Abstract
In his Laozi Commentary (Laozi Zhu 老子注) and Structure of the Laozi’s Subtle Pointers (Laozi Weizhi Lilüe 老子微指例略), Wang Bi 王弼 seems to identify the Dao 道 with “absence” or “nothingness” (wu 無). Despite this identification, some modern commentators regard Wang Bi’s Dao as a being. Other commentators deny that the Dao is a being but, nonetheless, seem to regard it as a reality of some kind. In contrast, I propose that Wang Bi’s Dao is literal absence and that we need not reify this absence in any way. Wang Bi’s descriptions of the Dao can be understood as metaphorical descriptions of mere absence. To support this proposal, I present an interpretation of Wang Bi’s Dao and then apply this interpretation to the first section of Wang Bi’s Laozi Commentary and to the first section of the Structure of the Laozi’s Subtle Pointers.
References
Chalmers, John. 1868. The Speculations on Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality, of “the Old Philosopher,” Lau-tsze. London: Trübner & Co.
Chan, Alan. 2019. “Neo-Daoism.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neo-daoism/ (last accessed on 12 Jan 2021).
Fox, Alan. 2007. “Teaching Daoism as Philosophy: Teaching Thinking through Controversy.” Teaching Philosophy 30.1: 1–28.
Hong, Hao. 2019. “The Metaphysics of Dao in Wang Bi’s Interpretation of Laozi.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 18.2: 219–240.
Lin, Paul J. 1977. A Translation of Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching and Wang Pi’s Commentary. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Liu, JeeLoo. 2014. “Was There Something in Nothingness? The Debate on the Primordial State between Daoism and Neo-Confucianism.” In Nothingness in Asian Philosophy, edited by JeeLoo Liu and Douglas L. Berger. New York: Routledge.
Lynne, Richard John. 1999. The Classic of the Way and Virtue: A New Translation of the Tao-Te Ching of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press.
______. 2015. “Wang Bi and Xuanxue.” In Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy, edited by Xiaogan Liu. Dordrecht: Springer.
Wagner, Rudolf G. 2003. A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing Wang Bi’s Commentary on the Laozi with Critical Text and Translation. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dowd, J.SH. Much Adwu about Nothing: A Nonrealist Reading of Wang Bi’s Dao. Dao 21, 183–195 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-022-09824-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-022-09824-0