Key words: Ontology; Essentialism; Essence; Anti-essentialism; Abstract
2.2 Tao is In Shit
When we say pencils can write, we mean that all pencils can write. When we say people have emotions and desires, we mean that all people have emotions and desires. People, pencils, and other things are abstract concepts.
Starting with Laozi and Plato, philosophers had constructed abstract objective worlds. Plato believed that abstract things are real and objective beings. An abstract pen exists just like a concrete pen. But this abstract pen is neither in your hand nor mine. So where is it? Plato didn't know, but he was convinced that it was somewhere, probably up in the sky. In fact, the abstract things he talked about were all in man's imagination, in man's mind.
Human beings first recognize many kinds of concrete things, and then with the increase of knowledge, people gradually abstract them, thus producing abstract things. This abstract process has never left the human mind, so these abstract things cannot be in heaven, nor in the objective world. But because the knowledge of concrete things is also in the mind, so both concrete things and abstract things become the object of people's talking and thinking. Concrete things exist outside man, so it seems that all abstract things exist outside man.
Zhuangzi said, Tao can be everywhere, even in shit. The Tao said by Zhuangzi can refer to either the Tao of the objective world or the Tao of the subjective world. The Tao of the subjective world is a thought product, and all thought products belong to the subjective world. Taiji Evolutionism holds that the subjective world and the objective world are mutually inclusive, and the objective world is a part of the subjective world, [1] so Tao, as a product of thought, can be everywhere.
Just like Faye Wong sang in Legend, when I miss you, you are in the sky, when I miss you, you are in front of my eyes, when I miss you, you are in my mind, when I miss you, you are in my heart. What is in the mind may be projected on all kinds of spatial positions and all kinds of objective things, as if it really exists and occupies a real spatial position. It's all fake. It's all imaginary.