This thesis is a collection of three treatises. The first, “禪, “Chan”, and “Zen”: A Critical Inquiry Concerning the West”, investigates the political roots of the names “Chan” and “Zen” and the consequences of these roots upon Western scholarship of a particular school of Chinese Buddhism. Treatise Two, “Radical Interpretation, Wittgenstein, and the Concept of Meaning: A Philosophical Approach”, presents a noncircular methodology (radical interpretation) for interpreting alien texts and languages that does not appeal to authority but, instead, employs a language-theoretical approach. The final treatise, “Hosting and Approaching: An Interpretive Investigation of the Linji Lu”, employs radical interpretation to present a new reading of the Linji Lu, a seminal text in Chan/Zen Buddhism. The purpose of the Linji Lu, this treatise concludes, is to bring readers to wúshìunaffected presence 無 事 : the simultaneous understanding and actualization of an “action ideal” which allows a person to take part in an ever-changing and turbulent objective world (jìng 境) while both a) not taking part in the creation of shìmatters : social affairs 事 and b) helping others actualize wúshìunaffected presence 無事. Connecting these three seemingly disparate essays are three “fibres” of thought that emerge from each treatise. Treatises One and Three, for example, serve as very different “case studies” for applying the conclusions of Treatise Two. Treatises One and Two, conversely, may be viewed as preliminary work necessary to embark on the project of Treatise Three. Last, Treatise One may be viewed as a challenge to studies of Buddhism, with Treatise Two proposing a methodological answer to that challenge and Treatise Three putting it into application. The result are three treatises that mutually sustain one another as they cover larger themes of action, authority, and approach, raising, along the way, a few thoughts on names and the way we use them.
