Ge Hong’s Preservation of the One
Ge Hong’s Preservation of the One
This chapter turns to Daoist epistemology, specifically, Ge Hong's preservation of the One. Unlike Plato's abstract reasoning, Ge Hong's notion of knowledge is empirical. It neither regards reason as having the monopoly on knowing Dao nor believes objective knowledge is superior to subjective opinion. For Ge Hong, cultivation plays the central role in the activity of preserving truth. His writings reveal two forms of cultivation that he describes seeking a path exactly opposite to the ontological flow of Dao. One is cosmogony, which unfolds from the one to the many in the mode of separation; while the other is soteriology, which returns from the many to the one in the mode of unification.
Keywords: Ge Hong, Daoist epistemology, empirical knowledge, Dao, cosmogony, soteriology
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