Chen Guying's Laozi includes some of the most significant traditional commentary and influential contemporary scholarship. This book completely changed Laozi studies in China, and its English ...translation gives scholars a unique inroad to Chinese perspectives on the Laozi.
The Daodejing is counted among the greatest works of world philosophy and literature, but it is a short work that is exceedingly difficult to comprehend. Among several reasons for this is that no one ...knows the actual words and form of its original text. Assessing the differences between any two editions of it is a simple task when they are laid next to each other, but it is not possible to lay any edition of the Daodejing next to its original text to assess their differences, because no one has ever seen the original text of the Daodejing, and no one knows its actual words and form. Approaching the original text is only made possible through its representations and reflections in later editions that we do possess, some of them transmitted and others excavated. Any possible access to the original text, to any degree whatsoever, is dependent on how these later editions are managed. Sinology manages them with the recension category whereas Laozi Studies manages them with the version category. This study examines, disentangles, and assesses the different ways that these two categories are used with the intended effect of approaching the original text of the Daodejing.
Boundary of the Sky D'Ambrosio, Paul
Azijske študije (Spletna izd.),
05/2023, Letnik:
11, Številka:
2
Journal Article
There are three good reasons why Daoism is a bad candidate for addressing contemporary environmental issues. First, the Laozi and Zhuangzi do not contain a concept of “nature” akin to ours today. ...Second, the philosophies of the Laozi and Zhuangzi are anything but revolutionary in spirit—and we need some revolutions. Finally, we need big changes from the top, and early Chinese thinkers did not conceive of political institutions in the way that we have them. Despite these reasons, or perhaps precisely because of them, early Daoist attitudes can provide insightful resources for reflecting on some of our most unreflected upon attitudes. In particular, the need for growth in nearly all areas of society is taken as a given, or even necessity, for our way of life. And while environmentalism and climate change are complex and tricky issues, growth has been identified by many as a common denominator when figuring out exactly what needs to change. This paper argues that if we shift our focus from seeking to find environmental concerns in the Laozi and Zhuangzi to philosophizing with these texts, then we can reflect on our environmental issues in interesting ways. To this end I will present “not contending” (不爭) “awareness of contentment” (知足), “not acting for” (無為) and “according to itself” (自然) as key Daoist attitudes which steer our thinking away from growth and along trajectories which can help human systems be better synchronized with non-human ones.
This paper explores the relationship between language and reality and the ecological implications of dualism, categorical logic, and the Aristotelian three laws of logic, on humans’ attitude toward ...the natural world. The paper engages in a comparative analysis of two traditions: one from the West (Neo-Platonism) and one from the East (Daoism). It argues that while both Neo-Platonism (as represented by Plotinus’ Enneads) and Classic Daoism (as represented by the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi) are successful in debunking rigid dualistic logic, Plotinus’s Oneness emanation theory in the end falls short of supporting an inclusive ecological ethics in a comprehensive manner. Still mired in dualism, Plotinian Neo-Platonism treats nature and the physical world as recalcitrant matter—an evil best to be avoided rather than embraced. By contrast, Classic Daoism’s non-dual multi-universe perspective of the world has much to offer with regard to creating a new eco-philosophy and ethics that supports a healthy, sustainable, ecology.
Boundary of the Sky Paul D'Ambrosio
Azijske študije (Spletna izd.),
05/2023, Letnik:
11, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
There are three good reasons why Daoism is a bad candidate for addressing contemporary environmental issues. First, the Laozi and Zhuangzi do not contain a concept of “nature” akin to ours today. ...Second, the philosophies of the Laozi and Zhuangzi are anything but revolutionary in spirit—and we need some revolutions. Finally, we need big changes from the top, and early Chinese thinkers did not conceive of political institutions in the way that we have them. Despite these reasons, or perhaps precisely because of them, early Daoist attitudes can provide insightful resources for reflecting on some of our most unreflected upon attitudes. In particular, the need for growth in nearly all areas of society is taken as a given, or even necessity, for our way of life. And while environmentalism and climate change are complex and tricky issues, growth has been identified by many as a common denominator when figuring out exactly what needs to change. This paper argues that if we shift our focus from seeking to find environmental concerns in the Laozi and Zhuangzi to philosophizing with these texts, then we can reflect on our environmental issues in interesting ways. To this end I will present “not contending” (不爭) “awareness of contentment” (知足), “not acting for” (無為) and “according to itself” (自然) as key Daoist attitudes which steer our thinking away from growth and along trajectories which can help human systems be better synchronized with non-human ones.
Many of the brightest Chinese minds have used the form of the commentary to open the terse and poetic chapters of the Laozi to their readers and also to develop a philosophy of their own. None has ...been more sophisticated, philosophically probing, and influential in the endeavor than a young genius of the third century C.E., Wang Bi (226–249). In this book, Rudolf G. Wagner provides a full translation of the Laozi that extracts from Wang Bi’s Commentary the manner in which he read the text, as well as a full translation of Wang Bi’s Commentary and his essay on the “subtle pointers” of the Laozi. The result is a Chinese reading of the Laozi that will surprise and delight Western readers familiar with some of the many translations of the work.
A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing is part of Rudolf Wagner’s trilogy on Wang Bi’s philosophy and classical studies, which also includes The Craft of a Chinese Commentator: Wang Bi on the Laozi and Language, Ontology, and Political Philosophy in China: Wang Bi’s Scholarly Exploration of the Dark (Xuanxue), both published by SUNY Press.
Among the various statements related to the political philosophy of the Laozi《老子》, Chapter 80 is distinguished by its particular depiction of what may be dubbed an ideal state. By examining the ...viewpoints of various authors in both English and Chinese works, the chapter will be analyzed and compared with three concepts independently discussed in political philosophy: (1) the call for returning to the past, also referred to as nostalgia; (2) utopianism; and (3) the state of nature. It is probably more than evident that the ideal state is at least reminiscent of these theories. Despite the possible and hypothetical similarities, however, this article will attempt to show that it is acceptable to claim that there is neither sufficient evidence nor support for the argument that the Laozi advocates returning to the past, proposes utopia, or describes a state of nature, and, moreover, that some of its statements are not completely adequate for such interpretations. The thesis that this article will support is that the ideal state is only a metaphorical description of a better world.
“Become hard!” is the supposedly “new tablet” that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra has placed above us. It can hardly be denied that modernization in particular has relentlessly imposed a need to develop ...one’s hardness and strength. Is it even possible to imagine a form of modernization based on the commandment to “Become soft!”? While this is the old and always new instruction to which Lǎozǐ pointed in his advice to become like water, Nietzsche finds it unbearable. He asks, “Why so soft?”, and “Why so soft, so retiring, and yielding?” And Lǎozǐ answers that hardness is deadly: “The hard and strong are the followers of death.” Then Nietzsche responds, “Don’t you want to conquer and win?” And Lǎozǐ replies, “The soft and weak win over the hard and strong”. Where are the modernizers who believe in the old “tablet” Lǎozǐ has given us in the praise of softness and weakness? Where are the modernizers who know about the hard but are able to preserve the soft? Where are the modernizers who are able to philosophize not with the hammer but with the brush? The “good old authoritarian character” (Theodor W. Adorno) has been educated to (masculine) hardness. For this mode of being human (feminine) softness is nothing but a form of weakness on which the creator wants to put his stamp. As a philosophical source of criticism of the authoritarian character, the Daoist classic Lǎozǐ has a value that can hardly be overestimated. It moves toward a paradigm of self-relation or subjectivity in which the eye and light cannot claim primacy as the means by which humans can access the true and the good, but touch and breath form a pivot by which they can learn to walk a Way that wanders between hardness and softness. Therefore, at the centre of character formation and cultivation is a self-relation described in the sixth chapter of the Lǎozǐ by the paradoxical image of the “ravine” (gǔ 谷). The ravine is a natural image in which the hard stone of the mountain cliffs and the soft water flowing through them belong together. At the same time, this chapter of the Lǎozǐ has been associated with the motif of the female in commentaries since antiquity. Moreover, the analogy between the ravine and the female sex organ opens up a thought-provoking approach to the relation between the female and the soft in the Lǎozǐ. However, the ravine as a paradoxical image does not stop there. Rather, the Way it suggests leads in a direction that can be summed up in the phrase “knowing hardness and preserving softness”. In the following paper, the discussion of the female and the male in relation to the soft and the hard aims at a broader reflection on a theory and practice of breath (qì 氣) that constitutes a transcultural philosophy of the Way (dàozhéxué 道哲學).
