The Metaphysics of Dao in W ang Bi’s Interpretation of Laozi

Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 18 (2):219-240 (2019)
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Abstract

WANG Bi 王弼 develops a metaphysic of Dao 道 in his Commentary on Laozi and “The Structure of Laozi’s Subtle Pointers.” I summarize this metaphysic as the following thesis: Dao is featureless and is the ultimate reason why the myriad things exist and are the ways they are. I develop a systematic account of this thesis: I provide an interpretation of the featurelessness of Dao and show how Dao’s featurelessness relates to its fundamental explanatory role as the ontological ground for the myriad things.

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Hao Hong
University of Maine

Citations of this work

The Metaphysics of Creation in the Daodejing.Davide Andrea Zappulli - forthcoming - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy.
Understanding Dao in Methodological Terms.Xinkan Zhao - 2022 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 21 (2):197-211.
Much Adwu about Nothing: A Nonrealist Reading of Wang Bi’s Dao.Joseph Suk-Hwan Dowd - 2022 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 21 (2):183-195.

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References found in this work

Critique of Pure Reason.Immanuel Kant - 1929 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edited by J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Translated by Paul Guyer & Allen W. Wood.
Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will.Timothy O'Connor - 2000 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
Critique of Pure Reason.Wolfgang Schwarz - 1966 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 26 (3):449-451.
Fundamental determinables.Jessica M. Wilson - 2012 - Philosophers' Imprint 12.

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