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Introduction

The Daodejing of Laozi begins with a line that is often translated: “The Dao

that can be spoken is not the constant Dao.” (Hansen 1992, 215) It has also

been translated: “A Way that can be followed is not a constant Way.” (Ivanhoe

and Van Norden 163) Chad Hansen takes issue with what he takes to be a

Western scholarly consensus that this seminal line “asserts the ineffability of

the metaphysical, mystical object called dao.” He writes: “That consensus is

wrong. The first line does not assert that anything1 is ineffable.” (Hansen 1992,

215) His contention about the first line is a crucial step in his wider argument

that in the Daodejing: “The theory of the limit of language, and the mystical

tenor, is practical, not metaphysical.” (Hansen 1992, 203)

This essay evaluates the cogency of Hansen’s anti-metaphysical slant.

My finding is that although his argument capably refutes the tendency of some

readings to mystify the intent of the Daodejing unjustifiably, the work does

have “metaphysical” implications which he too much downplays. The kind of

metaphysics I see in the Daodejing is, in principle, comparable to the apophetic

theology of Maimonides and similar thinkers in the monotheist tradition. Sarah

Pessin explains in her article on Maimonides: “To approach God apophatically

is, hence, to approach God with a heightened sensitivity to the failures of

language to say very much about Him at all. This is called ‘negative theology’

in the sense that claims about God (with the exception of the claim ‘that He

exists’) are seen as never actually telling us anything substantive about God. At

best we can come to understand what God is not.” (Pessin 2008) Similarly, the

Daodejing indicates that it can only gesture at the ultimate dao, not directly

speak of it.

My topic inherently involves the commensurability of Chinese and

Western thought, given that the term metaphysics arises from the Western

1 All instances of emphasis within quotations in this essay belong to the originals (no emphases

added). However, Chinese pinyin words such as dao have been italicised in all quotations, whether or not they were italicised in the original.

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philosophical tradition. Moreover, making sense of the relativity of different

dao, or discourses, is an implicit aspect of the situation of writing about

Chinese thought in the genre of Western academic discourse. Taking the lead

from the Daodejing itself, to some extent this essay will be a discourse about

discourse. This theme will tend to be sub-textual more than explicit, but I hope

the reader notices it in the background.

Historical background

The Daodejing was composed in ancient China by an author or authors

unknown to documented history, but it is customarily attributed to Laozi, a

legendary figure who probably never existed. (Ivanhoe and Van Norden 161)2

Hansen cites reason to believe the Daodejing dates to a period perhaps 100

years after Kongzi and roughly contemporaneous with Mengzi. (Hansen 1992,

210) During this period, two major lines of thought were being vigorously

promoted by their respective adherents, i.e. the Confucianists, followers of

Kongzi, and the Mohists, followers of Mozi.

Referring to China’s discourse of that era, Hansen argues that “dao is

guidance”. (Hansen 1992, 203) While the Confucianists and the Mohists

disagreed strongly as to which was the correct dao (system of guidance) for the

maintenance of society, they were in broad agreement that some such dao was

identifiable, using the right methods, of which they respectively claimed to

have possession. (Hansen 1992, 206-207) The method of Kongzi (Confucius)

was to hark back to a former golden age as a model of the good society shaped

by ritual propriety. (Ivanhoe and Van Norden 1) The method of Mozi was to

apply tools of reason and argument to generate a consequentialist system of

ethics and statecraft. (Ivanhoe and Van Norden 60) Both these ways claimed to

conform to the pattern given by Heaven (Tian).

Hansen describes the approach of both Kongzi and Mozi as

“constructivist”. (Hansen 1992, 203) The constructivist (or positivist) sees

2 For convenience in this essay I will be referring to Laozi as if he existed.

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language as a reliable provider of guidance, but Laozi’s contrasting perspective

is “anti-language”. (Hansen 1992, 203) Mengzi (Mencius), too, although a

Confucianist, took an anti-language turn; but whereas Mengzi defended social

convention, Laozi radically questioned the status quo. Laozi’s anti-language

attitude is expounded in the next section.

Hansen’s thesis

This essay began by introducing the first line of the Daodejing. The second line

states: “A name that can be named is not a constant name.” (Ivanhoe and Van

Norden, 163) Reading the first and second lines together, Hansen concludes:

“Speaking the speakable is not constant speaking because naming the nameable

is not constant naming.” (Hansen 1992, 216) This can be seen as the linchpin

or main exemplar of his argument that throughout the Daodejing, the word dao

refers to guidance, not a metaphysical entity. I will return to the main thread

after a digression about the Daodejing’s counsel on the desirability of living in

a spontaneous manner that resists being “controlled” by the power of language

to shape understanding. This digression shows the “practical” tenor of the

Daodejing’s anti-language position, as Hansen sees it.

According to the Daodejing, the manner by which social discourse

exercises influence over our conduct arises from the power of names. In

particular, it observes that terms for things come in pairs of opposites. Coming

to know what water is, for example, one also realizes what non-water is. Pairs

of opposite terms, which we learn in the social environment, shape our desires.

We desire beauty and reject ugliness; enjoy having and regret lacking, and so

forth. Consequently, distinctions learned from society take hold of our inner

life and come to dictate our actions from the inside. Mistrustful of the values

foisted on us by the linguistic environment of society, the Daodejing advocates

a strategy of reversal, focusing on the value of the negative in each pair of

names; honouring the yang and downplaying yin.

The recommended state for a person is not to be in constant busy

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activity but, the Daodejing says, to do “less and less until one does nothing”.

(Ivanhoe and Van Norden 185) “Act, but through nonaction. Be active, but

have no activities.” (Ivanhoe and Van Norden 194) The ideal state translated as

“nonaction” is in the original called wuwei. By wuwei, not mere inertness is

being recommended, but a spontaneous mode of living. Analysing in detail the

meaning of wuwei, Hansen concludes, “to follow wu-wei is to give up names,

distinctions, desires, and any deliberate action based on them.” (Hansen 1992,

214) And: “Getting rid of wei is freeing us from society’s purposes, socially

induced desires, social distinctions or meaning structures.” (Hansen 1992, 214)

It is in this perspective that Hansen conducts his interpretation of the

opening lines of the Daodejing. He says that, rather than alluding to a

metaphysical entity called “the Dao” (requiring a capital D in English), these

lines are making a point about language and the unreliability of prescriptive

systems given in language. (See Hansen 1992, 216)

Hansen claims that dao is used in the opening line as a general term, not

the proper noun for an entity. Using dao as a general term, the Daodejing refers

to “heavenly dao, great dao, and water’s dao.” (Hansen 1992, 215) So, “the

Dao that can be spoken is not the constant Dao”, should be understood along

the lines of saying: no dao expressed in words can possess constancy. This

truth is due to the fact that the meaning of words (names) is never fixed;

always subject to change. In pointing out the shaky foundations of guidance in

language, Laozi lays down a challenge to the projects of Kongzi and Mozi who

hoped to establish reliable systems of guidance through the rectification of

names, a goal which is actually “hopeless”. (Hansen 1992, 217)

The “central doctrine” of the Daodejing is not “mystical metaphysics”

but “linguistic skepticism”. (Hansen 1992, 223) This is the basis for Laozi’s

critique of Confucian and Mohist conventionalism. Drawing on the

malleability of language, Laozi reverses the usual categories. “Where

conventional value assignments favor the upper, the strong, the wise, the

dominant, Laozi’s sayings help us to appreciate the value of the lower, the

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weak, the ignorant, the submissive.” (Hansen 1992, 223)

Hansen’s interpretive strategy

Behind Hansen’s objection to the dao as a mysterious metaphysical object is

his rejection of an interpretive strategy which unnecessarily attributes irrational

contradictions to a text. A contradictory reading occurs, for example, in

supposing that the first line of the Daodejing “speaks of something of which it

claims it cannot speak.” (Hansen 1993, 215) Accepting such a contradiction

and putting it down to Laozi’s alleged belief in an impenetrable mystery is

unsatisfactory, when a non-contradictory alternative is available.

Two interpretive principles guide Hansen’s outlook, which he identifies

as “charity” and “humanity” (Hansen 1993, 199). That of charity calls on the

interpreter to assume that there is a good match between the meaning of the

text and the reality of the world, as we understand it. Even if the author lived in

a very different time and culture from our own, we should be charitable

towards her writings in the sense of thinking she was not crazy, from the

perspective of our own understanding of the world, because the world

inhabited by all human beings has continuity to it, across eras and places.

But if we go too far with charity, we will insist in fitting the world-

views of other cultures into our own conceptual boxes. This is where the

balancing principle of humanity comes in. When we focus on humanity, we

allow that the order of the world may appear to be constituted somewhat

differently for someone in a different situation who is a member of a different

tradition of discourse from our own. In the mode of humanity, we do not look

for the fit of a “foreign” concept with the world (as we understand it), but try to

understand the internal coherence of the system of thought it belongs to.

Hansen writes: “The core of both principles is this: we assume that the

rules of syntactical and logical entailment work. Over time a language must

achieve recognizably human goals in the real world.” (Hansen 1993, 199)

In rejecting a metaphysical explanation of dao, Hansen is applying the

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principle of humanity in aiming for consistency in the use of the term with the

rest of Chinese philosophical discourse in Laozi’s time. He rejects a “meaning

change hypothesis” (Hansen 1993, 204) that would have it that Laozi suddenly

started using the word dao differently from everyone else in ancient China, i.e.

as referring to a metaphysical object instead of a way of guidance.

Evaluative remarks on Hansen

Hansen makes a strong case. He presents a way of understanding the dao of the

Daodejing that attributes to it an internal logic and continuity with the

discourse of other thinkers of the time with whose philosophies it engages.

I accept the argument that the opening lines are about the inconstancy

of any dao that can be expressed in language. However, the flip-side of the

inconstancy of language is a mystery concerning the ultimate source and

authority of its guiding role. Laozi seems acutely aware of this mystery, giving

a metaphysical dimension to his understanding of the human situation; an

engagement with the deepest levels of existence.

Stephen Angle and John Gordon argue in reply to Hansen that dao has

more than one meaning, “sometimes meaning ‘way to act’, other times

meaning ‘metaphysical entity’.” Angle and Gordon’s view picks up a

suggestion from Bryan Van Norden that a metaphysical entity is described in

Chapter 25 of the Daodejing, in these words:

There is a thing confused yet perfect, which arose before Heaven and earth.

Still and indistinct, it stands alone and unchanging.

It goes everywhere yet is never at a loss.

I do not know its proper name;

I have given it the style “the Way” …

(Ivanhoe and Van Norden 175)

Angle and Gordon on Dao as a nickname

It is suggested by Van Norden (cited by Angle and Gordon) that, in the above

extract from Chapter 25, the Daodejing explicitly uses dao in a new meaning,

not as a way to act but as an entity (Angle and Gordon 15-16). In a similar

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vein, Elizabeth Robinet, reviewing the text of the Daodejing, finds some 30

confirmations throughout that dao is a “productive force”, “ineffable”,

“primary”, “pre-cosmic” and so forth (Robinet 1999, 130). She observes,

“metaphysical or not, it is the ‘fundamental origin’, the ‘absolute’, in the sense

of a ‘first term which is conceived from itself, and the ultimate principle from

which everything that may be conceived is conceived,’ and a ‘primary self-

sufficient term’ (alone and without equal), singular and eminent, that grounds

the world in a unity.” (Robinet 1999, 130)

Angle and Gordon’s paper focuses on why dao as the (assumed) entity

mentioned in Chapter 25 would have the “style” (zi) of “the Way” rather than

being simply known by that name (ming). Note that one’s style, zi, was

traditionally used in public life while one’s proper name, ming, was kept

private; however, it is not the public aspect of zi that is key to their reading.

The authors point out the important difference between the sense of a

word and its reference. “Consider the difference between ‘Jones’s car’ and

‘Jones’s headache’: both might be taken, in a suitable context, to refer to the

same object, but the senses of the two expressions are very different.” (Angle

and Gordon 16) Therefore:

When we ask whether dao has more than one meaning – sometimes meaning

“way to act”, other times meaning “metaphysical entity” – therefore, we need

to be more specific about what we are asking. The same goes for assertions

that the meaning of dao has, or has not, changed. Are we dealing with mere

homonyms, like “bank” (the edge of a river) and “bank” (a financial institution),

in which there is continuity of neither sense nor reference? Or is this a case

more like “headache”, in which a single sense is extended in different ways in

different contexts, thus referring in some contexts to a way to act, and in

others, to a metaphysical entity? (Angle and Gordon 16-17)

The answer offered turns on their suggestion that the style, dao, is a kind of

nickname. The authors state, “the ming of [Chapter] [25] entails a substantive

claim about what type of thing the object is, while the zi is based on a looser

grasp of some aspect of the object named. In this way, zi is similar to a

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nickname.” (Angle and Gordon 17) A name is a label for a person with no

descriptive intent, but it identifies a definite, familiar individual. By contrast, a

nickname has descriptive content, not definitively but allusively, vaguely

connecting with some quality of the person which he or she has in common

with the meaning of the nickname. (see Angle and Gordon 18)

The significance of this is that the dao of Chapter 25 is presented as a

kind of entity that cannot be substantively identified, but has something in

common with a dao as way-of-guidance in ordinary usage. In this way, Laozi

brings together two meanings of the word dao.

As evidence for their case, the authors cite the Han Fei Zi, one of the

earliest commentaries on the Daodejing, where it explains the opening line:

To have nothing determined as a pattern is to not be in a constant place; this

is why it cannot be spoken. Sages observed its darkness and emptiness, used

its “going everywhere,” forcibly nicknamed it dao, and thus it could be

discussed. So it is said, “Insofar as dao can be spoken of, it is not the constant

dao”. (Quoted in Angle and Gordon 23)

Concerning Chapter One of the Daodejing, Angle and Gordon write:

The text asserts that while many ways of being can be articulated, they are

not the eternal thing which was “before heaven and earth”, “travels

everywhere endlessly”, and has been nicknamed dao. Similarly, the second

line of [1] points out that all of the things that can be given of-a-kind names do

not include the unnamable thing that “can be seen as the mother of heaven

and earth”. This passage, like [25], seeks to undermine the views of those

philosophers who (from the perspective of the author(s) of the Dao De Jing)

mistakenly think that the way we should act can be fully discussed in

substantive “names”. Instead, argues the Dao De Jing, the best we can do is

to gesture at the thing underlying reality, and on which we should model

ourselves, by means of a nickname. (Angle and Gordon 25)

The Daodejing’s ontology according to Bai

Turning to Tongdong Bai’s paper, it offers a persuasive reading of the

Daodejing that discerns ontological significance in terms the work relies on

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heavily, such as dao, wu, and you.3 Profound ontological themes can be seen

operating, for example, in the Daodejing’s statement in Chapter 42 that: “Dao

produces the One. The one produces the two. The two produces the three. And

the three produces the ten thousand things.” (Bai 344)

Chapter One (after the opening lines) posits a “two” emerging from a

“one”, these two being wu and you. Bai notes that the terms you and wu in

Chapter One have “an atmosphere of fundamental ontology” in contrast to

Chapter Two where their usage applies to more worldly examples (Bai 346).

Chapter One says, “wu names the origin of Heaven and Earth; you names the

mother of all things.” (see Bai 342) Again, another level of being, “deeper and

more profound” exists prior to you and wu, as their origin. (Bai 342) This may

be dao or it may be “the One”; Bai is not quite sure, but either way it is evident

on his account that the Daodejing takes a keen interest in probing different

levels of being that make up the constitution of reality, including that level

beyond wu and you that the Daodejing says is “the door of all

subtleties/mysteries” (see Bai 342).

Linking the Daodejing’s “One” and “Two” with a like theme in neo-

Platonism, Robinet cites E. Brehiér who discussed “‘the non-being’ that is the

source of all beings”, writing:

As soon as you try to determine it and pin it down through thought, you make

it into a being. From then on, it is no longer the origin. Because it is a being

one must ask anew what is its origin. If, by contrast, you leave it completely

indeterminate, it appears to be no different from a pure non-entity, and

consequently it is no longer the origin of being. You have simultaneously

impose and withdraw the determinations which are applied through thought;

imposing them because the origin is not pure nothingness, and withdrawing

them since it is truly an origin and not solely a term designating a reality.

(Robinet 137)

3 “Readers should keep in mind the following meanings of you and wu … (i) They mean

existence and nonexistence, and having and not having; (ii) When representing things on the same level, they mean pairs of opposites that can be complementary to each other; (iii) Wu can mean “not you,” that is, the former means the negation of the latter; and (iv) You and wu do not necessarily refer to concrete things.” (Bai 2)

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Such is evidence that the metaphysical problems the Daodejing deals with and

its manner of approaching them are not completely different from those of the

Middle-Eastern / Western tradition. Charity says this has something to do with

inhabiting the same universe.

Bai on interpretation

In developing his reading, Bai worries whether some of the Western

philosophical concepts that he uses are appropriate to the subject matter.

In particular, my attempt to offer an analytical and logically consistent account

may well be alien to the spirit of the Laozi, a book that defies (rational)

explanations. After all, as is pointed out at the very beginning of the Laozi, “the

Dao that can be told of is not the eternal Dao”. The darkness or obscurity of

the Dao seems to be essential to the Dao, which “the lowest type of people”

finds laughable. (Bai 340-341)

Bai admits that his interpretation “is not even necessarily a historically correct

interpretation of … [wu and you]. Rather, it is only intended to be a consistent

and philosophically interesting interpretation that has textual supports and is

shared—in one way or another—by some of the philosophical commentators of

the Laozi.” Nevertheless, Bai feels justified in his approach because numerous

Chinese commentators have applied analysis to the Daodejing and: “Besides,

one way to determine whether some concepts are peculiar Western or

Chinese—that is, whether some concepts from one tradition cannot be applied

to another—is by trying.”

Conclusion

In the spirit of “trying”, my essay attempts to make sense of the concept of dao

in relation to “Western” ideas of metaphysical reality.

Hansen is right to emphasise the cogency of Laozi’s argument and the

practical orientation of his counsel. He effectively refutes a way of seeing the

dao that turns the whole scheme of the Daodejing into incoherent talk flowing

from the ineffable experiences of mystics. But a metaphysical interpretation of

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the great dao can stand its ground. There is more going on in the Daodejing

than a critique of positivist ethics on a mundane level. The very analysis which

picks apart the illusory quality of prescriptive language itself leads to an

unfathomable mystery at the heart of existence.

By pushing guidance dao to its limits, Laozi revealed that the ultimacy

attributed by his contemporaries to the various dao they subscribed to did not

have any firm basis. This raises the question as to what might instead be a firm

basis for guidance. His answer appears to be: nothing that can be expressed in

words, but something, somehow like a dao. This thought is the bridge from dao

as a way of guidance to dao as a metaphysical entity. So, it is in questioning all

human dao that an unknowable ultimate dao is posited.

If this is correct, Laozi’s concept is not unrelated to the apophatic

conception of God in monotheism as well as monotheism’s discovery of the

root of existence in the divine Logos (Word). The echoes are strong, given the

connection between dao and words. Applying charity and humanity, there is

noticeable commensurability between the mysterious dao of Daoism and God

as an unknowable essence in monotheism, albeit the two world views have

their own internal logic and cannot be completely matched in every respect.

In the end I suspect that Hansen tries to impose a severely mundane

interpretation on the Daodejing that is inconsistent with its poetic allusiveness

and tendency to play with multiple resonances of meaning. Hansen’s practical,

apparently materialist orientation is itself a box. Seeing an affinity between the

apophatic strand of monotheistic metaphysics and Daoism can help to liberate

the dao of ancient China from a modern western box.

Bibliography

Angle, Stephen C., and John A. Gordon. 2003. “‘Dao’ as a Nickname.” Asian Philosophy 13 (1): 15–27. doi:10.1080/09552360301666.

Bai, Tongdong. 2008. “An Ontological Interpretation of You (Something) and Wu (Nothing) in the Laozi.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 35 (2): 339–351. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2008.00481.x.

Hansen, Chad. 1992. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. Oxford University Press.

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Ivanhoe, Philip J., and Bryan W. Van Norden. 2001. Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. Second Edition. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., Indianapolis.

Pessin, Sarah. 2008. “The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. Fall 2008. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/maimonides-islamic/.

Robinet, Elizabeth. 1999. “The Diverse Interpretations of the Laozi.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, ed. Mark Csikszentmihalyi and P. J. Ivanhoe. SUNY Press. Accessed via Google Books, http://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Religious_and_Philosophical_Aspects_of_t.html?id=DzQtUzv4bggC&redir_esc=y