Wang, Youru, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism: The Other Way of Speaking

Abstract

Why do we speak when we insist we should not speak? How do we speak of the unspeakable? Is the very notion of ineffability and mystical silence itself based on the premises that there is something there as an onto-theological presence, transcendental signified, or logocentric site? The questioning of language and representation in the “post-” age arises with the crisis of subjectivity and the nature of truth in the Western philosophical and religious discourse. Speaking sometimes seems to suggest the impossibility of saying by promising something that cannot be delivered, that is, silence. The early Wittgenstein has clearly stated, “There is indeed the inexpressible.... Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” as WANG Youru cites in the book under review (86). This statement has been cited quite frequently when the question of unspeakability is talked about in Eastern traditions such as Daoism and Buddhism. Wang, however, intends to go beyond the limits of propositional language and proper names by accentuating his discussion on “the other way of speaking” which is hinted at in the subtitle of the book, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism. The book consists of three parts: (1) Deconstruction in the Zhuangzi and in Chan Buddhism; (2) The liminology of language in the Zhuangzi and in Chan Buddhism; (3) Pragmatics of indirect communication in the Zhuangzi and in Chan Buddhism. Wang’s project is meant to be a philosophical investigation of linguistic strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi 莊子 and Buddhist Linji 臨濟 with a focus on “the otherness of language use” (3). Obviously, neither philosophical “skepticism” nor religious “mysticism” is the central concern for Wang’s investigation, for both positions, as Dao (2011) 10:403–408 DOI 10.1007/s11712-011-9223-4