Philosophical Enactment and Bodily Cultivation in Early Daoism: In the Matrix of the Daodejing
Ebook
In Philosophical Enactment and Bodily Cultivation in Early Daoism, Thomas Michael illuminates the formative early history of the Daodejing and the social, political, religious, and philosophical trends that indelibly marked it.
This book centers on the matrix of the Daodejing that harbors a penetrating phenomenology of the Dao together with a rigorous system of bodily cultivation. It traces the historical journey of the text from its earliest oral circulations to its later transcriptions seen in a growing collection of ancient Chinese excavated manuscripts. It examines the ways in which Huang-Lao thinkers from the Han Dynasty transformed the original phenomenology of the Daodejing into a metaphysics that reconfigured its original matrix, and it explores the success of the Wei-Jin Daoist Ge Hong in bringing the matrix back into its original alignment.
This book is an important contribution to cross-cultural studies, bringing contemporary Chinese scholarship on Daoism into direct conversation with Western scholarship on Daoism. The book also concludes with a discussion of Martin Heidegger's recognition of the position and value of the Daodejing for the future of comparative philosophy.
Examines the early history of the Laozi Daodejing and its roots in the tradition of Early Daoism.
Provides in-depth discourse analysis of the contents and inner meanings of the world classic, the Daodejing.
Offers an interpretation of the Daodejing's genetic relationship between early Daoist philosophy and bodily cultivation.
Provides a history of the Daodejing from its ancient excavated manuscripts to its Han Dynasty recognition as a state-sponsored Classic to its importance in the formation of medieval Daoistreligion.
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE: APPROACHING THE MATRIX
1. Matrix Side A: Conventions of the Dao
2. Matrix Side B: Yangsheng, According to Ge Hong
PART I: YANGSHENG DAOISM AND THE MATRIX
3. Uncovering Yangsheng Daoism
4. The Measurability of Chang
5. The Temporality of Heng
PART II: HUANG-LAO DAOISM AND THE MATRIX
6. Yan Zun and Heshang Gong
PART III: GE HONG AND THE MATRIX
7. Ge Hong and the Philosophy of the Pristine Dao
8. Ge Hong and Yangsheng Daoism
EPILOGUE: YANGSHENG DAOISM AND COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
9. Heidegger and the Philosophy of the Dao
Bibliography
Index
This book presents a distinctive interpretative framework that uncovers an early yangsheng reading of the Daodejing through the differences between its early phenomenological and the later metaphysical versions. It engages with current literature from West to East to make a rigorous and genuine contribution.
Thomas Michael offers a refreshing interpretation of early Daoism as a philosophy for living-well and the practice of nurturing life. He delves into Huang-Lao, Han dynasty Daoism, and the practices of the Daoist alchemist Ge Hong in the Wei dynasty. The book concludes with a comparative study of the Daodejing and the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger.
[Philosophical Enactment and Bodily Cultivation in Early Daoism] has a great deal to offer for Sinologists and philosophers alike. With meticulous and elegant analyses, Michael demonstrates that these fields of inquiry ... can significantly aid each other and thus us, readers of Chinese and cross-cultural histories of religions, in shaping a coherent view of this classic of religious and philosophical literature.
- Title: Philosophical Enactment and Bodily Cultivation in Early Daoism: In the Matrix of the Daodejing
- Author: Thomas Michael
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350236677, 9781350236691, 1350236691, 1350236675
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350236677
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-09T06:48:40Z