Dao ist das Gegenteil Gottes: Die Kritik zweckgeleiteten Handelns im Lǎozǐ

Brook Ziporyn

doi:10.1515/dzph-2021-0063

Article

Dao ist das Gegenteil Gottes

Die Kritik zweckgeleiteten Handelns im Lǎozǐ

Brook Ziporyn

Published/Copyright: December 9, 2021

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From the journal Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Volume 69 Issue 5

Abstract

The term Dao originally means a Way or Course or Guide, something very close to purposive action as such – a prescribed course to attain a prescribed goal. It is precisely something that is selected out, valued, desired, kept to rather than discarded. The Daoist usage of the term “Dao” is thus an ironic usage: it is used deliberately in the opposite of its literal sense to make a point – the real way to attain value is through what we do not value, the real way is an anti-way, the real fulfilment of purpose lies in letting go of purpose. Purpose by definition excludes the purposeless. But this relationship is not symmetrical; purposelessness does not exclude purpose. On the contrary, it includes, allows, and even generates purpose. Not one purpose, however, but infinite purposes, all of which remain embedded in a larger purposelessness, but not contradicted or undermined by it. The structure of purpose is such as to either exclude or to subordinate the purposeless. But even if merely subordinated rather than excluded, purposelessness ceases tobe genuinely purposeless. It becomes instead instrumental to purpose, pervaded completely by purpose. So a monotheist cosmos is one that ultimately forecloses entirely purposelessness, and thereby also undermines all forms of inclusiveness, non-duality, and the non-personal. The relation of purpose to purposelessness is more tricky than it appears. This essay attempts a direct reconfiguring of this relation through the concept of wu-wei as effortless and purposeless action.

Keywords: Chinese philosophy; Daoism; Lǎozǐ; purpose; purposelessness; monotheism; great asymmetry

Literatur

Hansen, C. (1985), Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, and „Truth“, in: The Journal of Asian Studies 44.3, 491–519.10.2307/2056264Search in Google Scholar

Ziporyn, B. (2012), Ironies of Oneness and Difference, Albany, N. Y.Search in Google Scholar

Ziporyn, B. (2020), Zhuangzi. The Complete Writings, Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Brook Ziporyn, Indianapolis.10.1002/9781119009924.eopr0446Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2021-12-09

Published in Print: 2021-12-09

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/dzph-2021-0063

Keywords for this article

Chinese philosophy; Daoism; Lǎozǐ; purpose; purposelessness; monotheism; great asymmetry