Teaching Philosophy of Religion Series – Ep. 1 Louis Komjathy On Teaching Classical Daoism

Nathan Loewen:

Welcome to our podcast series from the Global Critical Philosophy of Religion Project. This project aims to rethink the philosophy of religion from the ground, up with an entirely new set of categories and questions. As you may imagine, this is no small task. The interview series on teaching is created by Nathan Loewen. The interviews are supported by a grant from the Wabash center. All of the podcasts you find here on the Global Critical Philosophy of Religion are hosted by Study Religion, a production of The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Nathan Loewen:

How might philosophy of religion be taught, studied in the 21st century. Louis Komjathy is a leading independent scholar, educator and translator. His current work explores cross-cultural practices and perennial questions related to contemplative awareness, embodied aliveness and beyond states. You can learn more from his website linked in this podcast’s credits. Dr. Komjathy was part of the pilot project teaching philosophy of religion with a global critical approach. The pilot was supported by the Wabash Center with a grant administer by Gereon Kopf at Luther College. We had two conversations on November 17th, 2021. We discussed the question, how might a revised approach to studying Daoism influenced teaching the philosophy of religion. Thanks for joining me in this podcast.

Louis Komjathy:

Thanks for the opportunity to speak today.

Nathan Loewen:

You have several publications that have consistently emphasized the idea of Daoism as a religious community. I’m curious what that means and how it translates into your teaching in the classroom, and your experiences with students. So, I mean, what do you mean by classical Daoism?

Louis Komjathy:

Yeah, so classical Daoism is a revisionist interpretive framework to think about the earliest Dallas community, basically beginning in the middle to late Warring States period into the early Han dynasty. So around the fourth century to second century BCE. And so one of the reasons to put forward this idea of revisionist understanding specifically this idea of classical Daoism is to replace this outdated idea of something called philosophical Daoism that stands in contrast to so-called religious Daoism. So from my perspective, these are colonialist, orientalist and missionary kind of legacies related to the academic study and interpretation of Daoism.

Nathan Loewen:

Well. That’s interesting. Why do you say that it is revisionist? Let’s just unpack that word first.

Louis Komjathy:

So part of the reason to call it revisionist is because there’s been this kind of ongoing meta reflection on both the history of Daoism. So when did Daoism begin, but also how do we understand the diverse expressions of the Dallas tradition? And so this is really a response to a construction of Daoism as a kind of bifurcated or divided tradition, so called philosophical Daoism, so called religious Daoism, and to kind of encourage us, or hopefully inspire us to reconsider what this earliest Dallas community was. And to kind of point to a more neutral kind of category or name classical Daoism that is to kind of suggest that this was the time when the earliest Dallas classics were composed. And that becomes the foundation of the larger tradition.

Nathan Loewen:

Why have people previously been splitting it into philosophical and religious Daoism? What’s been the motivation for that?

Louis Komjathy:

It’s complex historically, but one way of understanding this is it’s really rooted in European colonialism, in China and Christian missionary activity in China, and a kind of unease with fully articulated religious tradition. But wanting to engage what we can call here, the classical texts, like the Dao De Jing and the [inaudible 00:04:00]. So one part of this is an attempt to say, oh, there’s something like pure Dallas philosophy. That’s what we’re here calling classical Daoism and something like degenerate, superstitious nonsense, that’s the religious Daoism category. And by separating these two things out, we can focus on the pure, the good, the philosophy, and we can discard the kind of degenerate, the superstitious, the religious.

Louis Komjathy:

So I just want to add here, the first kind of revisionist sinological response to this is to say, no, there is no such thing as philosophical Daoism. There was no Daoism in this early period that I’m suggesting we look at, and Daoism really begins in the second century CE. So really when we talk about Daoism , it means “religious Daoism.” So that was the first revisionist kind of viewpoint. And I’m responding to that saying we’re leaving out about 400 years of history. That’s really important for understanding the development of the Dallas tradition.

Nathan Loewen:

To show if this, just into considering context for teaching and learning. Do students in your experience, walk into the classroom with this bifurcated understanding of Daoism in place, or do you think that you can just go ahead and give them classical Daoism and not have to worry about this split?

Louis Komjathy:

Yeah, I think this is complicated. So the short answer is in the past, they would tend to come in either with the philosophical religious Daoism split, or they would come in with a number of, kind of popular constructions of Daoism that you’d have to kind of critically investigate with them. And what I try to do, even though it’s a little more complicated in the undergraduate classroom, is to give them actually evidence to support why I’m putting forth this revisionist idea. And then I say to them, I’m not telling you that you have to believe this or accept this. Here’s the evidence for why I’m suggesting we use this, but also, and I think this is really important for the podcast, is rather than begin with the assumption of philosophy or religion, let’s investigate the phenomenon with the question of what is philosophy and what is religion, and why might I, as a scholar located in religious studies, think that religious is a better characterization of classical Daoism than philosophical. But the good thing about the classical Daoism name is it holds open that space.

Nathan Loewen:

Right? You just covered a lot there. One, and I want to catch up to that, but it sounds like what you’re saying is when you say that classical Daoism is a more neutral framework, you don’t mean it in the sense of neutrality in the sense of objectivity, or do you mean… I think you’re framing neutral in a different way that might be useful.

Louis Komjathy:

Yeah, I think what I’m saying on the first level of analysis is okay, there are people deeply attached to philosophical Daoism, there are people deeply attached to something called Daoist religion or something like this. And that what we tend to do is we tend to bring those interpretive categories onto the material. So, we begin with a set of assumptions that determines the way we interpret it. Whereas if we begin with classical Daoism, we can investigate it in a more neutral way. So in that kind of conventional sense. But then of course I’m not neutral in this. I think that classical Daoism has a certain set of characteristics, which I would tend to say is religious, but what this category does is it’s allows us to have that debate.

Louis Komjathy:

So it allows people who want to believe that classical Daoism is more philosophical than religious to say, well, this is why I believe. Describing it as philosophical is more accurate than describing it as religious. So it at least creates some space for people who don’t follow my revisionist framework or don’t accept it or don’t see it as viable or convincing to put forth the kind of counter argument in that more neutral space. And the only other thing I wanted to add here is the other thing that happens by using this kind of revisionist framework is it allows us to explore that question of continuities and departures through the tradition rather than to presuppose that there is no connection between these different expressions of Daoism.

Nathan Loewen:

Would you be able to give an example of the religious stuff sure that people have ignore, and how you introduce that and how people receive it?

Louis Komjathy:

Quite clearly, this tradition is founded upon a theological viewpoint of the Dao. So when you look at the classical materials, but also when you look at the way this feeds into the larger tradition, it is the tradition of the Dao. So the Dao is the sacred or ultimate concern of Dallas. And there’s a very particular set of theological and cosmological views associated with this. That’s informing the practices, but the practices are also intended to orient one oneself towards the sacred reality. So it’s even more subversive or I think destabilizing than to call it religious, because it’s also theological. And as you know, the relation between theology and religious studies is a complex kind of negotiation. But here I would begin with that. So the kind of foundational world view is that there is this sacred presence permeating the world, permeating us, that the ultimate purpose of human existence is to align ourselves with this.

Louis Komjathy:

And, this is the more, I think, essential piece for what we’re talking about. That the classical Daoism, but I would make a stronger argument about this in the tradition as a whole is, has a certain set of practices. And those practices are basically non-negotiable. From, I think, that perspective about how you can actually attune yourself with reality or the sacred. So one of the revisionist viewpoints is contemplative practice, specifically a form of meditation that in English, we usually refer to as apophatic or quietistic meditation, that is emptiness and stillness based meditation, is the foundation of the views and the experiences that are described in the classical texts.

Louis Komjathy:

So if you skip that and you skip the fact that they’re theologically infused, you run into all kinds of philosophical misinterpretations that you tend to see in these kinds of discussions about classical Daoism or so-called philosophical Daoism being skeptical or relative, or some kind of like proto deconstruction. And it’s like, it’s not those things. It’s talking about a transformation of consciousness that occurs through a specific set of practices.

Nathan Loewen:

And so finally, how do you encourage students to engage those contemplative and mystical questions? Can you give an example of what you may have done in the past or consider recommending to people who wish to implement this kind of perspective in their own teaching? How would you suggest they go about that?

Louis Komjathy:

Yeah, so a kind of simple example, but I think one really helpful for the majority of us that tend to use texts as some of our primary materials in the classroom, is when you start reading texts like the Dao De Jing Selections from the Dao De Jing texts or selections from the Chuang Zhou or the book of Master Chuang Zhou. Instead of starting at the beginning, maybe giving them these two essential passages from chapter four and chapter six of the Chuang Zhou or which cover, fasting of the heart, mind and sitting in forgetfulness. So these are easy to find.

Louis Komjathy:

But when you use those passages and you give them to students and say, okay, let’s analyze this. What are they talking about? They’re talking about a specific kind of contemplative practice. How do we understand that through this text? We can reconstruct it. Well, when we take that practice and we filter some of the viewpoints or some of the philosophical perspectives that are coming through the text, how might that change the way we understand what’s being said or unsaid? That is, if what’s being articulated is actually a contemplative viewpoint about the nature of reality, rather than a philosophical, rumination, or argument about other philosophical positions this might change way we read the Chuang Zhou as a whole.

Nathan Loewen:

Thanks for listening. For more information about the Global Critical Philosophy of Religion Project, please visit our website at global critical, and that’s all one word, .as.ua.edu. There you will find our participating scholars, publications, sponsors, projects, and contact information. Study Religion is a production of The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. For more information about our department, please visit the website at religion.ua.edu. Or you can search for our department on Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, Facebook, SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify Podcasts. Thanks. Goodbye.