Musement as Listening: Daoist Perspectives on Peirce

Certain Daoist ideas explored here are compared with features of Peirce's philosophy, supplying a helpful perspective on the latter. In particular, I examine Zhuangzi's instruction about listening with one's spirit, along with certain discussions of listening energy drawn from texts dealing with the Daoist martial arts. I argue that Daoist listening and Peirce's concept of musement are both to be regarded as a disciplined form of attentiveness. By attending to no predetermined thing, a person thus disciplined is ready for the encounter with what might otherwise remain unperceived in experience, prepared to listen to voices that might otherwise be ignored.