|
Tao Te Ching Assignments
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
October 31
[Reading: Te-Tao Ching, chapters 1, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 22, 24, 29, 36, 38, 40, 41, 45, 48, 60, 62, 63, 66, 68, 78]
- A Negative Tao?
- Who is the text's intended audience?
- Is the goal of the text any different than the goals of the previous texts we have read?
- Consider chapters 48 and 60. Are these intended to suggest a method for rule? Would it work?
- Or no (single or constant or expressible or...) Tao?
- If you find concrete suggestions on how to rule in the text, how does that relate to chapter 1?
- Second Paper assigned, Due Nov. 9
November 5
[Reading: (1), 2, 3, 12, 14, 20, 23, 25, 30, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, (40), (41), 42, 43, 44, 53, 73, (78)]
- "Tao" and the Meaning Change Hypothesis
- What did "tao [dao]" mean in Analects, Mo-tzu, and Mencius?
- Can you find passages in Tao Te Ching where it appears to have that same meaning?
- Are there places in the Tao Te Ching, finally, where "tao" cannot mean what it did in earlier texts?
- Ming (I): Names and Distinctions
- What's involved, according to the Tao-Te Ching, in our coming to prefer one thing over another?
- Ming (II): Renown and Authority
November 7
[Reading: 7, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, (22), (23), 27, (32), (34), (37), (44), (45), 46, 47, 51, 54, 56, 57, 58, 70, 80]
- Self-Preservation, Anarchist Utopia, or Self-Effacing Political Tool
- What is the text advocating?
- What grounds the text's optimism that good things can be achieved by "doing nothing"?
| Copyright 1999-2001
Stephen C. Angle
|
|
|
