Summary

Spelling tuesday begins with Hoff explaining about the Chinese perception of Taoism, and how the Taoists believed that certain things were 'deeper and broader matters than beyond its limited reach.' Taoism, also known as the whole man, the true man, and the spirit man, is interpreted by the Scholarly owel, the 'Brain'. This creature divides abstract things into categories, while also remaining helpless and disorganised in his daily life. The owl learns intellectually and indirectly from books and avoids putting Taoist principles into practice in everyday life. Hoff emphasizes here that there is a huge difference between having knowledge by experience, and having just knowledge itself.


 * Taoism and Confucianism :**

Taoism and Confucianism is later compared based on their use of 'knowledge.' Confucianists are said to be "...one who studies Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge, and who keeps what he learns to himself or to his own small group, writing pompous and pretentious papers that no one else can understand, rather than working for the enlightenment of others." (p.26) On the other hand, Taoism is described as forming knowledge from '...direct experience.' (p.25). To explain in simpler words, Hoff says that Confucianists study not for experience, but only for knowledge for oneself to benefit, while Taoism focuses on having knowledge from experience itself, and that there are so much more to life than just factual information. Through this chapter we can conclude the differences between Toism and Confucianism based on experience or no experience.

**The Uncarved Block:**

"One more funny thing about Knowledge, that of the scholar, the scientist, or anyone else; it always wants to blame the mind of the Uncarved Block- what it calls Ignorance- for problems that it causes itself, either direclty or indirectly, through its own limitations, nearsightedness or neglect. "(p.31) In other words, the uncarved block is blamed for all the problems people face in the world based on ignorance.

-by Cindy Choi