Tao and Trinity: Notes on Self-Reference and the Unity of Opposites in Philosophy

141 Pages·2014·3.45 MB·English

by  Scott Austin

Tao and Trinity
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498144.0001
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DOI: 10.1057/9781137498144.0001
Tao and Trinity: Notes
on Self-Reference and
the Unity of Opposites
in Philosophy
Scott Austin
Senior Associate Professor of Philosophy, Texas A&M
University, USA
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498144.0001
tao and trinity
Copyright © Scott Austin, 2014.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by
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First edition: 2014
www.palgrave.com/pivot
doi: 10.1057/9781137498144
Contents
Preface vi
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
1 The Being of Illusion 19
2 The Greeks and Greek Issues 30
3 Plato and Followers 46
4 Aquinas 57
5 Being and Appearance 82
Conclusion 93
Appendix 1: Why Triads? 108
Appendix 2: Eriugena 112
Bibliography 118
Index 124
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498144.0001 v
Preface
I can’t count how many times undergraduates have asked
me whether Heraclitus had read Lao-Tzu, or vice versa.
It’s not an easy question to answer, as there isn’t much
information available on cultural transmission. But the
similarities point to something having to do with the unity
of opposites in both thinkers, the oneness of seemingly
contradictory terms. If there were no night, would we
have a word for day? What are day and night without each
other? Yet they are opposed, like yin and yang. How can
parts of one larger whole conflict with each other?
Such questions are actually part of a much larger inquiry.
Western pictures of China, and Chinese appropriations of
the West, tend to focus only on what is most ancient or
most modern about the two cultures, on what is different
or more striking. My own work has started, up to now, with
the earliest philosophers of the West, those before Socra-
tes. But I was always interested in what might lie outside
the canon, particularly in view of the present and future
decline in the political significance of the West. What is
distinctive about Chinese philosophy? About Western
philosophy? Are they viable alternatives to each other, or
do they share a common theme or element? What do the
two traditions have to teach each other?
The present study is an attempt to approach such simple
but significant questions. It will begin with philosophy,
in particular with the ancient Greek origins of European
philosophy, and end with Lao-Tzu and Huang Po. My own
earlier, more technical studies in early Greek philosophy
serve as the basis for my attempt here,1 but their conclusions
vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137498144.0002
Preface vii
will not be present in any kind of detail and will serve only as a kind of
platform for further thinking. Here, then, are the more specific features of
the story I shall be attempting to tell: Heraclitus and Parmenides are not
primitive thinkers, groping in darkness toward the clearer insights of later
philosophers. Instead, they explore fundamental and contemporary issues:
the problem of foundations, of self-reference, the whole apparatus of ques-
tions that arise when we try to put together an explanation of absolutely
everything, the question of the nature of first principles. Plato’s method and
conclusions put Parmenides together with Heraclitus. The transition from
Parmenides to Plato ushers in the whole compass of later Western philoso-
phy, from Aristotle on through Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus,
Ockham, Luther, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Whitehead, and Heidegger. Our
contemporary philosophy will turn out still to be dealing with the puzzles
and paradoxes that arise in Presocratic philosophical dialectic. Lao-Tzu
and Huang Po address these same problems from a viewpoint not only
similar to that of the Presocratics, but also contemporary. We have much
to learn from them and perhaps something to offer.
Accordingly, the reader will find the following chapter titles in this
book: “Introduction,” “The Being of Illusion,” “The Greeks and Greek
Issues,” “Plato and Followers,” “Aquinas,” “Being and Appearance,” and
“Conclusion.” By way of apologia, I write here for a wider and an inter-
national audience, if perhaps not an entirely popular one. It has been
my obligation to return to the questions and issues which led me into
philosophy in the first place, and to take risks in exposition that I would
not ordinarily take. The current pressing international situation also
demands that Western philosophers and Chinese sages come to under-
stand each other, perhaps leaving behind the limitations and conventions
of their own disciplines, probably learning to be students again—wide-
eyed and open-minded. And it is for this task that I have tried to write
more broadly than in my earlier work, and certainly less technically. For
the inevitable faults and omissions in such an undertaking, I here ask the
reader’s indulgence.
Note
1 See Scott Austin, Parmenides: Being, Bounds, and Logic (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1986) and Parmenides and the History of Dialectic (Las Vegas
and Athens: Parmenides Publishing, 2007).
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498144.0002
Acknowledgments
There is a sense in which this short set of essays is a post-
humous work, its composition a miracle of survival. For its
existence, I have to thank the physicians, nurses, and staff
of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, especially
Dr. Surena Matin and his team, as well as many others:
Drs. Nalini and Mahesh Dave, Alan Young, and Asad
Khan in College Station, Ms. Teresa Flores in Houston, Dr.
Lajos Mester in Hungary, Dr. Sarmad Aflatooni in Beijing,
the colleagues and graduate students who took my lectures
for me, a supportive department head, Daniel Conway,
a fellow undergraduate advisor, Kristi Sweet, also Katie
Wright, Jamie Bosley, Katy Massey, and Osmara Garcia
in the department office at Texas A&M, Richard and
Annette Stadelmann, John Tyler, Paul Shockley, Dr. Virgie
Nolte, also many saintly family members and friends. For
sabbatical support, I thank my department and my dean.
For generosity in friendship, I thank Ed and Beth Woods.
For overwhelming gifts of intellect and hospitality, I thank
Emése Mogyoródi, especially for the intellectual stimulus
afforded by her and her students, and Zoltán Gyenge, both
of the University of Szegéd. Thanks to Li Han of Beijing
University, and to Professors Nie Minli, Wang Xiaoyan,
Geng Youzhuang, Yang Huilin, and Li Binquan, also to
Gao Mingyuan and Su Jun, all of Renmin University, for
their appreciation and help. For unparalleled generos-
ity and support, I thank Dad, James H. Austin, and my
late mother, Judith S. Austin, both ambassadors of the
Dharma, and my siblings, James W. Austin and Lynn A.
Manning. Thanks to Linda Oppen for decades of cheerful
viii DOI: 10.1057/9781137498144.0003
Acknowledgments ix
encouragement. Thanks to my colleagues, especially John J. McDermott
(who suggested that I put in a section on Eriugena and kept up my faith
in my project) and Theodore George, for their friendly critique of my
overall perspective. I am grateful to Mr. Harris Bechtol for his fine work
on the Bibliography and the Index. Thanks to Judith Genova, James A.
Ogilvy, Karsten Harries, Nicholas Asher, Alexander Mourelatos, and
the late John Findlay for their abiding intellectual influence—Karsten
Harries for directing my undergraduate senior essay on Aquinas, Nicho-
las Asher for talking the essay over with me, and Alexander Mourelatos
for directing my dissertation on Parmenides. Without all these people,
these reflections would never have been committed to paper. If I have in
this series of sketches been able to deal with themes perhaps wider than
before now, I owe this to my experience of care and life at the hands of
these souls. I am deeply grateful.
Portions of the manuscript were delivered as colloquia at the Depart-
ment of Philosophy, Renmin University of China, in 2011. I am grate-
ful to my Chinese hosts for the opportunity to speak and to hear their
comments.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137498144.0003