Abstract
This article departs from a mereological conceptualization of the Daoist metaphysical system in the Daodejing 道德經. I discuss what parthood status applies to dao 道. Whereas it is quite intuitive that you 有—the region of concrete objects—has parthood relationships and compositions (entities made from parts), the other, undifferentiated region, dao, poses a considerable problem. This problem can be characterized in the following way: (a) dao cannot be characterized as a particular composition, which entails that it does not include parts. However, (b) dao underpins compositions in you, which entails that it contains compositions or at least parts that make compositions in you. This generates a problem of how compositions are possible with an undifferentiated ontological foundation. I focus on one possible approach to this problem––mereological nihilism, according to which no composition is possible. Assuming nihilism entails dao composed of mereological simples––fundamental entities, which are not parts.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading, insightful comments, and suggestions concerning the manuscript of this article. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 850593 – Mereodao).
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Banka, R. Dao as a Unified Composition or Plurality: A Nihilism Perspective. Dao 22, 381–395 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-023-09891-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-023-09891-x