On the Philosophy of Taoism

The question of whether what is known as ‘Eastern Philosophy’ qualifies as real philosophical venture engenders lingering divergent positions among scholars. Edmund Husserl, for instance, view the entire corpus as some forms of religion embodying specific systems of belief and mystical practices bereft of Greco-European model of philosophy. This paper is an attempt to further, in the context of ‘Receiving Asian Philosophy’, the project of consolidating the reality of that Philosophy. The paper attends to the project by exposing and examining, the philosophy of Taoism, which advances the interconnection between nature and reality, with special attention to its principles of nature. As a research based on qualitative method, this paper relies on library and web sources for data collection. It combines the methods of phenomenology and analysis (Phenomenalysis) for its enquiry. The paper finds that against the polemical viewpoints of Husserlian like minds, some other scholars including Joseph Adler, Chen Chung-Ying, Bina Gupta and Cheng Derong endeavoured to establish the philosophical appropriateness of Eastern Philosophy. It also finds that since philosophy can be viewed, in line with the thought of Theophilus Okere, as hermeneutics of culture, Chinese philosophy, an important aspect of Eastern philosophy is the critical presentation and interpretation of the Chinese culture. The paper further finds that Taoism with its emphasis on nature represents the oriental perspective to the entire corpus of humanism, although with minor content on scientific and technological progress. The uniqueness of this paper lies in its attempt to reinvent the import of Taoism especially its theory of quiescence in the contemporary world driven so much by the blare of homocentric humanism. Nevertheless, the paper’s appraisal of Taoism shows that its tenets cannot be taken in its totality. Rather any adherent of Tao ought to find a balance of life by developing intellectual capacity and proper disposition to the human preservation driven progress of the modern time.


Introduction
Questions about origins are usually difficult to answer, because they belong to the mysteries of history about which we may guess and propound theories but can never absolutely know. What is Taosim and what are its origins? Such a question goes to the roots of Chinese philosophy and we cannot know or understand it if we do not go back to the fundamentals. History, like arguments that have bestrode philosophy throughout the ages, is like books which we start reading from the middle.
Again, we ask: What is Taosim? We shall try to offer some guides, but must remember what Will Durant(1954) wrote in the preface to his book, Our Oriental Heritage: "But how shall an Occidental mind ever understand the Orient? Eight years of study and travel have only made this, too, more evident -that not even a life-time of devoted scholarship would suffice to initiate a Western student into the subtle character and secret lore of the East." Durant(1954) concluded by insisting that "the Chinese or Japanese sage would smile indulgently at these brief and inadequate selections from the wealth of far Eastern literature and thoughts." The foregoing is the dilemma of an African brought up in the Western philosophical tradition trying to understand the East. Coming from a worldview entirely different their own civilisation and even different conceptions of philosophy, let us forewarn readers that it will not be easy, especially when some renowned Western Philosophers such as Edward Husserl have often cast doubt on the existence of Chinese philosophy. It is, therefore, safe to start from the exploration of the entire gamut of Chinese Philosophy, which, if understood, will make our task simpler, since it will be a sure aid to the understanding of Taoism and the cultural and philosophical current that gave rise to it amidst some Western scepticism.
As a research based on qualitative method, this paper relies on library and web sources for its data collection. It combines the methods of phenomenology and analysis (Phenomenalysis) for its philosophic enquiry.
The paper finds that against the polemical viewpoints of Husserlian like minds, some other scholars including Joseph Adler (1999), Chen Chung-Ying (1990), Bina Gupta (2009) and Cheng Derong (2011) endeavoured to establish the philosophical appropriateness of Eastern Philosophy. It also finds that since philosophy can be viewed as hermeneutics of culture (Okere, 2005), Chinese philosophy, an important aspect of Eastern philosophy is the critical presentation and interpretation of the Chinese culture. The paper further finds that Taoism with its emphasis on nature represents the oriental perspective to the entire corpus of humanism, although with minor content on scientific and technological progress.
Although, scholars have ruminated, over the ages on the eastern philosophy in general, Chinese philosophy and Taoism in particular, the relevance of these philosophies in modern time have not been accorded much attention. The uniqueness of this paper lies in its attempt to reinvent the import of Taoism especially its theory of quiescence in the contemporary world driven so much by the blare of homocentric humanism. Nevertheless, the paper's appraisal of Taoism shows that its tenets cannot be taken in its totality. Rather any adherent of Tao ought to find a balance of life by developing intellectual capacity and proper disposition to the human preservation driven progress of modern times.

On Chinese Philosophy
Most often, books on philosophy written by Westerners, omit the riches of the Oriental philosophy. In the preface to A Simplified Introduction to Philosophy, Obienyem (2017) wrote "Most introductory books on Philosophy usually begin with Anaximander through Socrates to contemporary philosophers -without anything to write about the rich oriental philosophical heritage of such greats as Lao-tze, Confucius, Buddha and Shankara. A Simplified Introduction to Philosophy shares the same fault." When viewed critically, it is not the fault of the universities, but a fundamental fault of the curriculum. If Introduction to Philosophy focuses just on the West, the interpretation is that it is the West that actually introduced philosophy to the world. However, ruthless research has shown that even most of those engagements by the ancient Greeks had oriental influences. Diderot in Reichwein (1925) was evidently perplexed by the profundity of Chinese Philosophy, which he acknowledges in the following words: "These peoples are superior to all other Asiatics in antiquity, art, intellect, wisdom, policy, and in their taste for philosophy; nay in the judgement of certain authors, they dispute the palm in these matters with the most enlightened peoples of Europe." Writing in 2015, Christian Violatti expounded the entire gamut of Chinese Philosophy thus: Chinese philosophy is the intellectual tradition of the Chinese culture from their early recorded history to the present day. The main topics of Chinese philosophy were heavily influenced by the ideas of important figures like Lao-Tzu, Confucius, Mencius, and Mo Ti, who all lived during the second half of the Zhou Dynasty (8 th -3rd century BCE). Chinese culture as a whole has been shaped by the influence of these intellectual leaders. (Violatti, 2015) What Philosophy has always been to the ancient is what it has continued to be today. Whether we are talking of the old Metaphysics or the newly-born such as phenomenology, they all operate within the confines of intellectualism. Being an intellectual tradition of the Chinese, one would readily ask what the intellect does and how its operations affect our worldviews and the manner we see and evaluate realities.
The Chinese, like others, would have wondered at the immensity of the incomprehensible cosmos and most have, while wondering, started asking questions which, though influenced by the environment, would not have been radically different from the questions intellectuals ask everywhere.
It is often a mistake to think that they did not ask questions about the metaphysical, peeping into the unseen real and the unreal seen. They did, but the major thrust of Chinese Philosophy rests on humanism.
The term humanism has continued to fluctuate according to individual thoughts or epochal thoughts associated with it. Related to Chinese Philosophy, it emphasises the human rather than the transcendental attributes of being.
Because it is humanistic, it pays closer attention to practical, moral and day-to-day concerns more than anything else. Thus, as Durant (1954)

says of it,
As India is par excellence the land of metaphysics and religion, China is by like pre-eminence the home of humanistic, or non-theological, philosophy. Almost the only important work of metaphysics in its literature is the strange document with which the recorded history of Chinese thought begins -The I-ching, or 'Book of Changes'.
It was in the book that we saw something for once strange and metaphysical about Chinese Philosophy. It talks about the eight Kua, or mystic trigrams related to the male principle of yang, the female yin. The book also talks about the sixty-four hisangs. Considered as the greatest classics, the Chinese used the book for sundry purposes: divination, grasping the laws of nature, foretelling the future, reading of the mind, among others.
The inclination of Chinese philosophy to nature made it, as we have seen earlier, to be viewed as non-metaphysical. But as the soul of philosophy metaphysics remain an essential part of that philosophy and can only be deduced by those that probe deeply. Thus, as strikingly summed by Perkings (2015), While there was no word corresponding precisely to the term "metaphysics," China has a long tradition of philosophical inquiry concerned with the ultimate nature of reality --its being, origins, components, ways of changing, and so on. In this sense, we can speak of metaphysics in Chinese Philosophy, even if the particular questions and positions that arose differed from those dominant in Europe.

Epochs of Chinese Philosophy
Chinese Philosophy is over 2500 years. Like philosophies of others, it has also passed through phases or periods. Often, it is delineated into four major periods: 1. The Ancient Period: Until 221 BC: this is regarded as classical and golden period in the evolution of Chinese Philosophy. It came immediately after the weakening of the Zhou State and is known as "Spring and Autumn Period". The period is sometimes stretched to include what is known as Warring States Period. The major characteristic of this period is the evolution of different schools of thought: Confucianism, Taoism (Daoism), Mohism and Legalism.
Confucianism is the predominant school; encompassing and further expressing the views of Confucius. Taoism is the philosophy of Lao-tse, who actually lived before Confucius. Mohism consists of the thoughts of Moti who, considering Confucianism as impracticable and even antithetical to growth and development called all men to love one another. He rebelled against Confucius' cold views about Heaven and God and sought to humanise God by attributing to him a personality. He considered universal love as the panacea to the myriad of socio-economic problems confronting humanity. Legalism comprises mostly the views of philosophers that came after Confucius, but sought to rival Confucianism by denying the universal goodness of men. For them, relying on character as Confucius advocated was a risky business. Instead, they, like the modern preachers of the rule of law, believed that laws should be strengthened as the natural arbiter of all men.
2. The Middle Period (221-BC-A.D 960): when Confucianism emerged supreme in the social and political spheres, only to be overshadowed in philosophy first by Neo-Daoism and then by Buddhism: Many philosophical viewpoints competed in the battle for supremacy. This was so because Chinese philosophy at this point was searching for unity. In the search for unity, there was the leaning towards syncretism, trying to merge diverse qualities of each into a harmonious whole. Though Confucianism was made the cornerstone of orthodoxy in Government, the principles of Yin and Yang dominated Chinese Philosophy of that time. Though the Book of Changes was Chinese classics, Taoism made ample use of it and expounded some of its contents. (AD960-1912): This is also called Neo-Confucianism. It is a revolt of Confucianism to the metaphysical and philosophical currents of the time. In the preceding period, Confucianism lapsed into lethargy and was almost forgotten as too prim and puritan for life and living.

The Modern Period
The man who opened the vista and determined the direction of Neo-Confucianism was Zhou Dunyi (also called Zhou Lianxi -1017-1073). Elaborating on the cosmogony of the Book of Changes, he held that, in the evolution of the universe from the Great Ultimate through the two material forces of yin and yang and the five agents to the myriad things, the five agents are the basis of the differentiation of things, whereas yin and yang constitute their actuality. The two forces are fundamentally one. Consequently the many are ultimately one and the one is actually differentiated in the many. Both the one and the many have their own correct states of being. The nature and destiny of man and things will be correct in their differentiated state if they all follow the same universal principle. This was the central thesis of Neo-Confucianism for the next several centuries. The influence of the Buddhist one-in-all-and-all-in-one. Each period had its own personalities and influences it threw into the cauldron of philosophical thoughts where they have remained. It is in this light that we shall examine Taoism and what it is.

Taoism
Thus far, what we have done is the superficial scratching of Chinese philosophy on the reasoning that it would help us understand Taoism and its tenets. What is Taoism and how did it originate?
What St. Anslem of Canterbury was to Scholasticisms and Edward Husserl to Phenomenalism is what Lao-tze was to Taoism. The name means "Old Master". Some call him Tao-tzu and others call him Laozi. Wikipedia describes him thus: "Lao Tzu, also rendered as Laozi and Lao-Tze, was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, the founder of philosophical Taoism, and a deity in religious Taoism and traditional Chinese religions." (www.wikipedia.com) He was regarded as the greatest Pre-Confucian philosopher. We read the interesting story of how he became tired of China and was determined to escape from the harshness of the country in the contemporary equivalence of voluntary exile and how, on getting to the frontier, Yin Hsi, the keeper of the frontier requested him to write a book. We learned that in response, he wrote a book in two parts, namely Tao and Te, rendered as Tao-Te-Ching, and The Book of the Way and of Virtues. Though its authorship remains conjectural and uncertain, what is certain is that it has remained the cornerstone of Taoism as a philosophy.
Taoism is synonymous with nature and frowns at anything contrary to nature. In development, it opines that it should be allowed to follow a natural course. In terms of human development, it supports growth according to the dictates of nature without any conscious efforts to develop outside nature by trying to interfere with nature as science and technology do today. Given the choice between drinking water from wrapped leaves or broken coconut shield, or the modern cup the way it is today, Taoism will prefer wrapped leaves. Sometimes written as Daoism, Taoism is: a philosophy which later also developed into a religion. Tao literally means "path" or "way", although it is more often used as a meta-physical term that describes the flow of the universe, or the force behind the natural order. The Three Jewels of the Tao are compassion, moderation, and humility. Taoist thought focuses on wu wei ("non-action"), spontaneity, humanism, relativism, emptiness and the strength of softness (or flexibility). Nature and ancestor spirits are common in popular Taoism, although typically there is also a pantheon of gods, often headed by the Jade Emperor. The most influential Taoist text is the "Tao Te Ching" (or "Daodejing") written around the 6th Century B.C. by Lao Tzu (or Laozi), and a secondary text is the 4th Century B.C. "Zhuangzi", named after its author. The Yin and Yang symbol is important in Taoist symbology (as in Confucianism), as are the Eight Trigrams, and a zigzag with seven stars which represent the Big Dipper star constellation. (Mastin, 2009) Though Taoism has been variously interpreted, one recurring feature is its glorification of nature. It rejects anything that suggests a departure from nature. If thinking, for example, engenders argument which in turn distorts life in the society, men must not think.
Due to the foregoing, Taoism strangely rejects the intellect. While philosophers like Plato see the uplift of society as resting on the wisdom of allowing philosophers to become kings and turning kings into philosophers, Taoism holds the contrary view by strangely seeing intellectualism as a danger to society. Taoism in fact is cautiously against allowing philosophers to become kings for the reason that they would botch every natural process with theories and principles that will end up confusing than enlightening.
Thus for Taoists, "The intellectual man is a danger to the state because he thinks in terms of regulations and laws; he wishes to construct a society like geometry, and does not realise that such regulation destroys the living freedom and vigour of the parts." (Durant, 1954) For Taoism, the closer life is to nature the better for humanity. It thus kicks against any prop to the intellect preferring that man develops the way nature has made him. By so doing, Taoists believe that a man understands the world better when he lives an artless life imbued with simplicity. For example, rulers who are Tao-minded should take humans the way they are and should not even try in any way to control the natural tendencies of men. For Taoists, Hobbes was wrong in propounding the use of laws to guide the dictates of nature. For them, law is a dangerous enterprise that may injure more than it builds or helps. According to them, life is supreme, when it follows the wisely thoughtless routine of nature, and even writing would move the wheels of life in a simple and wholesome round. There would be few inventions, for these only add to the wealth of the rich and the power of the strong; there would be no books, no lawyers, no industries, and only village trade. (Durant, 1954) And what is nature that Taoism seems infatuated with?

The Laotzian Nature
Going By The Dictionary, Nature Has Many Meanings. It Could Be Taken As What is fundamental about things, the essential qualities by which things are recognised. It could be seen as causal agents controlling things in the universe. Some trace it to the physical world, among others.
Lao-tze, the founder of Taoism sees nature as Toa, or way, as embedded in natural activities or creations: the brooks, the rivers and seas, rivulets, the rocks and stars. It is laws of things to which other things (be it conduct), must conform. It is the attempt at being one with creation. Thus they speak of the law of things as the Tao or the way of the universe.
For Taoism, our life in the world is part of the rhythm of the world; one cannot separate one from another. For Durant(1954), "In that cosmic Tao all the laws of nature are united and form together the Spinozistic substance of all reality; in it all natural forms and varieties find a proper place, and all apparent diversities and contradictions meet; it is the Absolute in which all particulars are resolved into one Hegelian unity." For Taoism, peace and progress in the world are determined by our closeness to nature, what we shall call the law of Propinquity. The philosophy believes that the farther we are from nature the more disastrous it becomes for humans and that one thing that draws us away from nature is "knowledge," defined by complicated inventions and consequent movement from the field to the cities, from simple diet to complicated diet. Today one shall include from going on foot to flying on the air as well as from the contentedness of mud and natural houses to the amazement of the skyscrapers.
The fore-going can even be seen silently in operation. The story of Eden tells us that our first parents were enjoying the peace of nature until they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, the tree of Knowledge, and thenceforth found out that they were naked. It was exactly at this point that the thought of right and wrong thrust forward to disturb the paradise of Eden's innocence. (Genesis, 2) Again, Durant(1954), echoing Lao on nature presents it admiringly: The wise man will shun this urban complexity, this corrupting and enervating maze of law and civilisation, and will hide himself in the lap of nature, far from any town, or books, or venal officials, or vain reformers. The secret of wisdom and of that quiet content which is the only lasting happiness that man can find, is a Stoic obedience to nature, an abandonment of all artifice and intellect, a trustful acceptance of nature's imperatives in instinct and feeling, a modest imitation of nature's silent ways". 15 For Taoism, everything in nature comes to being and returns to nature, their origin. Nature is the eternal wisdom.
Here Taoism talks about quiescence, characterised by inaction in the belief of allowing nature to take its course. Here, Taoism advocates keeping quiet, a kind of "Siddon De Look" while things unfold according to their very nature.

Quiescence
In 2001, during the barbaric tenure of General Sani Abacha as Nigeria's head of state, Chief Bola Ige was asked to talk about politics in Nigeria, and he said he would be maintaining the position of Siddon de Look. This is the summary of quiescence as a tool for the promotion of Taoism. Durant defines it as "a kind of philosophical inaction, a refusal to interfere with the natural courses of things". For Taoists, this is the central mark of a wise and liberated man. It is also considered as a practical guide to life, for when, for example, one is fiercely resisted in the course of doing something, the best taoistic reaction is not to quarrel. Fight, or make war but to remain patient. Passivity is more virtuous than action. The central figure in Taoism renders it exquisitely: If you do not quarrel, no one on earth will be able to quarrel with you -Recompense injury with kindness -to those who are good I am good, and to those who are not good I am also good; thus (all) get to be good. To those who are sincere I am sincere, and to those who are not sincere I am also sincere; and thus (all) get to be sincere ... The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the hardest ... There is nothing in the world softer or weaker than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it. (Giles, 1928) Quiescence is the final reaction that produced the ideal man in the conception of Taoism. And for him, it is not the man of action, it is not the saints, it is not even the wise man as conceived by the West; neither is it the pious devotee of the gods, but the mature and quiet man who prefers simplicity and silence to every other thing. A man who has reached such perfection the Taoist calls the sage. The sage is not talkative for wisdom is transmitted through example and experience rather than through words. The sage knows the way and attaches no importance to worldly acquisition, power and riches.

Taoism and the Modern World
Today, when we read some philosophies we marvel at their timelessness. Some of them made epochal contributions to the development of thoughts among the peoples of the world. Till the present, we owe the relative freedom we enjoy in thought, speech and creed; in the multiplication of schools, libraries and universities; in the hundreds of human reforms of law and government to works of diverse philosophers. We cannot today, as some people do, relegate philosophy to the background because of the incredible advances science and technology have continued to record without acknowledging that both science and technology were once the children of philosophy. Philosophy has continued to speak to us through the rhythm she set among the lives of humans.
Today, can we say the same thing of Taoism? What can we say are the contributions of Taoism to the growth of knowledge and advancement of civilisation? Put differently, what are the values of Taoism? Did the proponents of the philosophy envisage the development in the world of today? If they did, would they have followed the same route?
Even China that mid-wifed that philosophy has developed so much in science and technology that one is bound to question the appropriateness of the prescriptions of Taoism in this modern world. If the Chinese had followed the prescriptions of Taoism, would they have been where they are now? Is a philosophy that proscribes law and frowns at the multiplications of prohibitions apt for the building of human society? Does a philosophy that thinks of invention of implements of work as creating disorder in the society through the multiplication of profits to be subscribed? Would revolution be apt in a society intoxicated by Taoism? Because of its inherent confusion as could be deduced from some of its weird prescriptions, Durant(1954) interprets the tenets of Taoism amusingly: Basically, it is a way of thinking, or of refusing to think; for in the view of the Taoists thought is a superficial affair, good only for argument, and more harmful than beneficial to life; the way is to be found by rejecting the intellect and all its wares, and leading a modest life of retirement, rusticity, and quiet contemplation of nature. Knowledge is not virtue; on the contrary, rascals have increased since education spread. Knowledge is not wisdom, for nothing is so far from a sage as an 'intellectual'.
When we critically analyse the foregoing, the natural question is usually the appropriateness of Taoism in the history of thoughts. What would the world be like if men were not encouraged to seek knowledge and embrace it? What would the world of cold and docile passivity that did not strive to understand and conquer nature be like? These are questions that agitate our minds whenever we write or think about Taoism.
The irony of preaching a restriction to nature is that some of the points that appear to support Taoism are products of our thought process, the very process Taoism speaks against. In man's attempt to conquer nature and become its master and mistress, a lot of havoc have been wrought on the environment. We talk about the depletion of the ozone layer; the upset of both aquatic and terrestrial habitats; the killing of lives due to malfunction of technology; the possibility of exterminating all the lives of earth through the production of certain categories of war armaments.
Today, as the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic, it is easy to observe that its wild spread to the entire world was with the aid of the products of technology like the aircraft that moves across the globe with varieties of cargoes, including human "cargoes". Most pandemics in the past such as the flu and Plague did not spread as fast because of limitations in transport technology at those times. The development in technology has necessitated procession of food with all manner of additives that are fingered as increasing debilitating diseases such as cancer.

Conclusion
The marriage to nature runs against the nature as we know it or against man in the state of nature. If we believe life and living should be taoistically determined by nature without conscious efforts to conquer nature, we shall be talking of man in the Hobbesian state where he was allowed to kill with the clear conscience of nature. Here we are talking of those that believed everything must flow according to nature; therefore offering imprimatur to people like Diogenes the Cynic who supported the performance of the rites of love in public, wondering why man should satisfy other appetites when they called, but would reserve the appetites of love to unnatural processes of seeking a dark and secluded place.
If Taoism is against industry, it is, ipso facto, against agriculture as well. Societies that tried such a life soon got consumed in their own folly. This reminds us of Jainism, a religion that strangely respects all lives as unnatural to be taken. Jainism, for example, frowns at eating any type of meat questioning if our stomachs are the grave of animals. When a Jain puts the lantern, het lowers the light to save creatures lurking around it. These are some of the human follies created by thoughtless marriage to nature. It is therefore clear that Taoism as a form of philosophical guide to life has a lot of question marks