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Aquatic Beginnings: A Philosophy of Water

by Elizabeth McAnally

Throughout its history, philosophy has tended to express questions that center on

form. Philosophical themes such as truth, idea, reason, logic, will, essence, being, identity,

difference, and even nature, existence, experience, and life have all been interrogated with

little or no reference to how their formal meanings belong to materiality. In the following

discussion, I will explore a philosophy that explicitly takes its initiative from matter,

particularly from the matter of water. In other words, I am seeking a philosophy that

expresses its forms and images according to the materiality of water, and not merely its

formality. (By philosophy, I am not referring to any particular type, but rather any wonder,

reflection, meditation, or contemplation that explores and articulates some aspect of the

world that was previously hidden, sedimented, or forgotten.)

In our search for beginnings of a philosophy of water, we need to realize that

philosophy begins (and is perpetually beginning again) in many different cultures, within

many different texts, everywhere we find expressions of the latent power and mystery of

water. Because the history of philosophy is such an extensive and often disputed terrain, I

will explore a small but diverse sample of beginnings of a philosophy of water, considering

first the sixth-century Greek philosopher, Thales.

In the accounts of Thales that have been handed down to us,iwe find a thinker

expressing wonder at the immensity of water, at the unending potency of water. Thales

found water to be the source of all beings, the arche. Thales expresses the arche not as

some mere formalism, but as the primordial, aquatic stuff of which everything is

composed. Water constitutes everything; everything has its beginning in water; and to


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water everything returns. Nietzsche noted that Thales philosophy marks the beginnings of

the philosophical doctrine stating that everything is one.ii

Thales implies that everything is

one because everything is fundamentally related to water, because whenever the source or

latent power of nature is explored, water comes to the surface. It seems fairly obvious to

us why Thales, living on the shores of the Aegean Sea, might have been driven to make the

claim that water is the arche. All things that are responsible for the generation and

preservation of living thingsseeds, semen, amniotic fluid, blood, milk, waterare moist.

From these readily apparent examples, we can get a sense for the immensity of water as it

appears all throughout the natural world. It is this encompassing immensity of water that

Thales articulates by assigning to water the causal power of the original source, the arche.

With Thales, the formal structure of the arche is intertwined with the materiality of water.

As I noted above, we can find beginnings of a philosophy of water apart from the

Western tradition of philosophy and its roots in ancient Greece. For instance, such

beginnings are also contained in the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese text attributed to

the legendary Old Master, Lao Tzu.iii

In this text, we can find a sense of wonderment

and devotion to the way (tao) of the myriad things and their sources, especially in terms of

the way of water.iv

For example, chapter 78 of the Tao Te Ching reads as follows:

Nothing in the worldis as soft and yielding as water.

Yet for dissolving the hard and the inflexible,

nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard;

the gentle overcomes the rigid.Everyone knows this is true,

but few can put it into practice.

True words seem paradoxical.v


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Soft and yielding as it is, water is able to slowly change things that appear to be

hard and inflexible. Waters power to alter things softly and slowly is apparent in the

phenomenon of the Grand Canyon: over a time-span of millions of years, the Colorado

River has been able to gently wear down rigid rock piece by piece, creating the

distinguished canyon we find today. Although it might seem paradoxical that such a soft

and gentle thing as water could possess such erosive capabilities, we know for a fact that

this is indeed true. Within this chapter of the Tao Te Ching, we can see wonderment at the

seemingly paradoxical way in which water manifests itself. When one practices the gentle

yet effective way of water, one informs ones own embodied, material activity according to

the tao of water, that is, according to the ability of water to gently yet effectively transform

its surroundings.

In chapter 66, we also find water initiating aquatic philosophy:

All streams flow to the seabecause it is lower than they are.

Humility gives it its power.

If you want to govern the people,

you must place yourself below them.

If you want to lead the people,

you must learn how to follow them.

In this excerpt, we notice a reflection on the way of government expressed in terms of the

seemingly paradoxical integration of humility and power evoked by the way of water.

Because the sea is lower than streams, it is able to do nothing and still receive the power of

the streams, for higher streams will naturally flow to the lower sea. Those who desire to

govern and lead others are urged to let their actions be informed by the people they govern,

as water lets its course be informed by the channel it traverses. The actions of government

are encouraged to mimic the actions of wateractions at the limits of action, where action


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is non-action. Here the very power of government is understood according to the way of

the flowing stuff of water. Thus, we can see the beginnings of a philosophy of water as the

way of government is articulated in terms of the gentle efficacy of water. Furthermore, the

gentle efficacy of water is likened to the tao itself in chapter 8 of the Tao Te Ching:

The supreme good is like water,

which nourishes all things without trying to.

It is content with the low places that people disdain.

Thus it is like the Tao.

With both Lao Tzu and Thales, the fundamental power of the world (tao, arche) is

articulated according to the material of water, and thus not merely as a formal expression.

In the thirteenth century, the founder of the St Zen school of Japanese Buddhism

Dgenwrote a sutra in which he uses water to express the very nature ofsh

(enlightenment or realization).vi

Like the Tao Te Ching, Dgens Mountains and Waters

Sutra is filled with examples concerning the paradoxical characteristics of water, which

reflect a truth about the way of the world, a truth which Dgen and Zen Buddhists call

emptiness (k). Throughout sections 11 through 16, Dgen writes that while most humans

only see water as continuously flowing, it is not the case that all beings see water in this

same way. For instance, the dragons and fish living within the sea do not perceive their

home as something flowing, constantly moving and changing; on the contrary, they see

water as an abode, a palace, a stable, structured dwelling. The palaces of human beings, on

the other hand, appear to dragons and fish to be flowing (unlike the water-palace they

inhabit), similarly to how we see the homes of these sea beings not as a stable palace, but

as flowing water.

By expressing the different ways that water is experienced, Dgen helps us to

realize that waters flow and do not flow. Seeing the relativity of the flowing and not-


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flowing of water means realizing that no form belongs inherently to water as such, because

the material of water is informed according to the situation of the informer, so that it is

empty of any inherently existing form. The various ways in which waters appear lead

Dogen to express the emptiness of water, and thus the emptiness of all reality. In other

words, Dgen found that one could come to a realization (sh) of the emptiness of water

by reflecting on that everyday activity (sh) whereby water is informed by fish, humans,

and other beings. In realizing the emptiness of water, one realizes that all beings are empty

and thus the same in their emptiness. Here we can see within Dgens sutra that the

appearance of the relative forms of water reflects the practice-realization (shush

) of the

emptiness of all beings. Beginnings of a philosophy of water appear here in Dogens sutra

insofar as the very stuff of water is initiating a wonder at the interdependence (and thus

emptiness) of the various forms of its material (e.g., its flowing and non-flowing) and the

perspectives of the beings that inform it.

Now that we have seen beginnings of a philosophy of water in ancient Greece,

ancient China, and thirteenth-century Japan, I wish to turn our attention to the possibility

of a philosophy of water beginning in our present situation. One key place for us to look is

within the work of Gaston Bachelard entitled Water and Dreams: An Essay on the

Imagination of Matter. In this book, Bachelard investigates how the water of the physical

world is one element of the matter from which we form our dreams, reveries, and images.

When we meditate on the matter of water (that is, when we wonder at water), we are

cultivating a water mind-set that enables us to participate more fully in the aquatic

reality of nature.vii

Indeed, this water mind-set enables us to fathom the very mystery of

nature. Thus, Bachelard writes, A leap into the unknown is a leap into water.viii

From


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this single sentence, we see that for Bachelard, an exploration that plummets into mystery

invokes the image of leaping into water and fathoming its fluid depths.

Bachelard comments in his first chapter that humans try to understand themselves

in the way of Narcissus, by reflecting on water.ix

The image of Narcissus is an image of a

human being knowing, loving, and penetrating into its own mysterious depths. This image

does not merely express some formal, psychological structure; it also expresses a material

image of water, appropriated for the sake of understanding the mystery of self-reflection,

wherein an embodied being fathoms its own embodied thickness. The way in which our

imagination informs the mysteries of self-reflection is initiated by our familiarity (or lack

thereof) with the material depths of water. Narcissus loves the image of himself that

appears reflected in still water. Water, unlike a mirror, allows Narcissus to participate in

his image; it provides the depth and continuity that a static mirror is unable to offer, as a

mirror remains a superficial reflection, a barrier that does not allow the self to penetrate

inside itself in reflection. Only water allows Narcissus to enter into his own image and

fathom the mystery beneath the surface.

Bachelard also shows that material imagination sees water as an archetype of

purity, having the power to cleanse both matter and form.x

While it is evident that water

can clean a dirty body, it is often forgotten that water has the power to purify an impure

soul (ones internal, formal structure). The Christian may say that the ritual performance

of baptism purifies the soul; the historian of religion may talk about water as a symbol that

points to purification. However, Bachelard argues that the purifying power of water lies

within the very liquid stuff of water. Thus, whether in a baptismal ceremony, in the

Fountain of Youth, in the Exodus of the Israelites, or in the many rituals performed in the


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Ganges River, water has the power to purifyto bring one out of original sin, out of old

age, out of slavery, or out of any sort of dirt or destitution.

Bachelards general project of wondering at the appropriation of matter by the

forms of the imagination is taken up by Ivan Illich in his book H2O and the Waters of

Forgetfulness, wherein he looks specifically to the relation between urban water and urban

space. Integral to Illichs investigation is his distinction between water and H2O. Illich,

following Bachelard, says that water is a living, archetypal fluid, a fertile material that is

informed by our imagination and dreams. Having the ability to both purify form and clean

matter, water communicates its purity by touching or waking the substance of a thing and

it cleans by washing dirt from its surface.xi

On the other hand, H2O is water that has been

transmogrified, reduced to a chemically constituted fluid with which archetypal waters

cannot be mixed.xii

Unlike living, archetypal water (which has the power to purify and cleanse), the

fluid of H2O is in need of cleansing and purification. H2O needs to be cleansed of the

diseases and pollutants that often accumulate in it, whether it be stagnating or circulating

through pipes. H2O needs to be purified of its abstraction from the archetypal waters,

purified of what Whitehead would call the fallacy of misplaced concreteness and what

Husserl would call the forgetfulness of lifeworld. The transmogrification of water into

H2O has brought water into the service of industrial development and technological

progress, which has saturated water with the very dirt and grime that it used to be able to

clean, and which has abstracted the chemical form of water from the heterogeneous

mixture of its living flow. Thus, in bringing H2O into our modern technocracy, water has

been forgotten, abandoned in favor of a formula, a technologized, domesticated


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abstraction. Instead of letting the materiality of water inform our imagination, our modern

technocracy lets the scientific information that supports its development manipulate and

control water. In other words, instead of letting waters movements initiate our

information, we let our information of water control the movement of water, forgetting that

we would have no information about H2O were it not for the archetypal waters that have

been abandoned to the oblivion of forgetfulness.

By wondering at the differences between living water and abstract H2O, Illich

shows us the possibility of a philosophy of water in our present situation. Both he and

Bachelard contemplate the materiality of water as it initiates various forms of our

imagination, whether these forms are appropriated by technoscience, poetry, religion, or

any mode of expression. Thus, we can see beginnings of a philosophy of water wherever

someone inquires into the materiality of aquatic images.

Throughout this investigation, I have discussed the materiality of aquatic images

appearing as arche, tao, shush, self-reflection, the archetypal cleanser and purifier, and

H2O. Furthermore, there are many more aquatic images that can be interrogated; there are

many more water metaphors that can serve as beginnings of a philosophy of water. For

example, William James speaks of the activity of consciousness not as a chain, not as a

train, but as a stream of consciousness, for only the flow of streaming water can express

the immediate connectedness of conscious experience.xiii

In speaking of this metaphor,

James explicitly points to the way in which the very materiality of water influenced his

interpretation of consciousness as a stream.

However, a philosophy of water must not restrict its beginnings to images that are

explicitly aware of their dependence upon aquatic materiality. Just as Illich has noted, if


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we want to recover water in its living, informed reality, we must also investigate those

images that have forgotten their relation to the materiality of water. For example, electrical

current is articulated in a mathematical formula, wherein the time rate of the flow of

electricity (I) is equal to the voltage (V) divided by the resistance (R) of the conductor.

This formula and the way it is taught and applied rarely (if ever) show how the quantified

and mathematicized amperes of electrical current belong with the materiality of waters

current.xiv

A philosophy of water looks at all images, even abstract formulas, with a view to

their relationship to the archetypal aquatic material. A philosophy of water imagines with

forms and materials, interrogating their intertwined ambiguity, never fully separating the

image from the material. Whether the materiality of water is explicitly expressed in the

image or hidden beneath the surface, a philosophy of water begins when any image is

interrogated in terms of its relationship to the liquid, flowing stuff of water. For any

philosopher, water can initiate a reflection that fathoms the depths of the self and indeed,

the depths of all beings. In other words, water can initiate a philosophy of water, which

reflects on any image and attempts to articulate its place with water.

i Cf. Richard D. McKirahan, Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and

Commentary (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994), pp. 23-31.ii Cf. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche,Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. Marianne

Cowan (Regnery, 1996).iii Bearing in mind that the historical existence of Lao Tzu has been disputed, the date of this texts

authorship is widely disputed; however, it is agreed that the terminus a quo is the 6th century BCE,

and the terminus ad quem is the 3rd century BCE. Cf.A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, ed.

and trans. Wing-Tsit Chan (Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 137.iv Although there have been widely variant translations of this text, many translators (including

Stephen Mitchell, D. C. Lao, John C. H. Wu, and Wing-Tsit Chan) agree that water symbolism

accurately conveys the meaning of numerous tropes represented in the Chinese text.


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v All excerpts of the Tao Te Chingused in this paper are borrowed from Stephen Mitchells

translation (Harper Perennial, 1992).vi A translation of the Mountains and Waters Sutra (Shansui-Kyo) is printed within the book

edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi entitledMoon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dgen (New

York: North Point Press, 1985). Hajime Tanabe, a philosopher of modern Japan, asserted in 1939

that Dgen was the first Japanese philosopher (Tanahashi, p. 24).vii

Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, trans. Edith R.

Farrell (Dallas: The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, 1983), p. 5.viii Ibid., p. 165.ix Cf. Clear Waters, Springtime Water and Running Waters: The Objective Conditions for

Narcissism, chapter 1 ofWater and Dreams, pp. 19-43.x Cf. Purity and Purification: Waters Morality, chapter 6 ofWater and Dreams, pp. 133-57.xi Ivan Illich,H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1985), p. 27.xii Ibid., p. 7.xiii Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as chain or

train do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows.

A river or a stream are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it

hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. WilliamJames, The Stream of Consciousness, inPragmatism and Other Writings, ed. Giles Gunn (New

York: Penguin Books, 2000), p. 177.xiv A philosophy of water would further investigate the way in which the material current of water

has been remembered or forgotten in the use of metaphors that represent current as the present, the

now, the contemporary. For instance, when current events are spoken of in the media or in the

classroom, the material current of water is used metaphorically to express the feeling of being

caught up in the intense flow of information disseminated constantly. However, there is much

water in our experience of current events that is yet to be remembered. Whatever depth, purity,

and other archetypal characteristics of water that might be flowing in the current of current events

are rarely questioned, especially with reference to water.

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