The Significance of Indeterminacy: Perspectives from Asian and Continental Philosophy

403 Pages·2018·3.874 MB·English

by  Robert H. Scott, Gregory S. Moss

This topical and diverse collection of essays extends the critical and
consequential problem of indeterminacy into both Continental and
Comparative traditions. Creative yet rigorous, these essays enliven our sense
of philosophy’s powers, defending the delicate ambiguity yet resonant force
of philosophical claims as well as extending it to include traditions as varied
as Buddhism and climate change policy.
—Jason M. Wirth, Seattle University, USA

The Significance of Indeterminacy
While indeterminacy is a recurrent theme in philosophy, less progress
has been made in clarifying its significance for various philosophical and
interdisciplinary contexts. This collection brings together early-career and
well-known philosophers—including Graham Priest, Trish Glazebrook,
Steven Crowell, Robert Neville, Todd May, and William Desmond—to
explore indeterminacy in greater detail. The volume is unique in that its
essays demonstrate the positive significance of indeterminacy, insofar as
indeterminacy opens up new fields of discourse and illuminates neglected
aspects of various concepts and phenomena. The essays are organized
thematically around indeterminacy’s impact on various areas of philosophy,
including post- Kantian idealism, phenomenology, ethics, hermeneutics,
aesthetics, and East Asian philosophy. They also take an interdisciplinary
approach by elaborating the conceptual connections between indeterminacy
and literature, music, religion, and science.
Robert H. Scott is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of
North Georgia. His research focuses on phenomenology and environmental
ethics, and in recently published work he develops a phenomenological theory
of ecological responsibility. Dr. Scott currently serves as the President of the
Georgia Philosophical Society.
Gregory S. Moss is currently an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at
Chinese University of Hong Kong. He specializes in post-Kantian German
philosophy and has published in a variety of philosophical journals, such
as Idealistic Studies, International Philosophical Quarterly, the Journal for
the British Society for Phenomenology, Journal of Speculative Philosophy,
and the Northern European Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming). Before
completing his PhD on Hegel’s Logic of the Concept under Richard
Winfield, he was a Fulbright Fellow with Markus Gabriel at the Rheinische
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. He is author of Ernst Cassirer and the
Autonomy of Language and translator for Markus Gabriel’s Why the World
Does Not Exist. His book Hegel’s Foundation Free Metaphysics: The Logic
of Singularity is forthcoming with Routledge.
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The Significance of Indeterminacy
Perspectives from Asian and Continental Philosophy
Edited by Robert H. Scott and Gregory S. Moss
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
The Significance of
Indeterminacy
Perspectives from Asian and
Continental Philosophy
Edited by Robert H. Scott and
Gregory S. Moss
First published 2019
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Scott, Robert H. (Assistant Professor of Philosophy), editor.
Title: The significance of indeterminacy : perspectives from Asian and
Continental philosophy / edited by Robert H. Scott and Gregory
S. Moss.
Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Taylor & Francis, 2018. | Series:
Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy ; 110 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018019674 | ISBN 9781138503106 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Determinism (Philosophy) | Free will and
determinism. | Certainty. | Continental philosophy.
Classification: LCC B105.D47 S525 2018 | DDC 123—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019674
ISBN: 978-1-138-50310-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-14522-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Acknowledgements x
Preface xi
ROBERT H. SCOTT AND GREGORY S. MOSS
The Emerging Philosophical Recognition of the Significance
of Indeterminacy 1
GREGORY S. MOSS, C.U.H.K.
PART I
The Significance of Indeterminacy in German Idealism 49
1 Overdeterminancy, Affirming Indeterminacy, and the Dearth
of Ontological Astonishment 51
WILLIAM DESMOND
2 Determinacy, Indeterminacy, and Contingency in
German Idealism 67
G. ANTHONY BRUNO
3 Free Thinking in Schelling’s Erlangen Lectures 84
GREGORY S. MOSS
4 Indeterminacy, Modality, Dialectics: Hegel on the
Possibility Not to Be 104
NAHUM BROWN
viii Contents
PART II
The Significance of Indeterminacy for Phenomenology,
Natural Science, and Ethics 125
5 Determinable Indeterminacy: A Note on the Phenomenology
of Horizons 127
STEVEN G. CROWELL
6 Climate Science, Indeterminacy, and Food Security in Sub-
Saharan Africa 148
TRISH GLAZEBROOK AND MICHAEL GOLDSBY
7 Genetic Phenomenology and the Indeterminacy of Racism 168
JANET DONOHOE
8 Indeterminacy as Key to a Phenomenological
Reinterpretation of Aristotle’s Intellectual Virtues 182
ROBERT H. SCOTT
9 The Effability of the Normative 201
TODD MAY
PART III
The Significance of Indeterminacy for
Hermeneutics and Aesthetics 213
10 Indeterminacy, Gadamer, and Jazz 215
BRUCE E. BENSON
11 Hermeneutic Priority and Phenomenological Indeterminacy
of Questioning 228
NATHAN ERIC DICKMAN
12 Against the Darkness: Beauty and Indeterminacy in John
Williams’s Stoner 247
PHILLIP E. MITCHELL
13 Confidence Without Certainty 260
J. AARON SIMMONS
Contents ix
PART IV
Asian Perspectives and Cosmological Concerns 277
14 Heidegger and Dōgen on the Ineffable 279
FILIPPO CASATI AND GRAHAM PRIEST
15 The Nietzschean Bodhisattva—Passionately Navigating
Indeterminacy 309
GEORGE WRISLEY
16 Body and Intimate Caring in Confucian Ethics 330
QINGJIE JAMES WANG
17 Indeterminacy in Chinese Thought: Spontaneity and the Dao 342
ROBERT CUMMINGS NEVILLE
18 Cosmological Questions 357
RICKI BLISS AND FILIPPO CASATI
List of Contributors 375
Index 380