Abstract

This thesis is devoted to Wang Pi's and Ho-shang Kung's commentaries on the Lao-tzu or Tao-te ching. It will argue that they represent two comprehensive visions of Tao, characterized especially by what I would call a unity of spirituality and ethics. Initially, the two commentaries will be examined separately; on the basis of this close reading, they are then compared in the final chapter. ;Wang Pi's commentary is often seen as an expression of the "philosophical" spirit of third-century A.D. China. Ho-shang Kung's commentary, on the other hand, is commonly seen as a "religious" work. Although valid on a general level, this distinction does not do full justice to the important practical dimension of both commentaries. A balanced interpretation must take into account their historical context, and show how they are concerned with the task of self-cultivation and government. Ethics, in the broad sense of the word, involves the religious and philosophic. More precisely, in both commentaries, it is permeated by a profound spirituality, grounded in a cosmological framework in Ho-shang Kung's commentary, and in a dialectical interpretation the concepts of "non-being" and "principle" in Wang Pi's. ;The outcome of this analysis is that the two commentaries are both similar and different. They are similar in that they share the same fundamental worldview, and are concerned with representing the meaning of the Lao-tzu to their respective audience. This raises the question as to how their differences are to be explained. The discussion here will take what I propose to call a "hermeneutical" turn. Going beyond their interpretations of the Lao-tzu, it will be argued that they betray different hermeneutical presuppositions. In other words, the Lao-tzu means different things to Wang Pi and Ho-shang Kung because meaning itself is understood differently. ;In the case of Ho-shang Kung, meaning is primarily understood "referentially"; that is, the meaning of the Lao-tzu is tacitly seen to lie in external referents to which it points. In Wang Pi's commentary, however, meaning is understood "etiologically," in the sense that the meaning of Lao-tzu is to be traced to a few fundamental concepts. In the broader context, I suggest, modern hermeneutics can thus be fruitfully applied to the study of Chinese texts