23392
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The Dao (Way) first means the road, and comes to mean the right way to live [Norden]
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Full Idea:
The 'Dao' (tr 'Way) has five meanings: 1) path or road, 2) mode of doing something, 3) account of how to do something, 4) the right way to live, and 5) the ultimate metaphysical entity responsible for nature, and how it should be.
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From:
Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], 1.III)
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A reaction:
[compressed] So it is essentially metaphorical, just like the English 'way to do a thing'. Number 5 seems a rather large leap from the others, and most discussion seems to centre on number 4. The Chinese hoped for consensus on the Dao.
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23408
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The hermeneutic circle is either within the text, or between text and biased reader [Norden]
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Full Idea:
The first type of hermeneutic circle operates inside the text, studying relationships between sentences. …The second type is between the text and the reader, …who brings assumptions about what it means.
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From:
Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App A.I)
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A reaction:
The first kind is an essential aspect of reading well. Readers are biased, but I get very tired of those who do nothing but search for bias, and ignore the truth a text has to offer. If everything is bias, intellectual life is dead.
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19406
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I strongly believe in the actual infinite, which indicates the perfections of its author [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
I am so much for the actual infinite that instead of admitting that nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that it affects nature everywhere in order to indicate the perfections of its author.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Reply to Foucher [1693], p.99)
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A reaction:
I would have thought that, for Leibniz, while infinities indicate the perfections of their author, that is not the reason why they exist. God wasn't, presumably, showing off. Leibniz does not think we can actually know these infinities.
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