Buddhism and Postmodernity

Jin Y. Park is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at American University.

• Part 1 IntroductionPart 2 Part One. Centripetality: Buddhism and MetaphysicsChapter 3 The Silence of the BuddhaChapter 4 Hegel and BuddhismChapter 5 The Logic of Nothing and A-MetaphysicsPart 6 Part Two. Centrifugality: Language and ViolenceChapter 7 Language and Thinking: Subjectivity and Zen Huatou MeditationChapter 8 Thinking and Violence: Zen HermeneuticsChapter 9 Violence Institutionalized: The Social Dimension of Zen LanguagePart 10 Part Three. The Tension: Buddhism and the Politics of PostmodernityChapter 11 Modernity, Postmodernity, and the Question of LegitimationChapter 12 Postmodern Small Discourses and the Huayan World of Mutually Non-interfering PhenomenaChapter 13 Envisioning Zen Ethics through Huayan PhenomenologyChapter 14 The Ethics of Tension: Toward Buddhist Deconstructive Ethics

Jin Y. Park’s work is a major achievement of phenomenological hermeneutics. It is indeed of exceptional quality which is capacious and deep in scope, lucid and erudite in style, and poignant and engaging in argumentation. Park is at ease with surfing the ineffable and seemingly contradictory expressions of Zen Buddhism and with scaling the rugged terrains of postmodern thought. Park’s most creative, incisive, and discerning moments are found in her very attempt to transversalize the borders of Eastern Buddhism and Western philosophy both modern and postmodern. To put it simply, it is intercultural and interdisciplinary. I find that her appropriation of postmodern philosophy in Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Derrida, and Lyotard is judicious and discriminating. Among the notable features of Park’s work is a singularly prominent place of Korean Buddhism, the 'Zen hermeneutics' of language, silence and violence, and most importantly her ambitious and promising vision of creating a new paradigm of ethics at the crossroads of Buddhism and postmodern philosophy.