Abstract
Among the many theories that explain the becoming of all things in the universe, there is a metaphysical viewpoint that all things are originated from one pure origin which is preceded by nothing. This metaphysical viewpoint can be called the idea of genesis. Derrida proposes that this concept of ‘genesis’ itself is founded upon a contradiction; ‘genesis, …, brings together two contradicting meanings in its concept: one of origin, one of becoming.’ (Jacque Derrida, The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy, trans. Marian Hobson (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2003), p. xxi.) Based on this paradox, Derrida proposes that all philosophical attempts to recover the pure origin here-and-now, which are categorized as the metaphysics of presence, are impossible. In this paper, I argue that Derrida’s criticism is based on the Augustinian question of time which presupposes that only the present moment is real. Recovery of the origin therefore means to reduce the non-present to the present. I contend that Daoism can respond to Derrida’s criticism because it possesses a nested idea of time—the idea that each present is encompassed by a deeper level of present as the background context. Accordingly, the recovery of origin does not mean to return to an elapsed past but a deeper context of all occurrence. This explains why dao, when it is understood as the origin of things in the world, does not succumb to Derrida’s criticism. Furthermore, it provides an alternative solution to the Derridean paradox of genesis.
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Notes
I take this as the definition of “genesis” in this paper. It is understood in this loose sense that does not necessarily entail a creator, as in the Bible. It either confines to any mode of origination such as creation, natural nourishment, or mechanical causality. This generalization will facilitate the comparative study in this paper.
I refer to this problem by “the problem of genesis” in the rest of the paper.
Please note that ‘genesis’ and ‘origin’ are two different concepts. ‘Genesis’ is the combination of ‘becoming’ and ‘origin’. However, we focus on the origin when tackling the problem of genesis because it is where the problem lies in.
This is my translation modified from a certain versions. The translation made by P. J. Ivanhoe and Bryan van Norden is closest to the original sentence structure: ‘The Way (dao) produces the One. The One produces two. Two produces three. Three produces the myriad creatures.’ (Ivanhoe and van Norden 2001, p. 180). However, the verb ‘to produce’ is not a perfect translation of the word ‘sheng’ which literally means to give birth or to grow in the biological sense. Arthur Waley catches this meaning and translate this sentence as: ‘Tao (dao) gave birth to the One; the One gave birth successively to two things, three things, up to ten thousand.’ (Waley 1997, p. 91). However, this translation messed up the original sentence structure and suggested that the One is the constant origin that ‘successively’ gives birth to two and three and so forth. This has already deviated from the literally meaning of the original text.
The brackets are put by Husserl himself.
This pre-linguistic oneness can be regarded as the living background of our everyday life. (Kwok 2016, pp. 302–305)
I have modified Watson’s translation. Watson translates ‘you’ as ‘being’ and ‘wu’ as ‘nonbeing’. This
translation may cause some confusion as non-being is sometimes conceived as completely transcendent to
being. Therefore, I follow my consistent translation of ‘you’ and ‘wu’ as existence and non-existence. Another modification is the translation of the second last sentence in the quote which was translated by Watson as ‘suddenly there is non-being’. This translation is followed by most scholars but I argue that this translation is not appropriate because this translation implies that ‘non-being’ is an entity that can ‘be’. This philosophical implication is not coherent with other parts of Chapter 2 of the Zhuangzi. The last sentence of the quote also suggests that both existence and non-existence of something are equally questionable. Therefore, the precedent sentence should be read as saying ‘you’ and ‘wu’ emerge suddenly, so that the two sentences have the same subject.
According to Daoism, the name of a thing is arbitrary. This viewpoint is different from Confucianism and Mohism which propose that the name of a thing is normative: the name should catch the essence of a thing or a thing should comply the essence conveyed by the name. (I have to think one of the reviewers of this paper for pointing this out.) As I will explain later in this paper, according to Daoism, naming is a totally artificial process. In other words, a thing can be named differently or its name can even be cancelled. In fact, according to Daoism, it is only through eliminating the clinch of naming that one can erase the nested time and uncover the underlying nesting time, which is more fundamental.
This term is modified from the French word “difference” which literally means “difference”. Derrida changes the letter “e” to “a”. This modification does not change the pronunciation of the word in French. Through this modification, Derrida aims to show that différance can only be revealed by writing instead of speaking. The relation between writing and speaking will be explained below.
Ivanhoe and van Norden are more careful in the translation of this passage. Notice that ‘the way’ and ‘to be spoken’ are conveyed by the Chinese term ‘dao’, they therefore translate this sentence as ‘A Way that can be followed is not a constant Way. A name that can be named is not a constant name.’ (Ivanhoe and van Norden 2001, p. 159). This translation is structurally and grammatically more proximate to the original Chinese text. However, it cannot convey the meaning that the way, or dao, is something that cannot be described by language. This meaning is very important in the Daodejing, and Ivanhoe and van Norden also emphasize this in the footnote. I therefore adopt Lau’s translation which already conveyed this meaning without any further references.
According to the explanation in the Suowen Jiezi, name should primarily mean only the name of the speaker. Therefore, it emphasizes the self-naming (ziming). However, it is obvious that this structure can extend further to name of other things in the world.
Steven Burik has correctly put, ‘(the gateway) does not point to a transcendent dao beyond the “gateway” but to an inner-worldly dao understood as defining regularity within a process world.’ (Burik 2010, p. 500).
I have to thank one of the reviewers of this paper for introducing the word ‘integration’ for describing Daoism in contrast to Derrida’s ‘differentiation’. This distinction matches perfectly with the corresponding two time models introduced in this paper.
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