Tao Trek: One and Other in Comparative Rhetoric, A Response

Abstract

“Tao Trek” traces recent debates regarding comparative and contrastive rhetorical studies and proposes that revisiting some of the earliest encounters of Eastern and Western philosophies of rhetoric can help resolve recent binaries in rhetorical history and theory.

Notes

¹See LuMing Mao, “Reflective Encounters;” Jan Swearingen, “Plato and Confucius;” Swearingen, “Ren, Wen, and Baguwen;” and Swearingen and Mao, “Double Trouble;” Yameng Liu, “To Capture the Essence;” Xing Lu, Rhetoric in Ancient China; Bo Wang, “A Survey of Research in Asian Rhetoric;” Longxi Zhang, Mighty Opposites.

²See Kaplan, “What in the World;” Binkley and Lipson, Rhetoric Before and Beyond; Mao, “Writing the Other;” Swearingen, “Rhetoric in Cross Cultural Perspectives;” Yu, “Reading the Daodejing.”

³Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, “Glossary.” Victor H. Mair proposes a Proto-Indo-European etymology for dao, supported by numerous cognates in Indo-European languages, and semantically similar Arabic and Hebrew words:

The archaic pronunciation of dao sounded approximately like drog or dorg. This links it to the Proto-Indo-European root drogh (to run along) and Indo-European dhorg (way, movement). Related words in a few modern Indo-European languages are Russian doroga (way, road), Polish droga (way, road), Czech dráha (way, track), Serbo-Croatian draga (path through a valley), and Norwegian dialect drog (trail of animals; valley). …. The nearest Sanskrit (Old Indian) cognates to Dao (drog) are dhrajas (course, motion) and dhraj (course). The most closely related English words are “track” and “trek”, while “trail” and “tract” are derived from other cognate Indo-European roots. Following the Way, then, is like going on a cosmic trek. Even more unexpected than the panoply of Indo-European cognates for Dao (drog) is the Hebrew root d-r-g for the same word and Arabic t-r-q, which yields words meaning “track, path, way, way of doing things” and is important in Islamic philosophical discourse. (132)

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⁴Victor Mair's Preface to the Tao Te Ching affirms recent archaeological evidence of the contact between China and India as early as 1000 B. C. along at least two trade routes: the Southeast coast of China, where Indian and Arabian ships harbored; and, along the Silk Road that passed through Sinkiang in central Asia (xv–xvi). His translation emphasizes the early parallels between Taoist and Buddhist concepts, words, and teachings.

⁵See especially Jonathan Spence.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

C. Jan Swearingen

C. Jan Swearingen is Professor of English at Texas A&M University and a Past President of the Rhetoric Society of America. Mail Stop 4227 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA.