Ellen M. Chen

A tremendous work of comparative metaphysics that looks at what was lost in western philosophy when Anaximander replaced Hesiod's Chaos with the ideal of the Unlimited. Chen sees this as a shift from the feminine to masculine principle. She shows that it was only with Heidegger and his later metaphysics that the west returned to this founding principle.

All of this is examined from the point of view of Daoism. In the western tradition, being arises from pre-existing being (everything comes from something). In Daoism, being passes in and out of nonbeing (everything arises from nothing). The Daoist vision uses motion in the same way that Platonists use ideals.

For a text dealing with such arcane abstractions, the prose is clear and concise. We are lucky to be living in a time when these various strands of ancient thought can at last be compared in such an enlightening way.… (plus d'informations)