nucleation

LIT-1994: Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China

1 min read

Properties4
StatusUnavailable — searched 2026-11-03 for a lawful full text and none was reached, so it is not read and no NOTE is filed. OpenAlex reports it closed with no repository copy; Crossref lists only Oxford Academic. A whole in-copyright book on a file host would not count (ADR-064). CLAIM-541's defeater, a sinological reading of wu-wei, therefore stays untested against this book. It stays Unavailable until a copy is supplied.
Version2
Tagsreligion, agency
Cited as “grounds” byCLAIM-541 — Wu-wei is better read as control placed and timed where a system's own dynamics do most of the work than as the absence of control: Ott–Grebogi–Yorke control of chaos is a formal instance, in which small perturbations timed by the system's own wandering hold it on an unstable orbit, and the control, though small, continues for as long as the orbit is held; so reported effortlessness has at least three distinct sources, no conflict to override, conflict settled cheaply by learned accommodation, and conflict met as it arises by small well-timed feedback, which may feel alike and differ in mechanism

Graph View

Slingerland, E. (2003). Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. Oxford University Press, New York, NY. doi:10.1093/oso/9780195138993.001.0001.

Key takeaways

Not read. Nothing here reports the work’s findings; what the exchange’s replies said of it is unverified.

Standing in the record

Not named by A. The sinological reading against which CLAIM-541’s reading of wu-wei as well-timed small control should be checked (its defeater).

Backlinks