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Posted by rat on 12/1/2008, 3:24 pm, in reply to "Tips for Understanding the Daodejing"
76.247.114.x
言者不知
Hi Baopu
Very nice stuff. This guy is pretty bright. At least much brighter than me, anyhow.
So could it be?:
"He who attempts to speak it has not realized it."
love,
rat
--Previous Message--
: Hi folks,
:
: I was re-reading some of Michael LaFargue's
: book and thought I'd share this bit he
: wrote. Enjoy!
:
: The attitude and the value orientation
: motivating it.
:
: The point an aphorism makes resides not in
: the contents of what is said, but in the
: implicit choice made to bring up this image
: rather than another. This choice in turn
: conveys the attitude of the speaker. When
: someone is deciding whether to take a risk,
: I might choose say "Better safe than
: sorry" or I might choose to say
: "Nothing ventured, nothing
: gained." The crucial issue behind this
: choice is not which saying is objectively
: more true, but which saying I think puts
: this particular situation in the right
: perspective. A child who says "Sticks
: and stones may break my bones, but names
: will never hurt me" is not explaining
: an objective truth but is
: "posturing" - assuming a certain
: posture or attitude toward a situation,
: insisting on seeing it in a certain
: perspective. Everyone saying an aphorism is
: "posturing" - assuming a certain
: posture or attitude toward the situation and
: inviting his or her addressee to share this
: attitude. In bringing up a particular
: aphorism, one is not primarily conveying
: information; one is primarily expressing an
: attitude. The ultimate basis on which an
: aphorism hopes to persuade is not the
: objective truth it directly states, but the
: attractiveness of the attitude or
: perspective it "acts out" toward
: the situation it addresses.
:
: Frequently this attractiveness lies in the
: particular value orientation underlying the
: saying. In my view, a relatively unified
: attitude underlies the entire body of Laoist
: polemic aphorisms, motivated by a particular
: value orientation. This attitude, cultivated
: as a "state or quality of mind,"
: is the Laoist "Tao," the Laoist
: Way, the Laoist "approach" to life
: (see p. 214).
:
: This attitude is something "acted
: out" in a saying ("performed"
: by the saying, as J. L. Austin32 might say),
: rather than explicitly spoken about in the
: saying. This is an important part of what it
: means to say (43[1]:1) that Tao cannot be
: named. In the present view, this point is
: immensely important to understanding the Tao
: Te Ching. Applying it to Laoist aphorisms
: reveals the perspectival and value-laden
: character of Laoist wisdom. Laoists neither
: teach a relativist skepticism of all
: values33 nor is their advice based on a
: completely objective set of truths. They
: take a decisive stand in favor of one
: particular set of values and advocate
: adopting an attitude toward all situations
: based on this set of values. Attitude is
: important also when considering the problem
: of "consistency" in the Tao Te
: Ching. The "consistency" of Laoist
: wisdom is not based on a set of doctrines or
: moral-spiritual principles, which Laoists
: consistently apply to all situations. What
: is most consistent in the Laoist
: "system" (see pp. 213-214) is the
: attitude the aphorisms "perform."
: In un-Laoist fashion I have attempted to
: give an explicit account of the basic value
: orientation motivating the Laoist attitude,
: see p. 239 under "Organic*
: harmony."
:
: Note that normally, none of the three
: elements outlined here [the target, the
: image, and the attitude and the value
: orientation motivating it] is mentioned
: explicitly in a given proverb. And yet in
: every proverb these three elements are
: essential to its meaning, and highly
: specific; to guess wrongly about one of them
: is to misunderstand the proverb. In trying
: to understand a difficult proverb in the Tao
: Te Ching, it will not do to stare at the
: words and try to read directly off of them
: the meaning of the proverb. What we must do
: is make educated guesses - with the help of
: background information and parallel sayings
: in the Tao Te Ching - about the three
: essential meaning elements outlined earlier.
:
: The kind of analysis of Laoist aphorisms
: this leads to can be illustrated by using
: the famous example: "One who speaks
: does not understand" (30[56]:1). It is
: incorrect to take this to mean that
: literally anyone who ever says anything must
: lack understanding. One could paraphrase its
: meaning rather as follows:
:
: 1. You might tend to be easily impressed by
: skillful speech and so assume that the
: eloquent speaker is a person of great
: understanding (this is the saying's
: "target").
: 2. To counter this, I want to call your
: attention to the image of empty-headed
: eloquence in which you can see a connection
: between skillful speech and lack of real
: knowledge.
: 3. As a reason for accepting this point, I
: invite you to adopt a value orientation and
: attitude in which substance is all-important
: even when not impressive and impressive show
: is of little importance (this is the
: attitude or "posture" the saying
: expresses).
:
: I think reflection on our normal ways of
: making decisions in life would show that our
: processes approximate the
: "aphoristic" way of thinking
: illustrated here much more closely than they
: do the "logical deductions from
: consistent principles" we usually
: assume as an official ideal. In my view,
: attention to the meaning-
: structure of aphorisms is the single most
: important key to a proper understanding of
: the Tao Te Ching.
:
: The Tao of the Tao Te Ching: A Translation
: and Commentary by Michael Lafargue; State
: University of New York Press, 1992. Pages
: 203-205.
:
: What do you think?
: ~ Bao Pu
:
:
435
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"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
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