The Dao that Cannot be Spoken by John Deverell

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 Hansens 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 Chinas 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 Laozis 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. Laozis anti-language attitude is expounded in the next section. Hansens 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 Daodejings 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 Daodejings 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 societys 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 waters 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 Laozis 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, Laozis sayings help us to appreciate the value of the lower, the

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weak, the ignorant, the submissive. (Hansen 1992, 223) Hansens interpretive strategy Behind Hansens 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 Laozis alleged belief in an impenetrable mystery is unsatisfactory, when a non-contradictory alternative is available. Two interpretive principles guide Hansens 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 worldviews 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 Laozis 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 Gordons 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 selfsufficient term (alone and without equal), singular and eminent, that grounds the world in a unity. (Robinet 1999, 130) Angle and Gordons 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 ones style, zi, was traditionally used in public life while ones 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 Joness car and Joness 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 Daodejings ontology according to Bai Turning to Tongdong Bais 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 Daodejings 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 Daodejings One and Two with a like theme in neoPlatonism, Robinet cites E. Brehir 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 sharedin one way or anotherby 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 Chinesethat is, whether some concepts from one tradition cannot be applied to anotheris 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 Laozis 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, Laozis concept is not unrelated to the apophatic conception of God in monotheism as well as monotheisms 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. Hansens 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): 1527. 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): 339351. 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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The Dao that Cannot be Spoken by John Deverell 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&re dir_esc=y

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