Review of: James W. Heisig, Nothingness and Desire: An East-West Philosophical Antiphony

Abstract

James W. Heisig, and Desire: An East-West Philosophical Antiphony Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 2013. vi + 193 pages. Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture. Hardcover $44.10; paperback $22.50. isbn 978-0824838867.This book has its origins in the Jordan Lectures on Comparative Religion, deliv- ered by the author in 2011 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Nothingness and desire are put forward as what the author calls guiding fic- tions, through the interplay of which an antiphony-a call-and-response-between philosophies East and West becomes possible, across five critical contem- porary topics: self, God, morality, property, and the nature of the East-West divide.Perhaps ranging is the wrong metaphor of movement: the six lectures that make up this series do not so much range complacently or at random across their themes as circle them repeatedly and with intent. Heisig's contention is that the lingering and mistaken centrality in the western philosophical imagination of humanity and its anthropocentric projections has contributed profoundly harm- ful patterns of thought to our social and political discourse-such that unless new, alternative narratives of life and the natural world begin to take root soon, the social and ecological crises engendered by the old ones seem all but certain to overwhelm us. This gives and Desire the feel of as much an antiphony of poli- tics and philosophy as of philosophies East and West: an examination of how every- day politics-in the broadest sense of our individual and collective pursuit of power and security-and our most fundamental philosophical assumptions unceasingly call out and respond to one another, in such a way that the former can only mean- ingfully be reimagined, or redeemed, in conjunction with the latter.Nothingness and desire, the elucidation of which forms the basis of the intro- ductory lecture, perform a great deal of useful work here both as critical concepts and as symbols drawing us constantly onwards in the asking of ever more refined questions about the five major themes of the book. And while Heisig finds parts in his antiphony for voices as diverse as Daoism, Confucianism, various Buddhist tra- ditions, and Japan's Kyoto School, through to Aristotle, Augustine, Eckhart, and the modern German tradition spanning Hegel and Heidegger, his eschewal of unneces- sary contextual detail ensures that his analysis proceeds apace. Readers may find as a result that prior familiarity with the work of Nishida Kitar? and Tanabe Hajime is an advantage in grasping the basics of this crucial opening chapter, but then again Heisig pitches his prose at the intelligent generalist rather than the specialist-pro- viding in his brief introduction to nothingness, for example, a series of helpful correctives to false assumptions about the term that might easily distort a reader's understanding and misdirect their engagement with the rest of the book. Heisig points out, for instance, that while being operates in parts of the western tradi- tion as the supreme principle of reality, is not a straightforward alter- native. Certainly, there is a sense in which nothingness can be understood as the principle that encompasses and makes possible both and non-being. But it is not solely, or even mainly, a descriptor: depending on the situation, its expres- sive, performative aspects come to the fore, and we encounter nothingness vividly as a dynamism a quality, or a state of mind (23). This point about nothingness verbal as much as it is nominal matters a great deal for later chapters, where practical virtues such as insight, the training of habit, and the ability to respond naturally to the demands of the present situation are recommended over against the problems and self-deceptions that attend established religious or philosophical formulations.If Heisig requires of us a degree of pause and reflection in order to understand the multivalence and implications of here-not to mention the rereading of the occasional sentence, where the philosophical amateurs amongst us are concerned-the same goes too for desire. …