5. Interpreting Dao (道) between ‘Way-making’ and ‘Be-wëgen’

This chapter is part of a wider research on Daoism in general, and the Daodejing (道德經, c. 300 BCE) in particular,1 which is, most broadly, attempting to establish a philosophy of comparison.2 The thesis of this chapter is that philosophy ought always to proceed through comparisons. This is both a theoretical hypothesis and a methodological praxis (πρᾶξις, ‘practice’). These two aspects need to be conceived as a singular and yet multifarious movement of thoughts. It is, in fact, only in virtue of this philosophical process of comparisons that one can determine the reference systems that are necessary for the evaluation of one’s own pre-assumptions. The scope, therefore, is not to f ind equivalences between concepts, as 1 Xiaogan Liu explains that ‘Daoism is a complex term and diff icult to def ine clearly. The Anglicized term was coined in the 1830s by Western scholars working from the pronunciation of the Chinese word dao [or tao] 道, which literally suggests a path or road, and is extended to indicate approaches, methods, and principles; dao has been used this way since antiquity in Chinese political and moral discourse. Aside from these common meanings, the word’s most striking early appearance is in the Laozi [老子] (or Lao-tzu, Lao-tze) or Daodejing (or Tao-te-ching) [...] Through this work it became a new philosophical term and the seed of a new intellectual and cultural tradition. Sima Qian 司馬遷 (145-86 BCE), drawing on some version of this tradition, invented a new term, Daojia [道家] (literally “dao-family,” indicating one of six schools of thought in early Han Dynasty), which f irst appeared in his Historical Record. The Laozi and a later work entitled Zhuangzi [莊子] are conventionally understood to be the most representative texts of Daoism—Daoist philosophy in particular. Thereafter, texts, authors, and ideas similar or related to these two texts, or elements within them, are commonly labelled Daoist. In modern academic discourse, we f ind that certain ideas have become recognized as standards of Daoism’ (Liu 2015b: 1-2). For further analysis and bibliography of Daoism and Daodejing, see Liu’s edited book Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy (Liu (2015a)) and D.C. Lau (1989). Regarding the Daodejing and the new documents found in Guodian (郭店) in 1993, along with the relative problems of authorship and periodisation, see Henricks (2000). 2 For more details on this, see Lacertosa (2017). Bracken, G., Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West. Care of the Self, Volume I. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462986947/ch05 104 MAssIMILIAno LACertosA comparative studies traditionally do; instead, the intention is to posit, each and every time, a theoretical and methodological framework that allows for the interpretation of the comparisons. In other words, the purpose of such a philosophy is not to f ind equivalences or differences, but to see how equivalences and differences can stimulate each other towards other meanings. Thus the configurations of comparisons become maps of philosophical processes and vice versa, in a constant exchange of positions. Moreover, conceiving comparisons in such a fashion means to have ethical stances towards oneself, the world, and others. That is to say, one can practice care of the self only through dialogues, by comparing oneself with the world and others. This is what I try to demonstrate in this chapter. In particular, I consider the concept of dao (or tao, 道) and its formulation in the f irst line of the Daodejing. First, I analyse some of the most common—and misleading—translations of this line into English. Then I compare the concepts of way-making and be-wëgen in, respectively, Ames/Hall and Heidegger. Finally, I propose a different approach to understanding dao.