Absence
On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East

Byung-Chul Han (Author), Daniel Steuer (Translated by)

9781509546206, Polity Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 March 2023

128 pages
20.8 x 13.7 x 1.5 cm, 0.159 kg

"After reading Heidegger’s and Derrida’s critiques of the “metaphysics of presence” that pervades the Western tradition, do you find yourself asking: But what’s the alternative? If so, this breathtakingly bold and inspiringly insightful book is for you. You will find it more far-reaching as it deftly escorts you into the philosophical and aesthetic heart of the Far East."
Bret W. Davis, author of Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism

“a tool for reengaging with the world wherever you are.”
Art Review

Western thinking has long been dominated by essence, by a preoccupation with that which dwells in itself and delimits itself from the other. By contrast, Far Eastern thought is centred not on essence but on absence. The fundamental topos of Far Eastern thinking is not being but ‘the way’ (dao), which lacks the solidity and fixedness of essence. The difference between essence and absence is the difference between being and path, between dwelling and wandering. ‘A Zen monk should be without fixed abode, like the clouds, and without fixed support, like water’, said the Japanese Zen master Dōgen.

List of Illustrations

Preface

Essencing and Absencing – Living Nowhere

Closed and Open – Spaces of Absencing

Light and Shadow – The Aesthetics of Absencing

Knowledge and Daftness – On the Way to Paradise

Land and Sea – Strategies of Thinking

Doing and Happening: Beyond Active and Passive

Greeting and Bowing – Friendliness


Notes

Subject Areas: Philosophy [HP]