De

Across the corpus of pre-Qin philosophical literature, de, conventionally translated as ‘potency’ or ‘virtue’, seems to have a fundamental cosmological significance from which its other connotations are derived. We begin from the pervasive assumption that existence is an uncaused, spontaneous process. It is ziran: so-of-itself. As a total field, this dynamic process is called dao; the individuated existents in this field – its various foci – are called de.