Paper Assignment #4: Daoism

Write 4-8 double-spaced pages on one of the following topics. Due at the beginning of class on Monday evening, May 6.

20th century scholars, despairing of finding even the most far-fetched relationship between the austere metaphysics of the Daode Jing and the flamboyant ritual of the likes of Michael Saso's various Masters or the self-serving techniques described in various parts of Kohn's book, have often proclaimed that Daoism, in the end, has no unity. There are two Daoisms, said Herrlee Creel, for example: there is philosophical Daoism and there is fairy-immortal Daoism. But the modern masters of the latter would deny and even resent this assertion--they can trace their own intellectual descent from Laozi and Zhuangzi.

So you can do one of two things with this paper:

A. Defend the unity or disunity thesis in scholarly terms, or

B. Write the thoughts of a resurrected Zhuangzi about any of the Long Life techniques described in Part Two of Kohn's The Taoist Experience.

Hint: Here you might want to do some additional reading. You should look at the translations of Laozi and Zhuangzi, and if you write on B, you might also want to probe into Kristofer Schipper's The Taoist Body.

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