Brook Ziporyn | University of Chicago (original) (raw)
Papers by Brook Ziporyn
Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 2014
The idea of a nous as arche, of a single purposive rational mind that creates the world or otherw... more The idea of a nous as arche, of a single purposive rational mind that creates the world or otherwise accounts for the world being as it is, has dominated most Western thought in one form or another since it was proposed by Plato, quoting Socrates, quoting Anaxagoras, in the Phaedo, particularly in the form given it in monotheist religions and theologies and, less explicitly but still powerfully, in their secular aftermaths. Each of the dominant traditions in pre-modern China is however “God-less” in the sense of lacking just this conception. This article takes a look at the forms of God-less religiousness developed in these traditions, as a way of recovering some of the ethical and epistemological alternatives obscured by the idea of God idea in monotheistic cultures.
Journal of the International Association of …, 1994
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, 2021
Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie
The term Dao originally means a Way or Course or Guide, something very close to purposive action ... more The term Dao originally means a Way or Course or Guide, something very close to purposive action as such – a prescribed course to attain a prescribed goal. It is precisely something that is selected out, valued, desired, kept to rather than discarded. The Daoist usage of the term “Dao” is thus an ironic usage: it is used deliberately in the opposite of its literal sense to make a point – the real way to attain value is through what we do not value, the real way is an anti-way, the real fulfilment of purpose lies in letting go of purpose. Purpose by definition excludes the purposeless. But this relationship is not symmetrical; purposelessness does not exclude purpose. On the contrary, it includes, allows, and even generates purpose. Not one purpose, however, but infinite purposes, all of which remain embedded in a larger purposelessness, but not contradicted or undermined by it. The structure of purpose is such as to either exclude or to subordinate the purposeless. But even if merel...
This essay is an investigation into the certain distinctive rhetorical features of the Saddharmap... more This essay is an investigation into the certain distinctive rhetorical features of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra, with special attention to their relation to Tiantai doctrine. In particular, it focuses on the relation between the śrāvaka disciples and the Bodhisattva's, or between a particular figure's own śrāvakahood and the same figure's bodhisattvahood, which is seen as the primary locus classicus for the Tiantai doctrine of "inherent entailment." In the case of Śāriputra, we are told that he has forgotten his own Bodhisattva vows, that he has been a Bodhisattva all along without Knowing it. In the Tiantai reading, this further means that his practice as a śrāvaka has been a part of his practice as a Bodhisattvahood, and indeed his own forgetting of his Bodhisattvahood has been a part of this practice. Zhiyi analyzes the sūtra according to four categories: 1) Narrative causes and conditions, 2) Categorization of Buddhist teachings, 3) Roots and traces and 4) ...
Journal of Chinese Philosophy
Journal of Indian Philosophy
This essay explores one of the first distinctively Sinitic reappropriations of Madhyamaka epistem... more This essay explores one of the first distinctively Sinitic reappropriations of Madhyamaka epistemology: Seng Zhao’s essay “Prajñā is Without Knowledge.” Seng Zhao’s work is here read as a deliberate collapse of the traditional Madhyamaka Two Truths into two simultaneous aspects of sagely wisdom, rather than a diachronic means-end relation, arriving at a crypto-Zhuangzian “trivialist” conclusion aimed at undermining epistemological bivalence at its roots. For Seng Zhao, because nothing can be established as true, nothing can be excluded as false. Here the understanding of Emptiness has become not the exclusion of all views, but the inclusion of all views. This is rooted in Seng Zhao’s view that, to use Jan Westerhoff’s terms, the denial of substance-svabhāva is always also implicitly the denial of essence-svabhāva. Seng Zhao move from Emptiness as exclusion to Emptiness as inclusion, and from denial of ontological substance to denial of mutually exclusive determinateness, sets the agenda for the distinctive developments of classical Chinese Buddhist philosophy to come.
Journal of Chinese Philosophy
Choice Reviews Online, 2003
The Philosophical Challenge from China, 2015
Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), 1995
Emmanuel/A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, 2013
Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 2014
The idea of a nous as arche, of a single purposive rational mind that creates the world or otherw... more The idea of a nous as arche, of a single purposive rational mind that creates the world or otherwise accounts for the world being as it is, has dominated most Western thought in one form or another since it was proposed by Plato, quoting Socrates, quoting Anaxagoras, in the Phaedo, particularly in the form given it in monotheist religions and theologies and, less explicitly but still powerfully, in their secular aftermaths. Each of the dominant traditions in pre-modern China is however “God-less” in the sense of lacking just this conception. This article takes a look at the forms of God-less religiousness developed in these traditions, as a way of recovering some of the ethical and epistemological alternatives obscured by the idea of God idea in monotheistic cultures.
Journal of the International Association of …, 1994
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, 2021
Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie
The term Dao originally means a Way or Course or Guide, something very close to purposive action ... more The term Dao originally means a Way or Course or Guide, something very close to purposive action as such – a prescribed course to attain a prescribed goal. It is precisely something that is selected out, valued, desired, kept to rather than discarded. The Daoist usage of the term “Dao” is thus an ironic usage: it is used deliberately in the opposite of its literal sense to make a point – the real way to attain value is through what we do not value, the real way is an anti-way, the real fulfilment of purpose lies in letting go of purpose. Purpose by definition excludes the purposeless. But this relationship is not symmetrical; purposelessness does not exclude purpose. On the contrary, it includes, allows, and even generates purpose. Not one purpose, however, but infinite purposes, all of which remain embedded in a larger purposelessness, but not contradicted or undermined by it. The structure of purpose is such as to either exclude or to subordinate the purposeless. But even if merel...
This essay is an investigation into the certain distinctive rhetorical features of the Saddharmap... more This essay is an investigation into the certain distinctive rhetorical features of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra, with special attention to their relation to Tiantai doctrine. In particular, it focuses on the relation between the śrāvaka disciples and the Bodhisattva's, or between a particular figure's own śrāvakahood and the same figure's bodhisattvahood, which is seen as the primary locus classicus for the Tiantai doctrine of "inherent entailment." In the case of Śāriputra, we are told that he has forgotten his own Bodhisattva vows, that he has been a Bodhisattva all along without Knowing it. In the Tiantai reading, this further means that his practice as a śrāvaka has been a part of his practice as a Bodhisattvahood, and indeed his own forgetting of his Bodhisattvahood has been a part of this practice. Zhiyi analyzes the sūtra according to four categories: 1) Narrative causes and conditions, 2) Categorization of Buddhist teachings, 3) Roots and traces and 4) ...
Journal of Chinese Philosophy
Journal of Indian Philosophy
This essay explores one of the first distinctively Sinitic reappropriations of Madhyamaka epistem... more This essay explores one of the first distinctively Sinitic reappropriations of Madhyamaka epistemology: Seng Zhao’s essay “Prajñā is Without Knowledge.” Seng Zhao’s work is here read as a deliberate collapse of the traditional Madhyamaka Two Truths into two simultaneous aspects of sagely wisdom, rather than a diachronic means-end relation, arriving at a crypto-Zhuangzian “trivialist” conclusion aimed at undermining epistemological bivalence at its roots. For Seng Zhao, because nothing can be established as true, nothing can be excluded as false. Here the understanding of Emptiness has become not the exclusion of all views, but the inclusion of all views. This is rooted in Seng Zhao’s view that, to use Jan Westerhoff’s terms, the denial of substance-svabhāva is always also implicitly the denial of essence-svabhāva. Seng Zhao move from Emptiness as exclusion to Emptiness as inclusion, and from denial of ontological substance to denial of mutually exclusive determinateness, sets the agenda for the distinctive developments of classical Chinese Buddhist philosophy to come.
Journal of Chinese Philosophy
Choice Reviews Online, 2003
The Philosophical Challenge from China, 2015
Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), 1995
Emmanuel/A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, 2013