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The Metaphysics and Unnamability of the Dao in the Daodejing and Wittgenstein
- Philosophy East and West
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 67, Number 2, April 2017
- pp. 352-379
- 10.1353/pew.2017.0030
- Article
- Additional Information
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In this essay it is argued that the dao of the Daodejing is neither a non-being nor anything transcending all senses, but a non-empty transforming unsummed totality that defies our ability to experience it, and thus dao is unnamable descriptively. For Laozi, one can grasp metaphysical insights concerning dao via the futile attempts to "force" a sign to "name" dao. Also, Laozi's views are compared with Wittgenstein's, and it is shown that Laozi has another option of holding that any sign "forced" to "name" dao must be meaningless.