ABSTRACT
As the first systematic attempt to probe the linguistic strategies of Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism, this book investigates three areas: deconstructive strategy, liminology of language, and indirect communication. It bases these investigations on the critical examination of original texts, placing them strictly within soteriological contexts. Whilst focusing on language use, the study also reveals some important truths about these two traditions and challenges many conventional understandings of them. Responding to recent critiques of Daoist and Chan Buddhist thought, it brings these two traditions into a constructive dialogue with contemporary philosophical reflection. It discovers Zhuangzian and Chan perspectives and sheds light on issues such as the relationship between philosophy and non-philosophy, de-reification of words, relativising the limit of language, structure of indirect communication, and use of paradox, tautology and poetic language.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |16 pages
Introduction
part |64 pages
Deconstruction in The Zhuangzi and in Chan Buddhism
chapter |11 pages
Understanding Deconstruction Through the Zhuangzi and Chan
chapter |22 pages
Zhuangzi's Dao Deconstructs … and Zhuangzi Deconstructs his Dao
chapter |29 pages
The Deconstruction of Buddha Nature in Chan Buddhism
part |41 pages
The Liminology of Language in the Zhuangzi and in Chan Buddhism
chapter |12 pages
What is a Liminology of Language?
chapter |14 pages
Zhuangzi's Liminology of “Speaking Non-Speaking”
chapter |13 pages
The Chan Contribution to the Liminology of Language
part |64 pages
Pragmatics of Indirect Communication in the Zhuangzi and in Chan Buddhism