Fan Zhen (3): Essay on the Extinction of the Soul

I mentioned in two previous posts that I learned of Fan Zhen (450 - 515 AD) via Esperanto, then sought-out English language sources. I have finally located a translation of a key essay, preceded by a biographical and political contextualization of Fan Zhen's intervention against Buddhism:

The First Chinese Materialist / Essay on the Extinction of the Soul (Etienne Balazs / Fan Zhen)

Fan Zhen's materialism is in his argument on the mind-body problem. As is historically the case in much of Chinese philosophical discourse, here there is a mixture of logical argument, anecdotal historical references, appeals to tradition and sages and other authorities. Fan Zhen links his argument against the persistence of the soul after death to the parasitism, otherworldly diversion, and false promises of Buddhist monks he alleges.

Daoism update (2): from the Daodejing to Bertolt Brecht

Several of the links to web sites other than my own listed in my post Daoism update of 1 October 2010 are defunct, so here is my updated listing to external links, deleting a couple, adding a couple. There are a number of other relevant gateway sites on the web, probably some new ones since my last post. Consult the previous post for internal links, but start with those mentioned at the bottom of this post.

This list begins with some introductions to Daoism (Taoism) proper, and then to specific ideological uses of their concepts, with focus on their political artistic use by Bertolt Brecht.

Taoism Virtual Library

Tao Te Ching - Translation comparison

tao-te-king

       Quotations / Zitate (Western thinkers on Laozi / Dàodéjing)

Daoism by Chad Hansen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Daoist Alchemy in the West: The Esoteric Paradigms by Lee Irwin

Legend of the Origin of the Book Tao-Te-Ching on Lao-Tsu's Road into Exile (1938) by Bertolt Brecht

Peasant Dialectics: Reflections on Brecht's Sketch of a Dilemma by Antony Tatlow

Lao Tzu and the Apaches by Ioan Davies

Brecht's Use of Moism, Confucianism and Taoism in his Me-Ti Fragment by Gaby Divay

Brecht's Way (Brecht between Taoism and Marxism) adapted by David George

On my web site, begin with:

Taoism & the Tao of Bourgeois Philosophy (review of J. J. Clarke, The Tao of the West) by R. Dumain

Walter Benjamin on Bertolt Brecht’s Lao Tzu

Shit happens

I can't remember whether it was two or three decades ago that I saw my first "Shit Happens" T-shirt. There are many variations of the list, but they're all about the various religious views of why shit happens. There are numerous listings on the web. I haven't checked to see which is the most complete. This one, from the infamous journal Maledicta (Volume 12, 1996), claims to be complete:

The Complete "Shit Happens" List

Some of these are quite funny. Note, thought, that the first one listed here is also the first one you will see on all the T-shirts, namely: "Taoism: Shit happens." And seriously, that's all there really is.

Edgar Saltus: The Anatomy of Negation (1)

Saltus, Edgar. The Anatomy of Negation. Rev. ed. London: Brentano's, 1889. (First ed., 1886.) Other copies of the 1886 edition are downloadable from Google books, including this one. Plain text file downloadable from Ebooks.

Edgar Saltus (1855-1921) was an acclaimed writer in his day who has dropped out of history. Still, there are those who wish to rehabilitate his reputations. See, e.g. Edgar Saltus: Forgotten Genius of American Letters? by Jason DeBoer. Several works by Edgar Saltus are available at Project Gutenberg. For another take on the type of writer Saltus was, see Edgar Saltus’s Imperial Orgy. You can also get a substantial preview of Edgar Saltus: The Man
By Marie Saltus.

Saltus prefaces The Anatomy of Negation by claiming it to be a historical compendium of anti-theism. It is not really a thorough history nor is it limited to atheism, but it could best be considered an historical narrative of skeptical and heterodox thinking, told from a rather equianimous point of view. Saltus considers the first thinker to break from religious thinking to be Kapila in ancient India. There is also an extensive account of the Buddha, and Lao Tzu to round out chapter 1. Saltus moves from China and India to ancient Greece and Rome. Lucretius is the star of the Roman saga.

Chapter 3 gives us a history of Christianity. Deep into this chapter, the skeptic Montaigne makes his appearance (103ff).

Chapter 4 takes off with the saintly Spinoza, who gets a good 10 1/2 pages. Then there is a lengthy treatment of Voltaire, followed by LaMettrie, Maupertuis, d'Holbach, Diderot, and d'Alembert.

With chapter 5 we encounter German idealism--Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and a passing mention of some of the Young Hegelians. Clearly Saltus does not understand Hegel. He gives far more attention to Arthur Schopenhauer.

Daoism update

Well, this is really just a collocation of my various links on the subject, particularly on the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching), the fundamental philosophical text of Daoism (Taoism). Here are my relevant blog entries and web pages, and links to other sites.

These are the most relevant entries among several on Chinese philosophy on my Studies in a Dying Culture blog:

Daodejing (Tao Te Ching), a new translation

Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), Ames & Hall

Chinese Philosophy in the West: Globalization Gone Bad (1)

The Tao of Brecht

On my main web site:

Taoism & the Tao of Bourgeois Philosophy (review of J. J. Clarke, The Tao of the West) by R. Dumain

Eastern & Western Philosophy: Unpublished Letter to the Editor
[rejoinder by R. Dumain to 'The Great Divide' by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad]

Hegel on Daoism (Taoism)

Hegel on Number Mysticism: Pythagoreanism, Astrology, I Ching

Walter Benjamin on Bertolt Brecht's Lao Tzu

T.W. Adorno on Zen Buddhism

Washington Philosophy Circle: meetings April-June 2005

Taoism (Daoism) in the West (bibliography)

Offsite links:

Taoism Virtual Library

Tao Te Ching - Translation comparison

Dao House... of discourses and dreams

Quotations / Zitate (Western thinkers on Laozi / Dàodéjing)

Daoist Alchemy in the West: The Esoteric Paradigms by Lee Irwin

Legend of the Origin of the Book Tao-Te-Ching on Lao-Tsu's Road into Exile (1938) by Bertolt Brecht. Or see at Dougsblog.

Peasant Dialectics: Reflections on Brecht's Sketch of a Dilemma by Antony Tatlow

Lao Tzu and the Apaches by Ioan Davies

Brecht's Use of Moism, Confucianism and Taoism in his Me-Ti Fragment by Gaby Divay

Brecht's Way (Brecht between Taoism and Marxism)

Zen Judaism

The Daodejing /Tao Te Ching was once one of my favorite books. Its minimalism is one aspect of its appeal; you don't really have to believe in anything to relate to it. Daoism is also an institutionalized religion, and as such is quite different from this text taken in abstraction. The other great classic of Daoism taken in abstraction is the Chuang Tzu (or Zhuangzi in the new transliteration). I was a big fan of this too long ago and far away. Ultimately, the world views inscribed therein have their limitations, but are pretty sophisticated for ancient feudal society.

There is also much that needs to be said about the ideology, politics, and duplicity of intellectual elites of both East and West who have reprocessed and imported the philosophies of India, China, and Japan into the modern West. One could discuss for example, the fascist and Nazi sympathies of Indian gurus, or the participation of Zen Buddhists in Japanese fascism. But more generally, there is the conservatism, smugness, and quietism of the comfortable and well-off that tries to convince us that the world is okey-dokey as is; we just need to change our attitude. People who have suffered, on the other hand, don't tend to see things this way.

* * *

The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The Tao does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
The Tao demands nothing of others.
The Tao is not Jewish.

-- David M. Bader, Zen Judaism: For You, A Little Enlightenment