노자사상의 有⋅無 개념에 대한 오해와 이해

Abstract

The characters of you有 and wu無 are two of the most important terms to describe Laozi’s ‘dao’道 concept. However, a substantial number of translations of the Dao De Jing in Korean, Chinese, and English translate you simply as ‘exist’. This does not reveal the difference between zai在 and cun存. In order to illustrate this difference, this paper first examines the use of you, zai, and cun in the Lunyu論語 and Mengzi孟子 and reveal that you means ‘possess’(or ‘have’, ‘belong to’, ‘own’), which also applies to you in Dao De Jing. In addition, wu, a paired concept with you, means ‘non-possess’. This understanding of you and wu enables different interpretations of Dao De Jing. Especially, you and wu can acquire a philosophical meaning from the discussion of ‘possessing a name’ (you ming有名) and ‘non-possessing a name’ (wu ming無名). According to the attribute of ‘name’(ming 名), “all things have their name, but Dao道 has no name”(wu you ming, Dao wu ming 物有名, 道無名). In addition, you, wu and Dao are objects of epistemological understanding in that they are all characters and names, and the actual existence indicated by these concepts is only ziran自然 and wanwu萬物. In chapters 40 and 42, [ziran自然 → Dao道 → wu無 → you有 → tianxia wanwu天下萬物] is deduced, and this paper argues that the [Dao → wu → you] should be the epistemological layer in order to explain the ontological heterogeneity between the ‘essence’(ziran) and the ‘phenomena’(tianxia wanwu).