Tao And Method: A Reasoned Approach To The Tao Te Ching

Description

While the Tao Te Ching has been translated and commented on countless times, interpretations are seldom based on systematic theoretical treatment of the problems of interpretive method posed by this enigmatic classic. Beginning with a critical discussion of modern hermeneutics including treatments of Hirsch, Gadamer, and Derrida, this book applies methods developed in biblical studies to the Tao Te Ching. The following chapters discuss systematically four areas necessary to recovering the Tao Te Ching 's original meaning: its social background; the semantic structure of the brief aphorisms contained in the book; the concrete background of the more cosmic sayings; and the origin and genre of the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching. These essays propose relatively new theories in each of these areas, leading to a new approach to the interpretation of the text. This approach is illustrated in the translation and the detailed commentary on each chapter. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Hermeneutics Introduction 1. Interpretation and Meaning: Two Histories Hermeneutics The Ontology of Meaning: A History and a Proposal 2. Philosophical Foundations for Interpretive Method Philosophical Foundations Language and Reality The Idea of Competence This Hermeneutics Compared and Contrasted with Recent Trends in Hermeneutics Introduction Part II: Sociohistorical Background Introduction 3. The Self Understanding of Warring States Shih China in the Late Warring States Period Cho-yun Hsu on the Rise of the Shih Shih-Idealists How did Shih-Idealists Gain Recognition? Text Comment Text Comment 4. Mencius on the Role of the Shih -Idealist Mencius Stakes Out an Expanded Role for Shih-Idealists Text Comment Text Comment Text Text Comment Text Text Comment Text Text Comment Text Comment Comment Other Shih-Schools Text Comment 5. Mencius on Virtue The Content of Mencius' Instruction to Kings Text Comment Text Text Text Self-Cultivation Text Comment Text Text Comment Text Text Conclusion: The Mencian Shih vs. Ute Modem Philosopher Enlightenment Philosophy Mencius Enlightenment Philosophy Enlightenment Philosophy Mencius and the Tao Te Ching Introduction Text Comment Part III: Verbal Form and the Structure of Laoist Thought Introduction 6. The Semantic Structure of Aphorisms The Proverb as a Special Genre of Speech Conversational Implicature Speech Acts The Target of Proverbs The Attitude Expressed and the Value-Orientation Motivating It 7. Understanding Laoist Polemic Aphorisms Definiteness Making Sense of the Paradoxical Style of Laoist Aphorisms The Problem of Coherence The Unifying Basis for Laoist Thought A Concern for Organic Harmony Appendix: Sayings about Nature, Heaven, and the Ancients 8. Sayings and Self-Cultivation Introduction Some Parallels between the Tao Te Ching and the Nei Yeh 9. The Vocabulary of Self-Cultivation in the Chuang Tzu and the Tao Te Ching Self-Cultivation Vocabulary in the Chuang Tzu Comment Text Comment Text Comment Text Comment The Vocabulary of Self-Cultivation in the Tao Te Ching 10. The Wonderful and Cosmic Tao "Softness Overcomes Hardness* Sayings Linking One Quality to Another Normative Descriptions Sayings Describing the Wonderful Benefits of the Qualities Laoists Cultivate Cosmic Sayings: A General Thesis "Stillness Is the Norm of the World" Text Comment Cosmogonies Text Comment Comment Text Comment Comment Comment Text Comment Contradictions and Non-Literal Understanding 11. A Pluralist but Critical Theory of Worldviews The Dilemmas ofEthnocentrism and Diversity A Broadened Theory of "the Good" as an Irreducible Ontological Category Conversion and the Transformation of the Lebenswelt Transcendence Subject's View and Outsider's View The Laoist "System* Some Comments on Contemporary Relevance 12. The Art of the Sayings Collage Indirect External Evidence Internal Evidence that the Tao Te Ching Is Composed of Sayings from an Oral Tradition Text Comment Internal Evidence for Deliberate and Artful Composition of the Chapters Text Comment Text Comment Comment Comment Text Comment Comment Text Comment Text Comment Text Comment Text Comment Substantive Associations of the Composers Part IV: 'Translation, Commentary, and Topical Glossary Introduction Translation and Commentary 1. Excellence That Is Not Outstanding 2. Stillness and Contentment 3. Self-Cultivation 4. Knowledge, Learning, and Teaching 5. Majesty That Is Not Awesome 6. The Soft Way 7. Against Disquieting "Improvements* Additional Textual Notes Topical Glossary Notes References Subject Index Author Index Index of Passages Discussed List of Chapters in the Traditional Arrangement