Connie Kassor – Why Can’t Mādhyamikas Finish What They Started? An exploration of awakened awareness (ye shes)

Prof. Connie Kassor

Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Lawrence University

Why Can’t Mādhyamikas Finish What They Started?
An exploration of awakened awareness (ye shes)

The Philosophy of Religions Workshop is excited to host Prof. Connie Kassor of Lawrence University, who will be presenting on a portion of her upcoming book Accounting for Awakened Awareness: The Madhyamaka Philosophy of Gorampa Sonam Senge (linked below).  Prof. Kassor summarizes the topic of the workshop as follows:

“What I’m exploring here is the nature of a fully awakened buddha’s awareness (ye shes, jñāna). According to Gorampa, a fully awakened being’s mind can be understood from two perspectives: From a Buddha’s own perspective (rang snang), conventional phenomena do not appear. But from the perspective of others (gzhan snang), it can be said that conventional appearances do exist for a Buddha. This is a strange and seemingly unsatisfying position that has puzzled me for some time.
I think that Gorampa arrives at this position for three reasons: first, he is thoroughly committed to a logically coherent and consistent system of thought; second, he is committed to reading Candrakīrti as literally as possible; and third, he finds the position on this matter put forth by his philosophical opponent Tsongkhapa unsatisfactory.
What I am puzzling over — and what I hope we can discuss together — is why Gorampa arrives at this position. Might there be some other, more satisfying way that someone like Gorampa can successfully refute Tsongkhapa while also remaining faithful to Candrakīrti and to Madhyamaka systems of logic and reasoning?
What follows is largely informed by the Synopsis of Madhyamaka (dbu ma’i spyi don), Gorampa’s longest and most detailed Madhyamaka text. This text describes Madhyamaka in terms of the basis (gzhi) that is to be understood, Madhyamaka in terms of the path (lam) that is to be practiced, and Madhyamaka in terms of the result (‘bras bu) that is to be realized. Gorampa’s investigations into the nature of an awakened being’s mind occur in the final Result section.”

This workshop will focus on a pre-circulated paper (contact the Workshop for the password if you plan to attend) and will be largely discussion-based. We hope to see you there!

TOMORROW, April 14th, 12:30 PM, Swift 201

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

_____________

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and incl usive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators Danica Cao (ddcao@uchicago.edu), Audrey Guilbault (audreyrg@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

Zhuangzi at Play

Prof. Pauline Lee
Associate Professor, Chinese Thought and Cultures
Saint Louis University

Respondent: Prof. Haun Saussy
University Professor, East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Committee on Social Thought
Prof. Lee will be presenting selections from her monograph project Play in China: The Trifling, the Wicked, and the Sacred.  The paper can be read ahead here, and the event will be largely discussion-based.  We hope to see you there!
February 21st, 2023, 12:30PM CT – Swift Hall, Room 200

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

_____________

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators Danica Cao (ddcao@uchicago.edu), Audrey Guilbault (rguilbault@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

The Yijing (易经) and Cybernetics : From Leibniz’s Xiantian tu (先天图) to Wiener’s Bergsonism

Yeti Kang

PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions, UChicago Divinity School

Respondent: Elvin Meng

PhD Student, Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Civilizations, UChicago

The Yijing (易经) and Cybernetics : From Leibniz’s Xiantian tu (先天图) to Wiener’s Bergsonism

When Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz firstsent his paper on binary arithmetic to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1701, the Academy advised him not to publish it until he had found “better samples” to demonstrate the usefulness of his binary system. What Leibniz eventually added into his paper was a detailed account of the connection between the Yijing (易经) tri/hexagram or gua (卦) system and his binary arithmetic, based on the Xiantian tu (先天图) he received from the Jesuit missionary Joachim Bouvet (白晋). Such connection, as Leibniz suggests, not only reflects the universal applicability and metaphysical importance of his binary system, but also indicates the possibility of using Chinese writing as a sample for universal characteristic. Modern scholars tend to think Leibniz’s use of the Yijing as a strategic move, which proves at best a formal analogy between binary arithmetic and the Yijing system, and at worst a “Chinese prejudice” or “European hallucination.” In contrast, this paper argues that Leibniz’s reading reveals some profound connections and differences between the two systems at both the metaphysical and cosmo-technological levels.

 

To demonstrate these connections and differences, this paper compares the application of the Yijing tri/hexagrams and binary arithmetic in their cosmo-technological systems, i.e., in the Yijing divination and cybernetics. Based on the reading of Norbert Wiener’s account of cybernetic automaton and the divination system of the Yijing explicated in the Xici zhuan (系辞传), this paper outlines a recursive cosmic system in the Yijing, which not only shares certain logical and arithmetic premises with cybernetic mechanism, but also unifies the recursive system with the idea of sheng sheng (生生). However, beneath the recursive structure shared by cybernetics and the Yijing lies a fundamental divergency in their views towards the mechanism-organism relationship. Such difference leads to two radically different answers to Henri Bergson’s question about mechanism and moral mysticism. Through the journey of comparisons, this paper tries to answer two central questions: How do the two systems with strong similarities at the formal and structural levels end up producing two very different cosmo-technological and socio-ethical practices? How would the encounter of these two cosmo-technologies in the modern West shed new light on the discussions of mechanism/computationalism and moral mysticism in our information age?

This workshop will focus on a pre-circulated paper and will be largely discussion-based. We hope to see you there!

February 14th, 12:30 PM, Swift 200

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

_____________

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators Danica Cao (ddcao@uchicago.edu), Audrey Guilbault (rguilbault@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

Fulfilment of Fate as Zhuangzian Freedom

Luyao Li
PhD candidate, Chinese Philosophy, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)
Visiting Student, University of Chicago Divinity School
Fulfilment of Fate as Zhuangzian Freedom
ABSTRACT: Freedom, as a prominent theme in Zhuangzi’s philosophy, attracts much attention from scholars.  Although the term has a broad and rich meaning, it could be understood primarily as a matter of overcoming constraints. In the pursuit of Zhuangzian freedom, fate exerts as an avoidable constraint, which is given by Heaven and out of human control. In this paper, I focus on the influences of constraints of fate on freedom and how to overcome it in the Zhuangzi. I will first argue that mingding lun 命定论, in the form of either fatalism or determinism fails to explain it because Zhuangzi always encourages people to think outside the box and change a default behavior pattern. Contentment with/acceptance of fate (anming lun 安命论), another popular theory, is merely workable when fate has already come upon us, but is inadequate to get us well-prepared before fate arrives. I then propose to use fulfillment of fate (zhiming lun 致命论) as a supplement to “contentment with fate” in Zhuangzian freedom, which is a recurring point, directly or indirectly in the Zhuangzi. Finally, I will further illustrate the way to fulfill one’s fate. It is different from working within the limits of fate and realizing it to the ultimate as argued by Guo Xiang, because it is similar to working without/with constraints in the assumption that we know the constraints in advance. Nevertheless, fate is unpredictable in the Zhuangzi. People are aware of it merely when fate comes or in other words when we arrive at the boundary of fate. Fulfillment of fate suggests following one’s virtuosities and trying one’s best to achieve fate’s limitation.

This workshop will be involve a presentation and discussion of Luyao‘s paper, the abstract of which is above. There will be no materials to read ahead, and anyone interested is invited to participate.  We hope to see you there!

Tuesday, January 17th, 12:30 PM, Swift 200

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

_____________

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators Danica Cao (ddcao@uchicago.edu), Audrey Guilbault (rguilbault@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

An Edifying Conversation between Early Chinese Conception of Relationality and the Radical Empiricism of William James

Yunqi Zhang

PhD Student, Philosophy, Peking University

An Edifying Conversation between Early Chinese Conception of Relationality and the Radical Empiricism of William James
In William James’ radical empiricism, he employs “experience” as a relational notion as an attempt to overcome the subject-object dualism, which in many ways differ from the mainstream use of the term. This cause difficulty in understanding James’ radical empiricism. On the other hand, a distinctive characteristic of early Chinese thinking is its understanding of existence as based on interaction, and understanding determination of things as emergent in such interaction. This relational thinking structure may help us better understand James’ notion of the “context of experience.” Through this comparison we might be able to better understand the continuity and complexity of the content of the human experience, and to also celebrate the capacity of human beings to optimize the creative possibilities of this experience to live significant lives.

This workshop will focus on a pre-circulated paper and will be largely discussion-based. Email one of the coordinators below for the password. We hope to see you there!

November 30th, 12:00 PM, Swift 201

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

_____________

The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators Danica Cao (ddcao@uchicago.edu), Audrey Guilbault (audreyrg@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

Between Self and No-Self: Some Phenomenological Considerations

Friday, December 3rd – 4:30PM
 
Prof. David W. Johnson
 
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Boston College
Between Self and No-Self: Some Phenomenological Considerations
The Philosophy of Religions Workshop is pleased to host Prof. David W. Johnson of Boston College, a renowned scholar of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and modern Japanese philosophy.  Prof. Johnson will be presenting an ongoing project he plans to give as a talk at a conference next year, the draft of which is attached below.  The talk concerns the No-Self idea in Buddhist thought, attempting “to show how it may be possible
to reconcile the reality of the self with a particular interpretation of the no-self doctrine.”
Prof. Johnson will be presenting an abridged, extemporized version of the talk presented in the draft, and then leading a discussion on the issues at hand with the second half of our time.  He is interested to hear especially from scholars of Buddhist philosophy who may be able to enrich and refine his engagement with those materials.  Reading the draft (attached below) before the presentation and discussion is encouraged, but not necessary for attendance.
_____________
The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop.  Please contact Workshop Coordinators John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) or Tyler Neenan (tjneenan@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.