Deconstruction and the Ethical in Asian Thought / Edition 1

by Youru Wang

Overview

The striking parallels between Derrida's deconstruction and certain strategies eschewing oppositional hierarchies in Asian thought, especially in Buddhism and Daoism, have attracted much attention from scholars of both Western and Asian philosophy. This book contributes to this discussion by focusing on the ethical dimension and function of deconstruction in Asian thought.

Examining different traditions and schools of Asian thought, including Indian Buddhism, Zen, other schools of East Asian Buddhism, the Kyoto School, and Daoism, the contributors explore the central theme from different contexts and different angles. Insights and notions from the contemporary discussion of Derridean deconstruction and its ethic or Derridean-Levinasian ethic as a paradigm for comparison or interpretation are used as a framework.

Furthering our understanding of the relationship between deconstruction and the ethical in Asian traditions, this book also enriches the contemporary ethical discourse from a global perspective by bridging Asia and the West.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415770163
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/23/2007
Series:	Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and Philosophy
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Youru Wang is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, and Coordinator of Asian Studies at Rowan University, Glassboro, USA. His areas of speciality include Chinese Buddhist and early Daoist thought. He is the author of Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism: The Other Way of Speaking, also published by Routledge (2003).

Table of Contents

Introduction Part 1: Ethical Dimension and Deconstruction of Normative Ethics in Asian Traditions 1. Dismantling Normativity in Indian Ethics - From Vedic Altarity to the Gita's Alterity 2. Deconstruction, Aporia and Justice in Nagarjuna's Empty Ethics 3. Zhuangzi's Ethics of Deconstructing Moralistic Self-Imprisonment: Standards without Standards 4. Deconstructing Karma and the Aporia of the Ethical in Hongzhou Chan Buddhism 5. The Ethics of Being and Non-Being: Confucian Contestations on Human Nature (Xing) in Late Imperial China 6. Lacking Ethics 7. The Ethical and the Non-Ethical: Nishida's Methodic Subversion Part 2: Similarities and Differences between Derridean-Levinasian and Asian Ethical Thought 8. Ethics and the Subversion of Conceptual Reification in Levinas and Santideva 9. Levinas and Laozi on the Deconstruction of Ethics 10. Hongzhou Chan Buddhism, and Derrida Late and Early: Justice, Ethics, and Karma 11. Transgression and Ethics of Tension: Wonhyo and Derrida on Institutional Authority 12. The Ethics of Attainment: The Meaning of the Ethical in Dogen and Derrida