Heng and temporality of Dao: Laozi and Heidegger

摘要

In this paper, I shall do a comparative study of the understanding of temporalityrnin Laozi ~::j~ and Heidegger. First of all, I shall start from a newlyrndiscovered fact that in the book of the La0~', the word "hen~' 'I_~, a keyrnword in understanding Laozi s concept of temporality of dao J~_, was missingrndu,rin.~ the past 2000 years. In most editions of the text, a synonym,rn"chan~d '~, was substituted, which may refer to a totally different understandingrnof the temporality of dao. Second, based on an etymological studyrnof the origins of the Chinese word "'hen~' and its philosophical use in thernLa0~', I shall claim that heng explores the temporality of Laozi's dao as hengrnda0. Unlike chang, which asks more for constant extension, and invariablernand non-changeable movement, heng in Laozi's heng dao focuses more onrn"living longer" ~E of the myriad creatures, and on the concept of "neverrndying" )]-q~]~ ofdao as the natural force of giving birth. Third, in light of thisrnunderstanding of Laozi's heng dao and comparison with Heidegger's preliminaryrnthinking of temporality of Dasein as anticipatory resolute "beingtowards-rndeath" in Being and Time, I would like to argue that Laozi's philosophyrnof dao is grounded on "coming-from-birth. " Thus, it is life-orientedrnrather than death-oriented. Because of this, I propose that Laozi's beng daornas temporality of dao implies the concepts of "other-ness" and of "yielding,"