Academic Talk on Chan Buddhism

School of Philosophy, Fudan University

Resolving the Ineffability Paradox

Speaker: Professor Chien-hsing Ho (何建興)

Date : 24th April, 2015 (Friday)

Time: 3:00-5:00 Afternoon

Location: Room 2501,West Tower, Guanghua Building

Language: English

Abstract:A number of contemporary philosophers think that the unqualified statement “X is unspeakable” faces the danger of self-referential absurdity: if this statement is true, it must simultaneously be false, given that X is speakable by the predicate word “unspeakable.” This predicament can be formulated as an argument that we may term the “ineffability paradox.” In this talk, I resort to a few Chinese Buddhist and Hindu philosophical materials to rationally reconstruct a strategy for resolving the paradox. By introducing the mode of expression termed “indication,” together with the relevant notions of superimposition and of gesturing beyond the horizon, I attempt to show that expressing the ineffable does not necessarily involve irresoluble contradiction. It is also suggested that philosophers may need to acknowledge the relevance of the notion of ineffability for contemporary philosophizing.

Speaker:Chien-hsing Ho(何建興)is the Professor in the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies at Nanhua University, Taiwan. He received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Delhi, India in 1999. He specializes in Indian and Chinese Madhyamaka, Buddhist epistemology, and Buddhist philosophy of language, with additional research interests in Chan Buddhism, Indian philosophy, and comparative philosophy. He has published articles in such international refereed journals as Philosophy East and West; Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy; Asian Philosophy; the Journal of Chinese Philosophy; and the Journal of Indian Philosophy.