complex religious and cultural confluence, exhibiting philosophical continuity between the tantric Buddhist Mahasid-dhas of medieval northern India and modern Bengali Baul minstrels.

Applying a phenomenology of embodiment as developed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and modern theorists such as Natalie Depraz and Richard Shusterman, I offer a comparative phenomenologi-cal analysis of Baul tantric practices or sādhana. I refer to these practices as “somatic praxis,” as they are primarily focused on perfecting the body as a centre of sacred powers. This essay draws from both ethnographical fieldwork and textual studies to elucidate theories of embodiment and techniques of healing within the philosophical and religious contexts of these practices, which aim to invoke an ultimate realisation of non-duality, advaya, for practitioners.

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Gad C. Isay (Tel-Hai College, Israel)The Concentric Pattern in Kongzi’s Analects

The prevalence of centrality, the concentric pattern, or some other close equivalents of this pattern in the Chinese past have been long recognized. The association of this pattern, or its close equivalents, with Confucian religiosity has been also proposed. However, the prevalence of a concentric pattern in Kongzi’s Analects and its association with a sense of religiosity is yet to be explored. The present paper deals with that question. Occurrences of the concentric pattern are organized in the Analects in relationship to single persons, society, the general, and the universal. The levels indicate the existence of various centers. The various concentric patterns are parallel, or may be overlapping, others may be scattered. These levels, in turn, form a concentric pattern and, as shown in the paper, are more fundamental and genuine the closer they are to the core of the person. Successive levels are differentiated by degree and not by kind, thus excluding the supernatural while affirming non-duality. This analysis raises ques-tions such as: what distinguishes the center from the rings? How are center and rings related to one another? How do those graphic conditions translate into human concerns? How to explain the experience of religiosity within this context?

Jordan Jackson (Huazhong University of Science and Technology)The Dao and the Apeiron: Metaphysical Roots of Chinese and Greek Philosophy

Many scholars are reluctant to accept ancient Chinese and Greek thinking as belonging to the same tradition. They argue that the focus and method of investigation contributed to vastly different traditions, one being philosophy, the other being Chinese philosophy. In tracing these traditions back to their original thinkers, a strong comparison can be drawn between early Chinese metaphysical thinking and early Greek metaphysical thinking. Specifically, Anaxi-mander’s concept of the apeiron and Laozi’s concept of the Dao are two examples of strikingly similar metaphysical reasoning. From a historical perspective, both Anaximander and Laozi are the first to introduce thought-out metaphysical systems by applying metaphysical reasoning to non-metaphysical language. From a philosophical perspective, the Dao and apeiron serve simi-lar functions in the metaphysical theories of Laozi and Anaximander and acted as foundations for the development of Greek and Chinese metaphysics. In understanding both concepts from historical and philosophical perspectives, it is apparent that Chinese and Greek philosophy had similarities in their metaphysical roots, and their consequent developments should be thought of as divergence within a single tradition.

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Cullan Joyce (University of Divinity, Melbourne)Comparing Mindfulness and Traditions of Religious Meditation: Another Approach to the Question

I argue that mindfulness meditation implicitly critiques standard categories and concepts utilised within scholarship of religious meditation. Traditions engaging with religious meditation must therefore re-examine their approaches to meditative practice and experience. This paper explores the challenge posed by mindfulness studies and argues for a different approach to traditions of religious meditation.

I argue ‘Mindfulness meditation’ is a ‘non-theoretical’ tradition; its approach is not well ex-plained by designations used by recent scholarship. I cite three examples. Firstly, that scholarship on mysticism and religious experience presumed categories for describing inner experience such as mind and psyche which are absent from recent mindfulness studies.

Secondly, some scholars of mysticism engaged the role played by concepts and language. They considered whether experiences of ‘large-scale’ ‘objects’ such as God or of emptiness were concep-tual or non-conceptual. However, I argue that phenomena analogous to these processes occur in mindfulness meditation despite the absence of such ‘objects’.

Thirdly, James’ account of ‘Religious experience’ privileged experiences that were outliers or classified meditative effects. Neither of approaches engages with the results from mindfulness studies.

From these arguments I propose the necessity of taking different, more descriptive, approach to the examination of traditions of religious meditation.

Rajesh Kumar(National University of Singapore)Gandhi And The Means-End Question in Political Theory

Several works on Gandhi have underscored the centrality of the means in his theory. This con-ventional reading is inadequate for the following reasons. First, Gandhi views individuals as pur-posive beings, therefore, he would not deny the significance of the end. The ends are as important as the agent’s choice of means to realize them. Second, such views make Gandhi a ‘moralist’, one who would advance moral means for all human actions, including political ones. For Gandhi, however, the choice of means depended on the circumstances of actions. Third, such views fail to consider that Gandhi emphasized upon the ‘convertibility’ of means and ends. What I intend to show is that Gandhi understood the means-end question in ‘non-dual’ terms, and that this understanding grounds his influential critique of modern civilization. I show this by contrasting his views with that of J S Mill’s, whose consequentialism Gandhi rejected.

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Philip Martin (PhD Candidate, Macquarie University) No-Eye and No-Mind: The Critical Origins of Nondualist Aesthetic Embodiment in Nishida and Merleau-Ponty

One of the most influential approaches to phenomenological aesthetics is offered by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. By focusing on reorienting philosophical thought towards the primacy of the body, he develops a rich account of the relation of artistic expression to organic perception. Most interestingly, in his later works his conception of everyday embodiment becomes problematised and transformed such that the phenomenological conception of the world and its expressive re-lation to the mind become intermingled to the point of nonduality. A productive comparison can be made with Nishida Kitarō, whose systematic philosophy is built around using Buddhist concepts (particularly from Zen, Jōdōshinshū, and Kegon schools) to critically engage with Eu-ropean philosophy. This project is often most evident in Nishida’s writings on expression, art and perception, which develop an integrated logic of worldly embodiment. Nishida’s critiques of Kant and Hegel in particular anticipate many elements of the approach taken by Merleau-Ponty. This paper will analyse their resulting structural similarities, and the differences that emerge with them, with respect to philosophical aesthetics by examining the critical philosophical histories of sense perception (most centrally sight) that inform their accounts. While Merleau-Ponty deploys his embodied phenomenology in a critique of Cartesian optics, Nishida draws upon Buddhist concepts in a critical development of Neo-Kantian and Leibnizian understandings of sensible synthesis and expression. For both thinkers the result is, to a greater or lesser degree, a systematic nondualist philosophical aesthetics. However, they centre such understandings of aesthetic expe-rience on fundamentally different understandings of what ‘seeing’ might mean.

John R. Mercer (University of Tasmania)Non-theistic Zen as meta-theory: implications for the evolution of qualitative Human Scien-tific methodologies

Distinct from the quantified reductionism of the Natural Sciences, the Human Sciences explicitly approach the tacit, embodied, unquantifiable realities of the lived human condition, using theories and methods from phenomenology, hermeneutics and heuristics. However, due to constraints of their dualistic underpinnings, these systems remain largely unable to transcend the limitations of languicised textual forms. Consequently, they struggle for authentic and intimate access to phenom-enal objects and processes. In contrast, this presentation introduces non-theistic Zen as a non-dual philosophical system of embodied phenomenological praxis, with its own hermeneutic phenomenological processes en-coded and transmitted in embodied forms of text. Non-theistic Zen constitutes a meta-theoretical foundation for an entirely alternative heuristic hermeneutic phenomenology based on ‘no-self ’ and ‘nothingness’, with a capacity to engage and interpret embodied textual forms, while mitigating the contamination of a ‘self ’ in first-hand experiential research. This potentially makes methodically rigorous inquiry into lived, embodied phenomena, available for Human Scientific analysis. By open-ing an explicit, contrasting tension between the non-dual meta-theory of non-theistic Zen, and the western phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions, comparative philosophy potentially offers a radical conceptual evolution for qualitative Human Scientific research methodologies.

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Jan Mihal (PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne)Exploring How Avidyā Operates in Advaita Vedānta Through the Model of Repression

Advaita Vedānta1 holds that the self is non-dual and that it is one infinite consciousness. In this essay I will explore how exactly this account is held to work and the specific role avidyā plays in this arrangement. In Part I, I will offer an explication of the Advaita view of self. This will not be an argument for the position as much as it will be an exploration of textual sources and the account of self that they articulate. I will then, in Parts II and III, examine the notion of avidyā specifically and the role it plays in accounting for the appearance of multiple selves where there is, in fact, only one. An issue appears: the intuitive notion of ignorance as an effect of erroneous per-ception must be reconciled with the role of avidyā as cause of erroneous perception, of illusion. To make the unintuitive notion that ignorance can cause illusion more plausible, I introduce in Part IV the “Model of Repression.” This is a heuristic model for bridging the intuitive gap between commonsense ignorance and avidyā. I will then evaluate my model and some of the similarities between itself and traditional Advaita.

Joseph S. O’Leary (Tokyo, Independent Scholar)Hegel and Nonduality

The position Hegel attains at the end of the Phenomenology is one of freedom, complete integration and self-sufficiency, and a final simplicity and restored immediacy or “suchness” (as in Bud-dhist tathatâ) in which all dualisms are overcome. Hegel’s penetrating wisdom is sustained and guided by a spiritual instinct that merits close critical assessment from a Buddhist angle. Such a Buddhist reading would also study the development of Hegel’s quest of nonduality from its origins in the early enthusiasm shared with his fellow-students Schelling and Hölderlin. In the process it could enable a deeper Western philosophical grasp of what Buddhists means by their often puzzling talk of nonduality. Looking at the very first dialectical exercise in the Phenomenology, in the chapter on “sense certainty,” we find many leads for a Buddhist commentary on this great work. I shall focus first on the desire for immediacy and security that drives the reflection, second on the way the re-flection weans one away from clinging to illusory certitudes, in painful realization of constantly recurring dualisms, and third on the way the initial desire is changed as a result (in this case from empirical particularity to conceptual generality), as it will again and again be transformed and enriched until at last it finds the fulfilment commensurate with its authentic scope.

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Guy Petterson (University of Melbourne)We Believe We Know What Comparison Is

“Wir glauben zu wissen, was das ist: das Vergleichen.” This statement is one of the starting points for the discussion of comparison in Heidegger’s preliminary notes for the lecture course Introduction to Philosophy: Thinking and Poetizing (1944/45), a course that sets out to develop a comparison of thinking and poetizing, or philosophy and poetry. We may believe we know what comparison is, especially in the field of comparative philosophy, but is this really the case? The preliminary considerations for the lecture course (“Thinking and Poetizing: Considerations on the Lecture”) provide some of the clearest expressions of Heidegger’s thinking about the nature of compari-son and its significance for philosophy. In this paper I will explore Heidegger’s thinking about comparison in conjunction with various ideas of comparison arising in the Indian tradition, in fields such as Sanskrit grammar and poetics, and in some of the schools of Indian philosophy which accept comparison as a distinct way of knowing. Comparison remains a relatively under-explored idea in studies of Indian philosophy, and perhaps elsewhere, but is of critical signifi-cance for engaging the problems of comparative philosophy in a more philosophical way.

Christopher Pollard (Deakin University)Zen meditation: Critical Reflections from an Embodied Phenomenological Perspective

Embodied phenomenology and Zen Buddhism share a conviction that, in deepening our un-derstanding of lived experience, we deepen our understanding of human existence. However, despite many fruitful points of contact between the two approaches, there are some fundamental differences. These differences can be focused by considering the question of the epistemologi-cal and metaphysical significance attributable to meditative practice. In this paper I explore this question through a critical examination of two interconnected themes that underpin the Zen Buddhist view: the account of the nature suffering and the account of the nature of ‘discursive thinking’. I argue that, although phenomenologists can agree with claims concerning a variety of benefits and insights derivable from sitting meditation, they will baulk at the idea that meditational experience allows you to, in Dogen’s words, ‘grasp things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water’. From the phenomenological perspec-tive the attribution of a special epistemological status to meditation will be seen as being based on a pre-existent commitment to a Buddhist ontology, with its accompanying soteriological trajectory. As such, this commitment will be viewed as deriving from the hermeneutical context of meditative practice, as opposed to being groundable in lived experience, as Zen practitioners customarily hold, and as ontological claims ought to be according to the phenomenological method.

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Sahanika Ratnayake (Australia National University)Paradigmatic Examples and Metaphysics: The role of examples in Buddhist and Western Analytic Metaphysics.

I argue that the use of seemingly ‘innocent’ examples when theorising about metaphysics is more loaded, or theoretically laden, than it first appears in that certain paradigmatic examples are sug-gestive of particular metaphysical questions over others. On the Buddhist side one finds recurring examples of fire, seeds sprouting, the building of houses etc. On the Western analytic side, you find Bertrand Russell peering around his office talking about tables, you find Michael Devitt and his realism about “middle sized objects” and even those who are sceptical of traditional metaphysics such as Amie Thomasson, focus on “ordinary objects”. The Western tradition appears to have a preference for examples of objects or entities whereas the Buddhist appeal to processes based examples. These examples are generally used in an attempt to make another point or as motivating the meta-physical project itself. However, the characteristic choices in examples themselves bring different metaphysical questions to the fore. For instance, examples of objects are suggestive of questions of individuation and identity due to their seemingly clear boundaries in a way that process based examples are not. This is significant particularly for contemporary Western metaphysics as these questions are taken to be substantive. We might think instead that the questions have their roots in earlier, unexpected places and assumptions, as evidenced by the characteristic examples of each tradition.

Songyao Ren (PhD Candidate, Duke University)The Zhuangist Views on Emotions

In this paper, I will put forward an interpretation of the emotional life of the wise person for the Zhuangists. Due to the heterogeneity of the text, my interpretation will only be one among many. However, I will argue that this interpretation not only forms a coherent picture with the Zhuangists’ other views such as pluralism, the good life and the self, but also is interesting philosophically for its own sake. In particular, I will argue that the Zhuangists advocate a kind of emotional equanimity characterized by unperturbed ease and joy. They see this emotional equanimity as essential for leading a good life, one in which one does not confine oneself to a particular value framework, but wanders about and explores different possibilities to fulfill the plurality of values through the world’s endless transformation.

In what follows, I will first provide an overview of the scholarly debate on this issue and un-veil the disconcerting disagreement that underlies it. Then, I will survey some passages in the Zhuangzi and sketch my interpretation of the Zhuangist views on emotions. Finally, I will exam-ine the theoretical foundation for this interpretation by referencing the Zhuangist pluralism and their conception of the good life.

18

David Rowe (Deakin University)Nietzsche and the (Buddhist) non-self

Nietzsche is a proponent of western non-dualist thought. He has Zarathustra tell us that ‘soul is just a word for something on the body’. That Nietzsche is a non-dualist (at least, a non-substance-dualist) is (arguably) uncontroversial and thereby uninteresting. More interesting is the extent to which themes from Indian thought have either directly or indirectly affected Nietzsche’s concep-tion of the self. His views, however, are conflicting. On the one hand, he portrays a conception of an enduring self, one which has a diachronic identity and cultivates itself through a kind of self-mastery. On the other hand, however, he portrays the self as non-existent (or a non-self ), made up of only drives, instincts and affects. These seemingly contradictory natures of the self can be reconciled, I argue, by understanding them as adhering to different standards. The non-self view adheres to the descriptive facts of what the self actually is, whereas the enduring self appeals to a norm, namely the norm that the strong individual ought to create herself as an enduring self. By recognizing these two different standards Nietzsche is able to overcome the nihilism he supposes is inherent in Buddhism, in part due to its acceptance of the non-self.

Matthew Sharpe (Deakin University)What does the Sage Know? In a conference in Taiwan some years ago, in a session on Confucianism, a questioner from the floor expressed the notion that the Confucian questioning concerning the Sage was completely foreign to Western thought. Recent research on classical philosophy by students of Pierre Hadot’s has called this claim into question. All of the ancient philosophical schools, it shows, conducted discourses around “the constancy of the sage” (Seneca) or his other virtues. In this paper, I want to look in particular at the Stoic discourses around the sage, and what attributes and qualities are attributed to him. The paper will open and close with reflections on comparative philosophy, and the role that reunderstanding classical philosophy as a way of life may play in future work negoti-ating between Eastern and Western tradition.

Koji Tanaka (Australian National University)The Catuṣkoṭi Is Not A Logical Principle

Many Buddhist texts appeal to the Catuṣkoṭi (four-corners) as the main form of argumentation and reasoning. They consider not two but four possibilities: true, false, true and false, neither true nor false. Buddhist scholars have recently started to formalise the mechanism that must be behind the Catuṣkoṭi in terms of modern logic. In so doing, they have identified the Catuṣkoṭi as a logical principle. Priest claims that ‘the Catuṣkoṭi is a venerable principle in Buddhist logic’. Gar-field praises the Catuṣkoṭi as the highest logical achievement by Buddhist philosophers. While Buddhists have developed a rigorous tradition of investigating the logical principles underlying rational argumentation and reasoning, the Catuṣkoṭi is not part of this development. In this paper, I will show that the Catuṣkoṭi is not a logical principle and that formalising it in terms of modern logic should not be considered as part of Buddhist logic.

19

Sonam Thakchoe (University of Tasmania)On the Problem of Necessary Connection in Mental Causation: Vasubandhu, Nāgārjuna and Hume, A Reply to Siderits

Does mental causation require ultimately direct and necessary causal connection between a pre-vious consciousness-event and a subsequent consciousness-event? If the answer is affirmative, then how is this possible? If the answer is negative how is mental causation possible? In his article: “Causation ‘Humean’ Causation and Emptiness”, Mark Siderits claims the Sautrāntika-Vasubandhu is Humean about causation insofar as both understand causation is just a matter of constant conjunction and both reject necessary connection. I beg to differ. I think they both take necessary connection very seriously. Therefore, I will instead argue that the Sautrāntika-Vasubandhu truly beliefs in necessary connection in mental causation, even though he may have a real challenge in showing how such a direct and necessary causal relation is possible between momentarily occurrent tropes or dharmas of any two immediately consecutive moments of cog-nition. I will claim Hume’s approach to causation is more compatible with Nāgārjuna’s argu-ing to the effect that, like Nāgārjuna, Hume denies necessary connection ultimately, and like Nāgārjuna, Hume advances necessary connection in mental causation as customary truth.

Eiichi TosakiPiet Mondrian and the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness

Dutch painter, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), was emblematic of European modernist art with his geometric non-figurative painting. Mondrian’s Neo-plastic canvases seem rigid and mathematical, coolly composed of black grids blocked in with flat primary colour. The initial impression is typically of somewhat mechanical imagery. However, on closer inspection these same canvases are dynamic and can elicit a sense of rhythm. Neo-plasticism (1917-1944) was a rule-bound creative activity: strictly primary colours, with black, grey, and white, and dissected by straight lines only. Neo-plasticism was against pictorial-space, against repetition and, surprisingly, disparaged any refer-ence to forms or shapes. Elimination of those basic elements of Western painting demonstrates Mondrian’s antipathy towards conventional European painting. His abstract art is a philosophical realization [manifestation?] of his thinking and artistic practice, and represents a deconstruction of the conventions of European painting.In my thinking, Mondrian’s canvases touch upon the concept of ‘emptiness’ in terms of Buddhist un-derstanding of that term. According to this observation, Mondrian’s neoplastic doctrine penetrates the European convention of time and space, and closely aligns with Asian philosophical thinking: Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Mondrian, although ultimately against the Christian tradi-tion later in his life, had a limited understanding of Buddhist ideas, having been brought up in a strict Calvinist family.This paper will investigate the legitimacy of Mondrian’s painting philosophy, drawing from my own investigations of the expression of rhythm in visual art, East and West. Mondrian’s think-ing had a tendency toward mystification (via Theosophy), which results in his rather esoteric theory of visual rhythm, based on non-repetition and non-sequential time. This paper also intro-duces material in a recent Springer publication (in press) titled “Mondrian’s Philosophy of Visual Rhythm - Phenomenology, Wittgenstein, and Eastern thought”.

20

Philippe Turenne (Kathmandu University)Comparative philosophy/theology: On the methodological importance of addressing religious aspects of Buddhist philosophy, and how to do that

Partly in view of the legitimate and important objective of convincing philosophers of the importance of studying non-Western traditions, comparative studies of Buddhist thought have proceeded along the lines of a comparative philosophy that, more than often based on different takes on philosophical problems and rational reconstruction, have erased some aspects of Bud-dhist philosophy. This presentation will draw from recent works in comparative to argue that a meaningful, “deep” conversation with Buddhist thought needs to include aspects of Buddhist thought that may at first not seem like they belong to philosophy. In short, a real conversation between Western and Buddhist philosophy needs to acknowledge that these two traditions do not share an exactly common notion of what philosophy is, where religious or theological elements belong in relation to philosophy, and a rigorous reflexive effort to address those differences.

Qingjie James Wang(Chinese University of Hong Kong)The Debate on Kongfuzi: “Manufactured” or not ?

Lionel M. Jensen once told us that Western understandings of “Confucianism” differ significant-ly from the original Chinese ideas they claim to represent. Jensen then took this a rather shocking step further, claiming that even Kongzi’s 孔子 additional Chinese designation of “Kong Fuzi” 孔夫子 on which the Latinization “Confucius” is based scarcely existed prior to Matteo Ricci’s (1552–1610) arrival in China. These terms, Jensen says, were entirely “manufactured” by Ricci and other Western Jesuit missionaries.This paper will not delve into the entirety of the views put forth in Jensen’s work. My aim is limited in asserting a simple historical fact that long before the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in the late Ming dynasty, Chinese texts from historical records to literature—and even including the Con-fucian classics that Jensen claims to have checked exhaustively—include numerous instances of the use of the appellation Kong Fuzi. From my own preliminary gathering and examination of resources, the earliest records in Chinese of the term “Kong Fuzi” can be traced at least back to the early Tang dynasty, over 700 years before Ricci came to China. All on its own, this is more than enough to prove Jensen’s claim that the Jesuits “created” and “manufactured” the term to be overly hasty, contestable or even fundamentally flawed.

21

Peter Wong (Sophia Journal)On the Cultivation of Sympathy in Promoting Understanding between Diverse Religious Traditions

The paper begins with a somewhat unconventional interpretation of Mencius on the cultivation of bravery which concludes with a sceptical view on the use of method in deliberately cultivat-ing bravery. The upshot of my reading of Mencius is that with regard to cultivation, there are no shortcuts, there are no “methods,” there is only the gradual deepening of openness and sensitivity under ever-widening circumstances, paying constant attention to the arising of one’s emergent feelings of sympathy, shame, deference, and discrimination.

My suggestion is that Mencius’ approach to moral cultivation could be adopted with regard to the encounter of religious traditions very different from one’s own. The Western default of intel-lectual engagement in resolving differences between religious traditions according to beliefs and doctrines is insufficient in bridging the gulf across certain religious and philosophical divides. Attempts at development of universal frameworks or principles in understanding the unfamiliar might be counterproductive and distorting of what is valuable in the one encountered. What is needed is an attitude of sympathetic engagement, one that pays close attention to what is similar and different in a manner that fully engages our religious, moral and intellectual sensibilities.

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A S A C P C O N F E R E N C E 2 0 1 7 T I M E T A b L E