Someone on this list wrote, "Daoists were skeptical of ..." something or other, and I wonder, who were these Daoists? What figure in classical China can be called a Daoist? There was no such appellation--and if you're thinking of daojia, then all I can say is that Sima Tan did not mean by that term what we seem to mean when we say "Daoist." Kidder Smith has a brief article on this called "Sima Tan suo chuangzao de 'Liujia' gainian," Zhongguo wenhua 7 (1992), p. 134. We should take care not to read Six Dynasties concepts back into the Warring States tradition.
This point, of course, does not bear on the larger question, which is whether the term "dao" can have a "metaphysical" dimension in the Warring States context. On that topic I hope to read more from this list in the coming days.
Paul Rakita Goldin
Date created: 10/28/96 Last modified: 10/28/96 Questions? Contact: Stephen C. Angle