Names exist when carving begins (shi zhi you ming 始制有名): A theory of names in Daodejing (道德經)

ABSTRACT

Naming or names (ming 名) is one of the key concepts in Daodejing (道德經). According to a popular understanding, names in Daodejing correspond to features (xing 形) of things; ordinary things have names, but Dao is featureless and nameless. What is missing, however, is atheory of the relationship between names and features explaining why ordinary things have names but Dao does not. In this paper, I develop a theory of names in Daodejing that explains how names relate to things and their features. According to this theory, a name corresponds to a feature that is shared by a group of things, and names provide identity conditions for individuating ordinary things. Further, this theory implies that the various descriptions of Dao in Daodejing do not include names; therefore, talking about Dao while insisting that it is unnamable is not committed to any paradox.

KEYWORDS:

• Names
• naming
• carving
• calling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The translation is from Plato (2002).

2. Generally, names are the linguistic expressions, and naming is the act of applying a name to a portion of reality. ‘Ming 名’ in Classical Chinese is used both as a verb for naming and a noun for a name.

3. Some scholars think of ‘name’ as a generic term for various kinds of linguistic expressions, including denoting, connoting, styling, predicating, and so on. In this paper, I follow Wang Bi and understand names in a restricted sense. That is, naming is not a generic way of using linguistic expressions that includes styling and calling as instances; rather, naming is a specific use of linguistic expressions that is parallel to styling and calling. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting me to clarify this point.

4. Note that not all scholars accept the punctuation that leads to this translation. Alternatively, some scholars propose that ‘有’ is a name for the mother of the myriad things, and ‘名’ after ‘有’ is a verb, ‘to name’. So, the claim should be translated as something like ‘having (as a name) names the mother of the myriad things’. For a discussion of these two different readings, see Chen (2020, pp. 48–49). Chen Guying adopts the second reading, so do Feng (1998, pp. 331–332) and Cheung (2017).

5. Most translations in this paper are my own. I heavily make use of resources in other translations, especially those by Chan (1969), Lau (1963), and Ivanhoe (2005). It will be notified if my translation differs from popular ones in an important way. All translations that I am aware of treat chapter 14 as explicit examples of names despite that they translate these terms slightly differently.

6. It is worth noting that some translations are not sensitive to a key difference that I make in this paper: the difference between naming (ming 名) and calling (wei 謂). These translators, including Chan (1969), Lau (1963), Ivanhoe (2005), and Waley (1978), translate the ‘name’ in ‘forced to name’ as ‘call’, the same as their translation of ‘wei (謂)’. Some translators, such as Roberts (2001) and Ivanhoe (2005), do not treat ‘calling’ (wei 謂) as a unified concept. Ivanhoe translates the ‘wei’ in chapter 1 as ‘known as’ and the ‘wei’ in chapter 14 as ‘called’. Roberts does not translate ‘wei’ at all. I will talk more about calling as well as the distinction between naming and calling in Section 5.

7. Again, not all translations reflect the fact that ‘great’ is an example of a name in chapter 34. For example, Ivanhoe (2005) translates ‘it can be named “great”’ as ‘one could consider it great’. Chan (1969) translates the same sentence as ‘it may be called The Great’. Lau (1963) translates it as ‘it can be called great’. Moreover, both of Chan and Lau also translate ‘wei’ as ‘calling’. Evaluating translations is not my purpose here; however, I want to point out that given that naming is one of the key concepts in Daodejing, an important step to develop a theory of names is to identify the occurrences of ‘name’ and translate it uniformly.

8. These instances of names in Daodejing also suggest that some general theories of names in Chinese philosophy do not naturally imply an adequate and specific account of names in Daodejing. For example, Geaney’s inspiring account of ming in early Chinese philosophy claims that ming or names belong to the sphere of sound, and ‘the purpose of names is to tag things in the world: to pick out paradigmatically visible things’ (Geaney, 2018, p. xxxiii). In addition, ‘[n]ames point to, pick out, or indicate referents’ (Geaney, 2020, p. 17). While Geaney’s account is well supported by other texts, we have seen that the names in Daodejing seem to function differently. This is another reason why a specific theory of names in Daodejing is called for.

9. Ames and Hall (2004) translate ‘zhi’ in chapter 28 as ‘tailoring’, which follows the pattern. However, they translate ‘zhi’ in chapter 32 as ‘regulating’.

10. Note that Eric Hutton translates ‘zhi’ as ‘establishing’ rather than ‘carving’. I think that either translation works well for explaining Xunzi’s philosophical ideas. However, ‘carving’ does not only fit Xunzi’s theory of names well, but also inspires us to develop a theory of names in Daodejing.

11. Note that Plato (as quoted at the beginning of the paper) is concerned with the second step of carving, while Xunzi seems more concerned with the first (at least when he uses the term ‘carving’). It is worth noting that Geaney (2018) argues that distinguishing, or dividing is not a function of names but a function of our senses (pp. xxxvi, 71).

12. This also echoes the understanding of names by the Late Mohist. Angle and Gordon (2003) notices the similarity between names in Late Mohism and in Daodejing.

13. For convenience, I ignore the distinction between a linguistic framework and a conceptual framework.

14. One might find the examples unnatural and forced. I agree. I believe that it is because we are very used to use our current linguistic framework, and any alternative framework would inevitably appear to be odd. I thank an anonymous reviewer for pushing for this clarification.

15. The example is borrowed from Putnam (1987).

16. This example is borrowed from Hirsch (1976).

17. Wang Bi claims that names determine features (dingxing 定形) in his comment on chapter 25 of Daodejing. In ‘Subtle Pointers’, he adds that names determine things (dingwu 定物), determine ‘what are there’ (dingbi 定彼), and determine truth (dingzhen 定真). The ontological antirealist understanding of Daodejing developed in this section also offers a further interpretation of Wang Bi’s claims that names determine, rather than being determined by, things and their features.

18. Note that the version of ontological antirealism discussed above does not deny that the world contains features. For example, ‘incar’, ‘outcar’, and ‘pant’ all pick out groups of things that share common features. The point is that there are multiple ways to individuate things on the basis of those features.

19. Ames and Hall (2004, p. 45) claims that ‘the nameless’ is a special kind of naming ‘that does not assign fixed reference to things’. I believe that we just use different terms to talk about the same fact. We both agree that to say that Dao is nameless does not ascribe any concrete feature to Dao, and we both believe that ‘the nameless’ is different from typical names. While Ames and Hall take ‘the nameless’ as a special name, I believe it is unnecessary to think of it as a name at all, and we can avoid some potential ambiguity by not regarding ‘nameless’ as a name.

20. Unfortunately, calling as a distinct type of expressions in Daodejing does not draw much attention from scholars, and the distinction between calling and naming is not carefully followed in some popular translations. For example, Ivanhoe (2005) translates ‘wei 謂’ as ‘call’ (p. 175), but he translates one of the explicit instances of ‘name’ in chapter 25 also as ‘call’ (‘Forced to give it a proper name, I would call it “Great”’). Chan (1969) does something similar: while he translates ‘wei 謂’ as ‘call’ in chapter 14, he translates ‘name’ in chapter 25 also as ‘call’ (‘If forced to give it a name, I shall call it Great’). Addiss and Lombardo (1993) translates the claim in chapter 25 as ‘better call it great’. Waley (1978) translates it as ‘Were I forced to say to what class of things it belongs I should call it great’ (p. 174). Further, calling is not treated as a unified type of expressions by some scholars and thus is translated in different ways. While most scholars translate the descriptions of the Dao in chapter 14, such as ‘the shapeless shape’ and ‘being vague and elusive’, as instances of calling, they still treat other instances of calling differently.

21. We also use calling this way in the ordinary context. For example, we could say, ‘some particle is negatively charged, has the mass of 9 × 10⁻²⁸ grams, and has a spin of ½, and this is called “an electron”’; or, ‘some substance is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect, and this is called “God”’.

22. Chan (1969) translates the first ‘wei’ as ‘call’ but skips the second ‘wei’ (‘The gate of the subtle and profound female is the root of Heaven and Earth’). Waley (1978) translates the first ‘wei’ as ‘name’ but skips the second ‘wei’ (‘The spirit of the valley never dies. It is named the Mysterious Female. And the Doorway of the Mysterious Female is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang’).

23. Note that all three examples below include ‘calling’, but not all translations reflect this fact.

24. See Chen (2020, pp. 171–172) for a discussion of ‘thing’ in chapter 25.