The purpose of this research is to examine the ideas and ways of Taoism with Neo-Confucianism, with particular emphasis on Lao Tzu (Laotse), whose writings form the basis of Taoism, and Chou Tun-I (1017-73), a representative of Neo-Confucian thought. The plan of the research will be to set forth the broad historical context of both Taoism and Neo-Confucianism, and then to discuss the details of intersection and divergence of two related but distinct philosophical disciplines.
Taoism is associated with the life and writings of Laotse, born 571 B.C. (Yutang 6), although the spiritual thought expressed in Tao appears to have preexisted its written form by many years (Runes 668). Its fundamental metaphysical principle is that reality is unstable and elusive, or in a constant state of change and flux. Such a concept of reality has the effect of organizing the physical universe, even though that universe eludes understanding.
"We have chased the solid substance from the continuous liquid to the atom, from the atom to the electron, and there we have lost it." What the electron is doing inside the atom is summarized in the following line: "Something unknown is doing we don't know what." Somewhere in the quantum of light, the corpuscular and the non-corpuscular meet and confuse and exasperate the investigator of truth (Yutang 16).
To the degree a perpetually changing reality cannot be explained, the universe seems unapproachable except mystically. But Yutang implies that there is something of systematic mysticism at work in Taoism: "When Laotse and Chuangtse spoke in mystic phraseology of the 'elusiveness' of Tao, it must be remembered that they were not being mystic, but merely good observers of life. For it must be remembered that it is exactly this quality of "elusiveness" of life processes that confronts the thinking scientist in his laboratory" (Yutang 16). Yutang summarizes the fundamental Tao thought in this way:
It is a phil...