Classic Asian Philosophy

178 Pages·2007·0.77 MB·English

Classic Asian Philosophy:
A Guide to the Essential Texts
Joel J. Kupperman
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Classic Asian Philosophy
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CLASSIC ASIAN
PHILOSOPHY
A Guide to the Essential Texts
Joel J. Kupperman
1
2001
3
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta
Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul
Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai
Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 2001by Joel J.Kupperman
Published by Oxford University Press,Inc.
198Madison Avenue,New York,New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark ofOxford University Press
All rights reserved.No part ofthis publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted,in any form or by any means,
electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission ofOxford University Press.
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kupperman,Joel.
Classic Asian philosophy : a guide to the essential texts / by Joel J.Kupperman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN0-19-513334-X—ISBN0-19-513335-8(pbk.)
1.Philosophy,Asian. 2.Asia—Religion.I.Title.
B121.K85 2000
181—dc21 00-020488
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
on acid-free paper
preface
(cid:1)
This book grows out of a perceived need.There has been in-
(cid:2)
creased interest in Asian philosophy. One manifestation is the
profusion of translations of Asian texts,as well as of books that ex-
plore themes connected with those of Asian philosophy.The latter,
however,do not include anything that amounts to a clear and straight-
forward account keyed to what the most widely known Asian classics
are about.The intelligent nonspecialist reader who wanders into this
area will need a better guide than anything currently available.Also in
need of a guide are teachers of philosophy and their students,who
can use orientation if they are to explore any Asian philosophical
work in much the same spirit as they explore classic texts of Western
philosophy.
The need is intensified by the difficulties that many classic Asian
texts present to readers coming from the outside.Initially one might
suppose that the questions being asked are much the same as those fa-
miliar in Western thought,although there may be different answers.
Often this turns out not to be the case.The reader then must struggle
to get a sense of what is at issue,before beginning to understand what
a work has to offer.Some Asian texts also have special difficulties.The
great Daoist classic the Zhuangzi,for example,maintains a playfulness
and humor that can leave the first-time reader wondering what, if
anything,is to be taken seriously.(The answer “everything and noth-
ing,”while true,is not helpful.) Confucius presents extraordinary diffi-
culties because of the mosaic-like character of what survives of his
vi preface
thought.Brief sayings,often highly allusive,will seem at first to be ex-
traordinarily cryptic.The reader needs to gain a sense of recurrent
themes,along the lines of which one can reassemble the mosaic until
patterns emerge.Virtually any reader will need help with this process.
I came therefore to view this book,which is a generalist rather than
a specialist project,as an extension of teaching.The organizing princi-
ple is simple.Each of the eight chapters focuses on one classic Asian
text (or,in one case,cluster of texts),which is widely available in pa-
perback,frequently in more than one translation.Each of these eight
books,incidentally,is one that at some time or other I have used as
one of the assigned books in an undergraduate course.The goal of
each chapter is not only to explicate the text (or texts) but also to
make it come alive.That is,we should be able to see Asian philoso-
phers as struggling with important questions,ones that could matter
to us too,and as offering answers that (even were we to find in the end
that we cannot entirely accept them) would be plausible—in relation
to those questions—to an intelligent person.
There is a bonus in coming to understand,and to feel at home in,
these texts.This is that they are all to some degree foundational to a
culture or cultures.India (represented by three texts) and China (rep-
resented by four,plus most of the cluster of Zen texts discussed in the
penultimate chapter) are philosophically rooted cultures. By this I
mean that philosophies have much the same kind of radiating influ-
ence over the thought and categories of these cultures that Homer is
sometimes assigned in ancient Greece,Dante in Italy,Goethe in Ger-
many,and Shakespeare in England.To begin to understand the Upan-
ishads and the Bhagavad Gita is to go a considerable distance in un-
derstanding India.A similar comment applies to Confucius and the
great Daoist texts in relation to China.A case can be made for saying
that these Chinese texts also are to a degree foundational to Japanese
culture.The influence of China in the early periods of Japanese cul-
ture is often not realized.Indeed,the striking fact that most of the best
early Japanese literature (including some great poetry and one of the
two or three greatest novels ever written,The Tale of Genji) was writ-
ten by women is sometimes explained by the fact that so many of
their Japanese male counterparts were writing in Chinese.
There is every reason for providing straightforward accounts of
these classic texts and of the problems that generate them.It is only
fair to add, though, that the process of arriving at the accounts—
whatever the result—cannot be entirely straightforward.Some balanc-
ing acts are required.First of all,there is the balancing of specialized
preface vii
knowledge with the general interest of the likely reader.My strategy
throughout will be to bring in specialized background knowledge
only when it seems very important,and then to introduce it in a way
that minimizes disruption of the flow of exposition.Each chapter will
conclude with a brief section on recommended reading that includes
references to some specialist literature.
A more complicated balancing act is this.The temptation,in trying
to come to terms with any Asian texts,is to look for Western parallels.
One can say,for example,that some lines of inquiry in the great Con-
fucian philosopher Mencius are very like some in the eighteenth-
century Scottish philosopher David Hume;many readers,seeing this,
will begin to relax.The technique of looking for Western parallels will
work much better in some cases than in others.Even in the best cases,
though,it can cause us to overlook something unique and interesting
in an Asian philosophy.Often the result will be much worse than this:
the Asian philosophy fitted to a Western template will emerge as a
crude caricature.My strategy throughout this book will be to balance
the use ofWestern parallels,where appropriate,with probes of what is
distinctive and,as it were,untranslatable in Asian texts.Often this ap-
proach will amount to a limited use ofWestern parallels accompanied
by warning labels and cautionary remarks.
This project is very much keyed to its time,a moment at which
Asian philosophies are coming to seem important but many interested
readers have trouble getting the hang of them.It will succeed if many
readers come to find Asian philosophical classics much more accessi-
ble,and if some of them are enabled to read further and to go beyond
what this book is intended to offer.
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