Bryan Van Norden calls into question Chad Hansen's claim that the word "dao" never refers, in the texts of classical Chinese philosophy, to a metaphysical entity or absolute. He cites two passages, Laozi 25 and Zhuangzi 6/29-31, and wonders how those who accept Hansen's arguments would account for them. I'll rehearse some of Hansen's arguments and then address the Zhuangzi passage.
Hansen points out that in common philosophical parlance "dao" generally referred to a way of doing things or the cultural input that leads people to do things in a certain way. It never named a metaphysical entity. He also points out that these clearly non- metaphysical uses are common in the Daoist texts themselves (in expressions such as king's dao and so on). Then he argues against "meaning-change" hypotheses. His conclusion is that a term with a well-established philosophical meaning is not likely to be given a radically different meaning by other philosophers without them pointing out the meaning-change. We would wonder about someone who used a word to refer to a social teaching and also of a pre- social absolute, without explicitly marking a distinction between these uses -- especially if the claim is that one should achieve the absolute through unlearning the teachings.
He gives a good prima facie case that we should avoid if possible reading "dao" as referring to a metaphysical absolute. The question is, Is it possible? The most difficult cases in the Zhuangzi are in chapter two ("Qiwulun"), and Hansen has discussed them. Outside chapter two, "dao" is used most frequently in chapter six, especially in the story of the Woman Crookback (6/36-45), where it certainly refers to teachings of some sort. The one passage that seems most damaging to Hansen's claim is the one that Van Norden cites.
Here is my translation of Zhuangzi 6/29-31. I differ from Watson (whose translation Van Norden gave) primarily in construing "dao" as plural (I have also left "qing" untranslated -- Watson gives "reality"). I have also numbered the claims for the purposes of discussion:
"[1] Now daos have qing and have reliability. [2] They lack doing [or doing-for] and lack shape. [3] They can be passed on but not received. [4] They can be gotten but not seen. [5] Their own source, their own root, when there was not yet sky and ground from ancient times they were thereby securely present. [6] They spiritualise ghosts and spiritualise emperors, engender sky and engender ground. [7] They are beyond the greatest limit but do not count as high. They are below the six limits but do not count as long-lived. They are more aged than the highest ancient but do not count as old."
[1], [2], [3] and [4] are no particular difficulty for an interpretation that takes "dao" to name social teachings. I do not see how to give a metaphysical reading to [3]. [1] and [2] echo a passage in "Qiwulun" which is not (explicitly anyway) about dao, and which is not about a metaphysical entity. While there is enormous difficulty with the word "qing", the rest of the claims in [1] and [2] make at least as much sense when understood as about teachings as they do when understood as about metaphysical entities. [4] is true about so many things that it is of no use in determining the meaning of "dao" here.
The difficulty for non-metaphysical readings lies with [5], [6] and [7]. Here's one suggestion. Learning a dao involves learning to mark certain distinctions and how to respond appropriately to the categories thus marked out. I must be able, for example, to tell apart noble and base, and to act in certain ways to people counted as noble and people counted as base. Daoists were skeptical both of these categorisations and of the responses. They denied they accorded with some pre-existent natural reality. In modern terms, they argued that the distinctions marked out by daos and the triggered responses that go along with them are socially constructed. It is because of daos that we distinguish "sky" and "ground", and because of daos that we treat ghosts and emperors as spiritual or daemonic (shen). The various limits of time and space are also marked out by daos, but the daos do not thereby count as high, deep, long-lived or old. Daos are social and perhaps largely linguistic. They are not metaphysical absolutes. But they are still extremely weird.
DanDate created: 10/28/96 Last modified: 10/28/96 Questions? Contact: Stephen C. Angle