The Question of Being and the Question of Way in Parmenides and Lǎozǐ (Departmental Seminar)

Abstract:

In this presentation I assume that Parmenides and Lǎozǐ ask both the “question of Being” and the “question of Way”. The difference, however, is that in Parmenides, the question of Way is subordinate to the question of Being, whereas in Lǎozǐ, the question of Being is subordinate to the question of Way. In Parmenides, we can speak of a primacy of Being, whereby he distinguishes between a way of being and a way of nonbeing. In Lǎozǐ, on the other hand, we can speak of a primacy of Way, which in turn is differentiated between Without and With (无有), or being-without and being-with (double character of the Way). There is thus a structural correspondence between Being and Way: they are both one and double (twofold). The decisive difference between Parmenides and Lǎozǐ is that Parmenides warns against the third way (between the way of being and the way of nonbeing) and tends to exclude it as the wrong way (although Heidegger, in his reading, tries to avoid this conclusion), while for Lǎozǐ the third way is not only viable, but the only possible way. Therefore, in the Lǎozǐ we encounter a reversal of Parmenides’ three ways, in which the way of being is transformed into the Way of being-with (有在之道) and the way of nonbeing into the Way of being-without (无在之道).

Delivered in English.
All are welcome.