This
dissertation investigates the self and its relation to reality within three
different schools of thought: Gilles Deleuze's postmodern thinking, the Kyoto School
of Zen Buddhism and G.H. Mead's social theory. The focus is explication of
ideas, examination of parallels and differences, and synthesis of similar
concepts, ultimately arguing for an understanding of self as creative and
non-essential, empty and full, resulting in the creation of a novel and open
process/field philosophy: Creative Vitality.
Chapter one
examines Deleuze and his concepts of creative ontology and the self as
assemblage, using the example of the rhizome. Chapter two analyzes ideas of the
self and world from the Kyoto School and discusses the
concepts of sunyata, co-dependent origination, and tathata with a corresponding
section on the self as skandas. Chapter two also includes an explication of the
Zen understanding of the no-self, or Formless Self. The third chapter examines
G.H. Mead's concept of the self as socially constructed and emergent within a
field of sociality. Chapter four compares/contrasts the systems within three
categories. First, a similarity throughout each system is a structural parallel
of the self to the world; the understanding of the self/world relationship as a
process/field relationship is shared by all three systems. Second, a major
difference between the systems, with Zen on one side and Deleuze and Mead on
the other, is the differing understanding of actuality and the relationship
between transcendence and immanence; this difference stems from the Zen
understanding of time and the present. Third, I argue that there lies a
possible synthesis of ideas from each system through the category of
creativity. Finally, in chapter five, I propose an open system, Creative
Vitality, paired with an explanation of the creative, non-essential self. The
chapter concludes with a presentation of a diagnostic field guide for stylized,
creatively vital self.
Hagan,
Michael Patrick (2009). Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Louisville
Dissertation
Abstracts International, Volume: 70-10, Section: A