Laozi
6th c. BC · Daoism · Household name
Laozi is the legendary founder of Taoism, credited with the Dao De Jing. That book opens by saying that the Dao, the source of everything, cannot be put into words. From him comes wu wei, acting without forcing, the way water finds its way around a rock rather than through it, held up as the highest thing a person can practice. Whether he was one person, or any person at all, remains an open question.
Signature
The position Laozi is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- strongly leans Indescribable
- Language
- Conventional
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- The Divine
- strongly leans Indescribable (92 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Meaning
- mildly leans Constructed (31 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Unity (10 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (79 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- strongly leans Harmony (92 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- War
- leans Pacifism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (19 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Laozi refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Other
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Anarchy / Communal Order
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Social Invention
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Age of Decline
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Non-Dual Awareness
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue / Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Other
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Cyclical Return
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Subsistence Economy
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Natural Law / Wisdom
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Conventional
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Coincidentia Oppositorum / Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Customary Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Union with the One
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Place
What is your primary bond and loyalty?