/lit/ - Literature

>It is in attending to the relation between Dao and Qi that we can reformulate a philosophy of technology in China. Now, this relation has a subtle similarity to the techne-arete relation discussed above— but is also very different in the sense that it exhibits another, rather different cosmotechnics, one which searches for a harmony based on the organic exchanges between the cosmos and the moral. Chinese philosopher of technology Li Sanhu’s excellent Reiterating Tradition: A Comparative Study on the Holistic Philosophy of Technology, which can without exaggeration be called the first attempt to seek genuine communication between technological thought in China and the West, calls for a return to the discourse on Qi and Dao. Li tries to show that Qi, in its original (topological and spatial) sense, is an opening to the Dao. Hence Chinese technical thought comprises a holistic view in which Qi and Dao reunite to become One. Thus the two basic philosophical categories of Dao and Qi are inseparable: Dao needs Qi to carry it in order to be manifested in sensible forms; Qi needs Dao in order to become perfect (in Daoism) or sacred (in Confucianism), since Dao operates a privation of the determination of Qi.

>In order to better understand the essence of Daoist cosmotechnics, we might refer here to the story of the butcher Pao Ding, as told in the Zhuangzi. Pao Ding is excellent at dissecting cows, but according to him, the key to being a good butcher doesn’t lie in his mastery of the skill, but rather in comprehending the Dao. Replying to a question from the prince Wen Huei about the Dao of butchering a cow, Pao Ding points out that having a good knife is not necessarily enough, it is more important to understand the Dao in the cow, so that one does not use the blade to confront the bones and tendon but rather passes alongside them in order to enter into the gaps between them. Here the literal meaning of 'Dao'— ‘way’ or ‘path’— meshes with its metaphysical sense:

>What I love is Dao, which is much more splendid than my skill. When I first began to carve a bullock, I saw nothing but the bullock. Three years later, I no longer saw the bullock as a whole but in parts. Now I work on it by intuition and do not look at it with my eyes. My visual organs stop functioning while my intuition goes its own way. In accordance with the principle of heaven (nature), I cleave along the main seams and thrust the knife into the big cavities. Following the natural structure of the bullock, I never touch veins or tendons, much less the big bones!

you can read the rest of that story here. it’s a classic and deservedly so:

http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/chuang-tzu.htm