Emptiness, dependent co-arising and the constitution of society: Towards a relational-processual sociology in the light of the Buddhist middle way perspective.

摘要

The main themes of this dissertation are organized as follows. First, is an elaboration of the basic insights of Nagarjuna's middle way perspective: emptiness, dependent co-arising and verbal designation. Then, derived from these insights, I will articulate three ways of thinking: non-dualistic, relational and processual. This perspective, while emphasizing its relevance to the sociological way of seeing the world, transcends the fallacies of “either-or” ways of thinking, such as dualism, substantialism, and nihilism. Secondly, using our middle way insights, I examine the methodologies used in the social sciences in an attempt to transcend dualistic substantialism—methodological individualism versus methodological collectivism—I propose a relational-processual methodology. I also attempt to go beyond positivism, interpretism, relativism and nihilism using a relational-processual middle way perspective and Gadamerian hermeneutic approach. Third, I engage a middle way examination of the theory of society that transcends theoretical dichotomization. I illustrate and appreciate some insightful social theories and methodologies, which have a relational-processual approach. I thus analyze three thinkers' insights: Mead's notion of the constitution of the self, Elias' proposal of a figurational, or process sociology and Bourdieu's methodological relationalism. Fourthly is a middle way examination of the constitution of society. In this part, I perform an examination of the ontological make-up of the self and the social. That includes the dimensions of temporality, spatiality, linguisticality, as they pertain to the self and the social. Finally, in the concluding remarks, I formulate a retrospective articulation of the middle way reading strategy in this work, which comprises the symptomatic reading, the sympathetic reading and the synthetic reading simultaneously.