Laotzu and Chinese Philosophy[1]
Laotzu is the traditional name of the author of the key logical-epistemological passages of the Tao te ching (Dáodéjing) ‘the Classic of the Way and (its) Virtue’. He is thought by some to have served as a ritual specialist for the Chou Dynasty (Western Chou 1045—771 BC, Eastern Chou 771—249 BC), which was founded in the western part of ancient China. According to the story in the Shih chi he was “a senior contemporary of Confucius’ (549—479 BC), but left China when the Chou declined. The story is impossibly ahistorical in every respect, as the historical dates of the dynasty alone show, but in Laotzu’s case, leaving China when the Chou declined meant he went to the West. In his day that meant Scythia, thus making him a Hu ‘Royal (Scythian)’, because before modern times no Chinese would leave home to die. That alone indicates he either was a foreigner or was thought to be one.”
Laotzu was certainly not contemporary with Confucius, who seems not to have had “a philosophy featuring new ideas of his own”, since the one possibly innovative idea traditionally credited to Confucius, cheng ming (zhéng ming) “rectification of names”, belongs to a very “late stratum” of the Analects,“ which is a highly stratified, composite text. It is thus not a genuine Confucian idea. Confucius was a teacher of tradition and morality, not Philosophy per se, but the material attributed directly to him is earlier than that attributed to Laotzu, so we must separate the two.
The date and place of Laotzu’s birth are not even approximately known, but while he no doubt flourished after Confucius (d. 479), it was well before the earliest so far discovered ancient manuscript copy of the Tao te ching (dated ca. 300 BC), which features some of Laotzu’s core ideas along with a great deal of later material added by many others. That suggests placing Laotzu’s own floruit sometime between the early fifth and late fourth centuries.
However, there is solid evidence for Laotzu’s foreignness. His Chinese “philosopher name” is extremely unusual. Ancient philosophers’ names are otherwise formed by taking the man’s surname or full name (which includes the surname) and adding to it tzu (zi), which literally means ‘son; child’ but is used as a sort of honorific suflix for wise men and philosophers. But because lao ‘old’ in Chinese, as in English, is an ordinary everyday adjective, the name Lao-tzu (Laozi) literally means ‘old boy’, ‘old philosopher, or ‘old one’. It is thus not only unlike the many other Chinese philosopher names known to us from Antiquity, it is not an actual proper name at all. It also does not occur in the Tao te ching itself. That suggests it is a later nickname for him. His usual full name, which occurs many times in the Chuanthu and the Hanfcitzu (slightly later Classical philosophical texts), is also unique. In modern reading pronunciation, it is Lao-tan (Laodan), folk etymologized as ‘Old Long—ears: The name was later Sinicized as Li Erh (Li Er) ‘Ears Li’, where Li is the everyday Chinese surname Li and Erh is the everyday word for ‘ear’ or ‘ears’. So the name is written in several variant ways, with variant pronunciations, and with supposed meanings given in many folk etymologies, which are all doubtful, altogether demonstrating that the name is actually meaningless. These are all characteristic, standard features of loanwords in Chinese. So the man has a foreign name. The question is, which foreign name?
In Antiquity the word now written and read lao ‘old’ was also written as the character now written and read k’ao (ka’o) ‘old’. The characters k’ao and lao are graphically the partial reverse of each other. Moreover, the Shih ming (a later Han Dynasty work), says that lao is pronounced like hsiu, the phonetic of which is k’ao (kao). Thus in ancient times (lao) itself was also pronounced like (k’ao), or rather, like the Old Chinese reading of that character. Ancient and medieval scholars have therefore corrected the pronunciation of the character Lao in this name to read like K’ao. That means, in short, that Lao-tan was also K’ao-tan. K’ao-tan can be straighdorwardly reconstructed for Old Chinese as *Gu- ~ *Gau plus “dama ~ *tama,“ a perfect transcription of Gandhari Gudama or Sanskrit Gautama, the personal name of the Buddha.
None of this of course says that the historical Gudama (Gautama Sákjamuni), the Buddha, came to China in early antiquity and wrote the Laotzu, or Tao te ching ‘Classic of the Way and Virtue’. Nevertheless, it definitely does confirm, that some knowledge of the Buddha and his teachings made their way to China, as suggested by even a cursory reading of the book, as well, as by its connection to Gudama (Gautama), the personal name of the Buddha. That knowledge could only have been transmitted orally by a living person who actually travelled from the West to China and wrote the original early core of the first Taoist classic. From here on the unambiguous traditional name Laotzu is used to refer to this otherwise unknown man known as “Gudama (*Gautama). It is to him that the whole book known as the Tao te ching’s popularly—but inaccurately—ascribed.“
It is remarkable that a text written on perishable material, before the invention of modern printing methods, could have survived in such excellent condition after two millennia. But it is simply stunning that the provenanced, excavated Guodian manuscript archaeologically dated to ca. 300 BC, though loose (unbound) and unpaginated, was immediately recognized as a manuscript of the Tao-te ching, regardless of the differences between it, and the traditionally transmitted texts of the same work dating to the early centuries CE,”
That indicates something very important about the text. Despite the noticeable variety within the Tao te ching’s contents, its non-political chapters are remarkable for their extremely idiosyncratic thought, approach, and general tone. There is simply no precedent for them in Chinese. By contrast, the political chapters, though often similar to the other chapters in their “Taoist voice” and approach, mainly focus on government, like many analogous texts from the Classical period. This indicates that the original core of the book consisted of a few short and pithy logical-epistemological ethical chapters written by one and the same author, and as the work grew by gradual accretion, political chapters influenced by his thought system were added to it as well. In addition, it is noteworthy that the book is written in verse, unlike any other Classical period philosophical work in Chinese. In sum, the original core of the book is radically different from anything else in early Chinese thought except for later works that are connected to it or derivative from it, particularly the Chuangtzu. From its very first line (in the traditional text), it states the basic principle going back to the Buddha:
The Way that can be discoursed on is an impermanent Way.
The names that can be named are impermanent names.
Accordingly, the most relevant points are: the brilliant insight or conceptual germ of the Chinese classic; its author *Gautama, who is traditionally known as Laotzu or Lao-tan,- and his foreign inspiration. There are other reasons for considering the Laotzu (the Tao te ching) to be inspired by Early Buddhism: its strictly philosophical teachings are traceable to the Buddha himself (not to the later, strictly religious forms of Buddhism, or “Normative Buddhism”, which contain much material foreign to Early Buddhism), and the rest of the book has grown by accretion of the contributions of many others after Laotzu. Nivison perceptively states, “Enough of the book is not about government to allow the possibility that it is a book of counsel for any wise man who would survive by not pressing for too much, [Who would] be effective by being still, quiet.”
Finally, the Specifically Early Buddhist teachings about antilogies in the oldest layer of the Tao-te ching could not have been composed by anyone except a person who had knowledge of the distinctive Early Buddhism of Gautama Buddha, an unusual system that rejects the traditional Scythian antilogy of the Truth versus the False (which Zoroaster made central to his philosophy). It is easy to imagine that a Chinese who taught these exotic ideas would have been remembered as “Gautama” from the teacher’s frequent repetition of the name of the one who originally taught them, e.g.: “Master Gau(tama) says . . .”
Laotzu’s core teachings are thus on logic, epistemology, and ethics. He famously proposes to resolve conflicting antilogies by saying that they are bound to each other, that they are human creations, that there are no inherent absolutes in nature:
When the whole world knows beauty as beautiful, ugly arises.
When all know good, not-good arises.
Existence and nonexistence are born together.
Difficult and easy are achieved together.
Long and short are mutually formed.
High and low are mutually completed.
Meaning and sound agree with each other.
Before and after follow each other.
Because there is no real boundary between the antilogies, they do not exist in the natural world; they are human creations. So humans can get rid of them:
Eliminate knowledge, get rid of distinctions!
What may be called ‘overcategorization’ is thus problematized. The great later Taoist, Chuangtzu, illustrates the same point in his famous Chapter 2, “Discourse on the Equalization of Things”, which is about two women:
Mao Ch’iang and Li Chi were considered beautiful by men, but when fish saw them, they plunged into the depths; when birds saw them, they flew high in the sky, and when deer saw them, they ran away. Did any of the four really know the true principle of beauty in the world?
Laotzu thus gives a logical solution to a logical problem that is at the same time an ethical problem. He is no doubt later than Confucius, who is usually said to be the earliest philosopher, but like Solon, Thales, and other early figures in Greek history, Confucius is a “wise man” concerned with other things, especially traditional morality and politics, not Philosophy in the narrow (modern) sense. Although there are other candidates for “earliest Chinese philosopher”, they too mostly teach morality and general wisdom. Since the first to teach epistemology and serious logic in Chinese is clearly Laotzu, his work is the foundational text of Philosophy per se in China. It is followed, later, by others. And, unlike any of the other Chinese candidates for First Philosopher, Lao-tzu’s system eventually developed into a major inner path, Taoism.
[1] This article contains excerpts from the book by Christopher I. Beckwith: The Scythian Empire