This just in . . .

It has been a long, lovely summer; but, I've gotten away from my Eastern Philosophy project.  Classes resumed at Mercer, today, though, and I think all of my syllabi are done; so, I'm ready to get back to it.  Unless someone or something changes my mind in the next few days, I'm going to jump back in with some Chang Tzu.

Stay tuned . . .

Tao and Te, Way and Virtue

I wonder why the translators of this highly recommended and very readable edition of the Tao Te Ching leave "Tao" untranslated, although they make it clear in the introduction that one should have in mind the English words "way" and "path" when one reads it; but, they do not leave "Te" untranslated, although they say that their translation of it as "virtue," could be misleading to Western readers.

Mainly, I'm sorry not to have the relationship of Tao and Te more visible in the text. The following chapter is a striking case in point. Each time the translator uses "virtue," I've substituted "Te."

All things arise from Tao

They are nourished by Te.

They are formed from matter.

They are shaped by environment.

Thus the ten thousand things all respect Tao and honor Te.

Respect of Tao and honor of Te are not demanded,

But they are in the nature of things.

Therefore all things arise from Tao.

By Te they are nourished,

Developed, cared for,

Sheltered, comforted,

Grown, and protected.

Creating without claiming,

Doing without taking credit,

Guiding without interfering

This is Primal Te.

#51

Look at the pattern that emerges! With the Te more obvious, one can see why this is the Tao Te Ching (the Way Virtue Book) and not just the Tao Ching.

Not to take anything away from the Tao--I have far to go before I know the way; but, Te is clearly central to the book, and centrally interesting to me. It seems, in fact, that a central difference between those who maintain an engagement only with the surface of the Tao Te Ching are described as those who do not attempt it in practice, that is, those who neglect Te. If that is right, then an active knowledge of Te is requisite to a deeper engagement with Tao.

All of this sounds a lot like Aristotle to me. Dozens of time I've explained to students that Aristotle's subject in the Nicomachean Ethics is not abstract knowledge, but deliberate action. to act virtuously, for Aristotle, is to act in the right way, at the right time, for the right reasons. All of these qualities of action require careful deliberation regarding the nature of one's situation and one's own nature; but, none of these deliberations are possible without experience, and no conclusion that one could draw from such careful deliberation would be complete unless it were acted upon. So, the development of virtue demands both a development of one's understanding of virtue and the crafting of one's character such that one develops the habit of acting on one's best lights. Virtuous action depends on careful, clear consideration of the nature of the "way things are" and of one's own nature; but knowledge of the way things are (in the world and in oneself) requires action that approximates virtue.

Is this the same as (or similar to) Lao-Tzu's notion that one must learn the Tao to develop Te and practice Te in order to see the Tao more clearly? Sort of looks like it to me.

Lao-Tzu read my mind

I suppose I come to the Tao Te Ching with many of the same hesitancies as most contemporary readers. I worry that the apparent depth of Lao-Tzu's wisdom is really just the product of its openness to varied interpretations. If the power of the text comes from is openness to the disparate perspectives of his readers rather from offering a teaching of its own, then the activity of reading and thinking about the Tao Te Ching might move dangerously close to narcissism. Readers think they're pushing towards a wisdom that has been right in front of their noses all along, but really they're just admiring themselves in a very flattering mirror.

Lao-Tzu seems to know that I'm worried about this.

#62

Tao is the source of the ten thousand things

It is the treasure of the good man, and the refuge of the bad.

Sweet words can buy honor;

Good deeds can gain respect.

If a man is bad, do not abandon him.

Therefore on the day the emperor is crowned,

Or the three officers of state installed.

Do not send a gift and a team of four horses,

But remain still and offer the Tao.

Why does everyone like the Tao so much at first?

Isn't it because you find what you seek and are forgiven when

you sin?

Therefore this is the greatest treasure of the universe. (emphasis mine)

So . . . everyone likes the Tao at first because you find whatever you see and are forgiven for whatever you consider a sin; it gives you what you want and need. La0-Tzu acknowledges the possibility of a narcissistic reading, accepts it, and suggests that deeper engagement with the Tao might be characterized very deeply.

If one likes the Tao so much at first for this reason, what is the reason that one might like it (or affirm it, or be transformed by it) after a while? That leads me to think about the chapters of the Tao Te Ching that distinguish those who are serious about the Tao from those who engage it casually; but, that is a thought for another post.

Rousseau's nature

I've been rereading Bk One of Rousseau's Emile today in order to finish up a conference proposal that's been sitting on my desk for a while, and I'm enjoying thinking about what Rousseau seems to mean by human nature. The conceit of Emile is that it is a narrative written by a "governor" (tutor and guardian), who happens to be named Jean-Jacques, about the education of his charge, a boy named Emile. Jean-Jacques' aim is to educate Emile for freedom. Rousseau's aim is, at least in part, to show us what human freedom is.

Rousseau famously opens the Social Contract with the quotation, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." With this thought in mind, one might say that the project of the Emile is to describe how one might help a freeborn child to avoid those chains. Whether there is hope for those of us who did not have such an education is a topic for another day.

Nature comes into the discussion because freedom is, for Rousseau, our original state; we will be free if we would be natural. That's not to say, though, that freedom is automatic. In fact Jean-Jacques, works overtime for decades in order to keep Emile "natural," since it is so easy for human beings to develop habits and inclinations that move us away from our nature.

Here are the four maxims Jean-Jacques offers as the foundation for Emile's education:

(1) Far from having superfluous strength, children do not even have enough for everything nature asks of them. One must, therefore, let them have the use of all the strength nature gives them--a strength they could not know how to abuse.

(2) One must aid them and supplement what is lacking to them, whether in intelligence or strength, in all that is connected with physical need.

(3) One must, in the help one gives them, limit oneself solely to the really useful, without granting anything to whim or to desire without reason; for whim, inasmuch as it does not come from nature, will not torment them if it has not been induced in them.

(4) One must study their language and their signs with care in order that, an an age at which they do not know how to dissimulate, one can distinguish in their desires what comes immediately from nature and what comes from opinion.

(Emile, Bk. 1)

Given my recent reading of the Tao Te Ching, I cannot help but think about Rousseau's idea of nature and the freedom that follows from staying connected to one's nature in light of the Tao and Lao Tzu's cryptic advice for connecting with it. Look back at the quotation in my previous post, and compare it to what Rousseau promises for Emile.

The spirit of these rules is to accord children more true freedom and less dominion, to let them do more by themselves and to exact less from others. Thus, accustomed early to limiting their desires to their strength, they will feel little the privation of what is not going to be in their power.

(Emile, Bk. 1)

Freedom for Rousseau means freedom from tyrannical desires and unnatural habits; freedom to act in accord with one's desires and not one's whims. Freedom to know the difference between natural desire and whim (fantasie) , which is not at all an easy thing. Is this also the promise of the Tao?

The familiarity of the Tao

I've read very little non-Western philosophy, but I'm going to read a bunch in the next year or so. I'll begin a semester-long sabbatical in January of 2011, and I've promised Mercer that I would develop a few courses: Eastern Philosophy, Ancient Wisdom Traditions, and at least one Great Books seminar on one or both of those topics.

I am coming to this project with more modesty than it might seem. Yes, I'm proposing to develop college level courses on material that I have almost no familiarity with. That doesn't seem particularly humble. And, yes, I think that my education and experience teaching philosophy for 15+ years puts me in a solid position to know what I can and can't do with integrity in the classroom. That doesn't sound particularly humble either. But I'm liberated by the knowledge that I don't intend to present myself as an expert in Eastern Philosophy. I plan to present myself honestly, that is as someone with a strong education in the history of Western philosophy who has spent a year (or a little more) reading and thinking about some of the classic works of Eastern thought.

Years ago (hell, decades ago), a college friend of mine, Baxter Gillespie, paid me a complement that struck deeper than he could know. He was playing around at the time with painting characters, and he made a gift of one to me. The character was "shoshin," the beginner's mind (see image below). He said that when he read about the idea of the beginner's mind, he thought of me. I was a Junior and had only just found a Philosophy major, after running through 4 or 5 other courses of study. It seemed like everything I read, every subject I studied was interesting. I felt at home immediately in Philosophy, but I knew that had to do with its wide-ranging, interdisciplinary scope; in a sense, I'd decided not to decide. Baxter's complement touched me because it made an apparent virtue of what I thought was a vice--my openness to the promise of whatever I read, whatever I thought about; my disinclination to criticism. I still worry that I'm too broad, that I'm an intellectual everglades--a mile wide and an inch deep. But, there is power and virtue in that, too.

The first thing that struck me as I began to read the Tao Te Ching was how strongly its ethical teachings resembled stoicism. Take #13:

Accept disgrace willingly.

Accept misfortune as the human condition.

What do you mean by "Accept disgrace willingly?"

Accept being unimportant.

Do not be concerned with loss or gain.

This is called "accepting disgrace willingly."

What do you mean by "Accepting misfortune as the human condition?"

Misfortune comes from having a body.

Without a body, how could there be misfortune?

Surrender yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all

things.

Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things."

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching)

A purely stoic ethics would not promise that abnegation of the things of this world would return you to the world, that surrendering yourself would prepare you to be more caring; so, I'm already seeing both a connection and a distinction. That'll teach.

Perhaps in 2010 it is shameful to admit, but I have never had a blog. It seems like most folks I know have blogged over some period of time in the last few years. In fact, most of them have worked through their blogging phase and are now onto other things. This won't be the first time I come late to the fair!

I've had this account on Blogger for several years, now; but, it has sat empty and still. What draws me toward blogging today is not entirely transparent to me. The sources of my inclination, I think, are both physical and intellectual. Intellectually, I'm thinking in mystical and romantic terms, lately. Reading Wordsworth's Prelude a few weeks ago set me on that path, so I was particularly open to Henry Adam's romantic themes in Mont St. Michel and Chartres, which I finished day before yesterday. Today, reading Allan Bloom's introduction to Rousseau's Emile and the first 25 or so chapters of the Tao Te Ching (for the first time) my mind feels like one of those buildings with retractable roofs that sit on the tops of mountains and house huge telescopes. My roof is rusty and is opening slowly and not so smoothly, but the glimpse of the star strewn night getting through is more than enough motivation to continue trying to open up.

Physically, I've had a headache for two weeks. I saw the Dr. last week and I'm fairly sure that I'm just dealing with sinusitis, but such protracted discomfort changes the way one sees the world. I'm reminded of stories of Nietzsche lying in bed for months in a syphallitic haze then jumping up at the first twinge of healthy energy to write a book. I'm no Nietzsche (let me count the ways!), but I am experiencing an odd (apparent) clarity today. Most of my body no longer needs the rest it is getting, but my headache makes activity and socializing difficult. So, I am alone, more or less inactive, not at all fatigued, and not at all inclined to do anything but sit quietly and still.

So . . . I'm blogging. It will be interesting (to me, at least!) to see where this goes.