A Brief History of Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 19 Notes—New Taoism: The School of Discipline
(1) What is New Taoism?
Neo-Taoism = Metaphysics, is a proper noun that refers to the continuation of Taoism in the third and fourth centuries AD, that is, the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms, the Two Jin Dynasty, and the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms.
Neo-Taoism is divided into the main school and the main sentiment school, and this chapter is about the main school. He mainly studies the famous Hui Shi and Gongsun Long, and combines the content of Taoism with it to identify and analyze the theory.
There is a passage in it that is really not easy to understand, saying that the tail of the dust can point to a specific position and say "not to" - the time of the real arrival has not arrived, because when it arrives, it cannot leave, and if it can leave, it is not counted, it can only be regarded as approximate, "it can be seen that it seems to be not true". It should be similar to the logic of Gongsun Long's white horse and non-horse. There is some truth, but it is sophistry.
At this stage, metaphysics is a revival of the interest of famous scholars, and there is a famous book "The World Speaks New Language".
(2) The world speaks new words
"The World Speaks New Language" is a notebook novel written by Liu Yiqing, the nephew of Emperor Wu of the Song Dynasty Liu Yu of the Southern Dynasty and the second son of Liu Daolian, King Jing of Changsha (Liu Daolin), who organized a group of literati and collectively created a notebook novel. In the form of a "collection of jokes", it records the anecdotes of scholars and celebrities from the Han and Wei dynasties to the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
The idioms or well-known stories that have been handed down in "The New Language of the World" are:
From "The World Speaks New Language: Founder". Looking at the leopard from the bamboo tube, only one spot on the leopard's body can be seen. This is the origin of the idiom "peeping at the leopard in the tube", which describes looking at the problem only to see the part, but not the whole picture.
From "The World Speaks New Words: Words". How is it possible to have intact eggs beneath an overturned nest?
From the Southern Dynasty Song Liu Yiqing's "The World Speaks New Language, Yaliang". This sentence shows that it is unreliable to speculate on the thoughts of people who are higher than you in style based on your own thoughts. It means that people with high style and people with low style have different ideas, and there are differences in the perspective of looking at problems and the way of doing things.
From the Southern Dynasty Song Liu Yiqing's "The World Speaks New Language: Ren Sheng". Immediate, current, immediate. As long as he is happy in front of him, what does he care about his reputation behind him?
(3) The fusion of neo-Taoism and Confucianism
There is also a very interesting thing, in the era of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the status of Confucius has been transcendent, and the new Taoists want to write books and say, they have to accept Confucius as the greatest sage, and in the process of accepting the Confucian classics, plus the spirit of Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi. The famous thinkers of this era include Wang Bi, Xiang Xiu, and Guo Xiang.
Wang Bi is one of the masters of metaphysics, and his "Lao Tzu Note" and "Zhou Yi Note" have become classics. Xiang Xiu and Guo Xiang's annotations on the Zhuangzi may have had a greater impact than the Zhuangzi itself. For example, more explanations of the Tao are given.
The golden sentences in this chapter are collated:
Forgetting is a choice, not a natural one.
Build new theories on top of old authority to gain recognition quickly. It's a bit like the theory of historical degradation.
Integrity and innovation, guarding the universal truth of the old, and adding new connotations to the present.