Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.taoism Path: shell.portal.com!svc.portal.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!pipex!uknet!newsfeed.ed.ac.uk!dcs.ed.ac.uk!scgk From: scgk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Simon Kinahan) Subject: Re: Confusciu-Taoists ? Message-ID: Sender: cnews@dcs.ed.ac.uk (UseNet News Admin) Organization: Department of Computer Science, Edinburgh University References: <1995Jun7.091202.1593@bradford.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 11:40:57 GMT Lines: 28 In <1995Jun7.091202.1593@bradford.ac.uk> A.J.Whitehouse@bradford.ac.uk (Adi) writes: >I remember a friend of mind saying he'd met a guy who said he was a >Confusciu-Taoist (Sp ?), and asked what one was prescisely. I wasn't >sure, but supposed that it would be someone who follows the writings of >Confuscius (I can't spell that today :) rather than those of Lao Tzu. People who follow Confusius' writings are generally called Confucians. Taoist generally are not supposed to follow anyones writings (although they may read them, and take them seriously). As for Confuscio-Taoist, the closest thing I have ever heard of is the neo-Taoists, who lived much later than the original Taoist writers (and Confuscius) and tried to create a philosophical fusion of Confuscianism and Taoism. In China, as far as I know, there was never a very clear distinction between Confuscianism and Taoism. Chuang-Tzu makes Confuscius (actuallt Kung Fu Tsu, same person), the 'hero' of many of his stories, and most Chinese never saw a real contradiction between the two (unlike some modern western writers I could name). Hope this helps -- Simon Kinahan "Only in our dreams are we truly free, scgk@dcs.ed.ac.uk the rest of the time we need wages. " scgk@tardis.ed.ac.uk -- Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters