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What Can't be Said: Paradox and Contradiction in East Asian Thought

Online ISBN:
9780197526217
Print ISBN:
9780197526187
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

What Can't be Said: Paradox and Contradiction in East Asian Thought

Yasuo Deguchi,
Yasuo Deguchi
Professor of Philosophy and Director of Center for Applied Philosophy & Ethics in the Graduate School of Letters, Vice Provost, and Deputy Executive Vice-President, Kyoto University
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Jay L. Garfield,
Jay L. Garfield
Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Buddhist Studies, Smith College
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Graham Priest,
Graham Priest
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Graduate Center, City University of New York
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Robert H. Sharf
Robert H. Sharf
D. H. Chen Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Berkeley
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Published online:
18 February 2021
Published in print:
8 April 2021
Online ISBN:
9780197526217
Print ISBN:
9780197526187
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Paradox drives a good deal of philosophy in every tradition. In the Indian and Western traditions, there is a tendency among many (but not all) philosophers to run from contradiction and paradox. If and when a contradiction appears in a theory, it is regarded as a sure sign that something has gone amiss. This aversion to paradox commits them, knowingly or not, to the view that reality must be consistent. In East Asia, however, philosophers have reacted to paradox differently. Many East Asian philosophers—both in the Daoist and the Buddhist traditions—have openly embraced paradox. They have taken compelling arguments for contradictory positions to suggest that the world is—at least in some respects, and often in very deep respects—inconsistent, and that our best theories of the world will therefore be inconsistent. This book is an initial survey of the writings of some influential East Asian thinkers who were committed to paradox, and for good reason. Their acceptance of contradiction allowed them to develop important insights that evaded those who consider paradox out of bounds.

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