[Whit Blauvelt]

“God” does not equal “Tao.” It’s just sloppy to read other philosophic/religious traditions as if they were about the same universal structure as Christianity. “Tao” means “way(s)” in Chinese (same word for plural or singular). Taoism is about the paths we can take, and how they differ from our descriptions. In other words, the “path” of Taoism is to keep clear vision and feeling of the actual paths we may take, and get beyond what of those paths can be “told in words,” which is — and this is the central Taoist insight — not the same as the paths eternally are themselves.

McGilchrist should welcome this, since it’s precisely about the relation of LH’s verbal fluency to the RH’s greater capacity for engaging in the fullness of the paths before us — and their junctures. Trying to turn “Taoism” into “Godism” misses this central point, which is so close to McGilchrist’s own. A great book on this is Chad Hansen’s A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought.