Nothingness and emptiness : a Buddhist engagement with the ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre

Brings together the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and Zen Buddhism. "This sustained and distinctively Buddhist challenge to the ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness resolves the incoherence implicit in the Sartrean conception of nothingness by opening to a Buddhist vision of emptiness. Rooted in the insights of Madhyamika dialectic and an articulated meditative (Zen) phenomenology, Nothingness and Emptiness uncovers and examines the assumptions that sustain Sartre's early phenomenological ontology and questions his theoretical elaboration of consciousness as "nothingness." Laycock demonstrates that, in addition to a "relative" nothingness (the for-itself) defined against the positivity and plenitude of the in-itself, Sartre's ontology requires, but also repudiates, a conception of "absolute" nothingness (the Buddhist "emptiness"), and is thus, as it stands, logically unstable, perhaps incoherent. The author is not simply critical; he reveals the junctures at which Sartrean ontology appeals for a Buddhist conception of emptiness and offers the needed supplement."--BOOK JACKET. Annotation Laycock (philosophy, University of Toledo) seeks to resolve the incoherence implicit in the Sartean conception of nothingness by opening it to a Buddhist vision of emptiness. Rooted in the Madhyamika dialectic and an articulated meditative (zen) phenomenology, the book examines the assumptions that sustain Sartre's early phenomenological ontology and questions his theoretical elaboration of consciousness as "nothingness." Laycock argues that, in addition to the "relative" nothingness (the for-itself) defined against the positivity and plenitude of the in-itself, Sartre's view requires, but repudiates, an "absolute" nothingness--which Buddhism supplies in the form of "emptiness". Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR Nothingness and Emptiness: A Buddhist Engagement with the Ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre 5 Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 The Radiance of the Lotus 11 1. Dancing with the Light 19 2. Light Upon Light 45 3. Questioning Sartrean Questions 75 4. Nothingness 93 5. Emptiness 117 6. Making Nothing of Something 141 7. The Myth of Repletion 165 8. The Possibility of the Possible 185 References 207 Index 221 A 221 B 222 C 222 D 223 E 224 F 225 G 225 H 225 I 225 J 226 K 227 L 227 M 227 N 228 O 228 P 229 Q 230 R 230 S 231 T 232 U 232 V 232 W 233 Y 233 Z 233 Stephen W. Laycock. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 197-209) And Index.