Abstract

In his Laozi Commentary and Structure of the Laozi’s Subtle Pointers, Wang Bi 王弼 seems to identify the Dao 道 with “absence” or “nothingness”. Despite this identification, some modern commentators regard Wang Bi’s Dao as a being. Other commentators deny that the Dao is a being but, nonetheless, seem to regard it as a reality of some kind. In contrast, I propose that Wang Bi’s Dao is literal absence and that we need not reify this absence in any way. Wang Bi’s descriptions of the Dao can be understood as metaphorical descriptions of mere absence. To support this proposal, I present an interpretation of Wang Bi’s Dao and then apply this interpretation to the first section of Wang Bi’s Laozi Commentary and to the first section of the Structure of the Laozi’s Subtle Pointers.