The Zhuangzi, a 4th century BCE Chinese text, is optimistic about life unrestrained by entrenched values. This paper contributes to existing debates on Zhuangzian freedom in three ways. First, it reflects on how it is possible to enjoy the freedom envisaged in the Zhuangzi. Many discussions welcome the Zhuangzi’s picture of release from life shaped by canonical visions, without also giving thought to life without these driving visions. Consider this scenario: in a world with limitless possibilities, would it not be (...) fraught, not knowing how to interpret situations? I suggest that freedom in the Zhuangzi is possible only if one succeeds in reorienting herself to the new ‘normal’. Second, I introduce and develop the idea of working with constraints. This focuses on an agent's maximizing the fit between relevant conditions, on the one hand, and their capabilities, on the other. Finally, I propose that self-directed practice, an important expression of agency, is required for building capabilities that enable such freedom. I examine the idea of risk involved in these firsthand experiences, articulating an account of agency that sits at the heart of hard-won Zhuangzian freedom. (shrink)

This book review symposium aims to open a space for discussions and questions responded to the book Education between Speech and Writing: Crossing the Boundaries of Dao and Deconstruction, which is...

The argument is that (1) the spiritual crisis that Zhu Xi discussed with Zhang Shi 張栻 (1133–1180) and the other “gentlemen of Hunan” from about 1167 to 1169, which was resolved by an understanding of what we might call the interpenetration of the mind’s stillness and activity (dong-jing 動靜) or equilibrium and harmony (zhong-he 中和), (2) led directly to his realization that Zhou Dunyi’s thought provided a cosmological basis for that resolution, and (3) this in turn led Zhu Xi to (...) understand (or construct) the meaning of taiji in terms of the polarity of yin and yang; i.e. the Supreme Polarity as the most fundamental ordering principle (li 理). (shrink)

In this chapter, I explicate several general views and arguments that bear on the notion and contemporary theories of human welfare, as found in two foundational Daoist texts, the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi. Ideas drawn from the Daodejing include its objections to desire theories of human welfare and its distinction between natural and acquired desires. Insights drawn from the Zhuangzi include its arguments against the view that death is bad for the dead, its attempt to develop a workable theory of (...) well-being for those who are skeptical about such theories, and the prudential benefits of what I call "philosophical double-vision.". (shrink)

Three views of psychological emptiness, or xū, can be found in the Zhuāngzĭ. The instrumental view values xū primarily as a means of efficacious action. The moderate view assigns it intrinsic value as an element of one Zhuangist vision of the good life. The radical view also takes it to be an element of the ideal life, but in this case the form of life advocated is that of the Daoist sage, who transcends mundane human concerns to merge with nature (...) or the Dào. The instrumental and moderate views articulate a relatively commonsensical position, on which the agent continues to pursue at least some characteristically human projects. On the radical view, by contrast, the agent ceases to exercise agency and lives a life hardly recognizable as human. The three views thus signal a tension in Zhuangist ethics, and the unattractiveness of the radical view poses a potential obstacle to the application of Daoist ideas in contemporary ethical discourse. The paper argues that there are principled grounds within Zhuangist thought for detaching the instrumental and moderate views from the radical view and rejecting the latter. (shrink)

This paper challenges the view that contentment leads to personal freedom and autonomy and argues for a relational and exercise concept of de facto freedom in the Zhuangzi 莊子. I first review influential interpretations of freedom in the Zhuangzi that equate freedom with contentment and nonfrustration, starting with Guo Xiang's 郭象 (d. 312 CE). By putting these interpretations in dialog with contemporary social philosophy (Christman, Meyers, Pettit, Elster, and Khader), I reflect on the two seminal problems of the psychologizing causal (...) and procedural approaches that allow the interpretation of freedom as contentment: the “happy slave” problem and the “sour grapes” problem. Proving this account of freedom inadequate, I argue for a different interpretation of freedom in the Zhuangzi that resembles a weakly substantive and constitutive account of freedom and autonomy in modern‐day social philosophy terms, such as Marina Oshana's. The theory of freedom that I analyze in the Zhuangzi, however, helps us correct the risk of material determinism of the constitutive account, offering a description of relational freedom and autonomy as constituted by socio‐material conditions but not determined by them. (shrink)

The purpose here is to explore metaphorical conceptions of the self in a fourth century B.C.E. Chinese text, the Zhuangzi, from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and the contemporary theory of metaphor. It is argued that the contemporary theory of metaphor provides scholars with an exciting new theoretical grounding for the study of comparative thought, as well as a concrete methodology for undertaking the comparative project. What is seen when the Zhuangzi is examined from the perspective of metaphor theory is (...) that conceptions of the self portrayed in this text are based on a relatively small set of interrelated conceptual metaphors, and that the metaphysics built into the Zhuangzi's classical Chinese metaphors resonates strongly with the (mostly unconscious) metaphysical assumptions built into the metaphors of modern American English. This should not be surprising, considering the claims of contemporary cognitive linguists that the metaphoric schemas making up the foundation of human abstract conceptual life are not arbitrarily created ex nihilo, but rather emerge from common embodied experience and are conceptual, rather than merely linguistic, in nature. (shrink)

In this expansive and highly original two-volume work, Jim Behuniak reformulates John Dewey's late-period "Cultural turn" and proposes that its next logical step is an "intra-Cultural philosophy" that goes beyond what is commonly known as "comparative philosophy." Each volume models itself on this new approach, arguing that early Chinese thought is poised to join forces with Dewey in meeting an urgent cultural need: namely, helping the Western tradition to correct its outdated Greek-medieval assumptions, especially where these result in pre-Darwinian inferences (...) about the world. Relying on the latest findings in Chinese philosophy, these volumes establish "specific philosophical relationships" between Dewey's ideas and early Chinese thought for this purpose, showing how together they can assist us in getting our thinking "back in gear" with the world as it is currently known through the biological, physical, and cognitive sciences. Volume One: Dao and Nature engages Dewey with themes generally associated with "Daoism," and includes discussion of the organization of organic form, teleology, cosmology, knowledge, the body, and technology. Volume One thus works to establish "Chinese natural philosophy" as an empirical framework in which to consider the cultural-level phenomena examined in Volume Two: Dao and Culture. (shrink)

Discusses the conditions of possibility for intercultural and comparative philosophy, and for crosscultural communication at large. This innovative book explores the preconditions necessary for intercultural and comparative philosophy. Philosophical practices that involve at least two different traditions with no common heritage and whose languages have very different grammatical structure, such as Indo-Germanic languages and classical Chinese, are a particular focus. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel look at the necessary and not-so-necessary conditions of possibility of interpretation, comparison, and other forms (...) of interaction and how we can speak of similarities and differences in this context. The authors posit that it is necessary to dissolve the question of universalism versus relativism by replacing the ideal language paradigm with a paradigm of family resemblances and that it is not necessary to share a common language to engage in comparison. Numerous case studies are presented, including many comparisons of Western and Chinese concepts. (shrink)

This article is one of the author’s serial writings to assimilate Ricoeur’s three-fold ethical investigation into various areas of human acts of forgetting, including 1) the therapeutic or pathological area, 2) the pragmatic area, dealing with individual and group’s self-identity in relation to time and otherness, and 3) the more explicitly ethical-political (social and institutional) area, in a wide context. Corresponding to the second area of the Ricoeurian three-fold investigation, this paper probes the ethical dimension of the Zhuangzian forgetfulness of (...) personal identity in relation to time and otherness. It first examines textual materials of the Zhuangzi to navigate on the narrative meanings of forgetting oneself or personal identity, and then delves into three domains of Zhuangzian conception on the forgetting of one’s fixed identity. Finally, it elaborates on the Zhuangzian notion of relational autonomy or agency that underlies the practice of forgetfulness of oneself or personal identity. (shrink)

In this paper we extend Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance to translation, interpretation, and comparison across traditions. There is no need for universals. This holds for everyday concepts such as green and qing 青, philosophical concepts such as emotion and qing 情, as well as philosophical categories such as form of life and dao 道. These notions as well as all other concepts from whatever tradition are family resemblance concepts. We introduce the notion of quasi-universal, which connects family resemblance concepts (...) from a limited number of traditions. The possibility and necessity of extending family resemblance concepts across traditions dissolves the false antinomy of universalism versus relativism. (shrink)

The issue of human nature or xing 性 was a major philosophical topic of the mid- and late-Warring States period of ancient China. It was famously discussed, for example, in the Mencius. Zhuangzi 莊子 lived around the same time as Mencius and one might expect that he, too, would have discussed it. Surprisingly, the term xing is absent from the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi. There have been different responses to this, namely, that Zhuangzi: used different terms equivalent to xing; (...) believed that human nature is bad (despite not mentioning xing); was deliberately silent on xing as an oblique way of criticizing others such as Mencius. I review these claims and provide an analysis of how xing was mainly conceptualized during the Warring States period in essentialist terms. I shall read Zhuangzi’s philosophy as transcending this conceptual framework. Instead of a theory of human nature, Zhuangzi provides stories and descriptions of the different facets of human behavior and their psychological and other complexities. These often have an epistemic focus that stand independently of any theory of human nature. (shrink)

In this article, I will look into the Zhuangist views on emotions. I will argue that the psychological state of the Zhuangist wise person is characterized by emotional equanimity accompanied by a general sense of calmness, ease, and joy. This psychological state is constitutive of and instrumental to leading a good life, one in which one wanders the world and explores the plurality of daos. To do so, I will first provide an overview of the scholarly debate on this issue (...) and unveil the disconcerting disagreement that underlies it. Then, I will survey some passages in the Zhuangzi and sketch my interpretation of the Zhuangist views on emotions. Next, I will examine the theoretical foundation for this interpretation by referencing the Zhuangist pluralism and their conception of the good life. Finally, I will look into some potential objections to the Zhuangist views on emotions and attempt responses to them. (shrink)

This article is one of the author’s serial writings to assimilate Ricoeur’s three-fold ethical investigation into various areas of human acts of forgetting, including 1) the therapeutic or patholog...

This paper discusses certain conceptual tensions in a set of archeological texts from the Warring States period, the Guodian corpus. One of the central themes of the Guodian corpus is the disanalogy between spontaneous, natural familial relationships and artificial political relationships. This is problematic because, like many early Chinese texts, the Guodian corpus believes that political relationships must come to be characterized by unselfconsciousness and spontaneity if social order is to prevail. This tension will be compared to my earlier work (...) on the “paradox of wu-wei (effortless action),” and the Guodian corpus’ “solution” to the problem of teaching spontaneity—drawing upon the transformative power of music—will be placed within the landscape of early “Confucian” and “Daoist” theories concerning human nature and self-cultivation. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's later philosophy and the doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism integral to Zen coincide in a fundamental aspect: for Wittgenstein language has, one might say, a mystical base; and this base is exactly the Buddhist ideal of acting with a mind empty of thought. My aim is to establish and explore this phenomenon. The result should be both a deeper understanding of Wittgenstein and the removal of a philosophical objection to Zen that has troubled some people.

This essay will examine scholarly attempts at distilling a proto-ethical philosophy from the Daoist classic known as the Zhuangzi. In opposition to interpretations of the text which characterize it as amoralistic, I will identify elements of a natural normativity in the Zhuangzi. My examination features passages from the Zhuangzi – commonly known as the “knack” passages – which are often interpreted through some sort of linguistic, skeptical, or relativistic lens. Contra such readings, I believe the Zhuangzi prescribes an art of (...) living – or shù [術] – which incorporates a few motifs familiar to certain threads of philosophical naturalism. Building on existing scholarship which treats of the praxeology of the text, I argue that the naturalist themes present in the Zhuangzi support an unusual, but robust, view of moral expertise. (shrink)

Based on the analysis of Zhuangzi, this paper attempts to illustrate the positive aspects of Zhuangzi’s idea concerning contented acceptance of fate, whi...

This paper explores the concept of skill in Zhuangzi and Stoicism, and argues that the role of the Stoic techne in practicing the art of living can be better understood if we introduce some perspec...

The significant role of skill in Zhuangzi’s good life has been argued by most Zhuangzi scholars. However, there is ongoing debate concerning the psychological and behavioral mechanisms that underwr...

You 遊 is a crucial term for understanding the Zhuangzi . Translated as “play,” “free play,” and “wandering,” it is usually defined as an ideal, playful Zhuangzian way of being. There are two problems with this definition. The first is logical: the Zhuangzi cannot consistently recommend playfulness as an ideal, since doing so vitiates the essence of you —it becomes an ethical imperative instead of an activity freely undertaken for its own sake. The second problem is performative: arguments for playful (...) Zhuangzi as exemplar resemble those of the logicians and philosophers who appear to come in for Zhuangzian criticism. This essay addresses these tensions by demonstrating how the Zhuangzi ambiguates the nature and value of you . Apparent endorsements of you are not freestanding, instead occurring in grudging replies of teachers to overly zealous students. In light of this recontextualization, a new version of you is offered that accommodates “non-playful” ways of being. (shrink)

The moral commonly drawn from Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream is that there is no distinction between the subjectivity of the dreamer and the awake. It is, however, tenuous to incorporate this insight into an overall view of Zhuangzi, whether as a perspectival relativist, a mystic, or an anti-rationalist, just to name the more popular positions. The parable, despite its brevity and clarity, is difficult because the assertion about metaphysical distinction in the last two lines does not cohere with the preceding text (...) about knowledge. To cope with this problem, there are recent interpretations that advocate textual revision or adumbrate a non-skeptical Zhuangzi. In this article, I shall evaluate these strategies and explain the discrepancy in understanding the butterfly dream. Besides employing the concept of self-locating belief to account for the paradox of waking and not-knowing, I shall also argue for an epistemic grounding of the metaphysical distinction. (shrink)

We argue that the common attribution to Zhuangzi of both perspectivalism or relativism on the one hand, and scepticism on the other is fundamentally mistaken. While granting that it is reasonable to construe Zhuangzi as offering a perspectiva! position on judgement, we argue that Zhuangzi's perspectivalism does not commit him to a relativist position on truth or to scepticism about human knowledge. Rather, we maintain that Zhuangzi's attacks on the concepts of truth and knowledge are better seen as his articulation (...) of a species of epistemological nihilism which rejects, as ultimately meaningless, the concepts of truth, reality, and knowledge. (shrink)

Where Western philosophy ends, with the limits of language, marks the beginning of Eastern philosophy. The Tao de jing of Laozi begins with the limitations of language and then proceeds from that as a starting point. On the other hand, the limitation of language marks the end of Wittgenstein's cogitations. In contrast to Wittgenstein, who thought that one should remain silent about that which cannot be put into words, the message of the Zhuangzi is that one can speak about that (...) which cannot put into words but the speech will be strange and indirect. Through the focus on the monstrous character, No-Lips in the Zhuangzi, this paper argues that a key message of the Zhuangzi is that the art of transcending language in the Zhuangzi is through the use of crippled speech. The metaphor of crippled speech, speech which is actually unheard, illustrates that philosophical truths cannot be put into words but can be indirectly signified through the art of stretching language beyond its normal contours. This allows Eastern philosophy, through the philosophy of the Zhuangzi to transcend the limits of language. (shrink)

What is the viewpoint regarding the emotional lives of sages in the Zhuangzi 莊子? There are two conflicting positions in current scholarship: sages have emotions, and sages are without emotions. In this essay, we introduce these positions with their corresponding textual support and show that they are not satisfactory accounts. Specifically, we point out that the conflict arises as scholars adopt a static model of emotions. Thus, we propose that a better way to understand the emotional lives of sages is (...) to adopt a dynamic model of emotions characterized by the process of forgetting. Through the discussion of such a dynamic process, we show how conflicting textual evidence can be integrated into this dynamic process and, at the same time, be read consistently. Ultimately, we argue that the ideal emotional lives of sages in the Zhuangzi adopt a dynamic model of emotions characterized by the vacillation of activity of the mind between the state with and without emotions. (shrink)

The Mencius contains several negative remarks about the Mohists and their doctrine of ‘universal love’ (jian’ai). However, little attention has been paid to whether Mencius’ descriptions of Mohism were accurate. Fortunately, there is a surviving record of the beliefs of Mozi in the text that bears his name. In this essay, I analyze this text and descriptions of Mohism from other early Chinese texts, and compare them to the criticisms of Mohism in the Mencius. Ultimately, I show that the image (...) of the Mohists as ones who promoted a doctrine that contradicted filial piety was inaccurate, and obscured the complexities of filial piety in the Warring States period. (shrink)

Critical readers can reasonably judge Zhuangzi’s 莊子 notion of wuwei 無爲 to offer a persuasive reply to Xunzi’s objection to Zhuangzi’s emphasis on living naturally, in light of recent theories of action. For Zhuangzi, self-cultivation is possible only when individuals attune themselves to the processes inherent in nature . Daoist wuwei depends crucially on two descriptive claims that Zhuangzi endorses and Xunzi rejects. The first claim, backed by Dreyfus’ theory of skill acquisition, is that views of self-cultivation which rely on (...) formulas and concepts stand opposed to the Way. The second claim, supported by Elster and Csikszentmihalyi’s theories of action, is that conscious deliberation is unable to facilitate self-cultivation. Zhuangzi’s normative vision requires that individuals indirectly create conditions for spontaneity, rather than pursue spontaneity directly, since any deliberate attempt at being spontaneous is self-defeating. (shrink)

Emotion is an essential component of human nature, and therefore it is necessary to explore the issue of a desirable emotional state if we want to properly discuss human well-being. This article examines the issue by advocating a new understanding of the Zhuangzi’s 莊子 ideas on emotion. In terms of the Zhuangzi’s ideas on the desirable emotional state, scholars have presented various interpretations to date, even arguing that the ideas themselves are mutually contradictory or inconsistent. This article shows that the (...) Zhuangzi’s ideas about emotions are in fact consistent by dividing emotions into two types: “conventional knowledge-dependent emotions” and “true knowledge-dependent emotions.” It then examines the characteristics of a desirable emotional state and the conditions necessary to reach it and explores the implications of the Zhuangzi’s ideas for discussions on well-being in modern times. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the ‘Cook Ding cutting up an ox’ parable, Zhuangzi advanced a doctrine on craft and its relationship with Dao. With reference to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy in conjunction with an analysis of Zhuangzi’s epistemological position, we argue that Zhuangzi understood craft as involving the supersession of the cognitive. In craft, the relationship between human and world is non-cognitive and ‘pre-objective’, the living of this kind of relationship gives rise to a non-cognitive ‘practical sense’ which enables the craftsman’s movements to spontaneously (...) constitute wuwei. Zhuangzi’s ideal is that this kind of relationship is generalized to life as a whole, thereby enabling human actions to spontaneously constitute wuwei generally. This is why he stipulated ‘doing away with knowing’ as a self-cultivation technique required for attaining Dao. Thus, craft constitutes an embodiment of Dao in the double-sense of wuwei and the non-cognitive and ‘pre-objective’ relationship between human and world which enables wuwei. (shrink)

This essay considers P. J. Ivanhoe's critical challenge to Slingerland's analysis of wuwei(‘effortless action’). While I agree with Ivanhoe that we should do more work to embody and understand the concept of wuwei, I will defend Slingerland's notion that wuwei involves paradox—particularly in the cases of Zhuangi and Laozi. The present essay is not a defense of the specifics of Slingerland's analysis. Nonetheless, this essay focuses on defending the notion of paradox. Ivanhoe offers an alternative view of wuwei, one that (...) sees the paradox as a riddle. I argue that this kind of formulation would frame the problem of wuwei in an unhelpful manner. I offer several novel ways of overcoming, or at least qualifying, the experience of paradox that seems to be at play in nondoing. (shrink)

In this article we focus on the famous dialogue between Zhuangzi 莊子 and Huizi 惠子 concerning the question whether or not ren 人 (in particular the shengren 聖人) have qing 情. Most scholars have understood qing in this exchange as referring to “feelings” or “emotions.” We take issue with such readings. First, we demonstrate that, while Huizi probably understands qing as something like feelings or emotions, Zhuangzi’s view is that having qing is connected with making shifei 是非 judgments whereas having (...) no qing means that shifei has no grip on those ren, especially the shengren. What follows is that the expression wuqing 無情 should not be identified as a “doctrine of nonemotion.” Instead, wuqing implies that Zhuangzi advises us to lead a life of tranquility, calmness, and stillness. We show that these peaceful attitudes are associated with the idea of wuwei 無為 in the Zhuangzi. (shrink)

There is a tendency in academia to read early Chinese masters as consistent philosophers. This is to some extent caused by the specific form in which these masters have been studied and taught for more than a century. Convinced of the influence that the form of transmission has on the content, this article studies the more fragmented parts of the book Zhuangzi—instruction scenes or dialogues—and more specifically their formal traits rather than the philosophical content conveyed in them. The focus is (...) on one fragment in Chapter 7 which portrays Liezi, a shaman and Master Calabash. The persons and stages of the instructions scenes in the Zhuangzi seem to promote a non-teaching, in which the learner learns while the teacher does not teach. The non-availability of the teacher and his unwillingness to teach are, paradoxically, at the core of the teaching, although not presented as a valuable alternative. (shrink)

This article introduces and analyses the debate between Mencius and Xunzi on xing 性. While Mencius claims that xing is good, Xunzi claims that xing is bad. A common way of interpreting these two different claims is to determine the scope of xing. It is generally agreed that, for Mencius, it is the heart/mind that falls within the scope of xing, for Xunzi, the sensory desires. This article also explores a different way of approaching Mencius's and Xunzi's different claims about (...) xing. It is suggested that Mencius's and Xunzi's different views on xing can be understood in terms of their different views on the heart/mind. While Mencius thinks that the heart/mind has a morally good natural tendency, Xunzi thinks that the heart/mind has a morally problematic tendency. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article engages with a recent view that the Daoist Classic Zhuangzi advances an alternative to the Confucian role-ethics. According to this view, Zhuangzi opposes the Confucian idea that we should play our social roles with sincerity and instead argues that we should take the liberty to detach ourselves from the roles we play and ‘pretend’ them. It is argued in this article that Zhuangzi’s ideal of role-playing is based neither on sincerity nor on pretense. Instead, it is akin to (...) the excellence of theatre actors when they enact a role: they are able, for a limited time, to restructure their personality into a particular role, but de-structure it again when the performance is over. The prerequisite for this ability is to keep one’s self fundamentally unstructured, or, as Zhuangzi puts it, ‘empty’. This reading of Zhuangzian role-playing provides a fresh perspectives on ‘playing’ or ‘rambling’ as the central philosophical concept in the Zhuangzi. (shrink)

This article explores the pedagogical implications of John Dewey’s claim that his definition of experience is shared by Daoists. It compares characteristics of experience with those in Daoism, and then considers the similarities and differences between key cultivation practices each proposes, focusing on the roles of the teacher and sage. My main reference to Daoism is the translation of the Daodejing by Roger Ames and David Hall, who use Dewey’s conception of experience to explain the character of Daoism. There are (...) two facts that Dewey chooses to define experience and link with Daoism—what it is not, and what it is. Comparisons of these facts with Daoism support Dewey’s claim: both define the ‘what is’ as the principle of unity of opposites. While sharing this view, their proposals for its cultivation reveal similarities, but also some significant differences. The Daodejing gives the Daoist sage a major role to play in the cultivation process of other persons, as does Dewey for the teacher. However, unlike Dewey’s teacher who guides the process, the sage is to create a cultivating environment, thus allowing the sage to ‘let go.’ The Daoist practices offer new ideas to consider in the quest for experience in lessons. (shrink)

Both Confucius and Gandhi were fervent political reformers and this paper argues that their views of human nature and the self-society-world relationship are instructively similar. Gandhi never accepted Shankara's doctrine of.

This essay considers how the Zhuangzi 莊子 sheds light on a new direction to the contemporary discussion of desires. Harry Frankfurt proposes an account of personhood based on a hierarchy of desires. He defines a wanton as a being that does not have second-order volitions, the desires that a certain desire of action becomes her will. J. David Velleman proposes, in the context of the Zhuangzi, that when a Daoist sage performs her skills she can be regarded as a “higher” (...) wanton because her actions are spontaneous flows of skillful actions. In this essay, I propose along the line of Velleman a constructive interpretation of the Zhuangzian way to deal with desires from my reading of the Zhuangzi. I argue that there are two roles a Daoist sage can play: the observer and the performer. A Daoist sage can be an observer at a certain time and a performer at other times. Although a performer can be regarded as a higher wanton, it is inappropriate to regard an observer as a wanton. Also, I propose that observation is a means to transform desires—once the practitioner achieves high spirituality, one does not need to possess second-order volitions because one’s first-order desires are transformed such that they are in accordance with the Dao 道. (shrink)

This chapter argues that ZHU Xi was influenced by Daoism. His philosophy begins with the Diagram of the Great Polarity or Taijitu 太極圖 which has Daoist origins. Later in life he studied two Daoist texts, namely, The Seal of the Unity of the Three in the Zhou Book of Changes or the Zhouyi Cantongqi 周易參同契, and The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of the Secret Talisman or the Huangdi Yinfujing 黃帝陰符經. The chapter begins with a discussion about the nature of Daoism and (...) inner meditative alchemy. Then I discuss the Diagram of the Great Polarity. Finally, ZHU Xi’s study of the above two texts is analyzed. (shrink)

Although being widely considered as only a Western tradition, individualism is not absent in traditional Chinese philosophy and culture. In some of the classic Chinese philosophic works such as Zhuangzi, we can clearly identify some elements which can be appropriately attributed to “individualism”, such as the awareness of individual “self” as an independent and unique existence, advocating individual freedom and liberty, emphasizing on the value and dignity of individual life, favoring individuals’ autonomy and privacy, pursuing unconstrained development in personality and (...) spirituality. However, due to its particular pre-Qin social cultural background and its unique Daoist philosophic origin, this kind of individualism in Zhuangzi has its own unique characteristics, which has made it distinguishable from the variety of other individualist thoughts emerged in different times and places in the West. Zhuangzi has a dynamic and open view on individual or “self”, he does not consider individuals as fixed and interchangeable “atoms” but as dynamic, changing and unique beings, he set the unlimited and indefinable Dao as the only and ultimate source for individuals to conform to, thus to release individual mind into an realm of infinite openness and freedom. Zhuangzian individualism is “inward” rather than “outward”, which means while concentrating on individuals’ freedom of spirit and innate nature, it cares less about individuals’ outside material interests and rights in social reality, and does not encourage competition and rivalry among individuals. The special type of individualism in Zhuangzi has a profound influence on Chinese culture, providing a spiritual space for the development of individuality and personality in ancient China. It also provides an alternative understanding of individual as an existence. (shrink)

Zhuangzi often is portrayed as a kind of ethical relativist. This popular reading has been challenged by Philip Ivanhoe, who argues that Zhuangzi is not a relativist but rather that Zhuangzi articulates a normative theory of benignity. In this paper we argue against Ivanhoe’s interpretation. We further argue that Zhuangzi is an ethical nihilist, who rejects all ethical positions.

This chapter offers an interpretation of Roger Ames' use of the field-focus ontology, tying the topic to Daoist meditation practices.

The Zhuangzi raises skeptical problems it does not solve. At best, it asserts that solutions are unnecessary but does not prove it. This is not a fault of the text or its author; it is the logical consequence of the arguments themselves. Philosophically speaking, The Zhuangzi raises doubts, nothing more. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, and what we are supposed to do about it, is something we are left to decide for ourselves.

In much of modern scholarship, the notion of datong 大通 in Zhuangzi’s famous zuowang 坐忘 (sitting in disregard) passage is often interpreted as either Dao or a mental/spiritual state of an ideal person, a person who has obtained Dao. In either case, however, the association between datong and such interpretation lacks detailed justification resulting from an insufficiently understood relation between datong and its immediately preceding statements. Different from the more common readings, I propose a cognitive approach based on an image (...) schema related to non-obstruction. In order to demonstrate the philosophical importance of this schema, I will first briefly point out the problems of previous scholarship regarding the zuowang passage. Second, I will introduce the image schema related to non-obstruction based on a number of examples taken from the Zhuangzi. Finally, I will apply this methodology and introduce a cognitive experience-based interpretation of the zuowang passage. (shrink)

Early Chinese argumentative texts are full of historical anecdotes. These short accounts of events in Chinese history enhance the appeal of the text, but they also have an important rhetorical function in helping the reader understand, accept, and remember the arguments propounded in the text. In this paper I examine the rhetorical function of historical anecdotes in two argumentative texts of the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE-9 CE): Han’s Illustrations of the Odes for Outsiders and The Master of Huainan. These (...) two texts found creative use for anecdotes, namely as illustrations of quotations from canonical sources. Through case studies of several combinations of anecdotes and quotations, I argue that the combinations serve to present the creators of these texts as beacons of knowledge with profound understanding of historical events and canonical literature, and with the necessary skills to fruitfully combine the two. (shrink)

This article investigates elements of empathy in the Zhuangzi 莊子. It outlines four prominent aspects of current scholarship on empathy: different types of empathy, the other-centeredness of empathy, empathy as a process and the role empathy plays in responsiveness to others, and interaction between empathy and other capacities. Based on materials from the Zhuangzi that involve elements of empathy, I delegate them respectively to these four areas. While the Zhuangzi does not invent any specific term for an exclusive designation of (...) the meaning of empathy, I attempt to show that the Zhuangzi does explore the phenomena of empathy to a great extent. It characterizes unique features of empathy, such as other-centeredness, perceptual directness, its function as listening, mirroring, qi 氣-connecting and receptivity, the issue of how to cultivate one’s empathic capacity in the everyday encounter with others, and especially how empathic capacity works closely with the Zhuangzian forgetfulness of oneself. (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)

Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream story can be read as a skeptical response to the Cartesian Cogito, ergo sum solution, for it presents I exist as fundamentally unprovable, on the grounds that the notion about “I” that it is guaranteed to refer to something existing, which Descartes seems to assume, is unwarranted. The modern anti-skepticism of Hilary Putnam employs a different strategy, which seeks to derive the existence of the world not from some “indubitable” truth such as the existence of myself , (...) but from the meaning of some particular assertion I make. In this paper, I argue, however, that Putnam’s argument fails to deliver on the promise of showing the self-refuting nature of the skeptical hypothesis, as it relies on a double use of “I”, a fallacy of equivocation, reflecting an unsolved tension between the argument’s general premise, which is rather Zhuangzian in spirit, and his unwitting adoption of that unwarranted notion about “I”. I try to show further that the skepticism in Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream not only can be used to refute the proofs of the existence of the empirical I , but also is effective against accounts concerning the existence of the transcendental I. (shrink)

This paper will compare the concept of nature as it appears in the philosophies of the American pragmatist John Dewey and the Chinese text known as the Zhuangzi, with an aim towards mapping out a heuristic program which might be used to correct various interpretive difficulties in reading each figure. I shall argue that Dewey and Zhuangzi both held more complex and comprehensive philosophies of nature than for which either is typically credited. Such a view of nature turns on the (...) notion of continuity, particularly that between an experiencing organism [Dewey’s “live creature”] and the conditioning environment [Zhuangzi’s “crooked tree”]. Where Dewey’s and Zhuangzi’s ideas about nature converge, one finds similarities in prescriptions made for human action, and in the few places where they differ, one finds mutually complementary insights. (shrink)