Laotzu, Laozi, Tao-Te-Ching, Daoism, Taoism

\ Laotzu, Laozi, Tao-Te-Ching, Daoism, Taoism

Scientific Enlightenment, Div. One
Book 2: Human Enlightenment of the First Axial
2.B.3. Chapter 1: The Immediate Articulation of Dao in Daodejing
ACADEMY | previous section | Table of Content | next section | GALLERY

In China of the Axial Time, as we shall see, Confucianism cannot be considered a salvational movement. Daoism is therefore the only location in the intellectual landscape of classical China where the intraworld concern of tribal existence transcends itself to attain the salvational level -- and salvational in the second mode. However, as we shall see, even then Daoism is extremely weak as a second mode of salvation in comparison with its Hellenic and Indic counterparts, insofar as in Daoism there is no (or rather no longer) explicit articulation of a "soul" and so no concern for the return of this soul to its eternal divine bliss. (But then, as said, this lack of an "eternal life of the soul" is precisely what contributes to the survivability of Daoism in the modern scientific age.) In some of the religious forms accruing around Daoist philosophy, however, the strive for immortality through the identification with Dao is explicitly attempted. They therefore make for the second mode. (On this, later.) Its salvation, although also by means of the extrication of oneself from society (from the "intraworld"), consists rather in the minimization of suffering (same as in Buddhism in this respect) through following nature and in the consequent attainment of a "long life" -- in this life -- as allotted by nature.

1. The immediate articulation of Dao: Dao as the Chinese philosophical anamnesis of Conservation.

The first principal text of Daoism is the Daodejing which means literally "the Book of Dao [Way] and De [Virtue]" (道德經), reputed to Lao-Tzu, 老子 the "Old One".

A best secondary source of Chinese philosophy, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by the late Fung Yu-Lan, will be very useful as guide throughout our exposition of Chinese philosophy.¹

As for the historicity of this Daoist cannon, Fung asserts that its composition has to be later than the school of names, and so also after Confucius, this attested by the frequent use of "name-less" as the designation of Dao, clearly a reaction to the school of names.

What is the meaning of Dao? We shall present a thermodynamic interpretation of Dao first, in accordance with our thermodynamic reading of the history of philosophy. Fung himself, having very well understood Chinese philosophy -- not an easy task -- advances however the conventional metaphysical (very Heideggerian) reading of Dao, which we shall consider next. After which, the meaning of Dao shall be clear.

Dao -- the Way -- is designated as the nameless, wu min 無名, literally "no-name". Empirical manifold things (wu 物) exist, and so they have names (min 名). Names are for temporal and spatial and so determinate things. But what is the source of their being? The law of Conservation teaches that despite changes, despite and behind the endless series of genesis and destruction of things on the surface, the total amount of everything remains the same, that there is always this "total amount" which is therefore the constant, eternally conserved substrate which underlies all things as the source of their being. This substrate as the source is here tentatively named Dao and is the same under-lying (upokeimenon) or under-remaining (upomenoush) which the Pre-Socratics seek as the origin (arche). Today this eternal substrate is, as said, just energy. This source is not a (empirical) thing and so has no name, ineffable, just as, today, "energy" is not one of those physical things around you that have names. What is that whose self-fluctuation gives rise to the endless series of (named or name-able) things? We can't say -- the substrate is indeterminate -- because comprehended by itself it has not yet differentiated into individual things -- and so without name.

The already famous opening chapter of Daodejing immediately goes into this Dao:

道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。無名，天地之始。有名，萬物之母。故常無欲，以觀其妙；常有欲，以觀其徼。此兩者，同出而異名，同謂之玄。玄之又玄，眾妙之門。

The Dao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao [not the eternally conserved substrate we have in mind]; the name that can be named [and so determinate] is not the eternal name [with which we may designate the eternally conserved substrate]. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth; the having-name is the mother of all things. Therefore constantly without desire, there is the recognition of subtlety [amazingness; this sentence seems to relate to Dao as the source of things in contrast with the next phrase; see also below]; but constantly with desire, the realization of potentiality [relating to things generated, it seems]. The two come from the same source, having different names. Both are called mysteries, more mystical than the most mystical, the gate of all subtleties [amazingness in the cosmos].

We name the un-speakable substrate, the un-speakable source with the eternal name Dao in a metaphorical, poetic, and convenient way. Our calling Dao Dao is not the same as our calling table table. Our naming table table means that the table has some determinate properties by virtue of which we can therefore name it table. On the other hand when we name Dao Dao it is not by virtue of its having determinate attributes and so determinateness which merit its being named in a certain way, i.e. as Dao. It is so named only by the exigency of speech. (Fung, ibid., p. 95 and *p. 110.) This, together with the articulation of Dao as the substrate (upokeimenon) in the recall of the law of Conservation, is expressed, e.g., in chapter 25:

有物混成，先天地生。寂兮寥兮，獨立而不改，周行而不殆，可以為天地母。吾不知其名，字之曰「道」。強為之名曰「大」。大曰逝，逝曰遠，遠曰反。

There is something formed in chaos existing before Heaven and Earth [i.e. the substrate, before its "shuffling" into heaven and earth, into the everything of the cosmos, is indeterminate. 混 "chaos" means the substrate, "the total amount", before its manifestation into things, i.e. before its acquisition of forms. Recall the same working of the memory of Conservation in countless similar images in creation myths.] Silent and solitary, it stands alone, unchanging. [The experiential motive is thus the same as Empedocles' degradation of Parmenides' Being into the perfect sphere, without yet any differentiations within to form things, as the substrate or the total amount before its "shuffling": "It stands fast in the thick obscurity (pukinwi krufwi) of Harmony, a rounded sphere rejoicing in its circular solitude. (sfairoV kukloterhV monihi perihgei gaiwn)"] It goes around [rotates?] without [ever] perishing. It may be the Mother of the world. Not knowing its name, I can only style it Dao. With reluctance [or "if forced"], I would call it Great. Great means far-passing, far-passing means far-distancing [these refer to the experience of the substrate, the source of being, as indeterminate, unfathomably far-extending and -deepening, in a way like Anaximander's naming of the substrate as the apeiron, the infinite], far-distancing means "reversing" [so somehow the nature of the source as indeterminately far-extending implies the pivotal Daoist principle of nature, the principle of things' reversing themselves after reaching the extreme].

"The having-name is the mother of all [literally ten thousand] things." Things empirical, perceivable by senses, are determinate in their spatial and temporal existence, and so have names proper to them, i.e. in accordance with their determinateness. Determinateness -- having names -- is therefore the source of their existence, "their mother". This line expresses that the fact of creation -- i.e. the essence of temporal existence -- lies in becoming determinate and so namable -- which is to say becoming individuated according to spatiality and temporality. But the foundation for this coming-into-determinateness (coming-into-being) is the nameless substrate which, as such, i.e. as implied by the "constancy of the total amount" and as the substratum from which things come into being and so into determinateness and into which they perish and so lose determinacy, is utterly indeterminate. Just as, today, "energy" is indeterminate, without forms yet. Without any determinate attributes, therefore, Dao cannot be spoken of and analyzed in speech like a thing perceived by the senses can be; if it were to be spoken of and analyzed, then we can be sure that it would not be that eternal Dao which is the source of being. (Note the implicit assumption that there are minor daos that can be spoken of, i.e. the Dao of individual things, or in the traditional metaphysical parlance, the being of beings [like Plato's forms], while the eternal, unspeakable Dao is Being simply [like Plato's Agathon]. The minor dao points to Dao's other meaning than the material source of things, that Dao also governs the process of things' formation, like the laws of nature. See later.) Again, if there are so many things (these ten thousand things, 萬物), then they must have come from somewhere -- for nothing can come out of nothing: this intuition of the first law of thermodynamics. This "from which" (ex ou) we so name Dao; but this is not a name in the ordinary sense, for it says nothing about what exactly it is that this name has just named. Being indeterminate, Dao similarly cannot be named. "[T]o use an expression common in Chinese philosophy, Dao is a name which is not a name [nameless name: 無名之名]." And yet "[s]ince there are always things, Dao never ceases to be and the name of Dao never ceases to be." (Ibid., p. 95, *p. 110.) A name that can be named, i.e. that actually is a name, is hence not the eternal name of Dao. The name of Dao says only that, if Dao is that "from which" all things (物) came, then it is not one thing (物) among all these (ten thousand) things (萬物). The source, the substrate, is not one thing among many things, but beyond, behind, underlying or under-remaining (upokeimenon, upomenoush). If it were one thing among many things, it could not at the same time be that "from which" all things come into being (are born: 生 = genesqai). Dao therefore cannot be named like a thing can be because it is not a thing. The source of being, necessarily un-name-able, is the "beginning" (she 始) of heaven and earth, i.e. of the cosmos.

2. The problem of the Chinese articulation of Being: Is the Heideggerian "metaphysical" interpretation of Dao valid?

Consider now the idea of genesis from Dao in Chapter 40:

反者，道之動。弱者，道之用。天下萬物生於有，有生於無。

Reversing is dao's movement. Being weak is dao's use [i.e. the way it accomplishes things]. All [ten thousand] things under heaven are born from being [i.e. "There Is"; yu 有 means literally "to have", same as French il y a. See below] And being is born from non-being [Nothing, Nothingness, wu 無].

In this connection we shall introduce Fung's conventional metaphysical reading of Daodejing which contrasts in some sense with our thermodynamic reading. The understanding of this contrast is important because the contrast extends to the reading of Greek philosophy as well.

The Daoist begins his salvation -- as do all philosophers East or West -- by investigating why there are things at all. (Remember that the perennial question of metaphysics: "Why is there anything at all? Why not nothing?" makes no sense if not against the intuition of the law of Conservation, that nothing can come out of nothing or that nothing can ever be created or destroyed, and so is itself an articulation of the memory of the first law of thermodynamics.) When the Chinese (in classical time) wanted to say "there is a person" they would say "yu jen" "有人" meaning literally "has person", which is therefore the exact equivalent of the French way of saying "there is a person", il y a une personne. (In fact, a contemporary mandarin, in order to say "there is a person", would add "there" [na-li] to the classical non-pronominal "has person" to give "there has person" which is even closer to the French "it has a person there".) "There is", which is therefore the literal translation of "being" [lit. "has", yu] above ("All things under heaven came from yu"), is in fact how Marcel Conche translates Parmendies' Is (estin; Being): h men opwV estin te kai wV ouk esti mh einai, "l'une qu'il y a et que non-être qu'il n'y a pas." (Conche, Parménide. Le Poème: Fragments, p. 75) Similarly, when classical Chinese wanted to say "there is nobody there" they would say wu jen 無人, "no person", "there is no person there".

In making the conventional metaphysical reading of Laotzu Fung first makes the point -- which we have already emphasized on several occasions -- that philosophy, in this case Daodejing, as investigation into the origin of things, thusly investigates on the synchronic plane of logic, in contrast to the empirical, scientific investigation into the origin of things on the diachronic plane of history: e.g. "The statement about the 'origin of species' makes an assertion about matters of fact, and requires many years of observation and study by Charles Darwin before it can be made." (Fung, ibid., p. 96) Similarly, as we have said, with physicists' search for origin through the reconstruction of the history of the Universe: sciences are thus diachronization of philosophy.

On the plane of logic then, "the coming to be of beings implies that first of all there is Being." (Ibid.) That is, the existence of things, i.e. "there are things", implies "there is" (il y a = yu 有 = "[it/ there] has"); so "there are things" comes to be from "there is" which comes to be from "there is not", i.e. wu 無, Nothingness.

"The saying of Lao-Tzu does not mean that there was a time when there was only non-Being [Nothing, wu], and that then there came a time when Being [There Is, yu] came into being from Nothing. It simply means that if we analyze existence of things, we see there must first be Being [There is] before there can be anything [there are things]. Dao is the un-name-able, is non-Being [in the sense of undifferentiatedness], and is that by which all things come to be [shen 生 = genesqai]. Therefore, before the being of Being [There Is, yu] there must be non-Being [There Is Not, wu], from which Being [There Is] comes into being. What is said here belongs to ontology, not to cosmology. It has nothing to do with time and actuality. For in time and actuality, there is no Being [There Is]; there are only [ten thousand] beings." (Ibid.)

This is the conventional metaphysical reading of Laotzu -- the logical articulation of the experiential "there is something" or "beings are there" -- which we may as well call Heideggerian because of its Heideggerian flavor -- not surprisingly, since the revival of Metaphysics (philosophy) in the West after its derailment is the work of Heidegger. Fung's reading of the meaning of Dao as metaphysical can best be appreciated if we compare it with Marcel Conche's reading of Parmenides' "Is" (Being, eon). (The issues that are to be disengaged are numbered from [1] to [3].) Through Conche we will show preliminarily the convergence, but through Heidegger and Fung the difference, between the metaphysical and the thermodynamic reading of philosophy (of Being).

Il n'y a et il n'y aura jamais la même chose, mais il y aura toujours quelque chose. Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?... [1] Parménide radicalise la pensée d'Héraclite, pour qui il y a toujours eu, il y a et il y aura toujours le monde. Certes, 'tout s'écoule', à savoir tout ce qui est au monde, tous les prétendus 'étants', mais le monde lui-même demeure comme l'écrin où les étants brillent et scintillent tour à tour... [Parménide] a radicalisé le mobilisme d'Héraclite au point de concevoir pour le monde lui-même la condition précaire des étants finis. Dès lors... tout ce qui est au monde, et le monde lui-même, sont à la merci de la puissance universelle et annihilante du temps [i.e. the second law of thermodynamics]... [Il] reste ce sur quoi le temps n'a aucune prise: non ce qu'il y a, mais l'être, le fait qu'il y ait (qu'il y ait toujours quelque chose). Car, dire l'"être" est simplement désigner le fait d'être pour ce qui est [This is where Fung fits in, beings implying Being and so on]. Il n'est pas concevable que l'être, en ce sens-là -- comme ce qui, pour ainsi dire, "faire" être les êtres -- ne soit plus [This is conservation]. Alors, ou il n'y aurait rien -- mais le "rien", le "il n'y a pas", n'est "ni dicible ni pensable" (8. 8) -- ou il y aurait le rien, c'est-à-dire non pas rien mais encore de l'être. On ne peut penser le rien sans le faire être de quelque façon comme rien [l'être?]...

[2] ...l'être, le fait d'être comme tel, est, lui, pour toujours à l'abri du néant. L'expression "l'être est" dit de l'être ce que l'on dit d'un étant, et ainsi invite à penser l'être comme un étant. Peut-être, avons-nous suggéré, pourrait-on écrire: "l'être este" (cf. Jean Wahl,... "Le ciel se cielle/ les nuages bleus nuagent et bleuent"), où ressort la racine indo-européenne es- qui signifie le fait d'être. Et l'on dirait: il est impossible à l'estre de ne pas estre. Que signifie "être" pour un étant, pour le brouillard, par exemple? Simplement qu'il y a du brouillard. Quand? maintenant: il y a, maintenant, du brouillard. Tout à l'heure, il n'y en aura plus. Le il y a, pour ce qu'il y a, signifie le il n'y a pas. Parménide suit, sur ce point, la leçon d'Héraclite. Certes, on peut soutenir qu'un étant n'est pas nécessairement voué à cesser d'être, que "il y a ceci" peut être pensé sans impliquer son contraire: "il n'y a pas ceci". Mais Parménide, pas plus qu'Héraclite, n'admet la perdurance d'un étant fini. Il y a ceci -- du brouillard -- maintenant, dans un maintenant temporel, un parmi une infinité de maintenant(s) avant et après, où ce qu'il y a maintenant n'était pas encore et ne sera plus. Il y a ceci, puis cela et encore autre chose. Seul demeure le il y a comme tel, dans un maintenant éternel. [This is till the expression of the law of Conservation.]

[3] Mais le il y a n'a aucune réalité à moins qu'il y ait... ce qu'il y a. L'être (l'estre) est ce qui fait que les étants sont, mais, sans les étants, l'être, n'étant l'être de rien, n'a aucune signification. Certes, aucun étant n'est nécessaire à l'être, mais qu'il y ait des étants est nécessaire... Que signifie "être" pour ce qui est? être là maintenant, être présent. Mais rien n'est présent que sur le fond de la Présence, laquelle n'est pas nécessairement présence de ceci plutôt que de cela, mais est nécessairement présence de ceci ou de cela, d'une chose ou d'une autre. [This is Fung again: logical articulation of the experience of "there is something.] Il y a une indifférence de l'être aux particularités de l'étant. L'être requiert seulement l'étant comme tel... "l'étant comme tel"... ne séjourne dans la Présence que pour un temps, ce qui ne fait que passer... Ce qui ne passe pas est seulement la Présence même, comme une scène toujours prête à accueillir de nouveaux personnages et de nouveaux acteurs... Il n'est pas possible qu'il n'y ait pas toujours la Présence, cette Ouverture et cet Accueil [why not? because of the first law], et non pas dans un au-delà ou un ailleurs, mais au plus près de nous, dans un ici et un maintenant éternel. Les maintenant(s) fugitifs, avec leurs contenus variables, glissent sur le fond du maintenant éternel. Le passé n'est plus, l'avenir n'est pas encore, le présent s'écoule rapidement, mais rien n'ébranle le il y a en son éternité [first law again]. Il y a, pour le moment, celui que je suis, et, certes, celui que je suis est entrainé par le fleuve; mais le il y a lui-même est plutôt ce sans quoi il n'y aurait même pas le fleuve pour m'entrainer: telle est à Héraclite, la réplique de Parménide.

On est tenté de donner des contours à la Présence, de la figurer commen un Séjour ou comme un Site. Ce sont là métaphores [Here the situation is the same as trying to name Dao.], mais qui laissent entendre la liberté de la Présence à l'égard de ce qui est présent. Ce qui a lieu en ce monde n'a jamais d'importance que relativement à d'autres choses ou événements qui ont lieu en ce monde, mais par rapport à la Présence, n'en a aucune. Car la Présence, comme telle, n'est jamais affecté par rien. Elle est sans mémoire, et comme toujours intacte pour un commencement des choses, bien qu'elle ne soit elle-même principe ou commencement de rien... L'être est "inviolable" (asulon, 8. 48)... Tout ce qui est advenu est pour lui comme s'il n'était pas. Et pourtant, il faut qu'il y ait des êtres,... il faut qu'il y ait ce qui est présent pour que le il y a, pour que la Présence aient un sens. Mais ce qui a lieu est indifférent... L'être n'est la raison d'être de rien. Il est, simplement, ce qui me "fait" être là avec ce qui est là, mais alors que je suis,... il est, lui, éternellement intact. Mais il faut qu'il y ait l'Eternité pour qu'il y ait le Temps, et il faut qu'il y ait le Temps pour qu'il y ait l'Eternité. [The condition of possibility for eternal conservation is in fact that there be something to be conserved!] Maintenant éternel ou maintenant temporel, c'est toujours "maintenant." Qu'en est-il de "maintenant" pour pouvoir être ou éternel ou temporel? Comment concevoir l'identité avec une différence si extrême? Comment se fait la jointure, en un point, du Temps et de l'Eternité? "Maintenant", nun (8.5): ce petit mot, de tout le Poème, est sans doute la clef. (Conche, ibid., p. 265-72)

There is never and never will be the same thing, but there will always be something. What is it that there is?... [1] Parmenides radicalizes the thinking of Heraclitus, for whom there has always been, there is, and there will always be the world. Certainly, "all flows", that is, all that is in the world, all the so-called "beings", but the world itself remains like a receptacle where beings shine and scintillate one by one... [Parmenides] has radicalized the mobilism of Heraclitus to the point of conceiving for the world itself the precarious condition of finite beings. From that point on... all that is in the world, and the world itself, are at the mercy of the universal and annihilative power of time [i.e. the second law of thermodynamics]... [There] remains that on which time has no effect: not What there is, but Being, the fact that there is [it has there: il y ait] (that there is [it has there] always something). For, to say "Being" is simply to designate the fact of being for that which is [for beings]. It is not conceivable that Being, in this sense -- as that which, so to speak, makes beings be -- should no longer be. Then, either there would be nothing, but nothing, the "there is not", is "neither sayable nor thinkable" (8. 8) -- or there would be the nothing, that is to say not nothing but still some being. One cannot think nothing without making it be in some way like nothing [like being? "nothing" seems a misprint].

[2] ...Being, the fact of be-ing as such, is, itself, always under the shelter of non-being. The expression "Being is" says of Being what one says of a being, and thus invites thinking Being as a being. Maybe, as we have suggested, one could write: "Being este" [i.e. Being is be-ing] (cf. John Wahl,... "the sky skyes; the blue cloud cloudes and blues"), whence came the Indo-European root es- which signifies the fact of be-ing. And one could say: it is impossible for estre [Being] to not estre [be be-ing]. What does "being" signify for a being, for fog, for example? Simply, there is fog. When? Now: there is, now, fog. Later, there will no longer be any fog. The there is for what there is signifies there is not. Parmenides follows, on this point, the teaching of Heraclitus. Certainly, one can say that a being is not necessarily destined to cease be-ing, that "there is this" can be thought without implying the contrary, "there is not this". But Parmenides does not admit -- any more than does Heraclitus -- the [persistent] enduring of a finite being. There is this -- fog -- right now, in a temporal now, one among an infinity of nows before and after, where what there is now was not yet and will no longer be. There is this, then that and then another. Only remains the there is as such, in an eternal now.

[3] But there is has no reality unless there is... what there is. Being (estre) is what makes it so that beings are, but without beings, Being, being not the Being of nothing, has no meaning. Certainly, not any of the beings is necessary to Being, but that there are beings at all is necessary... What does Being signify for that which is [a being]? Being there right now, being present. But nothing is present except on the foundation of Presence, and this is not necessarily the presence of this rather than that, but is necessarily the presence of this or of that, of one thing or of another. There is an indifference of Being to the particularities of beings. Being requires only beings as such... beings as such... sojourn in the Presence only for a moment, [they are] those which do nothing but pass by... That which does not pass by [at all] is only Presence itself, like a scene [or stage] always ready to welcome new personages and new actors... It is not possible that there should not always be this Presence, this Opening [for the coming of beings] and this Welcoming [Accepting], and not in a Beyond or Elsewhere, but right here with us, in the eternal "here" and "now". The fleeting "nows", with their variable contents, slide over the foundation of the eternal now. The past is no more, the future not yet, and the present flows away rapidly, but nothing shakes the There Is in its eternity. There is, for the moment, that which I am, and certainly that which I am is taken along by the flow; but the There Is itself is rather that without which there would not even be the flow to take me along: such is Parmenides' reply to Heraclitus.

One is tempted to delineate the Presence with contours, defining it as Sojourn or as the Site. But these are metaphors [This is the same attempt as that to name the Dao], but these allow us to understand the freedom of the Presence with respect to those which are present. Whatever has taken place in this world has only relative importance with respect to other things or events which have taken place also in this world, but in relation to Presence, it has no importance whatsoever. The Presence, as such, is never affected by anything. The Presence has no memory, and in a way always intact for the commencement of things, although it is itself not the principle nor the commencement of anything... Being is inviolable (asulon 8.48)... All those which have advented are for Presence as if they had never been... Nevertheless, it is necessary that there be beings... necessary that there be those which are present, so that There Is, or Presence, may have meaning. But "what" has taken place does not matter... Being is raison d'être of nothing [in particular]. It is simply that which makes me be there with [the rest] that are there, but while I am,... it is itself eternally intact. But it is necessary that there be Eternity so that there be Time, and necessary that there be Time so that there be Eternity. The eternal now or the temporal now, it is all "now". What about the "now" that it can be both eternal and temporal? How to conceive the identity here in view of such extreme difference? How to find the joint, the juncture, in a point, between Eternity and Time? "Now", nun (8.5): this little word, of the whole poem, is without doubt the key. (Translation mine.)

Let us disengage all the issues one by one within Conche's reading of Parmenides' Being. (1) The radicalization of Heraclitus consists in conceiving the substrate of the Becoming of everything by itself, separately from the latter. The substrate implied by "the total amount of everything remaining the same" (the meaning of Heraclitus' "flux" in which all flow) is by Parmenides posited without reference to the flux: our "Conservation understood by itself". The designation of fact of Being by itself. (2) Within this "metaphysical" reading of Parmenides (following Heidegger) non-Being comes into the meaning of Being in 2 ways: 1. Being, "There Is", is not a being among beings, and thus our experience of it tends to pass into that of a "nothingness"; 2. insofar as Being is the Being of beings, "There is" is the underlying for "there is something", and yet the something there is always disappears later, it invites experiencing it as some sort of "nothingness", as "there is something" always ends up in "there is not something (any longer)". The temporal now, although founded on and inextricably linked to the eternal now, does nothing but constantly disappear into the latter. (3) Beings be-ing themselves is nevertheless necessary for Being, that "there is always something" is precondition for "There Is" -- in this way (1) the radicalization of Heraclitus is negated in a way, for the flux becomes necessary to Being, the "There Is" requires "there is the flux in which beings pass" (Conche contradicted himself, or he probably made a mistake) -- although what that something is is totally irrelevant to Being or "There Is", and this is related to (2) the nothingness inherent in Being, that it is not a being among beings and beings come and go in it in its indifference to them -- the factual conjunction between beings and Being but total disjuncture, in terms of the content of this fact, of Being from beings. Presence implies, and has its condition of possibility in, the (f)actual presence of things, but does not imply at all and is not conditioned by what are (f)actually present. And this is why Being can never be affected by beings in any way. And it is (the experience of) this indifference of "There Is" toward "what there is" (but not "there is something") that, Conche asserts, prompted Parmenides to "radicalize" Heraclitus. (This is the real meaning of Conche's "Parmenides' radicalization of Heraclitus", his error aside.) The mutual necessary implication between the temporal now and eternal now, between Time and Eternity -- and Conche emphasizes that this mutual implication happens in our very temporal existence, not in some Beyond (au-delà) or Elsewhere (ailleurs) -- is factual in total but not factual in the particularity of the total.

(3) is the key point here. It says that Conservation, and the Eternity that it necessarily implies, requires that something be there in order to be conserved.

Comments are in order. First, not through the human experience of the thermodynamic structure of the Universe but merely through analysis of the experience of the existence of things (the conventional metaphysical reading), Conche nevertheless arrives at the implication of Eternity by our temporal existence, and therefore a juncture, intersection, between metaphysics and physics, which, as we see, reveals an eternal reality behind space-time in its study of quantum phenomena. Secondly, Conche's metaphysical reading of Parmenidean Being applies exactly also to Lao-Tzu's Dao: Dao as (or rather more precisely underlying) "There Is" is the Presence in which things come and go but always remain despite and in complete indifference to their coming and going; Dao is the commencement of things but is indifferent as to what commences. Therefore, more precisely, Dao, as Nothingness, is the commencement of "there is" which, in its turn, is the commencement of what there is. Even in this metaphysical reading, and without as yet reference to the thermodynamic structure of the Universe, we can see that the indifference of "There Is" to "what there is" implies the sliding of Dao from "There Is" into "There Is Not"-- and ultimately, Nothing, if we continue into the thermodynamic reading -- insofar as Dao commences "there is" but not "what there is". "The nameless is the commencement of Heaven and Earth [i.e. there is], and the name-having [having a name = starting to be there = there is] is the mother [commencement] of [the ten thousand] things." And so "all there is under Heaven [the ten thousand things under Heaven] is born from 'there is', and 'there is' from 'there is not' [ultimately, Nothing]." And the experience of this sliding of "there is" into "there is not" is expressed by the phrase, "these two [i.e. "there is" ("having") and "there is not" ("no")] come from the same source but differ in name; they both are called 'mystery' [shuen 玄, i.e. the mystery of existence]; mystery beyond mystery, such is the gateway to [all the] amazingness [miao 妙] [in existence]." And the recognition of this amazingness of corresponds to the state of consciousness of "constantly having no desire", i.e. exact correspondence to the pre-Socratic thaumazein, non-judgmentally being amazed; while the (henceforth non-judgmental) appreciation of things themselves (not merely "Being" or "There Is" but "what there is") to the state of consciousness of "having desire". Dao, as Parmenidean Being (according to Conche), is already passing into non-Being, without yet the impossibility in principle of naming it, without yet its not being a thing among many things and without its constant implication of the disappearance of what there is. Fung's metaphysical reading of Dao, just as Conche's metaphysical reading of Parmenidean Being, works, and again, the fundamental sameness between philosophy West and philosophy East is plain.

We however have adopted here a thermodynamic reading of philosophy, and we have to assert preference of the thermodynamic reading to the conventional metaphysical, because (1), as Conche's reading of Parmenides has shown, at this stage metaphysics presupposes the thermodynamic: i.e. why is it that it is not possible for "there is" not to be? Because of the law of non-contradiction, that "there is", "Being" ("to be"), cannot be "not-there-is" (to be distinguished from "there is not") or "not-to-be", in violation of the law of non-contradiction? But we have said that logical tautology (the law of non-contradiction) is precisely the essence of the first law of thermodynamics. Logic is the ultimate structure of the Universe and the truth of existence. The law of non-contradiction is indeed the keystone of metaphysics, as Heidegger has asserted. (Further distinction sets down that "there is not" would be the minor non-being that Conche allows Being to pass into by virtue of its not being a being among beings and of its implication of no-longer-be-ing of beings; while "not-there-is" would be the absolute non-Being that is unthinkable in the Parmenidean sense.) (2) That "there is" or "Being" in fact requires as its condition of possibility that there be something or beings -- despite its indifference to what they are. This key point really expresses the point that conservation requires that there be something in order to be conserved despite its apparent passing away. And so the mystery of existence -- "Why is there anything at all? Why not nothing?" -- and the corresponding non-judgmental, desireless amazement by it, are conditioned by our intuition of the first law of thermodynamics, that the total amount of everything never changes despite the flux of change in which things come and go, and which therefore gives rise to the intuition of the substrate, Dao here; or that nothing can come out of nothing, and which therefore gives rise to the profound question, "Where then did everything come from?" Eventually, staying consistent to the intuition of Conservation means the admission that nothing can possibly exist, that everything seen around must be a mere illusion, that nothing really exists at all. Therefore, "all [the ten thousand] things under Heaven are born from 'there is', but 'there is' from [ultimately identical to] 'nothing'." "There is" and "there is not" -- which ultimately is "not-there-is" -- therefore came from the same source -- are identical -- , only differing in name. The "mystery" is then deeper, that nothing is really existing at all. Nothingness as the source of existence acquires a deeper meaning and becomes the meaning of existence itself. At this stage such insight is not yet explicit, as the line "'There is' [yu] is born from 'Nothing'" means still that determinateness [having-name] comes form indeterminateness [nothing, wu]. The meaning of nothingness as undifferentiatedness of Being, of Source and its not-a-being-ness will only later pass into that of nothingness as literally nothing.

Here we see the convergence of Conche's metaphysical reading with our thermodynamic. Fung's metaphysical reading also coincides with the thermodynamic reading in some way, that beings imply be-ing (the substrate), and be-ing implies nothingness (the undifferentiatedness of the substrate), the logical implication inherent in the articulation of the experience of beings around. There are however several problems. (1) Conche's Heideggerian reading of Parmenides' Being as Presence is not conventional, but radical, and moreover seems certain improvement on Heidegger, since Heidegger's conception of Being as Presence does not seem to lead to Eternity as the meaning of Being (contrary to the whole tradition of metaphysics everywhere) and yet Conche's does. Therefore Conche's coincidence with the thermodynamic does not mean that either the traditional or even Heidegger's notion of Being meshes with the thermodynamic. (2) Conche himself has recently written a commentary with translation of Daodejing, where he reads Dao -- more sensibly in fact -- as equivalent with Heraclitus' flux, hence pre-radicalization by Parmenides (Tao Te King, Oct., 2003, Press Universitaire de la France). This we'll see next.

Some remarks about Heidegger. Dao means the Milesian upokeimenon, and also Eternity. Its root is in the articulation of the experience of "there is (has) something", with which also Heidegger begins his analysis of upokeimenon, which acquires the meaning of "presence". But Heidegger differs. This becomes a difficulty. E.g. Heidegger's description of the Pre-Socratic, i.e. specifically Greek, experience of Being (preserved through Aristotle, according to Heidegger): "Im Anfang seiner Geschichte lichtet sich Sein als Aufgang (fusiV) und Entbergung (alhqeia). Von dort her gelangt es in das Gepraege von Anwesenheit und Bestaendigkeit im Sinne des Verweilens (ousia). Damit beginnt die eigentliche Metaphysik."² (Die Metaphysik als Geschichte des Seins, p. 403) "Growth" (or "emergence", "rising") and "unconcealing" what grows (emerges) reveals things' being-present there (Anwesenheit) constantly (Bestaendigkeit) as lingering around (Verweilen). This is the primordial meaning of "there is," and of the Chinese yu 有. And the being-present -- what is there, Anwesende -- means "jenes, was, zum Stand gekommen, in einer Bestaendigkeit steht oder, in seine Lage gebracht, vorliegt" so that "[d]as in die Unverborgenheit hervorgekommene Bestaendige und Vorliegende [i.e. what is there] ist jeweilen dieses und jeweilen jenes, ein tode ti ['that something']". (Ibid.)³ Such presence of things (thus so unconcealed) -- there is something -- is "Ruhe" (rest), "ein Charakter der Anwesenheit [presence]". "Die Auszeichnung der Bewegtheit und der Ruhe als der Charaktere der Anwesenheit und die Auslegung dieser Charaktere aus dem anfaenglich entschiedenen Wesen des Seins im Sinne des aufgehenden Anwesens im Unverborgenen" is what Heidegger asserts to be the pre-Socratic experience which Aristotle preserves (ibid., p. 404).⁴ And here the metaphysical reading starts to diverge from our thermodynamic one: "Ruhe aber ist eine ausgezeichnete Weise der Bewegtheit. In der Ruhe hat sich die Bewegung vollendet"⁵ in the sense of "being brought forth": "Das Bewegte ist zu Stand und Lage eines Anwesens (verbal) gebracht, und zwar gebracht in einem Her-vor-bringen" or in the sense of "collection", Sammlung: "[Die Ruhe] hat alle Bewegungen des Her-stellens des [e.g.] Hauses in sich gesammelt, ge-endet im Sinne der vollendenden Umgrenzung -- peraV, teloV -- nicht des blossen Aufhoerens." (Ibid.)⁶ Rest (Ruhe), as the completion of movement (Bewegung) -- the two characters of presence (Anwesen) with "rest" being more foundamental -- therefore expresses most primordially "there is (something)" of which Heidegger gives a particular example: "Das dort stehende Haus ist, indem es, in sein Aussehen herausgestellt, ins Unverborgene ausgestellt, in diesem Aussehen steht" (ibid.).⁷

Such description of "rest" as the "ground-character" of "there is" leads Heidegger to define upokeimenon (underlying) as "[d]as Jeweilige liegt von sich aus vor", "von sich her Vorliegenden". (Ibid., p. 429, 430)⁸ Although this still means "there is", we have defined hupokeimenon as the substrate subsisting (like Ruhe) despite change (Bewegung), and eternally, called for by the intuition of Conservation. We therefore do not follow Heideggerian metaphysics, but thermodynamic reading. And we similarly do not follow Fung when he diverges, e.g. that in actuality there is no Being, but only beings -- implying in a way that philosophy is more fundamental than science which studies only beings, that science therefore cannot arrive at the Eternal behind the temporal reality -- which we specifically deny, in seeing science as on the same level of inquiry as philosophy but only on the different axis of time. Fung's metaphysical reading of Dao is the same as Heidegger's reading of Being among the Greeks: logical articulation of the immediate experience of "there is something." In the case of upokeimenon, unlike the case of estin with Conche, the thermodynamic reading differs, however, fundamentally from Heidegger's metaphysical, but we follow our thermodynamic interpretation (in terms of the human experience of the thermodynamic structure of the Universe). After all, the thermodynamic reading of the philosophic investigation into the origins of things seems better fitting with the question of metaphysics (die Grundfrage der Metaphysik) which Heidegger himself states:

"Warum ist ueberhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts?" -- das ist offensichlich die erste aller Fragen... Der einzelne Mensch sowohl wie die Voeker fragen auf ihrem geschichtlichen Gang durch die Zeit vieles... bevor sie auf die Frage stossen: "Warum ist ueberhaupt Seiendes und nicht vielmehr Nichts?" Viele stossen ueberhaupt nie auf diese Frage, wenn das heissen soll, nicht nur den Fragesatz als ausgesagten hoeren und lesen, sondern: die Frage fragen, d. h. sie zustandbringen, sie stellen, sich in den Zustand dieses Fragens noetigen. (Einfuehrung in die Metaphysik)

"Why are there things at all rather than nothing?" -- that is obviously the first of all questions... Men and peoples as well ask many questions during their historical course through time... before they run into the question: "Why are there things at all and not nothing?" Many never encounter this question, if such encounter means not just hearing or reading about this question expressed somewhere, but: asking this question, i.e. bringing it about, putting it forward, feeling the necessity of this question.

Better fitting because, as we said, this question itself only makes sense against the first law of thermodynamics, and also because the thermodynamic answer -- implied in the question itself -- that things came from an eternally conserved substrate as its manifold surface manifestations, is genealogic of things, i.e. actually answering the question, and not just analytically articulative of the experience that "there are things": explicitation of the experience. Yes -- but why? (The difference between the two can of course be blurred a bit, since answering it thermodynamically really is also simply explicitating the experience -- the intuition of the substrate, of eternity as the source of temporal existence, is immediately given in the perception of anything.)

In conclusion, it will be seen that this notion of Being of Heidegger's as meaning the "making-present" of beings, experientially, phenomenologically, or logically articulated thusly, originates from the transmutation of Being in the sense of essentia -- the sense of how beings appear as what they are: first started by Plato and which is the only sense Heidegger understands -- into a general sense, extended erroneously then by Heidegger to the articulations of Being of all Presocractic philosophers who in fact understand Being in the sense of existentia, as the materiality of beings; and that it is at this juncture that modern European metaphysics is born. All other instances of Heidegger's interpretation of Hellenic philosophy, e.g. his explication of the meaning of Logos, presuppose this erroneously applied meaning of Being in the sense of essentia, as "making appear." However, Laotzu's articulation of Being in terms of Dao is in the sense of existentia, just like the Presocratics', and just like all the other naive, immature philosophers' in the beginning of philosophy (e.g. the Upanishadics', the Orphics'). Despite, therefore, the similarity in philosophical vocabulary between Chinese philosophy in general and Daoist thinking in particular on the one hand, and the modern Western "metaphysics" on the other, we must not understand the articulation of Dao in Daodejing in accordance with the Western metaphysical manner, and we must consequently reject Fung's interpretation -- and later, a Heideggerian's such as Conche's -- of Dao.

Footnotes:

1. Fung Yu-Lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, The Free Press, New York, 1948. This book has been translated back into Chinese, published by the Beijing University Press, 1985, and which, sometimes rendering more clarity than the original English, is also used here. Page numbers to the Chinese translation shall be indicated by * preceding them. The text of Daodejing is based on (1) Tao Teh Ching, translated by John C. H. Wu, Shambhala Dragon Editions, 1989, which contains more or less the traditional text fixed since the beginning of Medieval period (since Jin, 300 or so A.D.), but of which the translator shows poor understanding of the text; and (2) Lao-Tzu Te-Tao-Ching: A New Translation Based on the Recently discovered Ma-Wang-Tui Texts, translated with introduction and commentary by R. G. Hendricks, Ballantine Books, New York, 1989, which contains text discovered in a Han Dynasty tomb which therefore predates the fixation of the traditional text during the Medieval period, and in which the frequent appearance of particles at the end of sentences rectifies the punctuation problems in the traditional text and clarifies some of the meanings thereof. The pronunciation given below of the characters is that of contemporary mandarin, which should not be taken seriously because, of course, it is not how the Chinese in classical time (ca. from 500 B.C. to the time of Christ) pronounced the same characters. Readers must be mindful that, aesthetically speaking at least, modern Chinese is a corruption of classical Chinese in that the shift of pronunciation since the classical time has also covered up subtle grammatical inflections of Classical Chinese that are hidden behind the characters. The continuity of Chinese characters and the consequent intelligibility of classical texts to speakers of contemporary Chinese hides the fact that behind the classical text lies a language that is virtually foreign language to modern Chinese, more so than Classical Greek is to modern Greek or Latin is to Italian. Classical Chinese is a mildly inflected SVO language in contrast to modern Chinese which is isolating and has SOV elements interspersed within its basically SVO framework.

2. "In the beginning of its history, Being lights itself as the 'rising' [growing forth of physis or 'emerging'] and 'unconcealing' [aletheia]. From there it passes into the impression of 'presence' and 'constancy' in the sense of 'lingering or sticking around' [ousia]. Thus begins metaphysics proper."

3. "That which, come to its stance, stands in its constancy, or, brought to its place, is present, i.e. lies in front of us." so that "what is constant and present/ lying in front and come hither in unconcealedness [i.e. what there is] is the lingering around of this and that, a tode ti".

4. "The designation of movement and rest as the characters of presence and interpretation of these characters in terms of the initially decided sense of Being in the sense of rising-forth Presence in unconcealedness"

5. "But rest is the most distinctive wise of movement. In rest movements has fulfilled itself."

6. "The moved is brought to its stance and place of its presenc-ing, and is verily so brought in a bringing-forth". & "The rest has collected within itself all the movements of the putting-forth of the house, ended in the sense of fulfilling boundaries -- peraV, teloV -- not merely of ceasing."

7. "The there-standing house is, in that it, put out here in 'the way it looks', put out in the unconcealed, stands in this 'the way it looks'."

8. "The lingering-around lies in front [of us] out of itself" & "lying-in-front from itself on". -- All translations mine.

ACADEMY | previous section | Table of Content | next section | GALLERY