Daodejing
A terse, composite early Chinese text on Dao, de, and wuwei.
Foundation editorial draft · Updated 2026-10-18
Why it matters
The text remains central to Daoist thought, while scholarship cautions against treating its traditional authorship or date as settled fact.
Edition and attribution
- Author
- Laozi (traditional attribution)
- Edition
- Composite text with varied manuscripts and translations
Choose a named translation and read its introduction. The sources linked here provide scholarly context rather than an authorized single English edition.
Open a source
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — read scholarly context for Laozi and the Daodejing
A scholarly orientation to the text’s attribution, concepts, and interpretive history.