Derrida and Seng-Zhao- Linguistic and Philosophical Deconstructions

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Derrida and Seng-Zhao: Linguistic and Philosophical DeconstructionsAuthor(s): Cai ZongqiSource: Philosophy East and West, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 389-404Published by: University of Hawai'i PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1399576 .

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DERRIDA AND SENG-ZHAO: LINGUISTIC ANDPHILOSOPHICAL DECONSTRUCTIONS

Contemporary Western deconstructive philosophy and Madhyamika

Buddhism are, historically and geographically, far apart from each other.One grew out of the "beyond-thinking" of the French philosopher Jac-ques Derrida around the late 1960s. The other was founded by the Indianthinker Nagarjuna (ca. 100-200) and established in China by Seng-zhao(374-414), and flourished in Korea from the sixth to the fifteenth centuryand in Japan from the seventh to the twelfth century.' However, thereexist many important parallels in method, strategy, and rationale be-tween these two philosophical traditions. Recently, a number of scholarshave discovered significant parallels in the Derridean negation and theMadhyamika prasariga (reductio ad absurdum), and carefully compared

the logic of negativity at work in both traditions.2 Here, we will turn ourattention to the hitherto unexplored parallels in Derridean and Mad-hyamika deconstructive use of language.3 First, we will examine howDerrida and Seng-zhao, the founder of Chinese Madhyamika, performlexical-syntactical deconstructions in their philosophical writings.4 Then,we will consider how Derrida and Seng-zhao use their lexical-syntacticaldeconstructions to demonstrate the impossibility of claiming ontological-theological (hereafter ontotheological) essence in and/or through lan-guage, and how they proceed to double-negate Name-reifying andMatter-reifying ontotheologies in their respective traditions. Lastly, wewill observe how Derrida and

Seng-zhaotheorize about their double

negation in similar terms of neither/nor but pursue their deconstructiveenterprises along different paths.

I. Lexical-Syntactical Deconstruction: Derrida's Word Game and

Seng-zhao's Word MazeDerrida's handling of words has often been compared to a sleight

of hand. In his writings, Derrida plays with words the way a magicianplays with his objects. He takes a special delight in juggling oppositemeanings within a word and creating a dizzying illusion of presence andabsence, affirmation and denial. To figure out the secrets of his wordgame, let us now look at the ways he plays meanings off against eachother at the typographic, morphological, orthographic, semantic, etymo-logical, and syntactic levels.

Derrida's typographic deconstruction is the most eye-catching or"eye-twitching" of all his word games. When he writes the words"writing," "encasing," and "screening" as "wriTing," "encAsing," and"screeNing,"5 he immediately puts their conceptual meanings sou rature(under erasure). With these deliberately misplaced capitalizations, Derrida

Assistant Professor,

Department ofEast Asian Languagesand Cultures,University f Illinois tUrbana-Champaign

Philosophy East & WestVolume 43, Number 3July 1993389-404

? 1993by University fHawaii Press

389

Cai Zongqi

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To accentuate a word's semantic contrariness, Derrida often goes be-

yond its common usage and digs into its rich semantic sediments within

writings of disparate types and different times. It is often a formidabletask to track down such a semantic investigation because it threads

through a great many texts without following a predetermined route. A

case in point is his semantic investigation of the Greek word pharmakonin his lengthy essay "Plato's Pharmacy," in Dissemination. He starts withthe undecidability of the word between "remedy" and "drug," "cure"and "poison." Then, by way of an anagrammatical twist, he goes into the

mythical figure "Pharmaricia" and the word "pharmakeos" (sorcerer, ma-

gician). In the course of this semantic investigation, he pursues the mani-fold meanings of pharmakon through "such 'other' domains as medicine,painting, politics, farming, law, sexuality, festivity, and family relations."9The result is a startling revelation of pharmakon's double entendre per-taining to a wide range of philosophical issues such as speech and writ-

ing,literal and

figurative meanings,and

paternityand

language.Such a rigorous semantic deconstruction seems already to havecrossed the boundary of semantics into the field of etymology. To ex-

pose the "in-tension" of conflictual forces within a word, Derrida oftenavails himself of etymological deconstruction. He traces a word to its

etymological roots of opposite import and thus invalidates the mono-lithic conceptualization of the word in question. For instance, he traceshis neologism archia on the one hand to the Greek arche, meaningfoundation, order, and principles (as reserved in words like architectureand hierarchy), and on the other to the Greek aporia, meaning excessresistant to order or logic.'0 Notably, this etymological deconstructionattests to the coarising of order and disorder, passion and logic. Like

many other words of similar "in-tension," archia becomes a prized de-constructive term for Derrida.

Derrida's syntactical deconstructions are far less frequent and far lessvaried than his lexical deconstructions. They are usually intended toenhance the effects of lexical deconstructions. For instance, to drivehome the significance of his orthographic deconstruction, Derrida delib-

erately deconstructs the syntax of his concluding statement in his semi-nal essay "Differance":

Such is the question: he alliance of speech and Being n the unique word, inthe finally proper name. And such is the question inscribed n the simulatedaffirmation f diff6rance. t bears (on) each member of this sentence: "Being/speaks always and everywhere throughout language.""

When he cuts his concluding statement into pieces, Derrida virtuallydestroys its syntax and what is inherent in it-a hierarchical order of

subject-predicate-object. As a result, the lexical elements get freed fromthe binding syntax and become equal, free-floating components. These Cai Zongqi

391







lexical elements may easily exchange positions and bring forth meaningscontradictory to that of the original syntax:

language throughout always and everywhere speaks BeingBeing speaks language always and everywhere throughout

Insofar as this mangled syntax results in such heterogeneous, oppositemeanings, it may very well be assumed to reaffirm the significance ofdifferance: an exposure of the pluralistic, contradictory import within anyconcept and a proof of the impossibility of self-presence within language.Indeed, this deconstructed sentence deals with none other than the issueof language and Being. Just as "differance" shows Being (signified) alwaysto be deferred in time and differentiated in space by language (signifier),this deconstructed syntax enacts a play of signifier and signified caused

by that ineluctable gap in space and time. Indeed, the syntactical inter-

changeability of "Being/speaks /language/..." and "language / speaks /

Being..." aptly highlights Derrida's deconstructive conception of Being.When he casts Being into this deconstructed syntax, he intends to dem-onstrate that Being is not a self-present, transcendental signified lodgedin the traditional copula syntax (Being is ...) of an ontotheological dis-course. For Derrida, Being is nothing more than a signifier that "speaks /language"-speaking and re-speaking, writing and rewriting itself per-petually and indeterminately like differance. Moreover, the syntacticalinterchangeability of "Being/speaks /language/..." and "language/speaks/ Being..." emblemizes the infinite circularity in the movement of

Being as a sign.

Now, let us examine how words and syntaxes are handled in thewritings of Seng-zhao. In the spirit of Madhyamika deconstruction, Seng-zhao seeks to break the conceptual confines of the Chinese languagejust as Derrida does those of the French language. Many Chinese charac-

T ters (zi) can function independently as meaningful, self-contained wordsor combine with other characters, often those of their opposite import,

h to form a binome (shuang-yin zi), a rough equivalent of a compoundIN word in a Western language. For example, the characters fang and yuan,

when alone, denote "square(ness)" and "circle(ness)," but, when com-bined as a binome (fang-yuan), mean literally "area" or "scope." To give

: anotherexample,

the characterschang

and duan denote"length(y)iness"and "short(ness)," respectively, but together they form a binome, chang-

duan, indicating measurement of length. To a Derridean deconstruc-tionist, these binomes of "in-tension" would be nonphonetic differance,which disproves the assumption that words contain fixed, singular signi-fieds. One can imagine that the Derridean deconstructionist would not

spare this wonderful opportunity to perform a sleight of hand between

square and circle and even continue onto the metaphorical implicationsPhilosophy East & West of "square(ness)" and "circle(ness).12 For Seng-zhao, however, there is a

392







much simpler approach to destroying the conceptuality of an onto-

theological term. Instead of reviving the dormant conflicts within an

already conceptualized binome like fang-yuan or chang-duan, he seeksto split a conceptual term into a new binome pregnant with contradic-tions. For instance, to demolish the concepts of existence (you) and f

nonexistence (wu), he simply renders theminto

binomes by combining tthem with the character fei, which can be taken as a prefix ("non") or a J

verb ("to be not") depending on the context and the way one interpretsit. Whatever its grammatical function, the added character fei causes themonolithic you and wu to split into polarized binomes:

you ("exist")-fei you ("not exist")wu ("nonexist")-fei wu ("not nonexist")'3

This kind of concept-splitting immediately reminds us of Derrida's yok-ing of opposite concepts: "good/evil, intelligible/sensible, high/low, life/death."'4 As compared with Derrida's practice, Seng-zhao's seems to

produce a greater disorienting effect because the split parts collide withone another head-on and result in a total cancellation. His "not nonexist"would probably inhibit one's capacity to conceptualize more effectivelythan Derrida's lexical deconstructions. However, while Seng-zhao more

successfully taxes our conceptuality in his concept-splitting, he does notutilize varied means of lexical deconstruction as does Derrida.

To realize the extent to which Seng-zhao's lexical deconstruction

plays havoc with our mind, we must show how Seng-zhao's concept-splitting binomes, already disorienting enough, become even more so ina deliberately ambiguous syntax. The following sentence, Seng-zhao'srebuttal of the idea of Original Nonexistence, is a typical example:

[N]onexistence means having no real (absolute) existence, and that no non-existence means having no real (absolute) nonexistence.... Why must havingnonexistence be interpreted o mean that [this particular hing] has no exis-tence, and not nonexistence be interpreted to mean that that [particularthing] has no nonexistence?'5

Even though this English translation has smoothed out all the syntacticalambiguities in the original text, it still strikes us as thought-twistingon account of the frequent recurrence of convoluted words like "nononexistence." When the

syntactical ambiguitiesare restored in the

following word-for-word translation, this passage becomes nearlyincomprehensible:

gul fei2 you3 you4 ji5 wu6 fei7 wu8 wu9 i'o wu" P1thus not exist exist namely nonexist not nonexist nonexist namely nonexist t ] PE

... zhi12 yi13 fe'14 you15 fej16 zhen17 you18 fei'9 wu20 fei2' zhen22 wu23 er24 l

... simply with not exist not real exist not nonexist not real nonexist (exclama- )f 9E g A 9e r

tory particle)16 Cai Zongqi

393







Philosophy East & West

Of the twenty-four characters numbered by us for convenient reference,there are only six particles, on which the classical Chinese languagedepends for the formation of a syntax. Among these six particles, thereare five "adverbial" particles (nos. 1, 5, 10, 12, 13), roughly correspondingto the English "thus," "namely," "simply," and "with" and one exclama-

tory particle (no. 24). Only the exclamatory particle ercan be regarded asa final particle that functions to mark off a syntactic unit like a commaor period.17 With the syntax-forming particles kept to a minimum, this

passage practically degenerates-in terms of syntactic logic-into analmost orderless recurrence of these three characters: fei ("non"), you("exist"), and wu ("nonexist").

So arranged, these three words produce a good effect of self-deconstruction. First, the coupling of fei with you and wu creates thefour concept-splitting binomes (nos. 2-3, 7-8, 14-15, 19-20) whose fea-tures we have already discussed. Then, these four binomes which are,once

made,on the threshold of

conceptualizationare

immediatelyde-

constructed by virtue of contiguity with characters identical with their

components. For instance, when the first binome fei you (nos. 2-3) isfollowed by you (no. 4), and when the second binome fei wu (nos. 7-8)is flanked on both sides by wu (nos. 6, 9), it becomes rather difficult to

disentangle these binomes from the adjacent characters and to concep-tualize them-even if we already know which are binomes and whichare not. Compounding the difficulty is the fact that many of these char-acters can function either as a noun or a verb. Reading such a passage inthe original, even an initiated reader may find his or her conceptualunderstanding held in check by Seng-zhao's semantic-lexical deconstruc-tions. Indeed, one often gets entangled in a maze of words-the seman-tic concatenation of which one must sort out and the syntactic functionsof which one must decipher before one can ever get out. This word mazeof Seng-zhao's undoubtedly measures up to "a grouped textual field,"18the ideal of Derridean lexical-syntactical deconstruction. Like Derrida'sword game, it is deliberately construed for the purpose of dislodging ourhabits of conceptual thinking, and it usually occurs when Seng-zhao setshimself to deconceptualize important philosophical terms.19 What distin-

guishes it from Derrida's word game is an unwillingness to indulge in

prolix, convoluted wordplay and take such textual proliferation as a sub-

stitute for all existing modes of ontotheological inquiry. For Seng-zhao,lexical-syntactic deconstructions are merely a means of breaking throughconceptuality and leading to a transformed state of consciousness.This essential difference between Derrida's word game and Seng-zhao'sword maze will become clearer as we proceed to examine the different

philosophical agendas behind these two kinds of deconstructive textual

practices.

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II. Critiques of Ontotheologies: Derrida's "Double Seance" and

Seng-zhao's Double NegationDerrida's word game and Seng-zhao's word maze exploit the code-

pendence of opposite elements at different levels of language. Throughsuch lexical-syntactical deconstructions, Derrida and Seng-zhao aim to

demonstrate that language is not a matter of a signifier presencing asignified as a self-identity, but an interplay of opposing yet mutuallydependent signifiers. According to both Derrida and Seng-zhao, this co-

dependence in linguistic signification precludes the possibility of a pureself-presence not only in language per se but in all language-thoughtconstructs in the domain of philosophy and religion. They believe that allclaims of ontotheological essence in and/or through language are neces-

sarily invalid insofar as they go against the codependent rule of linguisticsignification. By virtue of this reasoning, Derrida and Seng-zhao proceedfrom linguistic deconstruction to critiques of ontotheologies. Derridauses the

playof a

signto

disprovethe

self-presenttruth of

Beingvalo-

rized by all Western ontologists and theologians:

the sign is that ill-named thing, the only one, that escapes the institutingquestion of philosophy: "what s... ?20

Here Derrida crosses out the name of Being twice (first calling it "ill-named thing," then overstriking it) and puts the copula sou rature. This isbecause the rule of a sign forbids our conception of Being as a self-

present "thing" or our description of it with a copula. As a sign, "Being"must also signify "Nonbeing(s)." By the same token, the copula "is," once

positedas a

sign,must denote "is not" as well.

Owingto this

codependentrule, a sign, Derrida holds, escapes-and in fact displaces-the institut-

ing question of "what is...." For him, it is the instituting question "whatis Being?" hat gives rise to all the wrongheaded pursuits of the phantomof a self-present truth in Western ontotheologies.

Similarly, Seng-zhao exploits the codependent rule of linguistic signi-fication to demolish all kinds of ascription of self-identity to the Name or

Thing found in the Buddhist ontotheological traditions.

[T]he actuality of things cannot be equated with their names, and names intheir true meanings cannot be matched by things. This being so, the absolute

truth remains ranquil outside of any elucidation hrough names. How can itbe expressed by letters and words?

For Seng-zhao, "name" and "thing" are locked in a codependent rela-

tionship of the signifier and the signified, and allow no space for theexistence of an absolute truth. When one perceives "thing" as a signified,its actuality cannot be presenced by its signifier, that is, a "name." If, onthe contrary, one considers "name" as a signified, its so-called essence Cai Zongqi

395







cannot be matched by its signifier "things." On the ground of this inevi-table gap between "name" and "thing," Seng-zhao argues that all claimsof "name" or "thing" as absolute truth are mere illusions and that it is

utterly impossible to conceive of an absolute truth in and/or throughlanguage. Seng-zhao reiterates this rationale of ontotheological decon-

struction when he writes:If we look for a thing through a name, we shall find that there is no actualityin that thing which would correspond o the name. If we look for the namethrough a thing, we shall find that the name is not capable of helping us todiscover a thing.... As name and actuality do not correspond o each other,where do the myriad hings exist?21


The way Seng-zhao plays the "name" and "thing" off against each otherreminds us of how Derrida exploits the temporal difference and spatialdifferentiation between the signifier and the signified for the purpose of

expungingthe reification of either. It is also reminiscent of how

ZhuangZi applies the same rule of codependence to deny the possibility of

taking either existence or nonexistence as the ultimate form of reality inthe passage cited in note 19. However, while Zhuang Zi and Seng-zhaoutilize codependence in the same deconstructive vein, they hold vastlydifferent views of codependence itself. For Zhuang Zi, the rule of co-

dependence is none other than that of yin-yang polarity, which gener-ates and sustains all things and constitutes the operative mode of Tao,the ultimate cosmic principle. For Seng-zhao, codependence is nothingmore than a deconstructive tool with which he seeks to dispose of all

existing ontotheological positions. The last thing he wants to do is to reifycodependence as the ultimate cosmic principle.

According to both Derrida and Seng-zhao, all ontotheologies err in

reifying one side or the other of their respective philosophical dualisms-the Logos versus Matter, Name versus Thing, Being versus beings, Non-existence versus Existence, and so forth-as essence (a transcendental

signified) and denigrating the other side as representation (a signifier).Hence, all Western and Buddhist ontotheologies fall into two opposingcamps. Those who valorize "the Logos" or "the Name of Nonexistence"are called idealists in the West and Essentialists in the Buddhist tradition.Those who valorize "Matter" or "Thing" are known as materialists in theWest and as Realists in the Buddhist tradition. Both Derrida and Seng-zhao readily apply the codependent rule of linguistic signification to

stage a two-pronged attack on these two opposing camps. They launchthe first prong against the reification of the logos by the Western idealistsand of the Name of nonexistence by the Buddhist Essentialists. Theydirect the second prong against the counterreification of Matter by theWestern materialists and of the Thing by the Buddhist Realists.

In the opinion of Derrida, all Western idealists from Plato to Heideg-

396







ger reify the logos on the ground of the "proximity of voice [its phone]and being, of voice and the meaning of being, of voice and the idealityof meaning."22 As a corollary to this reification of the phone, the signified,they have banished the gram, the corporeal signifier, from the logos.While Plato and later idealists see the reified logos as an intermediary

between the divine and the human realms, Derrida sees it as the Achilles'heel of Western idealisms. He believes that as long as one can demon-strate the externality of the logos or, to be exact, its phone, all the

ontotheological claims by Western idealists will collapse. For this purposeof ontotheological deconstruction, Derrida coins the word diff6rance,which is on the one hand the nominal form for the French verb differer(which means both "to differ" and "to defer") and on the other a dissimu-lation of the French noun "difference." First, this neologism calls into

question the reification of the phone by Western idealists, because it isnot the phone but the gram of differance that makes its meaning under-stood. If heard but not read in

French,differance is bound to be confused

with the noun "difference." Thus, differance exposes the false anteriorityof the phone and its alleged primacy over the gram. Second, differance

spells out the fundamental rule for linguistic signification. A sign cannotexist unless it differs spatially and is deferred temporally from the sig-nified. This ever-receding gap between the signifier and the signifieddisjoins the alleged fusion of the phone and the ontotheological essencein the logos. Third, through its spatial-temporal opposition, differancereaffirms the codependence of opposite referents as the necessary con-dition for linguistic signification. The phone can convey the idea of pho-netic tenor only through the intimation of the nonphonetic tenor. Noword can exist without presupposing the existence of its opposite. Thatis, A cannot be called A unless A also signifies or implies the existence ofnon-A. For Derrida, this threefold operation of diff6rance rules out the

possibility of taking the logos as the transcendental signified. Differancewill condemn all logocentric concepts-"eidos, arche, telos, energeia,ousia [essence, existence, substance, subject], aletheia, transcendentality,consciousness or conscience, God, man, and so forth"23-to an infinite

circularity of signifiers and will render them incapable of presencing atranscendental absolute.

Derrida holds that all Western materialists counterreify the gram, the

corporeal signifier, insofar as they elevate Matter to the status of "anabsolute exterior."24 He argues, "the signifier 'matter' appears to me

problematical ... when its reinscription cannot avoid making of it a newfundamental principle."25 Among different forms of materialism (realism,sensualism, empiricism, and so forth), Derrida singles out Marxist doctrineas a typical Matter-reifying philosophy because it has turned Matter intoan absolute cosmological and sociohistorical principle. As Matter the

signifier has been "reinstituted into a transcendental signified" by Marx- Cai Zongqi

397









their double negation in similar terms. In Positions, Derrida characterizeshis deconstructive terms (pharmakon, supplement, hymen, gram, spac-ing) as double-negating agents and sums up his double negation as anexercise of "neither/nor":

[T]hepharmakon s neither remedy nor poison, neither good nor evil, neither

the inside nor the outside, neither speech nor writing; he supplement isneither a plus nor a minus, neither an outside nor the complement of aninside, neither accident nor essence, etc.; the hymen is neither confusion nordistinction, neither dentity nor difference, neither consummation nor virgin-ity, neither the veil nor unveiling, neither the inside nor the outside, etc; the

gram is neither a signifier nor a signified, neither a sign nor a thing, neither apresence nor an absence, neither a position nor a negation, etc.; spacing isneither space nor time; the incision s neither the incised integrity of a begin-ning, or of a simple cutting into, nor simple secondarity. Neither/nor, hat issimultaneously ither or....35

Likewise, after his critiques of the reification of "name" and "thing" in thepassages cited above, Seng-zhao characterizes the Madhyamika double

negation as "neither this nor that":

The Chung lun [Treatise on the Middle Doctrine, Madhyamika astra, by riAM

Nagarjuna] ays, "Things are neither this nor that." ... "this" and "that" donot definitely refer to a particular name, but deluded people would believethat they necessarily do. This being the case, [the distinction] between "this"and "that" s from the beginning nonexistent, but to the deluded it is from thebeginning not nonexistent. Ifwe realize hat "this" and "that" do not exist, isthere anything that can be regarded as existent? Thus we know that things

are not real; hey are from the beginning only temporary names.36In their rigorous pursuits of neither/nor deconstruction,37 both Derridaand Seng-zhao ineluctably reach a point where a new dualism arisesbetween their deconstructive stance and traditional ontotheological views.Therefore they are compelled to deconstruct their own philosophicalpositions as well as those of others. Derrida's deconstructive and self-deconstructive practice takes the form of an infinite textual proliferation.Often, he deliberately gets himself "entangled in hundreds of pages of a

writing simultaneously insistent and elliptical ... carrying off each con-

cept into an interminable chain of differences, surrounding or confusingitself with so many precautions, references, notes, citations, collages,supplements."38 However, the "non-sense" that results from such ver-

biage takes on a philosophical meaning of its kind, even though it isintended to negate philosophical meanings and positions. As to how to

interpret the meaning of the Derridean "non-sense," critics are quitedivided. Many take the meaning to be that of antiphilosophy or evennihilism, and hold Derridean deconstructionism responsible for what theycall the fads of denying humanistic values in present-day literary studies. Cai Zongqi

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Some are more sympathetic to Derrida's deconstructive enterprise andseek to ascribe a positive philosophical purpose to the Derridean "non-sense." For instance, Coward holds that the Derridean "non-sense" is notan aimless linguistic play, but is "itself an ontological process."39 WhileDerrida deconstructs "illusions of permanence, stasis, or presence" su-

perimposed on language, Coward argues, he pursues the dynamic pro-cess of becoming of language as "the means for the realization of thewhole ('the sign')."40

Whether we interpret the Derridean "non-sense" in a negative or a

positive light, we would agree that it is fundamentally different from thekind of "non-sense" arising from Seng-zhao's lexical-syntactical decon-structions. Madhyamika deconstructions and self-deconstructions followa clearly directional path, defined by step-by-step advancements and

negations of lemmas. The Madhyamika tetralemma (catuskoti) effects aradical negation of all existing ontotheological positions and, if seen from

R thesepositions, represents

a "non-sensical"position.

WhenJi-zang

(549-623), the leading Chinese Madhyamika thinker after Seng-zhao, under-takes the self-deconstruction of this Madhyamika tetralemma, he con-tinues to follow the path of reductio ad absurdum and reaches a hexa-lemma: neither-affirmation-nor-denial-of-both-being-and-nonbeing.41 Thishexalemma itself seems to exemplify the most mind-taxing, the most"non-sensical" of the Madhyamika "non-sense." Unlike Derrida, Mad-

hyamika Buddhists do not see their deconstructive "non-sense" as a

consequence that needs justification. For them, such "non-sense" helpslead to religious enlightenment beyond language and conceptuality. Theirdeconstructive endeavors are geared to none other than this dawning ofNirvana upon the transcendence of language and conceptual thinking.

NOTES

I wish to thank the three anonymous Philosophy East and West readersfor their constructive criticisms and comments on earlier versions of thisarticle.

1 - For a succinct account of the complex pedigree of Madhyamika inthese four countries, see Hsueh-li Cheng, Empty Logic: MadhyamikaBuddhism from Chinese Sources (New York: Philosophical Library,1984), pp. 9-32. See also Junjiro Takakusu, The Essentials of Buddhist

Philosophy, ed. Wing-Tsit Chan and Charles A. Moore (Westport,[Connecticut]: Greenwood, 1974), pp. 96-100. Chinese words aretransliterated according to the pinyin system, except for establishedterms like Tao and for words otherwise transliterated in the titles and

Philosophy East & West citations of published works.

400







2 - See Robert Magliola, Derrida on the Mend (West Lafayette, [Indiana]:Purdue University Press, 1984), pp. 3-129; David Loy, 'The Closure ofDeconstruction: A Mahayana Critique of Derrida," International Phi-

losophical Quarterly 27, no. 105 (1987): 59-80.

3 - At the time of the final revision of this article, Harold Coward's Der-

rida and Indian Philosophy (Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1990) just came out of press. Coward also focuses his atten-tion on the deconstructive philosophy of language in Derridean and

Madhyamika Buddhism as well as other schools of Indian philosophy.He regards his study as an answer to the call by Professor T. R. V.Murti to rethink traditional schools of Indian philosophy from the

perspective of language (p. 27).

4 - Seng-zhao accepted, through his half-Indian and half-Kuchen teach-er Kumarajiva (344-413), the Middle Doctrine of Nagarjuna and laid tSftthe cornerstone for the Three Treatise School (San-lun

zong),the first

,n,rsystematic Buddhist philosophy in China. The Three Treatises are

Nagarjuna's Madhyamika sastra (Treatise on the Middle Doctrine),Dvadasanikaya sastra (Twelve Gates treatise) and his disciple Arya-deva's Sata sastra (One Hundred Verses treatise). Seng-zhao's best-known works are "The Immutability of Things," "The Emptiness ofthe Unreal," and "On Prajna not Cognizant," collected in a bookentitled Zhao-lun. For an interpretive summary of these four essaysas a philosophical system, see Fung Yu-lan (Feng You-lan), A Historyof Chinese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde, 2 vols. (Princeton: Prince-ton

UniversityPress, 1953), 2: 258-270.

5- These three words make up the subheading for the fifth section in

part I of "Dissemination," in Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans.Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. vi.

6- When Derrida incorporated his early journal writings into Of Gram-

matology, he replaced the purely negative term "destruction" withthe partially negative and partially positive term "deconstruction." Healso considers "deconstruction" preferrable to "desedimentation,"another term he tried out before he settled upon "deconstruction."

7- Cf. Derrida, Dissemination, pp. 7-15.8- Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty

Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), p. 65.

9 - Barbara Johnson, "Translator's Introduction," in Dissemination, pp.xxiv-xxvi. True to her own wish, her remarks on the essay provide"a kind of roadmap that will detail some of its prominent routesand detours" (p. xxiv) for our understanding of Derrida's semantic

investigations. Cai Zongqi

401







10 - Cf. Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chi-

cago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. xvi-xvii.

11 - Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 27.

12 - For a discussion of theontotheological significance

of thisbinome,see Willard Peterson, "Squares and Circles: Mapping the History of

Chinese Thought," Journal of History of Ideas 49, no. 1 (1988): 47-60.

13- You and wu are normally translated as "existence" and "nonexis-tence." These two English words cannot suggest the verbalquality ofthese two characters. To bring out their verbal quality, we renderthem here as "exist" and "nonexist." We render fei as "not" ratherthan the prefix "non" in order to underline its status as an indepen-dent word and its verbal quality.

14- Derrida, Dissemination, pp. 25-26.

15 - "The Emptiness of the Unreal," collected in A Source Book in Chinese

Philosophy, ed. Wing-tsit Chan (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1963), p. 352. For different translations, see Chao Lun: The Treatise of

Seng-chao, trans. Walter Liebenthal, 2d rev. ed. (Hong Kong: Uni-

versity of Hong Kong Press, 1968), p. 56; and Three Theses of Seng-zhao, trans. Hsu Fang-cheng, bilingual ed. (Beijing: Chinese SocialSciences Publishing House, 1985), pp. 26-27. Chan's anthology con-tains translations of only two of Seng-zhao's essays ("The Immutabil-

ity of Things" and "The Emptiness of the Unreal"). Liebenthal's book

is a complete translation of Seng-zhao's writings with copious anno-tations and citations from the Chinese texts. Despite its incomplete-ness, Chan's translation has the virtue of being faithful to the originaland is adopted for citation in this article.

6AF4MW| 16 - The Chinese text is cited from Zhao Lun Zhong-wu ji-jie (The Zhong-wu collected annotations to Zhao Lun), ed. Jin Yuan (fl. 1058), col-

N_S=~~~ lected in Luo Xue-tang xian-sheng quan-ji (Complete works of Mr.Luo Xue-tang), 1st ed., vol. 19 (Taipei: Wenhua, 1968), pp. 8241-8242.

1iW tp ^ Et,,* f For a punctuated version of this passage, see Ren Ji-yu, Han-Tang fo

jiao si-xiang lun-ji (Collected essays on Buddhist thought from the

Han to the T'ang dynasties) (Beijing: San-lian, 1963), pp. 209-210.17 - In classical Chinese, particles function not only to establish syntaxes

but also to indicate different kinds of pauses in lieu of punctuation.

18- Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1972), p. 42.

19 - Seng-zhao's syntactic deconstruction is probably the most thorough,Philosophy East & West but definitely not the first to be seen in Chinese philosophical writ-

402







ings. Zhuang Zi seems to deconstruct his syntaxes deliberately forthe same purpose of de-hypostatizing you and wu in the followingpassage: "There is a beginning. There is a not yet beginning to be a

beginning. There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning tobe a beginning. There is being. There is nonbeing. There is a not yet

beginningto

nonbeing. Thereis a

not yet beginningto be a not

yet beginning to nonbeing. Suddenly there is nonbeing. But I don'tknow, when it comes to nonbeing, which is really being and whichis nonbeing" (The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, trans. BurtonWatson [New York: Columbia University Press, 1968], p. 43). Tounderstand fully the effect of Zhuang Zi's syntactical manipula-tions, one probably would have to examine this passage in the

unpunctuated original.

20- Derrida, Of Grammatology, pp. 18-19.

21 - Chan, Source Book, p. 356.

22 - Derrida, Of Crammatology, p. 12.

23 - Derrida, Writing and Difference, pp. 279-280.

24 - Derrida, Positions, pp. 64-65.

25 - Ibid.

26- Ibid.

27 - Ibid., pp. 65-66.

28 - Ibid., p. 66.

29 - Ibid., pp. 42, 35.

30 - For a brief introduction to these three Buddhist Essentialist schoolsbefore Seng-zhao, see chap. 20 of Chan, Source Book, pp. 336-342;and the appendix I of Liebenthal, Chao Lun, pp. 133-150. For generalstudies on the Madhyamika attack on Buddhist Essentialisms, seeG. C. Nayak, "The Madhyamika Attack on Essentialism: A Critical Ap-praisal," Philosophy East and West 29, no. 4 (October 1979): 467-490;and Peter G. Fenner, "CandrakTrti's efutation of Buddhist Idealism,"Philosophy East and West 33, no. 3 (July 1983): 251-256.

31 - F. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1962),1:480.


33- Ibid.

34 - For comments on the correspondences between Wang Bi's Neo-Taoism and Dao-an's School of Original Nonexistence, between Guo

Xiang's Neo-Taoism and Zhi Dao-lin's School of Matter as It Is, see Cai Zongqi

403







Hf"MJL%Am Tang Yong-tong, Han-Wei Liang-jin Nan-Bei-chao fo-jiao shi (Historyof Chinese Buddhism from 206 B.C. to A.D. 589) (Shanghai: Shang-wu,1938), p. 261.

35 - Derrida, Positions, p. 43.


37 - For comparative studies of the neither/nor deconstructions in theEastern and Western traditions, see Thomas McEvilley, "Early Greek

Philosophy and Madhyamika," Philosophy East and West 31, no. 2

(April 1981): 141-164; and "Pyrrhonism and Madhyamika," Philoso-

phy East and West 32, no. 1 (January 1982): 3-36. See also I. W.Mabbett, "Nagarjuna and Zeno on Motion," Philosophy East andWest 34, no. 4 (October 1984): 401-420; and David Dilworth, "Na-

garjuna's Catuskotika and Plato's Parmenides: Grammatological Map-pings of a Common Textual Form," Journal of Buddhist Philosophy 2

(1984): 77-104.38 - Ibid., Philosophy East and West 32:1, p. 14.

39 - Coward, Derrida and Indian Philosophy, p. 140.

40- Ibid., p. 139.

41 - For a discussion of Ji-zang's doctrine, see Fung Yu-lan, A History ofChinese Philosophy 2:293-297. I have given a more detailed discus-sion of Derrida's and Ji-zang's self-deconstructions in my article"Derrida and Madhyamika Buddhism from Linguistic Deconstructionto Criticism of Onto-theologies," International Philosophical Quar-terly 33, no. 130 (1993): 183-195.


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Derrida and Seng-Zhao- Linguistic and Philosophical Deconstructions