RICE UNIVERSITY THE PLAY OF NEGATIVITY: AN EXPLORATION OF AN APOPHATIC DISCOURSE IN DAOIST PHILOSOPHY AND NEGATIVE THEOLOGY by ELLEN YING ZHANG A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY APPROVED, THESIS COMMITTEE: ^is UJ fa J Edith Wyschogyod, Director Department of Religious Studies ^ is-* * Werner H. Kelber, Professor Department of Religious Studies Houston, Texas April, 1995 ABSTRACT The Play of Negativity: An Exploration Of An Apophatic Discourse In Daoist Philosophy And Negative Theology by Ellen Ying Zhang This dissertation is an attempt to bring Daoist philosophy and negative theology into conversation. The comparative project itself by no means suggests an identification of the Daoist "Dao" with the Christian "God," nor does it argue for a contrast between a "non-logocentric China" with a "logocentric West." However divergent China and the West may be the notion of "Dao" in Daoist philosophy and the notion of "God" in negative theology, share what I call a "gesture of negativity." My project then is a comparative study of a philosophical/theological discourse which deals with the problem of ineffability. I propose that the apophatic gesture is inevitably paradoxical when speech is deployed in order to surpass itself. I compare the notions of wang and wuwei in Daoism with the notion of Gelassenheit in negative theology, and the Daoist wu with Derrida’s dénégation. I argues that the play of negativity does not suggest the rejection of meanings as such; rather like many other discourses, it participates in creation, construction, and destruction of meaning within particular philosophical and theological configurations. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When I came from China in the Fall of 1989, I stepped off the plane into a new and unknown world. Since then, many friends, colleagues and professors have helped me pursue successfully this research. Institutionally, I would like to thank the Department of Religious Studies for giving me the opportunity to make the voyage from Beijing to Houston. And the Rice Summer Research Stipend allowed me to return to China in order to gather the resources for this project. The guidance of my readers, Richard Smith and Werner Kelber, has made these voyages - both literally and metaphorically - easier. I would especially like to thank Edith Wyschogrod, my major professor, who enabled my work through her inspiration and insights. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have studied with someone of her scholarly stature. Off campus, Robert Magliola and Tong Qingbing offered their research in addition to encouragement to pursue comparative research, indeed, making these voyages meaningful. My two American families, Richard and Terry Hausner and Arthur and Patricia Liebeskind, provided much needed kindness when the transition from China to America proved difficult. I would also like to thank Mary Ann O'Donnell for her comments and interest. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my fiancé, Tony, who has helped me both emotionally and financially complete this dissertation. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: Apophasis: Speech and Silence 7 A Desire To Speak: An Apophatic Gesture 8 The Dao and the Silent 10 The Divine and the Silent 15 Words, Logic and Pseudo-Reality 23 Saying and the Echo of Silence 26 Différance and Silence of Writing 29 Apophasis and Negativity 34 Apophasis and Paradox 37 Apophasis and logic 42 Chapter Two: Forgetfulness: An Apophatic Gesture 51 Forgetfulness and a Gesture of Negation 51 Forgetfulness and the Experience of the Dao 55 The Cloud of Forgetting 68 Gelassenheit and Oneness of Godhead 71 Gelassenheit and Letting-be 74 Forgetting "Idol" and a theology of Love 80 Forgetfulness: Philosophical and Theological 84 Chapter Three: The Mystic and the Apophatic 100 The Darkness of Unknowing I. Daoism 101 The Darkness of Unknowing II. Negative Theology 109 Mythical Oneness and the Ineffable Unity 115 The Intuitive Heart and the Contemplative Soul 125 The Mystical and The Philosophical 132 Mystic's Unknowing: Metaphysics? 140 Chapter Four: The Philosophical and the Poetical 148 Philosophers, Theologians and Poets 149 The "Voice" of the Dao 152 The Dao and Poetry as Intuitive 159 God and the Poetic Prayer 162 Heidegger: Poetic language as Dis-closure 169 Derrida: Dancing with the Poetic Signifiers 174 Irony and polyvalence 178 Irony and Apophasis 180 Irony and a Play/Jest 183 Chapter Five: Negation and De-negation 192 Fan and the Limits of Reversal 193 Dénégation : A Double movement 198 Affirmation Via Negativa 204 Flux: The Dao and the Trace 212 Flux as Repetition 218 Negativity as a Play 222 Epilogue 238 Bibliography 240 1 Introduction This dissertation is an attempt to bring Daoist philosophy and negative theology into conversation. The comparative project itself by no means suggests an identification of the Daoist "Dao" with the Christian "God," nor does it argue for a contrast between a "non-logocentric China" with a "logocentric West." However divergent China and the West may be the notion of "Dao" in Daoist philosophy and the notion of "God" in negative theology, share what I call a "gesture of negativity." My project then is a comparative study of a philosophical/theological discourse which deals with the problem of ineffability. By examining negative theology in terms of Daoism, and Daoism in terms of negative theology, I hope that the work supplements contemporary discussion on post-modern theology. My account of the Daoist tradition is based on the philosophical works of Laozi and Zhuangzi , or what is usually called the "Philosophical School of Lao- Zhuang" •* Meanwhile, I include certain literary texts that are related to Daoism. In my discussion, I pay special attention to the differences between the two Daoist thinkers, an aspect often neglected by both Chinese and Western scholars. Even though both Laozi and Zhuangzi speak of the Dao in a negative fashion I contend that, of the two, Laozi's Dao is closer to the notion of God in negative 2 theology insofar as both the Dao and God are felt but not conceived, intuited but not categorized, divined but not explained. Zhuangzi’s Dao, on the other hand, is closer to Derrida’s notion of "trace" in that both Zhuangzi and Derrida reject any notion of a transcendental "signifier." If Laozi still speaks of the Dao as the "way that gives rise to all ways," and as the "root" to which all thing return, Zhuangzi places more emphasis on the Dao as "free wondering, " that is, a way that does not aim at a final direction. In my reading of the theological writings of Pseudo- Dionysius, Meister Eckhart, Soren Kierkegaard, and Jean-Luc Marion, as well as the philosophical works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida, I explain how these texts, with their various strategies or manners of speaking, imply a movement of apophasis. Namely, a kind of irony whereby one denies the saying which one specially says. It is my contention that an undoing of the speakable has to be accomplished by using a discourse in which silence does not merely mean "not-speaking. " I am particularly interested in certain affinities of deconstructive philosophy with negative theology. Even though I am aware of Derrida’s argument that deconstruction is not a form of negative theology. I believe that a critique of Derrida’s critique of negative theology is necessary because the term "negative theology" itself needs 3 to be re-defined. I also want to argue for certain deconstructive elements in negative theology. I also deploy the connection of an apophatic discourse to a mystical discourse in both Daoism and negative theology. I see, in recent Chinese studies, a problem of trying to de-mystify Daoist thinking by both Chinese and Western critics in order to make Daoism "non-metaphysical", or a coherent system of thought. I propose certain similarities between the non-differentiated Dao and God of mystical theology in that both the Dao and God are unknowable, yet all-affecting, and both the Dao and God imply an eternal transformation of unity to multiplicity and from multiplicity to unity. It is my contention that mysticism supplements philosophical discourse in that mystical discourse provides different strategies for fabricating philosophical knowledge, and offers what is lacking in philosophies of reason. Meanwhile, I make salient how the kind of silence that concerns Daoists and negative theologians is different from the one that perplexes philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrida. When Heidegger speaks of the "unsaid of the said," and when Derrida is looking for a speech that will "maintain silence," their notion of silence is textual. For Laozi and Pseudo-Dionysius, on the other hand, silence is the "hors- texte,” i.e., outside the text, because the Dao or God is beyond all human conceptions and languages. One of the 4 characteristics of negative theology is the Word/words dichotomy which is exemplified by Meister Eckhart's argument that God is the "simple Ground, the simple Silence, " and "the secret Word that lies hidden in the soul." This Word/words distinction is also emphasized by Marion, even though he tries to free theology from the metaphysical language of being. Marion’s critique of the language of being, like that critique found in negative theology, arises from a claim of the "divine incomprehensibility" of the Word. Silence in negative theology, in contrast to Derrida’s silence, steers through a mistrust of language to a kind of silence that leads to a moment of complete speechlessness. While for negative theologians language is empty of reality and thus must be transcended for reality to be realized, for Derrida reality is rooted nowhere but in language. For him the reason for ineffability arises from nothing other than the nature of language itself.