Journal articles on the topic 'Taoist Aesthetics'

Abstract Inspired by the understanding of curriculum as aesthetic text, study on the aesthetics of curriculum has attracted more and more interests in Taiwan. Based on the cultural lens of Taoism, this article aims to explore the theory and implementation of aesthetics of curriculum in a case study. The study found the aesthetics of Taoism in the curriculum can be understood from the aesthetics of relation, and the aesthetics of simplicity and plainness, which lead to the reconstruction of the way of “Being” in education. The aesthetics of curriculum from a Taoist perspective sheds important light on educational reform. In the era of globalization, we should reconsider the implications of curriculum by looking back on and reviving our culture.

Abstract Chinese aesthetics mainly derives from Confucianism and Taoism. This essay attempts to revisit the main theories that run through Confucian and Taoist aesthetics in order to make them comprehensible within a broader global context. Aesthetics in Confucianism pertains to fields as various as literature, art, music and the natural environment. It holds the idea of ren 仁 (human-heartedness) as the essential attribute of beauty. In comparison, Taoist aesthetics emphasizes the centrality of tao 道 (way), which transpires through naturalness, and, as such, considers natural forms to offer the highest degree of beauty. In order to understand variations of representation and interpretation in Confucian and Taoist aesthetics, the essay discusses accordingly the three fundamentals of Chinese aesthetics: beauty, feeling of beauty, and artistic image. This comparative study will hopefully bring to light differences and similarities between two traditions, which may also resonate within the wider context of modern global aesthetics.

This paper investigates the connotation of Taoist aesthetics and applies it to the creation of public art on campus so as to help the campus take on cultural and aesthetics connotation. It also points out that with the influence of Taoist aesthetics public art on campus is of rich aesthetic connotation, which mainly consists of the harmony between man and nature, harmony and coexistence and the beauty of harmony.

Dress and personal adornment of Taoism, also short for Taoist Clothing. Its refers to the type of clothing with ‘Tao’ as the core concept. Taoist clothing as a kind of religious symbolic clothing, it can be described as a typical carrier of Chinese traditional culture (especially the Han nationality), which contains Chinese traditional religion, philosophy, aesthetics and technology. By studying the history, form and cultural symbols of Taoist clothing has important significance for help us to deeply understand Chinese traditional costume culture and to discover the valuable cultural elements contained in them.

AbstractThis study argues for a frame semantic approach to the treatment of Taoist terms, which are Chinese culture-specific. It takes three Taoist aesthetic terms 虚(xu), 无(wu) and 静(jing) as a case study to explore how Chinese-English dictionaries can make use of semantic frames in the treatment of Taoist terms. As the study shows, a Taoist-aesthetics frame can be constructed in comparison with the Aestheticsframe in FrameNet. When treating Taoist terms, the core frame element “Entity” facilitates the meaning explanation by making the terms more intelligible. The non-core frame element “Circumstances” should be highlighted as it helps the dictionary to provide a more accurate definition of Taoist terms.

Analysis of Chinese landscape design offered a challenge to test the concepts of environmental aesthetics developed in the West. With comparative approach we improved our understanding of art and environment, and of different strategies (inspired by Taoist, and/or Buddhist concepts) in designing forms of Chinese gardens. In order to describe the "hidden" symbohsm of Chinese landscape design we applied various concepts and metaphors: completeness, large and small, mirror and mirroring, garden as entrance and separate reality, disclosure and concealment, and returning to the source.

The paper is devoted to the contemporary Chinese prose and drama writer, painter,stage director and author of experimental art films, Gao Xingjian. My aim is topresent his innovative solutions in the field of different arts and media. I try toanalyze his works in a broad context of Eastern and Western culture and to showthe flexibility with which he crosses the narrow borders of arts, makes use of therich heritage of his native traditional culture, Chinese Taoist philosophy with itsprocessual understanding of reality. I also point at his interest in the aesthetics ofemptiness and artistic minimalism.

Very little is known of the similarities shared by the Great Tao as conceived in the immortal Taoist canon, the Tao-te ching, and the nature of God and the teachings of God's messengers as expounded by Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. This article focuses on the Great Tao of the ancient Chinese people, a Tao whose eternal spirit has seeped into the very heart of Chinese tradition, culture, and way of life for centuries, and which is manifest in various aspects of Chinese thought and life as well as in the more apparent aesthetics of calligraphy, painting, and poetry. This article compares the similarities of the spiritual insights of the Tao-te ching with that of other major religions, notably the Bahá’í Faith, and argues that no understanding of the Chinese mind and spirit can be complete without a perusal of some of the main spiritual tenets of this imperishable canon. It must be noted that this article is concerned with the original philosophy of Tao and not with what is today popularly known as the "Taoist religion," an invention only loosely connected with the spiritual insights of the Tao-te ching.

Since the expansion of Japanese comic books throughout western countries, the so-called “manga style” has get attention from audiences and theorists. But how can we identify such Japaneseness? Trying to fulfill readers` interests, books have been published under the how-to-draw-manga label, usually highlighting the visual composition of characters, from clothes to facial expressions to hairstyle. From the academic perspective, particularities of page layout have been also considered since Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle`s idea of tabularity. Such structuralist perspective is also echoed by contemporary scholars such as Benoît Peeters and Thierry Groensteen. Investigations on what is called the “grammar of mangas” were also proposed by Neil Cohn or Scott McCloud (or at least based on his contributions). But what are they referring to by “manga”? Artists from all around the world translate mangas into transnational experiences. This study proposes a wider understanding of the manga narrative style and its particular aesthetic influence on readers. The study focuses on the Asian philosophies of Tao and Buddhism, identifying how their ideals are articulated to promote reader’s immersion in the narrative. The article investigates the visual representations of the Taoist idea of vacuum and the Zen idea of trivia, which characterize the visual and narrative fluidity of manga – especially those whose stories are based on everyday life.

The purpose of the article is a culturological and philosophical understanding of the borderline phenomena of modern culture that arise on the border of different traditions, life strategies, cultural and artistic spheres. The relevance of the study is associated with the methodological and existential need to comprehend some phenomena on the border in the conditions of postmodern culture (intercultural inter-borrowing, ideological crisis, methodological pluralism, consumer society, ethical and aesthetic disorientation, scientism and non-scientific practice of knowledge and experience, etc.), which can be extrapolated to other similar trends, and practically-existential significance associated with the real need to search for and create a compromise and creative platform for the "dialogue of cultures", cultivating and feeling the unity of man and the world, man and man, implementing balanced and holistic strategies of life in society and an individual. The nature of jazz as a cultural phenomenon, which embodies the freedom of musical thinking, spontaneous improvisation, imaginative dynamics, a special receptive environment and an atmosphere of openness, changeability, acceptance, capable of generating new (other) musical and cultural phenomena, is analyzed. The features of Zen as a spiritual and aesthetic practice in the West, the reasons for its spread and the specifics of the sympathetic audience are revealed. It was found that Zen Buddhism became a worldview platform for a significant jazz and subcultural environment, especially in the 60s of the XX century - the era of great objection and great refusal, the search for spiritual self-identity, the true sources of human transcendence, personal creative self-realization and ethical self-improvement. Passion for Zen, its meditative simplicity and routine of life has become a saving strategy for many representatives of creative and protest youth movements, an alternative spiritual resource for the intellectual elite of the West. It has been determined that these processes and phenomena have a specific borderline nature, which makes it possible, on the one hand, to organically and dynamically combine different characteristics and functions, on the other, to form new perspectives in the cultural environment. The simulative and technological nature of modern event industries and creative management in the context of new media, social networks, advertising business is outlined. An integrated approach in modern event technologies is presented: Tao-and-Zen-presentations based on restrained minimalist Zen aesthetics and Taoist principles of perception of life and the world. The openness, sincerity, and originality of these event actions are a potential prospect for the newest cultural industries and event management.

  This article is dedicated to examination of the philosophical-aesthetic reflection in China in the XX century, and the impact of European aesthetics upon the development and transformation of the traditional Chinese aesthetics. The article employs the method of historical and cultural with elements of structural analysis of aesthetic text of the modern Chinese philosophers. In the XX century, a number of Chinese thinkers made attempts of reforming the traditional Chinese aesthetics, complementing it with the viewpoint of European philosophy. The article examines the paramount aesthetic thoughts of the modern Chinese philosophers Wang Guowei and Zong Baihua, and determines the impact of European philosophy upon them. The scientific novelty of this study lies in assessing the impact of the concepts of European aesthetics upon self-reflection and development of Chinese aesthetics in the context of cross-cultural problematic. It is demonstrated that Chinese modern aesthetics in many ways retains its connection with the tradition, which determines its specificity and imparts peculiar semantic symbolism. The conclusion is made that in the XX century, Chinese philosophers sought to complement the existing traditional Chinese reflection on art, which is based mostly on the ideas of Taoism and Buddhism, with what can be referred to as the Western viewpoint, associated with a scientific approach and scientific interpretation. Another vector in the area of humanistic understanding of the phenomenon of art was related to the attempts of interpretation of the European aesthetic thought from through the prism of Chinese traditional philosophy. The philosopher Wang Guowei tried to incorporate the European aesthetics into the scientific problematic of China. The philosopher Zong Baihua wanted to synthesize the Chinese and European aesthetic theories, and create what he believed is the modern Chinese aesthetics.  

Heidegger, Winner, and Ellul's critiques of Western technology focus on a notion of efficiency that subordinates to itself all non-instrumental values. An alternative conception of efficiency is proposed based on the Taoist theory of non-action (wu-wei). The ancient Taoist text, The Chuang Tzu, reveals a type of efficiency that is effective, resourceful, and entrepreneurial. It is a form of action which has an intimate rather than alienated relation to technology, and which is sensitive to the ethical and aesthetic values that Heidegger and Ellul claim are excluded from the Western conception of efficiency.

By analyzing the philosophical thoughts of "Great Truths Are All Simple" of Eastern Taoism and the design philosophy of "Less is More" born of Western modernism, the design concept of "simple aesthetics" was proposed.And from the five aspects of form, color, material, detail, attitude, and combing the application of the "simple aesthetics" design concept in the interior design under the fusion of Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds, it is concluded that the "simple aesthetics" design concept meets the needs of the times and artistic aesthetics, the positive meaning of the human spirit.

The article deduces the concept of self-education that had been advocated by Laozi, the founder of Taoism, in his philosophy on aesthetic education. From the perspective of his philosophical thoughts, this article analyzes the inspiration and inheritance of “aesthetic” in the Chinese traditional culture based on the concept of self-education, discusses the similarities between the concept of self-education and beauty, as well as explores the internal relationship between self-education and aesthetic feeling so that the enlightenment and value of the concept of self-education in aesthetic education can be reflected and learnt.

The main research subject of this paper is the costume of Shanxi ancient drama, which is used to decorate the role in the form of drama performing art that spread in Ancient Shanxi. Drama costume is a kind of special performance costume which combines decoration, acting and symbolism. It is quite different from the traditional costume in aesthetic and functional aspects. The social and cultural factors that influence the costume of Shanxi ancient drama mainly include the system and rules of Chinese ancient costume, the subtle influence of Buddhist culture and Taoist culture, as well as the profound influence of loyalty culture.

The article deals with an reinterpretation of the motif of the library and librarian in the novel Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal. The library in this piece is not a repository of knowledge, but a collection of waste paper, just garbage pile for books. The protagonist, digging in this trash of culture, is trying to commit an act of artistic creation through the destruction of books. His reading strategies allow him to take on various figures − a Taoist scholar, Sisyphus, Faust, etc. A key reading for him, however, turns out to be Schopenhauer, from whom he learns that it is love and compassion which are the most important, and the state of absolute cognition is attained through an aesthetic attitude.

The article is devoted to the views of three Japanese philosophers of the 20th cen­tury with their example we are convinced the relevance of the traditional world­view in contemporary Japan. Since the Meiji period, Western philosophy and aes­thetic theories have constantly influenced the views of Japanese thinkers, but up to this day, traditionalism plays an important role in Japanese thought. This also applies to the emphasis on corporality, human incarnation – the Buddhist position on “the unity of flesh and mind” (shin-jin – itchinyo) and the uncertainty fluidity of all forms of existence of things (mujo), relations, the ephemerality of life itself. This is also true for acceptance of Nothingness (mu) as a metacategory of philoso­phy which Nishida Kitaro put at the foundation of his system, explaining the his­torical world and the position in it of a person through the identity of absolute contradictions resolved in the field (basho) of Nothingness. This philosophical position, Buddhist-Taoist in essence, is especially vividly present in the works of Japanese thinkers who study the traditional culture of their homeland and try to give a modern interpretation to its categories.

The problem statement is that the understanding of the fullness as a certain state of consciousness is inherent not only in Christianity. An analysis of recent research on the subject involves the consideration of emptiness as fullness in Chinese mysticism. In view of this, the purpose of the article is to highlight the phenomenon of self-sufficiency and finding the similarity of Christianity, Taoism, the religion of ancient Ukrainians and modern mysticism.

Abstract This article explores the global influences of Chinese mysticism latent in Chinese K’in music and Christian mysticism on Beckett’s composition of Dream of Fair to Middling Women. I argue that Beckett’s portrayal of Belacqua as a mystic purist is the direct result of his creative appropriation of K’in music, Taoism, and Christian mysticism on the one hand, and his equally creative appropriation of the modernist legacy of inner fiction exemplified by the fiction of Proust and Joyce on the other. By revealing the hybrid roots of Belacqua’s mystic quest, this essay presents a compelling case that unfolds not only Beckett’s interesting relation to China, but modernism’s ethical and aesthetic inclusion in a global context.

The seemingly identical artistic terms put forward respectively by the Chinese poet Su Shi and English poet John Keats, “Transforming into Bamboos” and “Negative Capability” contain significant differences due to their distinct cultural context and the poets’ personal experience. Firstly, their subjective mentalities are different. Rather than the total repression of human faculties and the Taoist world-weary attitude, Su Shi advocates an initiative subject, a fully charged mind with a deep humanistic concern; while for Keats, a state of passiveness and receptiveness overwhelms the exercise of intelligence and reason. Secondly, their ways of approaching “Truth” are different. Su Shi values both talent and hard practice, together with a dialectical attitude towards language and media while Keats emphasizes a dispossessed ego, an imaginative soul，a chameleon quality, and a full trust on language and symbols. Thirdly, the claimed “Truth” they are pursuing are different. For Su Shi, the goal of “Transforming into Bamboos” is to catch Li(理) , a Confucian variant or derivation of Tao while what Keats looks for through “Negative Capability” is an aesthetic utopia where he finds justice for his art and himself under an age of industrialization.

This article analyzes female images in Chinese and Japanese painting (Bijin-ga). The subject of this research is the depiction of Chinese beautiful women on the scrolls of the X – XVII centuries and Japanese woodblock printing of the XVII – XIX centuries. Attention is given to the works of modern artists. It is noted that the aesthetic ideals are oriented towards the perception of beauty in the context of national culture of China and Japan, which undergo changes in each era, nurtured by Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism and Confucianism, which contributed to the development of female image and symbolic sound. The fact that the worldview orientation towards women and their status in the Far Eastern society faded away defines the relevance of the selected topic. The novelty of lies in the comparative analysis of philosophical-aesthetic traditions of Chinese and Japanese painting, reflected in female images in the historical development, with the emphasis on its modern development. The conclusion is made that the assessment of female image in Chinese and Japanese art requires taking into account the national mentality, spiritual traditions, and interinfluence of cultures. The perception of the changing image of women in society plays a special role. It is determined that the depiction of women in clothes and face paint that conceals their body shape and facial emotions, deprive a woman of her individuality and lower her social status. Such trend remains in the contemporary art of these countries. Up until now, female images resemble the symbolism of depiction, closeness to nature, interweaving of external and internal content substantiated by the aesthetic, ethical and philosophical saturation of painting, indicating the uniqueness of each culture and its national heritage.

This article examines Su Shi’s systematic matching of Tao Qian’s poetry during his last periods of exile to the far south. Su understood the aesthetic features of Tao’s poetry as having an ethical dimension. Through emulation of Tao Qian, Su Shi reinterpreted his exile to be a result of his natural inclinations, just like Tao’s reclusion, and even as a felicitous condition for his “return” to an original state of authenticity and spontaneity. By assuming certain agency for his suffering, Su Shi claimed control over his fate and reasserted his freedom of choice. Meanwhile, his poetry betrays a sense of anxiety and dislocation in his natural and cultural habitats, as well as alienation from the political center. As a result, he reimagined Tao Qian’s “Peach Blossom Spring” to be an inner utopia. His return into this inner realm was further informed by Daoist alchemical practices and contained esoteric features. Cet article s’intéresse à la façon systématique dont Su Shi a composé des poèmes à l’imitation de ceux de Tao Qian pendant ses dernières périodes d’exil dans l’extrême-Sud. Pour lui, les propriétés esthétiques de la poésie de Tao Qian avaient une dimension éthique. Imiter Tao était un moyen de réinterpréter son exil comme s’il résultait de ses inclinations naturelles, à l’instar de la réclusion que Tao s’était imposée, voire comme une occasion bienvenue de retrouver un état original d’authenticité et de spontanéité. Se voulant responsable de ses propres souffrances, Su Shi revendiquait le contrôle de son destin et réaffirmait sa liberté de choix. En même temps, sa poésie révèle toute l’anxiété et la perturbation que lui causait l’environnement naturel et culturel où il avait été jeté, autant que sa séparation d’avec les centres de pouvoir. Du coup, il concevait “La source aux fleurs de pêcher” de Tao Qian comme une utopie intérieure. Son retour vers cet univers intime était par ailleurs informé par les pratiques alchimistes taoïstes et présente certains traits d’ésotérisme.

Carl Jung paid a short visit to Taos, New Mexico, in January 1925. A brief account of his stay at the Pueblo appeared in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, edited by Aniela Jaffe in 1963. Remembering his conversations with Mountain Lake (Antonio Mirabal), Jung wrote of the confrontation between the “European consciousness,” or the “European thought,” with the Indian “unconscious.” My article provides a reading of Jung’s text as a meeting ground of the aesthetic, emotional, visionary and of the analytical, rational, explanatory. Like many other European and Anglo-American visitors to Taos Pueblo, Jung rediscovers its capacity to mirror the inner needs of the visitor; he examines the significance of the encounter with the Southwestern landscape and with the Pueblo Indians’ religious views in terms of self-reflection and of the return to the mythical. As Carl Jung’s “inner comprehension” of the Pueblo Indian’s philosophy is mediated through language, aware both of its desire and its inability to become liberated from the European perspectives, Mountain Lake’s attitude towards his visitor from Switzerland remains ultimately unknown; Mountain Lake does, however, communicate his readiness to assume the archetypal role of a teacher and a spiritual guide whose insights reach beyond the confines and mystifications of language. According to Jung’s account, during this brief encounter of the two cultures, he and his Indian host experienced a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, the sources of which, as they both understood them in their own individual ways, resided in the comprehension of universal sharing.

Based on the study of the problem of Chinese theater and musical art of the country, the original culture of the people is revealed. The problem of studying the worldview system of ancient China as the basis for the emergence of musical tradition has interested many scholars, because it influenced the cultural life of the East. Philosophical views influenced both theatrical life and the musical art of the country. Thus, China's cultural traditions were based on ancient Chinese philosophies: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Special attention was paid to education, especially aesthetics, in China. Music education played an important role in Chinese culture. Confucius emphasizes the comprehensive development of man, while emphasizing the morality of the individual. Thus, the theatrical art of China is distinguished by cultural unity and originality. Musical load played a big role. The Chinese worldview is based on the vision of nature as a living organism. The first sprouts of musical and theatrical art appear. XII-XIII centuries marked the birth of Chinese opera. Chinese theater was fully popular. The musical side of classical theater is characterized by an inseparable unity of sound, word and dance. The range of images, moods, techniques of acting is characterized by a certain type of melody, rhythm, composition of the orchestra. The subject of ancient theater and musical art of China is interesting and not fully studied, which necessitates further development in the study of this issue. Performing skills were subject to a system of vocal skills. Yes, important were: language, temperament, the nature of singing. The storyline has always been built on plots in which good always wins over evil. Thus, an optimistic mood in everything. Thus, Chinese opera singing synthesized the traditions of folk song and classical opera with European bel canto. It is also important to possess not only the voice but also the body. There were special schools that taught the culture of jumping, running, spinning wheels, and so on. Such theater groups have been involved in educating the skills needed for theater since childhood.

Abstract: Literature as resistance in Soviet Estonia in the post-World War II period The theme of this article is the resistance that took place in Soviet Estonian literature, literary criticism and literary studies in the post-Second World War period. The article accentuates that different modes and objectives of resistance were central in different periods. Literary resistance is divided into four groups according to the nature of the pressure and the aims of resistance: first, ideological resistance to Soviet ideology in the name of literature that is free of ideology, or in the name of some other ideology; second, national resistance in the name of the unity of the people and preservation of identity; third, aesthetic resistance to the official literary doctrine; and fourth, resistance in the name of general or personal freedom and authenticity. Writers and literary scholars used different modes of resistance. These were so-called writing for the desk drawer, silence within a text, the use of ‘secret codes’, self-publication, the selection of themes or modes of writing that were not favoured by the regime and were apolitical and nonideological, and the use of neutral words and concepts instead of concepts and words bearing Soviet ideology. Totalitarian control of literature by way of decisions and direct instructions from the Communist Party characterised the Stalinist period (until 1956). All literature had to adhere to the doctrine of socialist realism. Practically the only form of resistance in this period was to keep silent. Some authors remained completely silent, some worked on translations, some wrote for their desk drawer for themselves and presented texts for publication that adhered to the officially sanctioned model. Keeping silent can also be interpreted as resistance in the name of aesthetic authenticity. The subsequent period that lasted until the 1970s is characterised by an increase in liberty in society, including literature. The body of norms of socialist realism was relaxed. Literary activities were controlled by writers’ organisations according to the guidelines provided by the Communist Party. Different aesthetic and ideological camps of writers emerged and competed with one another. The era of keeping silent and writing for one’s desk drawer ended. Public resistance, which was united by the question of relating to literature that preceded the Soviet era, was at the centre of this period. The fight for aesthetic freedom and literature that was free of ideology carried on throughout this period and was finally won by 1968–69. By that time, socialist realism had essentially ended in Estonian literature. In place of it, avant-gardism, modernism and broader realism prevailed. In place of Marxism-Leninism, non-Marxist ways of thinking had become important: first and foremost existentialism, but also Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism and classical psychoanalysis. Secondly, resistance was put up in the name of Estonian national unity and national memory. This was resistance in the name of authors who had been banished from the history of literature and of bringing back the pre-war metalanguage. This was concerned with modern writers (symbolists, decadents, impressionists, expressionists) in Estonian literature from the early 20th century. Generally speaking, this struggle was successful. The third struggle was waged in the name of creative freedom and the writer’s inner authenticity. Here political freedom and independence in general intertwined as ideals, with the Soviet system and any kind of system as the enemy that oppresses human freedom and independence: institutions and the state, machines and rationality, conformism and the middle-class way of life. The third period of resistance began at the start of the 1970s and continued until perestroika. The so-called tightening of the screws took place throughout the state during this period and Russification was adopted as a new orientation starting in the mid-1970s. On the other hand, a socialist consumer society took shape in Estonia, characterised by Communist Party membership for the sake of one’s career and openly double morality. Ideological censorship in literature was intensified, along with the partial steering of literature by way of Party documents. Such new conditions brought new variants of resistance to the fore. Nationalist resistance and resistance to Russification came to the fore in the 1970s and 1980s. Open struggle receded into the background. Covert resistance, primarily within individual texts, which had previously been insignificant, became central. This resistance used joint secret codes common to writers and readers (allusions, irony, parodies, and other such devices). The struggle continued in the name of a neutral metalanguage that is not ideologised. Resistance criticism, so to speak, took shape: keeping silent about negative assessments that could potentially have provided the basis for political accusations, and keeping silent about secret codes in texts that the authorities did not have to know about. The struggle for words and concepts without ideological connotations at the level of phenomena that were ideologically important for the Soviet regime was a continuing theme: the Republic of Estonia, the blue, black and white colour combination, expatriates, deportation, and other such concepts.

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)“I must plunge again and again in the water of doubt” (Wittgenstein 1e). The Holy Grail in the phenomenology of religion (and, to a lesser extent, the sociology of religion) is a definition of religion that actually works, but, so far, this seems to have been elusive. Classical definitions of religion—substantive (e.g. Tylor) and functionalist (e.g. Durkheim)—fail, in part because they attempt to be in three places at once, as it were: they attempt to distinguish religion from non-religion; they attempt to capture what religions have in common; and they attempt to grasp the “heart”, or “core”, of religion. Consequently, family resemblance definitions of religion replace certainty and precision for its own sake with a more pragmatic and heuristic approach, embracing doubt and putting forward definitions that give us a better understanding (Verstehen) of religion. In this paper, I summarise some “new” definitions of religion that take this approach, before proposing and defending another one, defining religion as non-propositional and “apophatic”, thus accepting that doubt is central to religion itself, as well as to the analysis of religion.The question of how to define religion has had real significance in a number of court cases round the world, and therefore it does have an impact on people’s lives. In Germany, for example, the courts ruled that Scientology was not a religion, but a business, much to the displeasure of the Church of Scientology (Aldridge 15). In the United States, some advocates of Transcendental Meditation (TM) argued that TM was not a religion and could therefore be taught in public schools without violating the establishment clause in the constitution—the separation of church and state. The courts in New Jersey, and federal courts, ruled against them. They ruled that TM was a religion (Barker 146). There are other cases that I could cite, but the point of this is simply to establish that the question has a practical importance, so we should move on.In the classical sociology of religion, there are a number of definitions of religion that are quite well known. Edward Tylor (424) defined religion as a belief in spiritual beings. This definition does not meet with widespread acceptance, the notable exception being Melford Spiro, who proposed in 1966 that religion was “an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated super-human beings” (Spiro 96, see also 91ff), and who has bravely stuck to that definition ever since. The major problem is that this definition excludes Buddhism, which most people do regard as a religion, although some people try to get round the problem by claiming that Buddhism is not really a religion, but more of a philosophy. But this is cheating, really, because a definition of religion must be descriptive as well as prescriptive; that is, it must apply to entities that are commonly recognised as religions. Durkheim, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, proposed that religion had two key characteristics, a separation of the sacred from the profane, and a gathering together of people in some sort of institution or community, such as a church (Durkheim 38, 44). However, religions often reject a separation of the sacred from the profane. Most Muslims and many Calvinist Christians, for example, would insist strongly that everything—including the ostensibly profane—is equally subject to the sovereignty of God. Also, some religions are more oriented to a guru-pupil kind of relationship, rather than a church community.Weber tried to argue that religion should only be defined at the end of a long process of historical and empirical study. He is often criticised for this, although there probably is some wisdom in his argument. However, there seems to be an implicit definition of religion as theodicy, accounting for the existence of evil and the existence of suffering. But is this really the central concern of all religions?Clarke and Byrne, in their book Religion Defined and Explained, construct a typology of definitions, which I think is quite helpful. Broadly speaking, there are two types of classical definition. Firstly, there are substantive definitions (6), such as Tylor’s and Spiro’s, which posit some sort of common “property” that religions “have”—“inside” them, as it were. Secondly, functionalist definitions (Clarke and Byrne 7), such as Durkheim’s, define religion primarily in terms of its social function. What matters, as far as a definition of religion is concerned, is not what you believe, but why you believe it.However, these classical definitions do not really work. I think this is because they try to do too many things. For a strict definition of religion to work, it needs to tell us (i) what religions have in common, (ii) what distinguishes religion on the one hand from non-religion, or everything that is not religion, on the other, and (iii) it needs to tell us something important about religion, what is at the core of religion. This means that a definition of religion has to be in three places at once, so to speak. Furthermore, a definition of religion has to be based on extant religions, but it also needs to have some sort of quasi-predictive capacity, the sort of thing that can be used in a court case regarding, for example, Scientology or Transcendental Meditation.It may be possible to resolve the latter problem by a gradual process of adjustment, a sort of hermeneutic circle of basing a definition on extant religions and applying it to new ones. But what about the other problem, the one of being in three places at once?Another type identified by Clarke and Byrne, in their typology of definitions, is the “family resemblance” definition (11-16). This derives from the later Wittgenstein. The “family resemblance” definition of religion is based on the idea that religions commonly share a number of features, but that no one religion has all of them. For example, there are religious beliefs, doctrines and mythos—or stories and parables. There are rituals and moral codes, institutions and clergy, prayers, spiritual emotions and experiences, etc. This approach is of course less precise than older substantive and functional definitions, but it also avoids some of the problems associated with them.It does so by rethinking the point of defining religion. Instead of being precise and rigorous for the sake of it, it tries to tell us something, to be “productive”, to help us understand religion better. It eschews certainty and embraces doubt. Its insights could be applied to some schools of philosophy (e.g. Heideggerian) and practical spirituality, because it does not focus on what is distinctive about religion. Rather, it focuses on the core of religion, and, secondarily, on what religions have in common. The family resemblance approach has led to a number of “new” definitions (post-Durkheim definitions) being proposed, all of which define religion in a less rigorous, but, I hope, more imaginative and heuristic way.Let me provide a few examples, starting with two contrasting ones. Peter Berger in the late 1960s defined religion as “the audacious attempt to conceive of the entire universe as humanly significant”(37), which implies a consciousness of an anthropocentric sacred cosmos. Later, Alain Touraine said that religion is “the apprehension of human destiny, existence, and death”(213–4), that is, an awareness of human limitations, including doubt. Berger emphasises the high place for human beings in religion, and even a sort of affected certainty, while Touraine emphasises our place as doubters on the periphery, but it seems that religion exists within a tension between these two opposites, and, in a sense, encompasses them both.Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church and arch-nemesis of the conservative Anglicans, such as those from Sydney, defines religion as like good poetry, not bad science. It is easy to understand that he is criticising those who see religion, particularly Christianity, as centrally opposed to Darwin and evolution. Holloway is clearly saying that those people have missed the point of their own faith. By “good poetry”, he is pointing to the significance of storytelling rather than dogma, and an open-ended discussion of ultimate questions that resists the temptation to end with “the moral of the story”. In science (at least before quantum physics), there is no room for doubt, but that is not the case with poetry.John Caputo, in a very energetic book called On Religion, proposes what is probably the boldest of the “new” definitions. He defines religion as “the love of God” (1). Note the contrast with Tylor and Spiro. Caputo does not say “belief in God”; he says “the love of God”. You might ask how you can love someone you don’t believe in, but, in a sense, this paradox is the whole point. When Caputo says “God”, he is not necessarily talking in the usual theistic or even theological terms. By “God”, he means the impossible made possible (10). So a religious person, for Caputo, is an “unhinged lover” (13) who loves the impossible made possible, and the opposite is a “loveless lout” who is only concerned with the latest stock market figures (2–3). In this sense of religious, a committed atheist can be religious and a devout Catholic or Muslim or Hindu can be utterly irreligious (2–3). Doubt can encompass faith and faith can encompass doubt. This is the impossible made possible. Caputo’s approach here has something in common with Nietzsche and especially Kierkegaard, to whom I shall return later.I would like to propose another definition of religion, within the spirit of these “new” definitions of religion that I have been discussing. Religion, at its core, I suggest, is non-propositional and apophatic. When I say that religion is non-propositional, I mean that religion will often enact certain rituals, or tell certain stories, or posit faith in someone, and that propositional statements of doctrine are merely reflections or approximations of this non-propositional core. Faith in God is not a proposition. The Eucharist is not a proposition. Prayer is not, at its core, a proposition. Pilgrimage is not a proposition. And it is these sorts of things that, I suggest, form the core of religion. Propositions are what happen when theologians and academics get their hands on religion, they try to intellectualise it so that it can be made to fit within their area of expertise—our area of expertise. But, that is not where it belongs. Propositions about rituals impose a certainty on them, whereas the ritual itself allows for courage in the face of doubt. The Maundy Thursday service in Western Christianity includes the stripping of the altar to the accompaniment of Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me”), ending the service without a dismissal (Latin missa, the origin of the English “mass”) and with the church in darkness. Doubt, confusion, and bewilderment are the heart and soul of this ritual, not orthodox faith as defined propositionally.That said, religion does often involve believing, of some kind (though it is not usually as central as in Christianity). So I say that religion is non-propositional and apophatic. The word “apophatic”, though not the concept, has its roots in Greek Orthodox theology, where St Gregory Palamas argues that any statement about God—and particularly about God’s essence as opposed to God’s energies—must be paradoxical, emphasising God’s otherness, and apophatic, emphasising God’s essential incomprehensibility (Armstrong 393). To make an apophatic statement is to make a negative statement—instead of saying God is king, lord, father, or whatever, we say God is not. Even the most devout believer will recognise a sense in which God is not a king, or a lord, or a father. They will say that God is much greater than any of these things. The Muslim will say “Allahu Akhbar”, which means God is greater, greater than any human description. Even the statement “God exists” is seen to be well short of the mark. Even that is human language, which is why the Cappadocian fathers (Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Naziansus) said that they believed in God, while refusing to say that God exists.So to say that religion is at its core non-propositional is to say that religious beliefs are at their core apophatic. The idea of apophasis is that by a process of constant negation you are led into silence, into a recognition that there is nothing more that can be said. St Thomas Aquinas says that the more things we negate about God, the more we say “God is not…”, the closer we get to what God is (139). Doubt therefore brings us closer to the object of religion than any putative certainties.Apophasis does not only apply to Christianity. I have already indicated that it applies also to Islam, and the statement that God is greater. In Islam, God is said to have 99 names—or at least 99 that have been revealed to human beings. Many of these names are apophatic. Names like The Hidden carry an obviously negative meaning in English, while, etymologically, “the Holy” (al-quddu-s) means “beyond imperfection”, which is a negation of a negation. As-salaam, the All-Peaceful, means beyond disharmony, or disequilibrium, or strife, and, according to Murata and Chittick (65–6), “The Glorified” (as-subbuh) means beyond understanding.In non-theistic religions too, an apophatic way of believing can be found. Key Buddhist concepts include sunyata, emptiness, or the Void, and anatta, meaning no self, the belief or realisation that the Self is illusory. Ask what they believe in instead of the Self and you are likely to be told that you are missing the point, like the Zen pupil who confused the pointing finger with the moon. In the Zen koans, apophasis plays a major part. One well-known koan is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Any logical answers will be dismissed, like Thomas Aquinas’s statements about God, until the pupil gets beyond logic and achieves satori, or enlightenment. Probably the most used koan is Mu—Master Joshu is asked if a dog has Buddha-nature and replies Mu, meaning “no” or “nothing”. This is within the context of the principle that everything has Buddha-nature, so it is not logical. But this apophatic process can lead to enlightenment, something better than logic. By plunging again and again in the water of doubt, to use Wittgenstein’s words, we gain something better than certainty.So not only is apophasis present in a range of different religions—and I have given just a few examples—but it is also central to the development of religion in the Axial Age, Karl Jaspers’s term for the period from about 800-200 BCE when the main religious traditions of the world began—monotheism in Israel (which also developed into Christianity and Islam), Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Confucianism and Taoism in China, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. In the early Hindu traditions, there seems to have been a sort of ritualised debate called the Brahmodya, which would proceed through negation and end in silence. Not the silence of someone admitting defeat at the hands of the other, but the silence of recognising that the truth lay beyond them (Armstrong 24).In later Hinduism, apophatic thought is developed quite extensively. This culminates in the idea of Brahman, the One God who is Formless, beyond all form and all description. As such, all representations of Brahman are equally false and therefore all representations are equally true—hence the preponderance of gods and idols on the surface of Hinduism. There is also the development of the idea of Atman, the universal Self, and the Buddhist concept anatta, which I mentioned, is rendered anatman in Sanskrit, literally no Atman, no Self. But in advaita Hinduism there is the idea that Brahman and Atman are the same, or, more accurately, they are not two—hence advaita, meaning “not two”. This is negation, or apophasis. In some forms of present-day Hinduism, such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (commonly known as the Hare Krishnas), advaita is rejected. Sometimes this is characterised as dualism with respect to Brahman and Atman, but it is really the negation of non-dualism, or an apophatic negation of the negation.Even in early Hinduism, there is a sort of Brahmodya recounted in the Rig Veda (Armstrong 24–5), the oldest extant religious scripture in the world that is still in use as a religious scripture. So here we are at the beginning of Axial Age religion, and we read this account of creation:Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal.Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.All that existed then was void and form less.Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.(Rig Veda Book 10, Hymn 129, abridged)And it would seem that this is the sort of thought that spread throughout the world as a result of the Axial Age and the later spread of Axial and post-Axial religions.I could provide examples from other religious traditions. Taoism probably has the best examples, though they are harder to relate to the traditions that are more familiar in the West. “The way that is spoken is not the Way” is the most anglicised translation of the opening of the Tao Te Ching. In Sikhism, God’s formlessness and essential unknowability mean that God can only be known “by the Guru’s grace”, to quote the opening hymn of the Guru Granth Sahib.Before I conclude, however, I would like to anticipate two criticisms. First, this may only be applicable to the religions of the Axial Age and their successors, beginning with Hinduism and Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and early Jewish monotheism, followed by Jainism, Christianity, Islam and so on. I would like to find examples of apophasis at the core of other traditions, including Indigenous Australian and Native American ones, for example, but that is work still to be done. Focusing on the Axial Age does historicise the argument, however, at least in contrast with a more universal concept of religion that runs the risk of falling into the ahistorical homo religiosus idea that humans are universally and even naturally religious. Second, this apophatic definition looks a bit elitist, defining religion in terms that are relevant to theologians and “religious virtuosi” (to use Weber’s term), but what about the ordinary believers, pew-fillers, temple-goers? In response to such criticism, one may reply that there is an apophatic strand in what Niebuhr called the religions of the disinherited. In Asia, devotion to the Buddha Amida is particularly popular among the poor, and this involves a transformation of the idea of anatta—no Self—into an external agency, a Buddha who is “without measure”, in terms of in-finite light and in-finite life. These are apophatic concepts. In the Christian New Testament, we are told that God “has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong…, the things that are not to shame the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27). The things that are not are the apophatic, and these are allied with the foolish and the weak, not the educated and the powerful.One major reason for emphasising the role of apophasis in religious thought is to break away from the idea that the core of religion is an ethical one. This is argued by a number of “liberal religious” thinkers in different religious traditions. I appreciate their reasons, and I am reluctant to ally myself with their opponents, who include the more fundamentalist types as well as some vocal critics of religion like Dawkins and Hitchens. However, I said that I would return to Kierkegaard, and the reason is this. Kierkegaard distinguishes between the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. Of course, religion has an aesthetic and an ethical dimension, and in some religions these dimensions are particularly important, but that does not make them central to religion as such. Kierkegaard regarded the religious sphere as radically different from the aesthetic or even the ethical, hence his treatment of the story of Abraham going to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son, in obedience to God’s command. His son was not killed in the end, but Abraham was ready to do the deed. This is not ethical. This is fundamentally and scandalously unethical. Yet it is religious, not because it is unethical and scandalous, but because it pushes us to the limits of our understanding, through the waters of doubt, and then beyond.Were I attempting to criticise religion, I would say it should not go there, that, to misquote Wittgenstein, the limits of my understanding are the limits of my world, whereof we cannot understand thereof we must remain silent. Were I attempting to defend religion, I would say that this is its genius, that it can push back the limits of understanding. I do not believe in value-neutral sociology, but, in this case, I am attempting neither. ReferencesAldridge, Alan. Religion in the Contemporary World. Cambridge: Polity, 2000.Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa of Christian Teaching”. An Aquinas Reader. ed. Mary Clarke. New York: Doubleday, 1972.Armstrong, Karen. The Great Transformation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.Barker, Eileen. New Religious Movements: a Practical Introduction. London: HMSO, 1989.Berger, Peter. 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