Page "Chinese philosophy" Paragraph 12

Taoism ( Daoism ) is a philosophy and later also developed into a religion based on the texts the Tao Te Ching ( Dào Dé Jīng ; ascribed to Laozi ) and the Zhuangzi ( partly ascribed to Zhuangzi ).

The character Tao 道 ( Dao ) literally means " path " or " way ".

However in Daoism it refers more often to a meta-physical term that describes a force that encompasses the entire universe but which cannot be described nor felt.

All major Chinese philosophical schools have investigated the correct Way to go about a moral life, but in Taoism it takes on the most abstract meanings, leading this school to be named after it.

It advocated nonaction ( wu wei ), the strength of softness, spontaneity, and relativism.

Although it serves as a rival to Confucianism, a school of active morality, this rivalry is compromised and given perspective by the idiom " practise Confucianism on the outside, Taoism on the inside.