The Philosophy of the Daodejing

IMHO Professor Moeller is one of the finest commentators on early Daoism. Though I do not believe his theories will appeal to those that view the Daodejing as the nidus of religious Daoism, his contributions to the understanding of difficult Daoist concepts will hopefully please anyone reading his work. The book covers the following topics:1. Reading the Daodejing2. Sex3. Yin &Yang, Qi, Dao & De4. Politics5. War6. Desires7. Ethics8. Permanence9. Death10. ManWhat I find unique about Professor Moeller's theories is that he does not attempt to whitewash ideas expressed in the Daodejing in order to appeal to a wider audience. A number of his views are:1. The Daodejing was originally intended for a small, elite audience.2. "Wu wei" is to be practiced by the Sage in a very literal manner.3. The authors of the Daodejing were not interested so much in a quest for "higher truth" as they were in social harmony.4. When chapter 65 states: In ancient times those who practiced Tao well did not seek to enlighten people, but to make them ignorant. (trans. W.T.Chan), that is exactly what it means to say.If you have any interest in the Daodejing or early Daoism, Professor Moeller's books (he also penned the excellent "Daoism Explained") are a fine addition to your library. Please note that only parts of the Daodejing are translated by the author, not the entire book.

Very interesting take on the philosophy of the DaoDejing. You don't have to agree with the author on everything to still learn many many useful things from this book. A must-read for all fans of the Dao..

Prof Moeller does understand what Daoism is about.It is a privilege and a pleasure to read this book of his.he has really got into the mind of Chinese culture,philosophy,society.Strongly recommended reading.

The author looks at the book as a text for the elite, aphorisms for governing, rather than the traditional view of it as a mystical text on life in accord with the mysterious Tao and nature.

One of the beauties of Taoism (Daoism) is the highly personal nature if its' basic texts. In this work, Prof. Hans-Georg Moeller argues that this most fundamental of Daoist text is a guide to governing, written for a select few who understand the metaphors and non-sequential development of ideas. It was not written, Prof. Moeller argues, for the common man/women looking for guidance in life, although many examples of how the Daoist sage/ruler would act under a variety of conditions do in fact offer such guidance. Consistent with the idea that the Daodejing is not focused on individuals is the often emphasized point that the Daoist worldview does not see mankind as unique in the natural world. It is, therefore, *not* a humanist philosophy designed to guide and educate people. Rather, Prof. Moeller argues, it is a practical discourse on the ways of the world, based on observations of how the natural world works. Of course, this presupposes the Daoist sage knows how the natural world works, something modern science is still struggling with. But this book is not a critical analysis so this gap (and others) is not addressed. None the less, this is one of the two most lucid books on Taoism I've read, the other being Derek Lin's annotated translation of the `Tao Te Ching' . Both Mr. Lin and Prof. Moeller remove the new age mysticism and mumbo jumbo present in many other other translations of the Daodejing/Tao Te Ching. But Mr. Lin views this book as a rich compendium of lessons for the common man/women while Prof. Moeller's interpretation is one of how to govern. I find it amazing that the words of Lao Tzu (or whoever wrote this book) did such a great job in providing sound guidance for both sets of readers.

Very good book.

Let's start with the positive.The author is a serious student of the subject. He obviously knows what he is talking about on the most basic level; his translations are rarely problematic. The very fact that things like this have to be stated is an indication of the abysmal level of many discussions of the Daodejing. At least it's worth thinking about what he has to say.Unfortunately, thinking about what he has to say often reveals flaws. One of the greatest is the author's very strained efforts to make the discussion seem relevant to a society utterly different from the one the Daodejing was written for. Comparing the work in question to hypertext just because it is disordered and you have to refer back and forth within it to follow an idea is shallow and silly; the differences between the verses of the Daodejing, a fixed written text, and endlessly mutable web pages should be obvious. The sexual interpretation of some metaphors is more provocative than convincing: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a valley with a stream in it is not a female sex organ. The author also fails to note how utterly masculine it is to stereotype female sexuality as invariably passive and submissive, even if such passivity and submissiveness are being used as a strategy to overcome the male. One gets the distinct impression that the author of the original was a crotchety old man who admired but was mildly puzzled by the tricks those sneaky wimmen had up their sleeves to get around his male authority.There is a great deal of reference to Greek and other Western concepts and sources. Most of it could be dropped or relegated to the notes with no damage to the argument of the text. We read the Daodejing to find out the ideas of ancient China; how these relate to those of Greece or Christianity is of very secondary relevance.This problem is compounded by a strange paucity of references to other ancient Chinese philosophers. For instance, the author manages to discuss crime, capital punishment, and deterrence on the strength of some very brief passages in the Daodejing and with not a single nod to the then-popular Legalist school of thought, whose over-reliance on the efficacy of deterrence and concept of "eliminating punishment by means of punishment" was part of the contemporary context of the text. It also skips mention of passages like that from the contemporary Confucian Xunzi (3rd century BCE), who denounced the "murky" or "mysterious" rule which the Daodejing advocates as an attempt to control the people through fear, the two famous passages from the Confucian Analects that dissect the selfish sociopathy of "Daoist" hermits, and the horrendous amplification of the anti-cultural themes of the Daodejing in some of the late "Outer Chapters" of the Zhuangzi, which read like Khymer Rouge tracts in their demands that everything they consider unnatural be wiped from the face of the earth by unrestrained violence.The root of all these errors may well be that it is a mistake to see the Daodejing as a philosophical work at all. As the author of this study admits, it was a work written for the eyes of a tiny elite that would rule over a population that had been reduced to illiterate immobility. And here, I think, is where its enduring charm lies. Not in the cruelty and elitism of that situation, but in its potential for fantasy. The Daodejing is not a practical manual of government, and its advice for life in general is on the Magic 8-ball level. But it presents a captivating fantasy vision of the reader as monarch of all he surveys, the mystically potent ruler of a fairy kingdom, a neverland… the Peach Blossom Spring given its most famous form in the fable of Tao Yuanming written in the fifth century CE. As long as people need to escape the world of the mundane into a comforting fantasy, the Daodejing will be there to tempt them, and a little dreaming never hurts. But as a guide to reality, it is as insubstantial as a cloud.

I bought this book purely for its chapter on sex in the Daodejing for an essay I was writing at the time. The book is short, but thorough and to the point; you don't feel it's simply stating the obvious. Although I think his sexual interpretation of the text is incredibly forced, his perspective is fascinating for anyone familiar with Chinese philosophy or the Daodejing. Having said this, Moeller compares the text and its philosophical concepts far too frequently with Greek or other Western philosophies, which might be useful for someone not familiar with Chinese philosophy, but seems out of place considering Moeller could have supported his arguments far more effectively with contextually closer philosophies like Confucius or Mencius. The excessive use of Western philosophical examples does make it seem that Moeller is looking at the Daodejing from a far-removed cultural angle.