Dao
I like the concept of the Dao... for the same reason I think I like Nietzsche's perspectivism or Heraclites idea of perpetual change .
I think all these concepts are an acknowledgement of the fact that we are limited as human beings in what we can perceive and what we can know. The world, the universe is an ever changing whole of which we as human actors always only can perceive a very limited part of.
It's also an acknowledgement of the fact that the tool we use for this knowing, language, is, even though it's the only thing we have, probably ill-suited for the task we would want it to do. Concepts in language are frozen in time, a table is a table a thousand years form now... yet we know the world we perceive is ever changing.
The point of all of this, you might ask, is that I think a lot of philosophy falls in this a-temporal language trap of wanting to define once and for all what the nature or essence of things is. We want certainty whether it is attainable or not.
The fact that Dao or the way is vague or ill-defined is not a bug, but a feature. Whatever it is we think we know for certain, it is subordinate to the context of the world, to contingencies.... to the way. This applies especially to morality which we are all to often tempted to make definite and condemning claims about. The way doesn't care about what we want, rather we should care about the way - ie we should learn about how the world operates - to be able to begin making moral claims that make some sense.
I hope this all makes some sense to you.
I think all these concepts are an acknowledgement of the fact that we are limited as human beings in what we can perceive and what we can know. The world, the universe is an ever changing whole of which we as human actors always only can perceive a very limited part of.
It's also an acknowledgement of the fact that the tool we use for this knowing, language, is, even though it's the only thing we have, probably ill-suited for the task we would want it to do. Concepts in language are frozen in time, a table is a table a thousand years form now... yet we know the world we perceive is ever changing.
The point of all of this, you might ask, is that I think a lot of philosophy falls in this a-temporal language trap of wanting to define once and for all what the nature or essence of things is. We want certainty whether it is attainable or not.
The fact that Dao or the way is vague or ill-defined is not a bug, but a feature. Whatever it is we think we know for certain, it is subordinate to the context of the world, to contingencies.... to the way. This applies especially to morality which we are all to often tempted to make definite and condemning claims about. The way doesn't care about what we want, rather we should care about the way - ie we should learn about how the world operates - to be able to begin making moral claims that make some sense.
I hope this all makes some sense to you.
Comments (4)
When will science end? When will the scientists hold a news conference to announce they've finished their work? Thousands of years? Never?
Even in the realm of what we can know, very long way to go yet I suspect.
And then there's all the stuff beyond what we are capable of knowing.
Hey Hippy, contrary to what you'd probably rather hear, this was not meant to discourage trying to know. Just that we probably should have some humility when it comes to our ability to know things for certain... and so that we should always remain engaged with the world around us, precisely because we can't know everything once and for all.
And I may add to that, if that could please you, that it probably also wouldn't be a bad thing to have some humility when it comes to our ability to control the effects of our inventions.
You've read all my posts on that topic, and still don't understand anything I've said. No worries.
Why do you think I don't understand? I think I do, but maybe I don't... trying to be humble here ;-).