Fundemental Aesthetics in Heideggerian Philosophy and Daoism

Daoist aesthetics is based on the creative power of Dao which has a pre-ontological origin. The original context of creativity which arises from Dao, forms the foundation of art in Daoist thought. In Daoist thought, giving meaning in art and language is only realized through the perception of Dao and unification with it. In his later works, Heidegger pays a great attention to Aesthetic issues in his analysis of language, thought and poetry and emphasizes on the internal mutual dependency of thought and poetry. Furthermore, Heidegger recognizes Dao as a poetic thought and argues that when a poetic thought occurs, Being and Thought would become one and the same. In Daoist thought, the identity of thought and poetry, is an aesthetic non-distinction that is called 'Huan Chen' in Daoist literature. Poetic self- consciousness would not be realized until the poet gets perfectly unified with the concrete reality of things; and this is the same poetic thought with a pre-ontological experience Heidegger had achieved. This essay intends to answer the question how and to what extent the Heideggerian aesthetic thought is near to Daoist Aesthetics; perhaps exploring this question can contribute to understanding Heideggarian aesthetic view in his later works and probably it would provide the possibility of dialogue for a better understanding of East and West thoughts.