Between Assimilation and Independence: The Taiwanese Encounter Nationalist China, 1945-1950

By Bernard Faure

Book Overview

This book explores the possible relations between Western types of rationality and Buddhism. It also examines some clich s about Buddhism and questions the old antinomies of Western culture ("faith and reason," or "idealism and materialism"). The use of the Buddhist notion of the Two Truths as a hermeneutic device leads to a double or multiple exposure that will call into question our mental habits and force us to ask questions differently, to think "in a new key."

Double Exposure is somewhat of an oddity. Written by a specialist for nonspecialists, it is not a book of vulgarization. Although it aims at a better integration of Western and Buddhist thought, it is not an exercise in comparative philosophy or religion. It is neither a contribution to Buddhist scholarship in the narrow sense, nor a contribution to some vague Western "spirituality." Cutting across traditional disciplines and blurring established genres, it provides a leisurely but deeply insightful stroll through philosophical and literary texts, dreams, poetry, and paradoxes.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804743479
• ISBN13: 9780804743471
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.7" x 8.7"