In his response to Dan Robins, Bryan Van Norden writes:
>But there are clear precedents in the history of philosophy for a thinker hypostatizing a term which previously had a concrete meaning. The word EIDOS in Classical Greek originally referred to the visible form or shape of a concrete object. Plato adopts the term to refer to his transcendent entities (the Form of Beauty, of the Good, etc.). Then Aristotle uses the very same term to refer to the immanent form or structure of a particular thing. Now, I am not saying that dao is like either Aristotle or Plato's forms; I'm just pointing out that the kind of "meaning change" which you find so implausible frequently occurs in the history of philosophy.
We need to clarify what we're referring to as the "metaphysical" reading of DAO4. I take this to be the theory that DAO4 refers to a metaphysical concept akin to mystical, ineffable reality, God, Brahma, the Hegelian absolute, the One, and so on. I suggest we call this the "mystical" interpretation of DAO4. I think the mystical interpretation of DAO4 yields an untenable interpretation of the philosophy of the Laozi and especially the Zhuangzi.
I agree that hypostasis of the type Bryan describes can occur, and for that reason I think there might be "metaphysical" interpretations of DAO4 that are not "mystical" interpretations in the sense I'm referring to. For example, for thinkers who were moral realists, DAO4 could have gone from meaning "a way" to "the unique moral way" and then to "The Moral Way," in the sense of a set of absolute behavioral guidelines that obtained independent of contingent human practices. Or DAO4 could have gone from meaning "a way" to meaning the actual way/process by which the universe happens to be proceeding (this may be what it means in Shendao). Depending on how one uses the term "metaphysical," this "Way of the Universe" or "Cosmic Process" might be considered a "metaphysical" concept, though it doesn't seem to be an "entity."
However, I still see no plausible explanation of how DAO4 could come to refer to an ineffable, mystical reality. The meaning change that traditional interpretations posit for the term DAO4 is much more radical than mere hypostasis of a term that originally had a concrete referent. Commentators like Benjamin Schwartz, Wing-tsit Chan, and D.C. Lau would have us believe that in the Laozi, DAO4 refers to a mystical, ineffable entity with a status at least partly analogous to that of God in Western religions, but they offer no persuasive explanation of why, in the philosophical milieu of classical China, the authors or compilers of the Laozi would suddenly invent such a concept.
Nor does a hypostatis theory explain why we find these texts apparently saying things like "DAO4 gives rise to heaven and earth."
Bryan also writes:
>Furthermore, the "Taoists" do warn us that they are using the term dao in a new way. This is part of the rhetorical force of the paradox the opens the Dao de jing (ch. 1 in the Wang Bi text): "A way that can be spoken of is not a constant way." The text is warning us that it is going to be using old words in new ways.
I'm not so sure that this is the point of the opening of the Wang Bi text; in fact, there may be no paradox in the opening lines at all. What if we read the first line as saying something like "Ways can be expressed, [but they're] not constant ways." That isn't necessarily a paradox (much depends on our interpretation of "constant", though). If the first line is a critique of all daos, which is a plausible interpretation, then it isn't using the word DAO4 in a new way, but rather in the old way. Moreover, the second line, which is structurally parallel to the first, makes an analogous point about MING2 (names). If we read the second line as "Names can name, [but they're] not constant names," does this mean we're using the word MING2 in a new way? I don't think so.
This raises a larger interpretive point about the Laozi. Whatever interpretation we offer for DAO4, it should be a part of a comprehensive interpretive theory that also explains how what the text says about DAO4 relates to what it says about MING2, WU2 YU4 (lacking desires), and other interrelated concepts.
>If the "distinctions marked out by daos ... are socially constructed," then humans and their societies must exist prior to the dao. But what the passages from both Zhuangzi chapter 6 and Dao de jing ch. 25 clearly state is that the dao (or "a dao") exists prior to everything in the natural world (i.e., prior to "Heaven and Earth"), and, in fact, creates Heaven and Earth. It looks to me like you are caught in a dilemma: if the dao is something created by humans, then the dao cannot exist prior to the world of which humans are a part; if the dao does exist prior to the world of which humans are a part, then it is not a social construct.
Suppose DAO4 refers to "cosmic process," in the sense of the actual way that the universe is proceeding. Then it makes sense to say it gave birth to heaven and earth and it has always been present. But on this reading, DAO4 isn't a mystical, ineffable reality.
Another possibility is to read DAO4 as a socially constructed way of marking distinctions and using names. Then the claim that DAO4 exists prior to heaven and earth is the claim that in drawing the distinction heaven/earth, one is already following a dao.
Steve Angle writes, concerning Laozi 25:
"Now, is this thing a/the "dao"? Well, that's not what the text says. The text says that its author will refer to the thing with the word "dao," which if we're following Hansen's argument means that the author has decided to think of the thing (=cosmic processes/nature?) as a (or the) way of living/doing/being in its own right."
So one plausible interpretation is that the first few lines of the passage refer to a kind of cosmic process, or perhaps primal cosmic stuff. As Steve notes, the author does not claim right off to know the name of whatever this is or that it is the dao; rather, he says that "being forced to apply a character to it, one says DAO4." (Conceivably, this might even mean that our being forced to apply characters to the primal stuff of the universe is the genesis of socially constructed daos.) So far, there's no evidence that DAO4 refers to ineffable, mystical reality.
By the way, the remainder of Laozi 25 has some bearing on the "mystical" reading of DAO4 as well. DAO4 is equated with heaven, earth, and humans as all being "great." This makes it hard to see DAO4 as somehow ontologically prior to heaven, earth, and humans, or to see it as a metaphysical "ground" for the cosmos. Then the last line of the chapter tells us that DAO4 takes being-so-of-itself (ZI4RAN2) as its standard. If DAO4 is ultimate, mystical reality, why must it take something else as its standard?
The Laozi is an extremely difficult text to interpret, and I can't claim to understand it. But the mystical interpretation leads to more problems than the non-mystical interpretation, I think.
Christopher Fraser
Date created: 10/28/96 Last modified: 10/28/96 Questions? Contact: Stephen C. Angle