What Can't be Said

In this fascinating new volume, four seasoned professionals of comparative and cross cultural religious philosophy team up to investigate, through key texts in the East Asian tradition, the significance of the violation of the Principle of Noncontradiction and the possibilities it opens up for religious and non religious thought alike. * Lehel Balogh, Religious Studies Review *
an invaluable book of reference * Lehel Balogh, Religious Studies Review *
The use of paradoxes across East Asian philosophies is well known, but this book is rare in taking those paradoxes seriously, both as claims that reality is indeed contradictory and as philosophical positions that are reasonable and even true. It is a valuable contribution to the growing field of world philosophy. * Frank Perkins, University of Hawai'i *
This is a unique work that takes the issue of 'paradox,' a topic that has thus far been rather scamped in the study of East Asian philosophy, seriously. The authors challenge the assumption that the presence of paradox in premodern texts was due to muddled thinking, and instead consider its significance as intentional and systematic. The chapters are pellucidly clear, focused, and present difficult concepts and translated passages in a coherent way that will be accessible to a wide readership. * James Robson, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University *
Reality is inherently paradoxical, some profound contradictions are true, and East Asian philosophers have understood these matters better than anyone else. That's the thesis of this brilliant collaboration. A must-read for global philosophers and anyone who wants to know what can be said about what can't be said. * Evan Thompson, author of Waking, Dreaming, Being, and Why I Am Not a Buddhist *
This work is a welcome continuation, now applied to East Asian philosophy, of the authors' previous efforts to challenge the tyrannical hegemony of the Principle of Non-Contradiction. The possible implications of this endeavor for everything else we think and do remains one of the most engaging points of contention in current philosophical enquiry. The classical East Asian Daoist and Buddhist thinkers, those great adepts in the arts of ineluctable paradox, are especially relevant for grappling with these questions in a thoroughgoing way, and it is encouraging to see their thought examined in this fine study. * Brook Ziporyn, Divinity School, University of Chicago *