This thesis reaches across multiple disciplines, including music psychology, performing arts, and philosophy, to propose using Lao Tzu’s philosophical thoughts in his book Tao Te Ching (also Dao De Jing, daodejing) to cultivate a classical performing musician’s “professional mindset.” “Professional mindset” is defined as the performer’s attitude in dealing with people including himself, and philosophical perspectives in making music. Part I evaluates the recurring traits of classical performing musicians (CPMs) as key for later arguing that Tao Te Ching helps enhance and transform the associated behaviors of a CPM’s recurring traits. These traits include being aloof, intelligent, emotionally unstable, dominant, sensitive, imaginative, self-sufficient, having high ergic tension, along with the associated second-order factors introversion, anxiety, independence, and being unrestrained. Part II introduces Tao Te Ching by building its thinking system map, with each of the book’s components explained and the underlying concepts hidden in the map uncovered via my English translations of the text as found in Chen Guying’s commentary. Part III presents three perspectives that collectively argue how Tao Te Ching cultivates a CPM’s professional mindset. The first analyzes anecdotes from the biographies of flutist Marcel Moyse using the recurring traits of CPMs in order to show how Lao Tzu’s thoughts can enhance or transform the associated behaviors of the recurring traits of CPMs. The second philosophically applies the duality of Lao Tzu to a CPM’s main musical activities and defines his daily performing cycle. The third explains how Tao Te Ching creatively deals with musical matters.

Dudeism was inspired by a film released in 1998 named The Big Lebowski, which recounts the adventures of a character called the Dude, the namesake of the religion. The Dude is an example of the (mostly) ideal practitioner of Dudeism, which Dudeists mean has existed throughout the ages, expressed differently by different systems of belief and behaviour while retaining an essential Dudeistic spirit.    A superficial overlook of this system of belief and behaviour finds many similarities to early Taoism, a parallel which Dudeism itself encourages, particularly in regards to the Tao Te Ching. It is also clear that many of Dudeism’s central concepts are inspired or borrowed from said work.    This essay explores the relationship between Dudeism and Taoism through comparison, focusing on the teachings of Tao Te Ching in relation to Dudeist thought and practice. It seeks to establish Dudeism’s religious history as a religion firmly rooted in both a modern motion picture and ancient Eastern thought. The essay concludes that Dudeism has adapted the teachings of the Tao Te Ching for a modern, Western audience through the language and imagery of The Big Lebowski, adding its own twists to ancient concepts.

This project is a close study and translation of Heshanggong's Commentary on the Daodejing. The text, attributed to the "Old Man by the River" (Heshanggong) and dating from the Eastern Han (25-220 CE), remains one of the most historically influential readings of the Daoist classic the Daodejing. However, in modern times it has received little attention, being dismissed as a superstitious interpretation of the original. This dissertation seeks to amend contemporary scholarship and address the underlying theoretical categories responsible for this situation. These problems largely originate from a common scholarly view of Chinese civilization as foundationally monistic. Because of this bias, any hints of transcendence found in the commentary are read as later "religious" distortions of the original "philosophical" holism of the Daodejing. Rather than engaging with debates over whether Daoism is monistic or dualistic, philosophical or religious, this dissertation shifts focus away from those Western constructs. It instead draws on different binaries found within the commentator's own writings. In particular, the categories of yin and yang become central to a native reading of this tradition. Furthermore, I argue that Heshanggong's approach rests on subdividing both yin and yang into a causal relationship of mode and substance. I use this fourfold conceptual framework to analyze the key themes of the commentary, including cosmology, body, and state. So doing reveals the novelty of Heshanggong's responses to a range of conceptual and historical issues in Early China (6th century BCE-3rd century CE). First, the mode-substance reading of yin-yang challenges depictions of early Daoism as having a solely "correlative cosmos": uncreated, relativistic, and perfectly united through spontaneous resonance. Instead, it suggests a single cosmic substance originating from a first cause, the yin mode of the Way (that includes stillness, emptiness, darkness, and softness). Second, this means that contrary to the often-asserted historical split between monistic "philosophical" Daoism and dualistic "religious" Daoism, one finds a continuous tradition that seeks Heavenly spirit (yang substance) through stillness (yin mode). By excising monism and dualism from the discussion, a greater awareness of historical progression and cosmological nuance appears.

Étude de maîtrise sponsorisée par le Fonds québécois de recherche Société et Culture (gouvernement du Québec), le programme Renforcement du secteur langagier au Canada (gouvernement du Canada), ainsi que par diverses bourses octroyées par l'Université de Montréal. / Cette étude traductologique a pour cadre l’approche « skopos plus loyalty » (Nord [1997] 2007 : 123). Elle illustre l’important potentiel heuristique et didactique de cette méthode lorsque appliquée de manière contrastive à des traductions philologiques, en démontrant clairement que des intentions différentes commandent des techniques et procédés différents pour la résolution de problématiques similaires (ibid. : 115 116). Trois traductions ont été choisies pour leur fonctionnalité. Leur consigne de traduction (Nord [1997] 2007 : 30) a été inférée, puis les interventions (Chesterman 1997; Gagnon 2006) délibérées (Bastin 2007) qui ont favorisé leur réception ont été relevées et qualifiées. Leurs effets sur l’articulation de certains passages probants et sur la « triple loyauté du traducteur » ont été jaugés, et celles qui se sont avérées malencontreuses ont été commentées selon les présupposés et mésinterprétations culturels de Ke (1999). / The theoretical framework of this study is Nord’s "skopos plus loyalty" approach ([1997] 2007 : 123). It exemplifies its heuristic and didactic potential when applied to philological translations, following Nord’s saying that "Comparing translations of various texts in various situations at various moments in history we find that different purposes can very often explain why translators have chosen different techniques or procedures to solve similar or analogous problems." (ibid. : 115 116) Three translations were selected for their functionality; their translation brief (Nord ibid. : 30) has been inferred, and the deliberate (Bastin 2007) translation shifts (Chesterman 1997; Gagnon 2006) which contributed to their functionality were identified. The "distribution" of the "translator’s threefold loyalty" has been evaluated, and those shifts which proved to be "unfortunate" were explained in terms of Ke's cultural presuppositions and misreadings (1999).

Cette étude traductologique a pour cadre l’approche « skopos plus loyalty » (Nord [1997] 2007 : 123). Elle illustre l’important potentiel heuristique et didactique de cette méthode lorsque appliquée de manière contrastive à des traductions philologiques, en démontrant clairement que des intentions différentes commandent des techniques et procédés différents pour la résolution de problématiques similaires (ibid. : 115 116). Trois traductions ont été choisies pour leur fonctionnalité. Leur consigne de traduction (Nord [1997] 2007 : 30) a été inférée, puis les interventions (Chesterman 1997; Gagnon 2006) délibérées (Bastin 2007) qui ont favorisé leur réception ont été relevées et qualifiées. Leurs effets sur l’articulation de certains passages probants et sur la « triple loyauté du traducteur » ont été jaugés, et celles qui se sont avérées malencontreuses ont été commentées selon les présupposés et mésinterprétations culturels de Ke (1999). / The theoretical framework of this study is Nord’s "skopos plus loyalty" approach ([1997] 2007 : 123). It exemplifies its heuristic and didactic potential when applied to philological translations, following Nord’s saying that "Comparing translations of various texts in various situations at various moments in history we find that different purposes can very often explain why translators have chosen different techniques or procedures to solve similar or analogous problems." (ibid. : 115 116) Three translations were selected for their functionality; their translation brief (Nord ibid. : 30) has been inferred, and the deliberate (Bastin 2007) translation shifts (Chesterman 1997; Gagnon 2006) which contributed to their functionality were identified. The "distribution" of the "translator’s threefold loyalty" has been evaluated, and those shifts which proved to be "unfortunate" were explained in terms of Ke's cultural presuppositions and misreadings (1999). / Étude de maîtrise sponsorisée par le Fonds québécois de recherche Société et Culture (gouvernement du Québec), le programme Renforcement du secteur langagier au Canada (gouvernement du Canada), ainsi que par diverses bourses octroyées par l'Université de Montréal.