Daoism and Non-Action (Wuwei) in Europe

An accessible introduction to the European reception and interpretation of Daoist philosophy and Chinese ideas of non-doing and laissez faire.

Offers an overview of key moments in the Western European history of 'non-action' (wuwei) and early Daoist sources (the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi). The present survey focuses on non-doing as a philosophy of freedom. The Chinese expression literally signifies 'acting without acting.' It has been taken to mean a variety of behaviours and dispositions from ascetic indifference to effortless minimalism and adaptability to impartial responsive co-resonance and spontaneous natural freedom. It has been a controversial concept throughout its history, inspiring and confounding philosophers, literary authors, mystics, and political intellectuals. Its Confucian version was credited with inspiring ideas of laissez faire (to let happen), natural order, and freedom during the Enlightenment, while mystics, anarchists, libertarians, and the anti-nazi White Rose resistance movement appealed to the sense of natural freedom they perceived in early Daoism. In interpreting distant Chinese discourses, European readers were also seeking to understand themselves. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.