What's so good about evil: Value and anti-value in Tiantai thought and its antecedents.

Abstract

This dissertation may be viewed as an exposition of the philosophical implications of a single eight-character sentence from the works of the Tiantai Buddhist monk Siming Zhili (960-1028), the literal meaning of which may be rendered: Other than the devil there is no Buddha, other than the Buddha there is no devil. A context in which to effectively interpret the significance of this claim is provided by examining the Chinese philosophical tradition with an eye for three closely related themes: (1) notions that do not share the arguably common-sense assumption that good and bad are mutually exclusive categories; (2) concepts of holism (of which two principal types, the unicentric and the omnicentric, are distinguished); and (3) the conception of intersubjectivity (sociality) as a primary, constitutive and ultimate component of experience. The work begins with introductory chapters laying out the nature of the problem, its parameters and implications, and the methodological limitations bearing on the investigation to follow. The next portion consists of an examination of ideas of value paradox, holism and intersubjectivity as they are developed by pre-Qin thinkers, including Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi Mozi, Laozi and Zhuangzi. The study culminates in an examination of the disputes over the Tiantai doctrine of the evil inherent in the Buddha-nature (xing e), beginning with its background in Indian and earlier Chinese Buddhism, and reaching its zenith in Zhili's notion of the ultimacy of the dung beetle, as predicated on an assertion of an uncompromising identity between value and anti-value (each of which is viewed as pervading all times, places and experiences), a thoroughgoing omnicentric holism, and an insistence on the all-pervasiveness and ultimacy of constitutive intersubjectivity. By rendering these initially counterintuitive notions coherent, it is hoped that an alternative view of human experience, premised on omnicentric holism rather than atomism or unicentrism, on intersubjectivity rather than objectivity or subjectivity, and on value paradox rather than value dichotomy, will come into focus, thereby providing an additional resource to our arsenal of possible approaches to the world.