The Chinese Philosophy of Language

In Chinese history, rarely someone talked about linguistics. Especially Confucius, all of his dogma tell people how to deal with rivalry secret or open but his master name Lao Zi was the founder of Taoism and he discussed something about language:  “道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。无名，天地之始。有名，万物之母。故常无，欲以观其妙。常有，欲以观其徼。此两者，同出而异名。同谓之玄；玄之又玄，众妙之门。”

‘道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。’if something worth to be said, it is not an ordinary thing. If a name worth to exist, it is not an ordinary name. The subtext: an ordinary thing is not worth to say and an ordinary name is not worth to name. The two sentence means that before anyone say something, the emotion of speaking has to start in your mind first. No one will speak something without purpose. 

‘无名，天地之始。有名，万物之母。’ at prehistoric time, there is no name no words, everything started from such an empty world. It just like before anyone want say something, it is empty mind. Later in the history, the name came, a certain word is like the mother of the rest words. It could produce (define) unlimited words to name the boundless universe. It is just like that we edit words to define the meaning of our mind the first word remind us the second word and second remind the third etc.

‘故常无，欲以观其妙。常有，欲以观其徼。’ so, in ordinary time we may regard there is no words  in our inner world. It is just like prehistoric time, with a free mind, we can image and enjoy the beautiful universe without bearing any burden (of expression). Yet we also may regard there are always a word system accompany with us, it allow us to limit every single idea by words so that we can communicate the idea later.

‘此两者，同出而异名。同谓之玄；玄之又玄，众妙之门。’ this two phenomenon use different approaches to achieve equally satisfactory result. Both of them are wonderful; the wonderful of wonderful, it is the gate of all miracle.

Plato argues, philosophy can’t be taught in writing; it can only be felt, experienced, argued out and sensed. And many founder of a religion were afraid when they passed away, their disciples might misunderstand what they had said, so they had rather not leave any writing material to them and made them to understand what the master said in heart. Lao Zi was afraid this too, but he did leave some writing material for his disciples. The only different was that he put the above words in front of the Taoism Bible ‘道德经’ to warn his disciples what is the mutual relationship between words and reality.