Unlocking the Chinese Gate offers an innovative analysis of gates in early Chinese thought and material culture. Observing gates from various perspectives-including philosophy, architecture, and psychology-and through the conceptual lens of Chinese correlative thinking, Galia Dor conceptualizes the Chinese gate as a membrane-like apparatus that, from the space "in-between," efficaciously manifests (de) the Way (dao) into the "ten thousand" forms of actualized life. This methodology exposes an open-to-closed gradation between pairs of inside/outside (wai/nei) that resonates throughout the Chinese model of psychocosmic concentric circles. The consequential strategies (e.g., continuity/break, chaos/order) demonstrate how early Chinese cosmological, philosophical, and political idealities, as well as afterlife religious beliefs, were applied-including the various approaches to and practices of self-cultivation. The book sheds new light on ancient Chinese thought and material culture and offers points of comparison to Western thought and modern science, including a model of "decision-gating" that carries relevant implications and insights to our current lives.
| ISBN: | 9781438497532 |
| Publication date: | 1st May 2024 |
| Author: | Galia Harel Dor |
| Publisher: | SUNY Press an imprint of State University of New York Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 322 pages |
| Series: | SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture |
| Genres: |
East Asian and Indian philosophy Taoism History of architecture Cognition and cognitive psychology Asian history |