Western Difficulties In Interpreting Daoism

"A proper understanding of Daoism requires one to recognize all such motivations, to ensure that they do not interfere with one’s interpretive efforts, for instance by causing one to discount elements of Daoism that do not suit one’s own taste or reinforce the biases of one’s own age or culture." From Russell Kirkland’s "Taoism:The Enduring Tradition" comes an important statement. For the Chinese, Daoism is such an integral part in their society that its presence is almost taken for granted. For Westerners, truly understanding Daoism for what it is may be something hard to truly accomplish. This can be because of the hermeneutic habit of trying to fit Daoism into their own scope of how they see the world, or perhaps the emphasis on separating religious Daoism and philosophical Daoism, the difficulties in deciphering the secrets of Classical Chinese language, or the challenges posed with indulging in the realm of comparative philosophy and coming across the wall known as radical incommensurability. This paper seeks to firstly explore the causes and history of these developments while comparing them to the actual objective realities in the Chinese history that surrounds the many Daoist traditions. Finally, we might offer potential solutions as to how a western audience might both philosophically and linguistically better approach the subject.