Philosophical Taoism

Philosophical Taoism does not refer to one Taoist school or group of philosophers. Philosophical Taoism is a part of Xuanxue and other lineages. Ultimately the distinction between philosophical and religious Taoism is as difficult to define as Taoism itself. Religious Taoists may never have read Laozi or Zhuangzi or any of the Daozang, and being called a Taoist may even seem unfamiliar or artificial.

Philosophical Taoism emphasizes various themes found in the Tao Te Ching such as "nonaction" (wu wei), emptiness, detachment, the strength of softness (or flexibility), and The Zhuangzi such as receptiveness, spontaneity, the relativism of human ways of life, ways of speaking and guiding behavior. Most philosophical debate concerns dao--what way we should follow, but really, Taoists more directly question what dao is, how or if we can know it and emphasize more than other schools the ways social daos depend on and presuppose natural daos. Their more detached discussion and their reluctance to formulate or advocate a social dao of their own means their discussions tend to be more playful and paradoxical than dogmatic. This makes their tone strikingly different from Confucian and Mohist texts.

Taoist commentators have been puzzled by the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching, which has usually been translated:


In Chinese, "道" or "Dao" is used both as a noun and verb. 'Way' works well for the noun, but the translation for the verb "to speak" seems unmatched in meaning, unless we think in terms of "to advocate, to preach, to formulate etc." Notice in the second line, the noun and verb use of '名' seem closer in meaning, "names" and "to name". Concretely, a road is a dao--a guide for where to go or how to get where we want to go. However, daos can be marked in other ways--e.g. simply by pointing or putting signs "along the way" etc. Daoists are intrigued both by how daos are made by our walking (wearing a path) and by how we can read what way to go from natural signals (animal paths). The verb probably would be something like pointing, marking, setting an example or otherwise signaling which way to go. / It should also be noted that while the above has become a standard translation, scholars have noted it is grammatically and conceptually p/roblematic. Grammatically, it has no article so could be read "a/any dao can be dao-ed, (but) this is not the constant dao-ing. A name can be na/med, (but) this is not the constant naming". Conceptually, the character for "constant"(常) is used philosophically to describe a dao that does not/ need to change in different times or societies and reliably guides behavior. Laozi later describes a dao as "reversing" and the texts emph//asises opposites, i.e.: high and low, hard and soft, etc. The Mawangdui version of the text contains similar passages, vide: ch.1, 3, 40). / / T/hus, any terms we use to advocate a dao can be reversed and still guide behavior. The other term in the title (which, compounded with 'dao', fo/rmed the Chinese term for 'ethics') is 'de.'. It is "the dao within" which may comprise the capacity we have to learn a way of life and the res/ult of learning/practicing it. De should interpret the learned "way of life" into a correct pattern of behavior--hence its usual translation as "//virtue" or "excellence." Other //.terms were later integrated into philosophical Taoism including yin and yang (closely related to Dialectical monism) and five elements (五行, wuxing) theories, and the concept of qi. Originally belonging to rival philosophical schools, t./hese themes entered Taoism by way of Han Confucianism which focused on cosmic cycles and portents to guide the ruler's deportment dress, and s./.o forth. They blend into Daoism as examples of "natural" dao with which any viable human dao must harmonise. /.