Laozi · Philosophy
The opening riddle of the <em>Tao Te Ching</em>: the Dao that can be put into words is not the eternal Dao. The nameless source of all things lies before and beneath language, and every name we give it carves the seamless whole into pieces and loses the thing itself.
You learned that the Tao Te Ching opens by warning that the Dao which can be spoken is not the eternal Dao, and that naming divides the nameless whole into the ‘ten thousand things.’ Explain in your own words why Laozi thought the deepest reality must be nameless, and what role words can still play.
Leads to Heraclitus.
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