Ziran: Authenticity or Authority?

Religions

Misha Tadd¹ 

[1] Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 5 Jianguo Inner St., Dongcheng District, Beijing 100022, China;

关键词: Heshanggong;    Guo Xiang;    ziran;    authenticity;    authority;    transcendence;    hierarchy;    immortality;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rel10030207

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This essay explores the core Daoist concept of ziran (commonly translated as spontaneity, naturalness, or self-so) and its relationship to authenticity and authority. Modern scholarship has often followed the interpretation of Guo Xiang (d. 312) in taking ziran as spontaneous individual authenticity completely unreliant on any external authority. This form of Daoism emphasizes natural transformations and egalitarian society. Here, the author draws on Heshanggong’s Commentary on the Daodejing to reveal a drastically dissimilar ziran conception based on the authority of the transcendent Way. The logic of this contrasting view of classical Daoism results not only in a vision of hierarchical society, but one where the ultimate state of human ziran becomes immortality. Expanding our sense of the Daodejing, this cosmology of authority helps unearths greater continuity of the text with Daoism’s later religious forms.

【 授权许可】

Unknown