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74Worldly Indeterminacy and the Provisionality of LanguageAustralasian Journal of Philosophy. 2024.Theorists who advocate worldly (metaphysical or ontological) indeterminacy—the idea that the world itself is indeterminate in one or more respects—should address how we understand the signifying nature and function of language in light of worldly indeterminacy. I first attend to Sengzhao and Jizang, two leading thinkers in Chinese Sanlun Buddhism, to reconstruct a Chinese Madhyamaka notion of ontic indeterminacy. Then, I draw on the thinkers’ views to propose a provisional (non-definitive) under…Read more
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293Can the World Be Indeterminate in All Respects?Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9. 2023.Especially over the past twenty years, a number of analytic philosophers have embraced the idea that the world itself is vague or indeterminate in one or more respects. The issue then arises as to whether it can be the case that the world itself is indeterminate in all respects. Using as a basis Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhist thought, I offer two reasons for the coherence and intelligibility of the thesis that all concrete things are themselves indeterminate with respect to the ways they are. The f…Read more
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31The Notion of Apoha in Chinese BuddhismDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 21 (2): 283-298. 2022.In this essay, I investigate how Chinese Yogācāra scholars of the Tang dynasty explicated and supplemented the theory of apoha (exclusion) propounded by the Indian Buddhist epistemologist Dignāga, according to which a nominal word functions by excluding everything other than its own referent. I first present a brief exposition of the theory. Then, I show that although they had very limited access to Dignāga’s theory, Kuiji and Shentai provide constructive and significant explanations that supple…Read more
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339Causation and Ontic IndeterminacyRes Philosophica 98 (1): 43-61. 2021.In this article, I first introduce an Indian Madhyamaka Buddhist critique of causality and discuss critically a contemporary Humean interpretation of the critique. After presenting a Chinese Madhyamaka interpretation, I resort to an ontological conception of indeterminacy, termed ontic indeterminacy, which draws on Chinese Madhyamaka thought together with Jessica Wilson’s account of metaphysical indeterminacy, to show that the conception is well equipped to unravel two puzzling issues that arise…Read more
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530Ontic Indeterminacy: Chinese Madhyamaka in the Contemporary ContextAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (3): 419-433. 2020.A number of analytical philosophers have recently endorsed the view that the world itself is indeterminate in some respect. Intriguingly, ideas similar to the view are expressed by thinkers from Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhism, which may shed light on the current discussion of worldly indeterminacy. Using as a basis Chinese Madhyamaka thought, together with Jessica Wilson’s account of indeterminacy, I develop an ontological conception of indeterminacy, termed ontic indeterminacy, which centres on tw…Read more
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100Consciousness and Self-awarenessAsian Philosophy 17 (3). 2007.In this paper I propose to inquire into the theory of self-awareness propounded by the two Buddhist epistemologists, Dignaga and Dharmakirti. I first give an outline of the Buddhist notion of consciousness, then deal with the notion of objectual appearance, and finally dwell on the theory itself together with certain arguments in its favor. It is shown that the Buddhists subscribed themselves to the following self-awareness thesis: that our waking consciousness is always pre-reflectively and non…Read more
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79Ontic Indeterminacy and Paradoxical Language: A Philosophical Analysis of Sengzhao’s Linguistic ThoughtDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 12 (4): 505-522. 2013.For Sengzhao (374−414 CE), a leading Sanlun philosopher of Chinese Buddhism, things in the world are ontologically indeterminate in that they are devoid of any determinate form or nature. In his view, we should understand and use words provisionally, so that they are not taken to connote the determinacy of their referents. To echo the notion of ontic indeterminacy and indicate the provisionality of language, his main work, the Zhaolun, abounds in paradoxical expressions. In this essay, I offer a…Read more
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699The Nonduality of Motion and Rest: Sengzhao on the Change of ThingsIn Youru Wang & Sandra A. Wawrytko (eds.), Dao Companion to Chinese Buddhist Philosophy, Springer. pp. 175-188. 2018.In his essay “Things Do Not Move,” Sengzhao (374?−414 CE), a prominent Chinese Buddhist philosopher, argues for the thesis that the myriad things do not move in time. This view is counter-intuitive and seems to run counter to the Mahayana Buddhist doctrine of emptiness. In this book chapter, I assess Sengzhao’s arguments for his thesis, elucidate his stance on the change/nonchange of things, and discuss related problems. I argue that although Sengzhao is keen on showing the plausibility of the t…Read more
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114The Nonduality of Speech and Silence: A Comparative Analysis of Jizang’s Thought on Language and BeyondDao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 11 (1): 1-19. 2012.Jizang (549−623 CE), the key philosophical exponent of the Sanlun tradition of Chinese Buddhism, based his philosophy considerably on his reading of the works of Nāgārjuna (c.150−250 CE), the founder of the Indian Madhyamaka school. However, although Jizang sought to follow Nāgārjuna closely, there are salient features in his thought on language that are notably absent from Nāgārjuna’s works. In this paper, I present a philosophical analysis of Jizang’s views of the relationship between speech a…Read more
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88Emptiness as Subject-Object Unity: Sengzhao on the Way Things Truly AreIn JeeLoo Liu & Douglas Berger (eds.), Nothingness in Asian Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 104-118. 2014.Sengzhao (374?−414 CE), a leading Chinese Mādhyamika philosopher, holds that the myriad things are empty, and that they are, at bottom, the same as emptiness qua the way things truly are. In this paper, I distinguish the level of the myriad things from that of the way things truly are and call them, respectively, the ontic and the ontological levels. For Sengzhao, the myriad things at the ontic level are indeterminate and empty, and he equates the way things truly are at the ontological level wi…Read more
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202How Not to Avoid SpeakingJournal of Indian Philosophy 24 (5): 541-562. 1996.Mahayana Buddhist philosophers’ attitude toward language is notoriously negative. The transcendental reality is often said to be ineffable. One’s obsession to apprehend the truth through words is an intellectual disease to be cured Attachment to verbal and conceptual proliferation enslaves oneself in the afflictive circle of life and death. Nevertheless, no Buddhist can afford to overlook the significance of language in preaching Buddhist dharmas as well as in day-to-day transactions. The point …Read more
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77One Name, Infinite Meanings: Jizang’s Thought on Meaning and ReferenceJournal of Chinese Philosophy 39 (3): 436-452. 2012.Jizang sets forth a hermeneutical theory of “one name, infinite meanings” that proposes four types of interpretation of word meaning to the effect that a nominal word X means X, non-X, the negation of X, and all things whatsoever. In this article, I offer an analysis of the theory, with a view to elucidating Jizang's thought on meaning and reference and considering its contemporary significance. The theory, I argue, may best be viewed as an expedient means for telling us how to use words provisi…Read more
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643The Way of Nonacquisition: Jizang's Philosophy of Ontic IndeterminacyIn Chen-Kuo Lin & Michael Radich (eds.), A Distant Mirror: Articulating Indic Ideas in Sixth and Seventh Century Chinese Buddhism, Hamburg University Press. pp. 397-418. 2014.For Jizang (549−623), a prominent philosophical exponent of Chinese Madhyamaka, all things are empty of determinate form or nature. Given anything X, no linguistic item can truly and conclusively be applied to X in the sense of positing a determinate form or nature therein. This philosophy of ontic indeterminacy is connected closely with his notion of the Way (dao), which seems to indicate a kind of ineffable principle of reality. However, Jizang also equates the Way with nonacquisition as a con…Read more
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470Interdependence and Nonduality: On the Linguistic Strategy of the Platform SūtraPhilosophy East and West 66 (4): 1231-1250. 2016.Although Chan, or Zen, Buddhism traditionally claimed itself as a special transmission outside doctrinal teachings that eschews the written word, it has long been praised for its improvisational, atypical, intriguing, and intricate use of words. Prominent Chan masters are characteristically skillful in employing paradoxical and aporetic phrases, figurative and poetic expressions, negations, questions, repetitions, and so forth, to express their thoughts, indicate their awakened states of mind, c…Read more
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142Nāgārjuna's Critique of LanguageAsian Philosophy 20 (2): 159-174. 2010.This essay attempts to provide a systematic reconstruction of Nāgārjuna's philosophical thought by understanding it as a critique of the attachment to linguistic expressions and their referents. We first present an outline of Nāgārjuna's philosophy, centering on such notions as 'dependent origination', 'emptiness' and 'self-nature'. Then we discuss Nāgārjuna's dismissal of a metaphysical use of language, particularly his contention that language can function well without assuming the reality of …Read more
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818Paradoxical Language in Chan BuddhismIn Yiu-Ming Fung (ed.), Dao Companion to Chinese Philosophy of Logic, Springer. pp. 389-404. 2020.Chinese Chan or Zen Buddhism is renowned for its improvisational, atypical, and perplexing use of words. In particular, the tradition’s encounter dialogues, which took place between Chan masters and their interlocutors, abound in puzzling, astonishing, and paradoxical ways of speaking. In this chapter, we are concerned with Chan’s use of paradoxical language. In philosophical parlance, a linguistic paradox comprises the confluence of opposite or incongruent concepts in a way that runs counter to…Read more
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132The Finger Pointing toward the Moon: A Philosophical Analysis of the Chinese Buddhist Thought of ReferenceJournal of Chinese Philosophy 35 (1): 159-177. 2008.In this essay I attempt a philosophical analysis of the Chinese Buddhist thought of linguistic reference to shed light on how the Buddhist understands the way language refers to an ineffable reality. For this purpose, the essay proceeds in two directions: an enquiry into the linguistic thoughts of Sengzhao (374-414 CE) and Jizang (549-623 CE), two leading Chinese Madhyamika thinkers, and an analysis of the Buddhist simile of a moon-pointing finger. The two approaches respectively constitute the …Read more
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665Meaning, Understanding, and Knowing-what: An Indian Grammarian Notion of Intuition (pratibha)Philosophy East and West 64 (2): 404-424. 2014.For Bhartrhari, a fifth-century Indian grammarian-philosopher, all conscious beings—beasts, birds and humans—are capable of what he called pratibha, a flash of indescribable intuitive understanding such that one knows what the present object “means” and what to do with it. Such an understanding, if correct, amounts to a mode of knowing that may best be termed knowing-what, to distinguish it from both knowing-that and knowing-how. This paper attempts to expound Bhartrhari’s conception of pratibha…Read more
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350Saying the UnsayablePhilosophy East and West 56 (3): 409-427. 2006.A number of traditional philosophers and religious thinkers advocated an ineffability thesis to the effect that the ultimate reality cannot be expressed as it truly is by human concepts and words. However, if X is ineffable, the question arises as to how words can be used to gesture toward it. We can't even say that X is unsayable, because in doing so, we would have made it sayable. In this article, I examine the solution offered by the fifth-century Indian grammarian-philosopher Bhartrhari and …Read more
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572Resolving the Ineffability ParadoxIn Arindam Chakrabarti & Ralph Weber (eds.), Comparative Philosophy without Borders, Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 69-82. 2015.A number of contemporary philosophers think that the unqualified statement “X is unspeakable” faces the danger of self-referential absurdity: if this statement is true, it must simultaneously be false, given that X is speakable by the predicate word “unspeakable.” This predicament is in this chapter formulated as an argument that I term the “ineffability paradox.” After examining the Buddhist semantic theory of apoha (exclusion) and an apoha solution to the issue, I resort to a few Chinese Buddh…Read more
Chien-hsing Ho
Academia Sinica, Taiwan
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Academia Sinica, TaiwanResearch Fellow
Areas of Specialization
Asian Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Asian Philosophy |
Philosophy of Language |
Metaphysics |
Epistemology |