The Penumbra Unbound

by Ziporyn, Brook

• ISBN13: 9780791456613
• ISBN10: 0791456617
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

The Penumbra Unbound is the first English language book-length study of the Neo-Taoist thinker Guo Xiang (d. 312 C.E.), commentator on the classic Taoist text, the Zhuangzi. The author explores Guo's philosophy of freedom and spontaneity, explains its coherence and importance, and shows its influence on later Chinese philosophy, particularly Chan Buddhism. The implications of his thought on freedom versus determinism are also considered in comparison to several positions advanced in the history of Western philosophy, notably those of Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Hegel. Guo's thought reinterprets the classical pronouncements about the Tao so that it in no way signifies any kind of metaphysical absolute underlying appearances, but rather means literally "nothing." This absence of anything beyond appearances is the first premise in Guo's development of a theory of radical freedom, one in which all phenomenal things are "self-so, " creating and transforming themselves without depending on any justification beyond their own temporary being.

Author Biography

Brook Ziporyn is Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Northwestern University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
PART I
Introduction	3	(2)
The Classical Chinese Philosophical Background	5	(12)
An Overview of Guo Xiang's Philosophical Project	17	(6)
The Problem of Spontaneity and Morality in Earlier Xuanxue	23	(8)
Guo's Solution: The Image of Traces	31	(20)
The Dangers of Traces	51	(14)
PART II
Interactivity Without Traces: ``Vanishing (Into) Things''	65	(20)
The Unification of Independence and Interdependence	85	(14)
PART III
Lone-Transformation	99	(26)
The Unity of Activity and Nonactivity	125	(18)
Appendix A Guo Xiang's Use of the Term Xing: The Inherency of Change and the Confluence of Chance, Freedom, and Necessity in the Notion of the Self-So	143	(6)
Appendix B Comparative Notes on Freedom and Determinism	149	(12)
Notes	161	(18)
Bibliography	179	(4)
Index	183