The Buddhist Sengzhao’s Roots in Daoism: Ex Contradictione Nihil

Logica Universalis 18 (4):439–464 (2024)
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Abstract

Sengzhao (c.374–414) was a Chinese Neo-Daoist who converted to Mahāyāna Buddhism, and few people doubt his influence on Chinese Buddhist philosophy. In this article, provided his Neo-Daoism (xuanxue) and Madhyamaka Buddhism, I will present how Sengzhao featured a symbolic meaning of ‘void’ (śūnya) as rooted originally in Daoism. The Daoist contradictions, in particular between ‘being’ (you) and ‘nothing [non-being]’ (wu), are essential to the development of his doctrine of ‘no ultimate void’ (不真空論, Buzhenkonglun). To understand what Sengzhao meant by ‘void’, which is in denial about the ultimate reality, I broach a notion of nihil (‘nothing’ but also ‘no value’) that bears on his discursive practice. In this light, I formulate a Daoist argument for contradictions and ECN (ex contradictione nihil—nothing follows from contradictions) from Laozi’s Daodejing. Furthermore, I elaborate on Sengzhao’s defence of ECN in his Buzhenkonglun. Reconstructing his negative approach to contradictions within the scope of the four-valued expressions (catuṣkoṭi) in the Madhyamaka tradition from Nāgārjuna, I consider a likely objection that a fifth value such as the ineffable may be inferred as void. Instead of subsuming the ineffable value under his discourse, I finally endorse Sengzhao’s purpose of linguistic and conventional approximation to the ultimate reality as silence. As such, I conclude the significance of void in Sengzhao’s denials via contradictions (ECN), i.e. an early philosophical peak of Chinese Buddhism from Daoism.

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Takaharu Oda
Jiangsu University

Citations of this work

Laozian metaethics.Jason Dockstader - 2024 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 3 (2):1-19.

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References found in this work

Tractatus logico-philosophicus.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1922 - Filosoficky Casopis 52:336-341.
The unreality of time.John Ellis McTaggart - 1908 - Mind 17 (68):457-474.
Doubt Truth to Be a Liar.Graham Priest - 2007 - Studia Logica 87 (1):129-134.
Rejection.Timothy Smiley - 1996 - Analysis 56 (1):1–9.

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