Time transcending tense: An examination of heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist philosophy

Garton-Eisenacher, A., & Garton-Eisenacher, S. (2024). Time transcending tense: An examination of heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist philosophy. Asian Philosophy, 1-17.

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao's relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. 【学习这样的英语表述】While principally expressing the 'constancy' of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao's ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of 'return' and identified with the universe's circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature's use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time's relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation.

1, Introduction

先文献综述，引出问题，指出omission, the dearth of scholarship。

2, 介绍中国哲学所理解的时间现象phenomenal temporality，然后指出道对其的超越

3, 介绍“恒”这一概念的重要性。这一概念是道家理解constancy的关键词

4, 恒的词源、字义

5, 进而研究the nature of 恒。恒是一种常变constantly changes。

6, 讨论恒与道家形上学中“有”“无”概念的关系

7, 道与多的关系，即道如何不歪曲为其他东西？unity-in-distinction

8, 如何理解道的超越性？道的超越，不是卓绝，而是没有区分的无穷infinitude lacking all differentiation