Buddhist Phenomenology

Catalog description

After centuries of neglect, the Yogacara Buddhist tradition came vividly back to life in early twentieth-century China. We will begin with a look at how the phenomenology of early Yogacara made it attractive to Chinese philosophers confronting the challenge of scientific modernity. We will then devote most of the term to a close reading of Xiong Shili?s 1932 work, the New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness, which not only takes Yogacara Buddhism seriously, but also articulates its conceptual links to Confucianism and Daoism, resulting in a remarkable and perhaps unparalleled synthesis of Chinese thought. Seminar. Offered irregularly.