My posts of late are tending in a rather more philosophical, as opposed to topical, direction.  That is an occupational hazard of teaching Chinese philosophy, I guess.  But I have a rather big Chinese philosophical question to pose: is Dao the sum of all De?

As background, Peony and Manyul have been discussing interpretations of the concept "De."  I tend to like a translation "Integrity," but there are other, overlapping meanings: "Virtue," "Power," "Potency," "Efficacy."  I will say up front that I tend to be influenced more by Daoist understandings of these concepts.  Also, I am open to the Hall and Ames discussion of "De."  Here is a bit of what they have to say about it (taken from their entry, "De," from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy – not sure if everyone will be able to connect through the link without a library subscription):  

In the Daoist literature, de denotes the particular as a focus of potency in this process conception of existence. De is any particular disposition of the totality. The Daodejing – literally, the classic of dao and de – states: ‘The great dao is so expansive. It reaches in all directions. All of individuated existence arises because of it’ (Daodejing 34) (see Daodejing).

When de is cultivated and accumulated, so that the particular is integrated utterly with its environments, the distinction between dao and de – between field and focus – collapses. De as an individuating notion is transformed into de as an integrating notion. The Daodejing 28 observes: ‘One who possesses de
in abundance is comparable to a new-born babe’. In this literature,
both Daoist and Confucian, the infant, the uncarved block and the
exemplary person are all metaphors for a condition in which one does
not distinguish oneself from one’s environments. These metaphors
illustrate the assumption that any particular, when viewed in terms of
its intrinsic relatedness, entails the full process of existence. Such
being the case, because the babe is a matrix through which the full
consequence of undiscriminated existence can be brought to focus and
experienced, it can be used as a metaphor for the de which is dao.

There's a lot in there, but it can, I believe, be boiled down to this: De is the particular.  Each individual thing has its own particular quality and existence.  And a thing realizes the virtue and power of its existence when it allows (or is allowed) to follow the natural development and unfolding of its unique character, its De.   I have long taken this passage from Zhuang Zi as a definition of De:

So
the real is originally there in things, and the sufficient is
originally there in things.  There's nothing that is not real, and
nothing that is not sufficient

Hence,
the blade of grass and the pillar, the leper and the ravishing
[beauty], the noble the sniveling, the disingenuous, the strange – in
Tao they all move as one and the same.  In difference is the whole; in
wholeness is the broken.  Once they are neither whole nor broken, all
things move freely as one and the same again…(23)

The understanding of De as the particular, unique existence of each thing in Dao (Tao, or "Way," which here means the totality and interactive process of all things together now) allows us some understanding of the Daoist notion that each individual thing, De, in Dao is an expression of the totality of Dao.  Dao can be apprehended in the immediate, in the particular, as passage 47 of the Daodejing suggests:

You can know all beneath heaven though you never step out the door, and you can see the Way of heaven though you never look out the window. 

The further you explore, the less you know.

so it is that a sage knows by going nowhere, names by seeing nothing, perfects by doing nothing.

Perhaps that is why Zhuang Zi tells us to "dwell in the ordinary." 

In any event, if we take "De" as a focus on the particular, and the Integrity inherent in each particular thing as is moves to express its unique character, it leads to my question: is, then, Dao the sum of all De? 

I think there is a case to be made for understanding Dao as the sum of all De.  It would suggest that the unity of Dao is a matter of coincidence: Dao is unified in the sense that it includes everything (being and nonbeing); all things are coincident in Dao.  This understanding also opens us to the vastness of Dao and its inclusiveness.  There is no "outside" of Dao.  And in that inclusiveness we learn something more about De: it is not "virtue" in the sense of consistent moral goodness.  There are things with De that are evil or bad.  Evil and bad are within Dao.  And evil or bad De is "virtuous" in the sense that its evilness or badness is expressed in Dao.  Nivison hints at this possibility in his definition of De in the Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy (no link to content available):

…it [De] is a key term in ancient moral philosophy (perhaps "virtue"), political thought (the prestige of an important person or the staying power of a dynasty), and even metaphysics (the specific efficacious character, good or bad, of a person, class, or type of thing).

It's that last, metaphysical definition I am following here.

I know this is opening up a discussion of the meaning of Dao but, what the heck, it's a cold February day here – it just started snowing again – so why not warm ourselves with what could be an endless conversation about the the biggest of all questions: the meaning of Dao.

Thus, dear readers, I put it to you: is Dao the sum of all De?