《老子》“下知有之”辨正

Identification and Correction of the Meaning of a Sentence in the Lao zi

《老子》第十七章"下知有之"一句误读至今,主要原因是通行本分章后一些文脉被割裂造成的。"下知有之"应理解为"就连次等聪明的人都有道"。揭示《老子》第十七章的章旨,应将阅读研究的视野上连至前一章、下连至后一章,并厘清本章内部句与句之间的意义关系。余论部分指出,郭店楚简《老子》丙本有对应王弼本《老子》第十七章和第十八章两章合抄的内容,但没有王弼本《老子》第十六章的内容,这一内容缺失表明,郭店楚简《老子》的性质是摘抄本。

The sentence of "xiazhi youzhi下知有之" in Chapter 17 of the Lao zi has been misread to this day,which was caused by the separation of some context in the division of chapters in the received version of the Lao zi.This sentence ought to be understood as that even those second-class clever people possess the Dao(Way).The purport of Chapter 17 shows that the perspectives for the understanding of the meaning of the sentence ought to be expanded to Chapter 16 and Chapter 18,and the connection between the meanings of the sentence to sentence within the chapter should also be taken into consideration.In the part of conclusion,through contrasting the third version of the Lao zi from the Guodian bamboo slips manuscript to the received version,this paper points out that the former was an excerpt.