The semiotics of flourishing
Unearthing a Daoist phenomenology of dynamic attunement
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19485938 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Thomas Michael (Beijing Normal University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 233-255 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Chinese Semiotic Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2198-9605 • E-ISSN: 2198-9613 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/css-2025-0032 |
| OpenAlex | W7164522171 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 10 |
This paper argues that excavated manuscripts of the Daodejing (Guodian, Mawangdui, and Beida) recover a primordial Daoist phenomenology that offers a more existentially rich conception of the good life than the subsequent, dominant metaphysical reading. This study provides a semiotic analysis of Daodejing Chapter 1 to demonstrate that the text’s transmission history involves a deliberate philosophical transformation. The Huang-Lao interpretive community systematically altered key terms, replacing the immanent “Temporalizing Dao” ( hengdao ) with an eternal “Constant Dao” ( changdao ) and reframing “nothingness” ( wu ) and “somethingness” ( you ) as a cosmogonic hierarchy rather than co-present aspects of phenomena. The resulting metaphysical reading posits a good life of contemplative alignment with an ineffable cosmic principle, a stance characterized as a semiotics of absence, where signs point to an unreachable truth. In contrast, the manuscript-based phenomenological reading presents a good life of dynamic attunement, where dao is an embodied, situational pattern of skilled engagement and name/self is a fluid construct. This constitutes a semiotics of presence that finds meaning not in a transcendent beyond, but in responsive participation within the everyday world. I conclude that this phenomenological vision provides a more fulfilling path to human flourishing by embracing the vibrant, challenging flow of lived experience
Attunement · Contemplation · Everyday life · Interpretative phenomenological analysis · Metaphysics · Semiotics · Chinese history and philosophy · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |