PHIL-202 Lecture 11: 202L11
Document Summary
Tao te ching agrees that pleasure may bring us happiness, but argues that natural desires (of the belly) can be followed without becoming evil. The evil desires (of the eye) are taught and learned by society and materialism. Source of egoism for junzi is nature, whereas laotzu believes it is a product of society. For laotzu, minimizing the rules that condone egoism will reduce egoism. In order to experience our true nature we must give up our selfish (egoistic) interests. ); in the daoist view, this teaches us that we can meet exterior rules without actually feeling anything (which is arguably the more important thing) The more knowledge we have, the more we learn, the more we crave certain things: ie a wine connoisseur with great knowledge becomes pickier and requires finer wine. Part of becoming simpler is having knowledge of what is truly important. Xxii: page 79, a description of yiin and its yielding traits.
