The Structure of Reality in Oriental Religious Thought: Human Relations with the Transcendent

Abstract

My plenary lecture is a semantic attempt to clarify the structure of reality in Oriental religious thought, focusing on human relations with the transcendent. From the semantic perspective of religion, I would like to explore essential characteristics of Oriental philosophy, which contain two philosophical patterns. In the Chinese philosophical tradition, there lies a realistic philosophical pattern, represented by Confucian thought, which argues that every thing and event that one ordinarily experiences is real. This thought explains the ＂way＂ as ＂the way of Heaven＂ and ＂the way of man.＂ According to Confucius, everything is what it really is with an ＂essence;＂ an objective piece of reality corresponding to its very name. Thus, he attaches great importance to names which indicate the ontological essences of things. In contrast to the Confucian discourse of the ＂way,＂ there is another philosophical pattern, represented by such Taoistic philosophers as Lao-tzŭ and Chuang-tzŭ. They emphasize that the ＂way,＂ which Confucian thought designates with the word ＂way,＂ cannot be the eternal Way (tao), which is metaphysically the primordial ground of the whole world of Being. Contrary to Confucian thought, for example, Lao-tzŭ regards the names of things as having many delimitations and deformations of an eternally limitless and absolutely undetermined reality, i.e., the Way which is ＂nameless.＂ Like the Chinese philosophical tradition, in the Indian philosophical tradition, too, there are semantically two philosophical patterns. As Confucian thought emphasizes, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thought argues for the real existence of something solid and eternally fixed with a name. Thus, this kind of thought philosophically deserves to be called ＂realism＂ or ＂essentialism.＂ By contrast, as is found in the Taoist thought, Śaṅkara’s Vedānta philosophy asserts that the world is but a fabric of illusion, constructed by human consciousness. In regard to the issues of language and reality, it is noteworthy that both Taoist and Śaṅkara’s Vedānta thoughts emphasize that the name-object relationship is entirely arbitrary and unstable; at the depth of reality, all things and events, united on account of the elimination of all distinctions, exist as the undifferentiated whole. From the semantic perspective of religion, while discussing the two above-mentioned philosophical patterns in Oriental philosophy, I would like to elucidate the structure of reality in Oriental religious thought.