T. S. 엘리엇과 불교

T.S. Eliot and Buddhism

Eliot’s fir‘st and foremost endeavor of de-sanctioning activity is launched against the traditional Western metaphysics of logocentrism. the recent origin of which may be traced back to the Cartesian concepts of ‘I’, ‘mind’, and ’consciousness’. According to Eliot’s various philosophical writings, the Cartesian concepts such as ‘I’, ‘mind’, and ‘consciousness’ are very fragile and precarious-and even volatile-- because these are no more of a stable and immutable, hence metaphysical, substance than a shadow is. Eliot pre-supposes, and argues, that these are nothing but those which are construct-ed by the communal necessities, ide ogical doctrines, and other prevailing cultural forces. And the major device employed in this constructing pro-cesses, of course, is language which is itself nothing but a construction dominated by the above-mentioned elements. 1n the epistemology of Eliot, therefore, society and/or culture constructs language, and language in turn constructs society and/or culture, and both of these build up and dominate the (concepts 00 ‘I’, ‘mind’, and ’consciousness’. Thus Eliot says that with-out janguage there exists no object, adding that the reality of object de-pends upon-and only exists in-relation‘ The same i8 true of the ‘I’, ‘mind’, and ’consclousness’. These are all relational constructions. Anything depen-dent upon other(s), that is, anything conditioned has no substance of its own: it simply is not something metaphysical. Here, the possibijity of metaphysics is radícally denied. This kind of epistemology does not permit the possibility of any stable knowledge that is, and has been, desperately sought after by science and metaphysics. However, why do so many literary critic -and even philoso-phers-are and have been trying to find such possibility in Eliot? It may not be their faults: it is Eliot himself who invites/tempts them to do so-‘especially in his literary discourses. When he compares the poet’s mínd to a catalyzing medium, unaffected and unimpressionable, and when he quotes as an epigraph in one of his very important essays a line from Aristotle’s De ima that reads like ‘something divine, impressionable, and unaffected , he surely seems to be inviting such attempts. ThÍs kind of men-tions and references immediat.ely led so many to hail/denounce Eliot as the champion of the cognitive thøist, the preserver of the traditional humanist values. However, Eliot is neither so clear, nor so simplistic in thinking/writ-ing: he has a double-edged sword that sometimes undercuts the branch of a tree on which he is sitting. He is sort of a double talker, consciously and/ or unconsciously. This essay will propose a strategy that is focused on a Buddhist/Nagarjunist and de--constructive re-reading of Eliot’s texts, both philosophical and literargy.