The Way of Awareness in Daoist Philosophy

"This book explores ancient Daoist philosophy and argues against interpretations that paint the early Daoist philosophers as mystics or cosmologists. It claims that Dao is best understood as awareness and that Daoist concerns are primarily with the nature of human experience, meditation, and our relation to the world. The Dao of Awareness starts by placing Daoist philosophy within the context of ancient Chinese thought. It then proceeds by critically engaging each of the major Daoist thinkers, works, or schools: Laozi, Yang Zhu, Zhuangzi, the Inward Training, Liezi, and Neo-Daoism, showing further Daoism's relation to Zen Buddhism. It concludes by pointing to ways in which Daoist philosophy can offer insights into contemporary Western philosophy. Throughout the book, comparisons are drawn with Western thinkers such as Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, and with modern psychological research and Buddhist philosophy. The Way of Awareness in Daoist Philosophy is thus both a scholarly work in Chinese and cross-cultural philosophy, but also an original work on ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind"--