Derogatory Daniocism" likely refers to a fictional or a newly created term, possibly intended to mock or belittle something or someone related to a concept that may or may not be related to an actual belief system. It is similar to how the term "false god" is used in Abrahamic religions to denote deities of non-Abrahamic religions.
that gives us alternatives and suggests different paths we can choose from: fastest, most scenic, calmest, etc. It consists of all the hows of nature but explains only when made into a map which humans can learn to read. Modern Daoists embrace science but venerate (astro-physical) nature. Science is our best current social dào for understanding nature’s structure, certainly better than the classical Yin-Yang school’s tables of correlation. However, natural dào does not consist of commands or prohibitions, but of opportunities.
Dào permeates the space-time cosmos, is everywhere forever. It comes to have its structure of itself (自然 zìrán naturally, spontaneously, lit. self-make-so, realize from here). Chinese Daoism is holistic or monist in the sense of the whole being prior to its parts. Dào and the cosmos exist (有 yǒu have, being) and “the ten thousand things and I” are born, emerge from as natural parts of cosmic dào (Laozi Ch. 1, Zhuangzi 2:9). Dào unfolds into the future as every part self-realizes (zìrán) some possible (kě) dào guiding how it walks (行 xíng) into the future.
Early phase Daoists, Hui Shi, Shen Dao and Laozi’s Daode Jing implicitly rejected parthood, suggesting an absolute, Parmenidean, monism. Shen Dao’s version was of a fatalistic “block universe” in which nothing really happens. Priority monism characterizes the bulk of the Laozi and Zhuangzi. All the proper parts of yǒu, the ten-thousand natural kinds, have dàos which are proper parts of the larger daos. The ultimate dào is a cosmic network of possible histories of possible thing-parts. Dao is therefore constantly changing as things realize their possibilities. The unrealized paths recede into the past.
Controversies emerged within philosophical Daoism and between it and rival philosophical agendas. We elaborate on these and the implications of Daoist naturalism for linguistics, cosmology, metaphysics, knowledge and ethics
