^AWhat is Taoism? Taoism is sometimes referred to as a religion and sometimes as a philosophy, and, at other times, as a science. But what is Taoism really? This is a very difficult question. In asking it, we as Westerners, are asking how to classify, in English, a non-Western thought system and body of writing. “Religion” is a term of English and of another European languages traceable to Latin (from “ligare,” meaning to tie, or bind, as in the English word “ligament”). “Philosophy” is a also a term of English and other European languages traceable to ancient Greek – “philos” (love, or friend of) and “sophy” (wisdom) – so philosophy is the love and friend of wisdom. Similarly the word “science” is traceable to the Latin words for knowing and knowledge, but coming to mean in modern Europe (since 1500) an empirical, factual investigation of nature. ^top

^BWhen we look at the literature which the Chinese traditionally have classified as “Taoist,” we find some passages which look to us very much like “religion”(e.g., discussions about the three main Taoist gods), other passages sound to us more like “philosophy” (e.g., texts concerned with the relationship of being (“you” ) to nonbeing (“wu” )), and still other passages look to us like “science” (e.g., passages which stress the point that everything in the world happens by natural causes, and not by any purposive, divine agency). Still other texts don’t fit very easily into any of these three categories – magic, exorcism, fortune-telling, alchemy – which some scholars associate with religion and others with magic or a primitive science. ^top

^CWhich of these three is it, or is it a combination of all three? When we try to classify anything from another culture into the words of our language and thought system we face one of two possibilities – either they have a word which has more or less the same meaning as the corresponding word in our language (e.g., the Chinese word shan () means mountain) or there is no word in their language which has more or less the same meaning as the corresponding word in our language. In the latter case, we are faced with a serious problem of cross-cultural communication and understanding. What can one culture trying to understand the other one do? Inevitably, we must use a word and concept we are familiar with in our own language and culture to understand the other culture. But this can obviously lead to misunderstanding if the two concepts are not the same or even very similar in meaning. ^top

^DPerhaps, when Alexander the Great (who had studied a little philosophy with the early Greek philosopher, Aristotle) conquered northern India in the 4th century BCE, Hindu scholars might have asked Alexander's generals whether there were any "rishis" among the Greeks ("rishi" is an Indian word referring to the highly revered religious hermits who retreat into the forests toward the end of their lives seeking mystical wisdom.) What could these Greek army officers say? There really was no comparable tradition in Greece of such forest hermits. But if they say they have no rishis, it makes them look bad; it makes them look as though they come from an inferior culture. ^top

^EWe can also imagine Marco Polo trying to satisfy the curiosity of Yuan dynasty (1280-1367) Confucian administrators concerning the presence or absence in Europe of "zi" (). "Zi" or "tzu" is a Chinese word which means "master" as in "Lao Zi," "Master Lao," ( ), the man who wrote the Taoist classic Dao De Jing. "We have a long tradition," they might say, "of important thinkers we call zi - Kongzi, Mengzi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Mozi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, and many others, who have made our culture great. What about you? Do you have any zi among your people?" We can imagine Marco Polo's dilemma - it is hard for him to say yes and it is hard for him to say no. It is hard to say yes since there really is no tradition in Europe identical or even very similar to the Chinese zi. There were European saints, and university professors, for example, but these are not the same as zi. On the other hand, if he admits there are no European zi, he seems to belittle his own culture - admitting, in effect, that his people could claim none of those intellectual giants who make a culture great. Of course, Marco Polo and Alexander's generals could say, "No, but we have 'philosophers'," but then the Chinese and Indians could only wonder, "what is a 'philosopher'?" ^top

^FPart of the problem of "cross-cultural understanding" is, therefore, simply the problem of linguistic translation. In India, the word which we translate as "philosophy" is "darshana" (written in Sanskrit script, ) commentaries on the "sutras" (), which were highly abbreviated written outlines of memorized oral traditions. And yet within these darshanas are developed very sophisticated debates on topics we know in the West as "philosophy." Similarly, the Chinese terms for what we translate as “philosophy” and “philosopher” are zi () meaning master and jia () meaning school, as in a school of thought. The problem is whether darshana and jia really mean the same as or even something similar to the meaning of the English word “philosophy.” ^top

^GAll cultural descriptions are therefore comparative - inevitably, culture A must use A's words and concepts to describe culture B (what else have they got?). In some cases, as noted earlier, translating from one language to another is not terribly difficult - we simply find the words in each language which have the same meaning ("rouge," "rot," and "hong ()," for example, all have pretty much the same meaning, "red"). But sometimes we face the far more serious problem that there is simply no word in our language which has the same meaning as the word in their language, or vice versa. ^top

^HThe Temne of Sierra Leone, West Africa, for example, pay respects to their immediately dead ancestors (that is, their parents and grandparents, but not their great-great grandparents), which they call their "mboda". They offer the mboda food and drink and often ask their advice on important family matters. What if a Temne speaker were to ask you why you do not show the proper respect to your mboda. “Why are you so disrespectful toward your mboda?” What would you say? You are not really showing your mboda disrespect since you never heard of them; you have no idea or concept of mboda. Of course, you remember your deceased grandmother or grandfather, and you may occasionally place flowers on their graves, and you may believe that their souls are now in Heaven - but you have no concept of the "living-dead" ancestor who still needs food and drink from you and who is available to give you advice on family matters. The question of your disrespectful behavior to your mboda doesn't make any sense. In your world as you conceive it, there aren't any mboda! But when the Temne try to describe us, they will naturally describe us in their own terms, saying that we don't seem to show much respect for our mboda, just as we will describe them using our concepts and frames of reference. So, at least in the beginning, we (whoever "we" are) must use our own words with their common meanings when we try to understand the cultures of other people. Later as we learn more about their culture, we may begin to absorb their words and concepts into our vocabulary and conceptual framework. ^top

^IAs we can see, cross-cultural descriptions could go either way - Asians describing Westerners or Westerners describing non-Westerners. But most of the cross-cultural descriptions have been Europeans describing non-Western cultures. Why is this? Beginning in the modern period (beginning around 1500), the rise of modern science, technology, military power, and capitalist accumulation of wealth resulted in European domination of the world – including colonialism. When early Christian missionaries first went to China, they naturally wondered what sort of religion the Chinese already had. Since the late Han dynasty (2nd and 3rd centuries CE), Buddhist religion (originating in India some 700-800 years earlier) had taken root in China. This was already understood as a religion. But what about Confucianism and Taoism? In some ways, these seemed like religions with which Westerners were familiar, but in other ways they seemed very different. Then as colonial administrators learned some of the ancient languages and gradually became more familiar with ancient Indian and Chinese thought systems, they began to wonder if these ancient thought systems could be considered a kind of philosophy or maybe science. ^top

^JWhatever term Europeans sought to apply to Chinese thought systems, whether “religion,” “philosophy,” “science,” “magic,” they faced the same difficulty. Let us first look at the question whether Taoism is a philosophy. One way to compare cultures is to compare and contrast their different religions, art forms, educational systems, family practices, governmental institutions (assuming that all cultures have some form of religion, art, government, education, and so on). But what about philosophy? Does every culture have a philosophy, however different it may be from the philosophies of other cultures? ^top

^KIt all depends on what we mean by the term "philosophy." There is, in ordinary English, an everyday sense of the word "philosophy," in which we say that every person has their own "philosophy" (their "philosophy of life," as we say). The same could be said of whole societies or cultures. Insofar as each society or culture has its own idea of itself, its own conception of what is important in life, and its own notions of what the world is like in general terms, there is a sense in which each society or culture can be said to have its own "philosophy" (or, world view). This is one of the things sociologists and anthropologists study when they examine different societies and cultures: what was (or is) the American Indian "philosophy," or "philosophy of life" (world view) and how did (or does) that differ from, say, the ancient Egyptians' "philosophy," or "philosophy of life" (world view)? ^top

Figure 4: Plato, Detail from "The School of Athens," by Raphael. image provider http://www.vatican.va