Daodejing: The Nameless Dao (feat. William Gilbert)
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- Throughout this video, Will and I give one interpretation of the meaning of the “namelessness” of the Dao in the Daodejing. The text begins, "the way that can be told is not the constant way. The name that can be named is not the constant way." In countering common conceptions of the way/dao in Confucian, Mohist, and Legalist thought, the Daodejing seeks to establish a Dao beyond the limits of words. "Dao," itself, turns out to be only a nickname, given for lack of any possible linguistic representative. Put in words, Dao is given through the use of negations (apophasis). The discourse of the Daodejing on the Dao orients readers towards the non-discursive and towards action, or rather, non-action.
Check out Will on twitch: / willthesage
Music: Kaya Village by Tenno
chilledcow.bandcamp.com/track...
Timestamps:
00:00 || Introduction
01:47 || Chapter 1 and the “Rectification of Names”
06:22 || The Nameless “Dao”
10:35 || The Use of Apophasis by William Gilbert
14:42 || Mysticism and Implications
18:12 || Conclusion
Pronunciation: chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pin...
Sources:
Lau, D. C. Lao Tzu ; Tao Te Ching. New York: Penguin Books, 1963.
Laozi, and Gia-fu Feng. Tao Te Ching. Taibei: Caves Books, 1986.
Lau, D. C. The Analects ; Confucius. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979.
Hanh, Nhat. Old Path White Clouds: The Life Story of the Buddha. London: Rider, 1992.
Cole, Alan. "Simplicity for the Sophisticated: Rereading the Daode Jing for the Polemics of Ease and Innocence." History of Religions 46, no. 1 (2006): 1-49. doi:10.1086/507927.
MacCormack, Geoffrey. "Rectification of Names in Early Chinese Legal and Political Thought." Archives for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy 72, no. 3 (1986): 378-90. www.jstor.org/stable/23680278.
Van Norden, Bryan. Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2011.
Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
Chai, David. "Zhuangzi and Musical Apophasis." Dao 16, no. 3 (2017): 355-70. doi:10.1007/s11712-017-9562-x.
Gellman, Jerome. "Mysticism." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. July 31, 2018. plato.stanford.edu/entries/my....
Chan, Alan. "Laozi." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. September 21, 2018. plato.stanford.edu/entries/la....
Sturgeon, Donald. "Dao De Jing." Chinese Text Project. ctext.org/dao-de-jing.
Franke, William. "ALL OR NOTHING?" Comparative Philosophy 5, no. 2 (2014): 4-24. scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/vie....
I would be so very into a chapter by chapter discussion of these texts in this mode. In the last couple of days, I have looked all over for discussions of individual chapters of the Zhuangzi, and found that some chapters, like Butcher Ding, are talked about a lot, while others, such as the discussion at the beginning of chapter two, about the wind/sounds of man, earth and heaven have seemingly very little available. Everyone just wants to sell you a book.
As a former Greek Orthodox priest and a student of apophasis in that tradition, this was a wonderful superb video. One cannot read the Tao Te Ching and not wonder if these words did not touch that other master in the Levant.
Incredible stuff, guys. I wonder whether a kind of theodicy could be developed from the Daodejing, in the sense of explaining why humanity continues to descend into violence. The "natural" or "base" state of people is to name things, in part because we care about things, we grow attached to them, while detaching from names is a state that needs to be mastered (and moreover, detachment is easier to achieve at the individual level than at the collective level). So, there is always a kind of resistance to detachment.
Another thought. Paradoxically, self-mastery requires action to become, if you will, "de-active": you need to train yourself to think daoistically. That means some part of you resists the training, like a block of wood could be said to resist being carved into something beautiful, even though ironically, it is the carving of the wood that is compared to naming...
EDIT: By the way, I've just visited your blog. Your intellectual exercise there is not only valuable, but you are building quite a resource for people like me! (I'm earning a PhD in philosophy.)
Love these vids. :)
Glad to see someone actually studying Daoism instead of fetishizing its Eastern aspects
Great video.
I appreciate that this video helped me put together that daoism, like all mysticism, is impractical and a waste of time~
ten thousand immortal sages are laughing at you
@@qjin4964 I'm glad I could spark such joy
Philosophy like this is subjective in its usefulness. If you didn't find use and others did, then that's fine. It needs mentioning that *of course* it's impractical for the modern era. Historically chinese philosophy like this was used politically and socially before spirituality was concerned. They're remarkable because of the instances of applicability to modern times, not because that was the intention while it was written