The paper develops a eudaimonistic reading of the Zhuāngzǐ 莊子 on which the characteristic feature of a well-lived life is the exercise of dé 德 in a general mode of activity labeled yóu 遊 . I argue that the Zhuāngzǐ presents a second-order conception of agents’ flourishing in which the life of dé is not devoted to predetermined substantive ends or activities with a specific substantive content. Rather, it is marked by a distinctive manner of activity and certain characteristic attitudes. (...) Zhuangist eudaimonism differs from virtue ethics, I suggest, since dé is not moral virtue nor is it normatively basic. The paper discusses textual evidence that the Zhuāngzǐ presents eudaimonistic ideals, develops the Zhuangist conception of “wandering” in detail, and explores connections between wandering and the Zhuangist interest in skill. It surveys the justification for Zhuangist eudaimonism and sketches how the wandering ideal affects the substantive content of a good life. (shrink)

Western scholarship on early Chinese thought has tended to either dismiss the foundational role of metaphor or to see it as a uniquely Chinese mode of apprehending the world. This article argues that, while human cognition is in fact profoundly dependent on imagistic conceptual structures, such dependence is by no means a unique feature of Chinese thought. The article reviews empirical evidence supporting the claims that human thought is fundamentally imagistic; that sensorimotor schemas are often used to structure our understanding (...) of abstract concepts; that these schemas can be selectively combined to result in novel structures; and that there are inextricable connections between body, emotion, and thought in both everyday and philosophical cognition. It also provides a review of a recent trend where, explicitly or not, scholars from a variety of backgrounds have begun to take metaphor more seriously as a foundational bearer of philosophical meaning in early China. (shrink)

Sengzhao (c.374–414) was a Chinese Neo-Daoist who converted to Mahāyāna Buddhism, and few people doubt his influence on Chinese Buddhist philosophy. In this article, provided his Neo-Daoism (xuanxue) and Madhyamaka Buddhism, I will present how Sengzhao featured a symbolic meaning of ‘void’ (śūnya) as rooted originally in Daoism. The Daoist contradictions, in particular between ‘being’ (you) and ‘nothing [non-being]’ (wu), are essential to the development of his doctrine of ‘no ultimate void’ (不真空論, Buzhenkonglun). To understand what Sengzhao meant by ‘void’, (...) which is in denial about the ultimate reality, I broach a notion of nihil (‘nothing’ but also ‘no value’) that bears on his discursive practice. In this light, I formulate a Daoist argument for contradictions and ECN (ex contradictione nihil—nothing follows from contradictions) from Laozi’s Daodejing. Furthermore, I elaborate on Sengzhao’s defence of ECN in his Buzhenkonglun. Reconstructing his negative approach to contradictions within the scope of the four-valued expressions (catuṣkoṭi) in the Madhyamaka tradition from Nāgārjuna, I consider a likely objection that a fifth value such as the ineffable may be inferred as void. Instead of subsuming the ineffable value under his discourse, I finally endorse Sengzhao’s purpose of linguistic and conventional approximation to the ultimate reality as silence. As such, I conclude the significance of void in Sengzhao’s denials via contradictions (ECN), i.e. an early philosophical peak of Chinese Buddhism from Daoism. (shrink)

Among the many striking features of the philosophy of the Zhuāngzǐ is that it advocates a life unperturbed by emotions, including even pleasurable, positive emotions such as joy or delight. Many of us see emotions as an ineluctable part of life, and some would argue they are a crucial component of a well-developed moral sensitivity and a good life. The Zhuangist approach to emotion challenges such commonsense views so radically that it amounts to a test case for the fundamental plausibility (...) of the Daoist ethical orientation: If the Zhuangist stance on emotion is untenable, then other aspects of Daoist ethics may founder as well. In this essay, I explore what I call a Zhuangist ‘Virtuoso View’ of emotion and its connections with human agency, attempting to show that at least one version of a Zhuangist approach to emotion passes the ‘basic plausibility’ test. I begin by describing the Virtuoso View and sketching its theoretical foundation, which involves claims about human agency, the self, psychophysical hygiene, the good life, epistemology, and metaphysics. Next, I defend the Virtuoso View against three objections, namely that it abandons intentionality, that it interferes with a good life, and that it yields a schizophrenic conception of agency. I argue for three major theses. First, the Virtuoso View is easily intelligible and largely defensible. Second, it reflects a crucial insight into a fundamental dichotomy at the core of human agency: the unavoidable conflict within a self-aware human agent between an internal, engaged perspective and an external, detached one. Third, I suggest that certain problems or conflicts arising from the Virtuoso View actually reflect inherent features of the human predicament and thus are not mere conceptual defects. Hence even if we do not find the Virtuoso View wholly convincing, we can nevertheless gain much insight from it. (shrink)

What underlies Zhuangzi’s thought is the fundamental finitude of the self, meaning that we cannot and should not alter or control things around us at whim or solely in our favour. Consequently, Zhuangzi recommends that we remain open to things instead of going against them, leading to a fulfilled life. This article discusses Zhuangzi’s underlying philosophy of openness, noting that he proposes two different strategies to do so with a distinction between the natural and the human. The former primarily appears (...) in Zhuangzi’s discussions of life and death. To overcome the fear of death, Zhuangzi calls on us to see it in the light of the ‘heavenly patterns’ or processes that can be grasped through the circularity of life and death. Yet, this picture reveals only half of Zhuangzi’s thoughts—he also shares his wisdom on how to address human affairs that are barely discernable or absent in such patterns. Here, Zhuangzi urges us to apply a different strategy: closely and attentively sensing the situations and their vicissitudes and preparing our actions as per such (shifting) data. (shrink)

This essay examines the concept of the wandering heart-mind in the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi 莊子. This essay examines the problems caused by a collection of behaviors in the heart-mind: the ability to make distinctions, the tendency to fix distinctions and language, and the need to act for the sake of fixed ends. Zhuangzi treats these problems with emptying, wandering, and mirroring. These techniques release the heart-mind from fixation and conflict, enabling the heart-mind to respond to conditions without acting (...) for fixed ends. Letting the heart-mind wander provides the receptivity and creativity necessary for responding to a complex world of constant change. Letting the heart-mind wander also opens the possibility of an intrinsically beneficial moral psychology, one where the heart-mind not only adapts to but enjoys a world of transformation and uncertainty. This interpretation of the heart-mind has important consequences for psychology, language, and ethics. In terms of psychology this interpretation diagnoses the limitations of knowledge and proposes therapeutic techniques to treat uncertainty and fixation. In terms of language this interpretation reveals different linguistic attitudes in the text, such as usefulness and play. In terms of ethics this interpretation provides a basis for Zhuangzi’s ethical vision of nourishing living and free-and-easy wandering. (shrink)

The article proposes an account of the prevailing classical Chinese conception of reasoning and argumentation that grounds it in a semantic theory and epistemology centered on drawing distinctions between the similar and dissimilar kinds of things that do or do not fall within the extension of ‘names’. The article presents two novel interpretive hypotheses. First, for pre-Hàn Chinese thinkers, the functional role associated with the logical copula is filled by a general notion of similarity or sameness. Second, these thinkers’ basic (...) explanation of reasoning is that it is a process of moving from a comparison of whether something is similar to a ‘model’ or ‘standard’ to a judgment about whether that thing is part of a certain kind. Classical texts treat judgment as the attitude of predicating a ‘name’ of something, or, equivalently, of distinguishing whether something is the kind of thing denoted by a certain term. Reasoning is treated as a process of considering how some acts of term predication, or drawing distinctions, normatively commit one to making further, analogous predications or drawing further, analogous distinctions. Inference is thus understood as the act of distinguishing something as a certain kind of thing as a result of having distinguished it as similar to a relevant ‘model’ or ‘standard’. The article concludes by summarizing the consequences of the proposed account of early Chinese semantic and logical theories for the interpretation of other areas of classical Chinese thought. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the controversial issue of sense perception in the Zhuangzi 莊子. Although scholars have not explicitly addressed this aspect of the Chinese text, a common assumption is that the Zhuangzi proposes a mysticism that undermines sense perception in favour of a transcendent self. After an overview of this interpretation, and after analysing some key passages of the text that deal with heart fasting (xinzhai 心齋), sitting and forgetting (zuowang 坐忘) and skill mastery, I demonstrate that some (...) interpreters of the Zhuangzi read the text as if it has a metaphysical bent, recommending that sense perception be transcended as a prerequisite to perfection. In contrast, my thesis is that the text does not propose a withdrawal from the senses and from the world, but rather warns about the danger of abiding to doctrinal knowledge, which has the consequence of a person losing their responsive awareness. Indeed, in the Zhuangzi, sense perception is not an impediment on the way to a supersensible reality, but an integral part of one's own being in the world. Through my analysis, I object to the idea that the Zhuangzi proposes a mystical union with something not immediately available, which moreover needs to be achieved by transcending the lived world that is encountered through sense perception. My view is that such a move not only postulates union with a transcendent entity, it also forces a dualism between a person's capacities. This is problematic because the Zhuangzi does not point to another world–in a two worlds theory–where one must ideally attain the condition of a transcendent self. On the contrary, in rejecting a univocal ethos, the text suggests one should keep responding to changing circumstances without turning one's perceptual awareness into entrenched habits. Thus, the Zhuangzi shows how sense perception should be seen, not as a “problem” but as an ethical possibility through which the univocity of doctrinal knowledge can be undermined. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the controversial issue of sense perception in the Zhuangzi 莊子. Although scholars have not explicitly addressed this aspect of the Chinese text, a common assumption is that the Zhuangzi proposes a mysticism that undermines sense perception in favour of a transcendent self. After an overview of this interpretation, and after analysing some key passages of the text that deal with heart fasting (xinzhai 心齋), sitting and forgetting (zuowang 坐忘) and skill mastery, I demonstrate that some (...) interpreters of the Zhuangzi read the text as if it has a metaphysical bent, recommending that sense perception be transcended as a prerequisite to perfection. In contrast, my thesis is that the text does not propose a withdrawal from the senses and from the world, but rather warns about the danger of abiding to doctrinal knowledge, which has the consequence of a person losing their responsive awareness. Indeed, in the Zhuangzi, sense perception is not an impediment on the way to a supersensible reality, but an integral part of one’s own being in the world. Through my analysis, I object to the idea that the Zhuangzi proposes a mystical union with something not immediately available, which moreover needs to be achieved by transcending the lived world that is encountered through sense perception. My view is that such a move not only postulates union with a transcendent entity, it also forces a dualism between a person’s capacities. This is problematic because the Zhuangzi does not point to another world – in a two worlds theory – where one must ideally attain the condition of a transcendent self. On the contrary, in rejecting a univocal ethos, the text suggests one should keep responding to changing circumstances without turning one’s perceptual awareness into entrenched habits. Thus, the Zhuangzi shows how sense perception should be seen, not as a “problem” but as an ethical possibility through which the univocity of doctrinal knowledge can be undermined. (shrink)

This paper examines the elusive concept of Xu in Zhuangzi’s philosophy to find out how specifically Xu addresses relationality through its distinct cultivation of ambiguity in this Daoist philosopher’s theory. The paper chooses liubai and body as two examples to unravel the ways in which the concept of Xu is manifested. Embedded in the meanings of blandness and lack of substance, Xu enlivens change, transformation and process. Evident in liubai, Xu creates a unique ecological space of metamorphosis that nourishes mutual (...) becoming. For Zhuangzi, body is neither understood as the object to be acquired nor as the means to acquire knowledge. Rather, body is a void to become. The political implication of Xu suggests a politics of indeterminacy – an alienation from preordained power structures and a reconstruction of power relations. (shrink)

In Zhuangzi’s 莊子 philosophy, the concept of z_heng_ 正 occupies an important place in realizing the Daoist ideal of “inner sageliness and outward kingliness,” in terms of cultivating oneself and lifting others. However, very few scholars have concentrated on this topic and examined the role it plays in achieving the sagely realm. This article, therefore, is primarily intended to investigate the connotation of _zheng_ from the perspective of “virtuosity” (_de_ 德) and to clarify why this virtuosity can “align other living (...) beings.” First, the meaning of alignment in other living beings is introduced, followed by clarification of “activity of the Heavenly” (_tian xing_ 天行), which is internally based on virtuosity and externally conforms to the “Heavenly Transitions” (_tian ni_ 天倪) as a principle of value. Furthermore, through exploring specific examples in the _Zhuangzi_, I aim to show that the virtuosity of “vacuity and stillness” (_xu jing_ 虛静) and its manifestation as “activity of the Heavenly,” in reality, have a marvelous effect in transforming the evil component. (shrink)

1. It is common knowledge among scholars who are familiar with the Zhuangzi that Guo Xiang’s 郭象Commentary (henceforth the Commentary)1 written in the Xuanxue 玄學 era exerts tremendous influence on e...

Democratic deliberation has an inherent tension between self-government and good government. It grants democratic politics a legitimacy which depends on its responsiveness to the collective opinion of the members of a political community, while it also seeks good decisions, the justification of which adheres to an ideal of right action beyond the opinion of the majority. In this regard, Philip Pettit proposes liberty as non-domination as a regulative ideal that guides democratic deliberation for self-government without jettisoning the ideal of good (...) government. His republican theory of democratic deliberation is worthy of our consideration in the sense that without endorsing either any pre-existing commonality in a society or a set of inalienable individual rights, it successfully justifies the imposition of external premises in democratic deliberation. However, his theory of democratic deliberation still falls prey to charges of having an anti-self-government tendency, particularly when civil contention between individuals or groups is driven by contrasting views of liberty as non-domination. Based on this observation, in this paper, supplementing his consequentialism with the Daoist practices of becoming ‘nothingness’, I will suggest the ethics of ‘difference’ as an additional regulative principle that helps better steer democratic deliberation toward the premise of liberty as non-domination. (shrink)