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Genuine pretending: on the philosophy of the Zhuangzi

New York: Columbia University Press. Edited by Paul J. D'Ambrosio (2017)

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  1. Against Individualism and Comparing the Philosophies of Rosemont and Sandel.Paul J. D'Ambrosio - 2016 - Comparative and Continental Philosophy 8 (2):224-235.
    Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion presents Henry Rosemont’s reflection on possible Confucian-based avenues for considering solutions to contemporary moral, political, and spiritual problems. Rosemont contends that the ideologies of capitalist economies, which are based largely on competition, and belief in autonomous individuality, including abstract notions of human rights, are fundamentally unable to deal effectively with many of today’s most pressing issues. For example, he argues against appealing to universalist principles in an (...)
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  • The Phenomenology of Spirit and the Daoist Sage.Paul J. D’Ambrosio - 2017 - Comparative and Continental Philosophy 9 (3):202-217.
    In the Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel describes a mode of consciousness that is analogous to that of the sage in the Zhuangzi. He labels this “Evil Consciousness.” One of the more important phases of Spirit that leads up to this stage also resonates similarities, namely the “pure I” which Hegel modeled on Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew. In what follows we will first look at the “pure I” before moving to the evil consciousness and making a comparison with the Daoist sage. By (...)
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  • Kill Stories: A Critical Narrative Genre in the Zhuangzi.Hans-Georg Moeller - 2023 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 22 (3):397-412.
    This essay suggests that a narrative genre of “kill stories” has a prominent philosophical function in the Zhuangzi 莊子. Kill stories depict the domestication and disciplining of “wild” living beings eventually resulting in their death. They typically show an incongruity between the moral attitude of the perpetrators and their destructive deeds. Thereby, they illustrate a critique of a broader sociopolitical “master narrative” associated with the Confucian tradition that had a strong impact on ideology and ethical values in early China. In (...)
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  • Non-humans in the Zhuangzi: Animalism and anti-anthropocentrism.Paul J. D’Ambrosio - 2021 - Asian Philosophy 32 (1):1-18.
    Some argue that animals and non-human figures in the Zhuangzi help displace the significance of humans. According to others the Zhuangzi suggests a certain time of ‘animalism,’ asking us to be more...
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  • Genealogy as Meditation and Adaptation with the Han Feizi.Lee Wilson - 2022 - The Monist 105 (4):452-469.
    This paper focuses on an early Chinese conception of genealogical argumentation in the late Warring States text Han Feizi and a possible response it has to the problem of genealogical self-defeat as identified by Amia Srinivasan —i.e., the genealogist cannot seem to support their argument with premises their interlocutor or they themselves can accept, given their own argument. The paper offers a reading of Han Fei’s genealogical method that traces back to the meditative practice of an earlier Daoist text the (...)
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  • Enacting education.Mog Stapleton - 2020 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 20 (5):887-913.
    Education can transform our cognitive world. Recent use of enactivist and enactivist-friendly work to propose understanding transformational learning in terms of affective reframing is a promising first step to understanding how we can have or inculcate transformational learning in different ways without relying on meta-cognition. Building on this work, I argue that to fully capture the kind of perspectival changes that occur in transformational learning we need to further distinguish between ways of reorienting one’s perspective, and I specify why different (...)
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  • Non-humans in the Zhuangzi: Animalism and anti-anthropocentrism.Paul J. D’Ambrosio - 2022 - Asian Philosophy 32 (1):1-18.
    Some argue that animals and non-human figures in the Zhuangzi help displace the significance of humans. According to others the Zhuangzi suggests a certain time of ‘animalism,’ asking us to be more like various types of fauna and flora that do not share our self-centeredness. In this paper the use of non-human characters in the Zhuangzi will be examined through a survey of traditional Chinese commentary, comparisons with the Lunyu, and placing the use of non-human characters within the larger context (...)
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  • Indeterminate self: Subjectivity, body and politics in Zhuangzi.Peng Yu - 2020 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 46 (3):342-366.
    In this article, I re-examine political subjectivity by way of looking at the canonical text of Chinese Daoist philosophy – Zhuangzi. I trace the course of how the body is conceived in Zhuangzi and discuss its relation with the unmaking of personhood. I then look into ways in which the body–self nexus in Zhuangzi gives rise to new conceptualization of political relations. I argue that, in Zhuangzi, the body is conceived as spontaneous and dispossessed. The body as such foregrounds the (...)
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  • Sincerity, authenticity and profilicity: Notes on the problem, a vocabulary and a history of identity.Hans-Georg Moeller & Paul J. D’Ambrosio - 2019 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 45 (5):575-596.
    This essay attempts to provide a preliminary outline of a theory of identity. The first section addresses what the sociologist Niklas Luhmann has called ‘the problem of identity’, or, in other words, the mind–society (rather than the mind–body) problem: In how far can the internal (psychological) self and the external (social) persona be integrated into a unit? The second section of the essay briefly defines a basic vocabulary of a theory of identity. ‘Identity’ is understood as the existentially necessary formation (...)
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  • Moments of identity: dynamics of artist, persona, and audience in electronic music.Giovanni Formilan & David Stark - 2023 - Theory and Society 52 (1):35-64.
    In our account of artistic identities among electronic music artists, we point to the notion of persona as a key element in a triadic framework for studying the dynamics of identity. Building on pragmatist theory, we further draw on Pizzorno’s concept of mask and Luhmann’s notion of second-order observation to highlight the dual properties of persona: whether like a mask that is put on or like a probe that is put out, persona is a part that stands apart. Persona is (...)
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  • Freedom and agency in the Zhuangzi: navigating life’s constraints.Karyn Lai - 2021 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 30 (1):3-23.
    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 (...)
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  • On second-order observation and genuine pretending: Coming to terms with society.Hans-Georg Moeller - 2017 - Thesis Eleven 143 (1):28-43.
    This paper discusses the meaning of the concept of ‘second-order observation’ used by Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann identifies second-order observation as a defining characteristic of modern world society. According to Luhmann, all social systems construct a social reality on the basis of the observation of observations. Rating agencies in the economy or the peer-review process in the academic system are examples of social mechanisms manifesting second-order observation. Social media also represent organized second-order observation. The paper suggests that in a society based (...)
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  • Origins of moral-political philosophy in early China: contestation of humaneness, justice, and personal freedom. [REVIEW]Shoufu Yin - 2022 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 30 (6):1146-1149.
    In this very important book, Tao Jiang provides a dynamic model of the development of moral-political philosophy in early China (ca. 551–221 BCE), which embodies a new approach to thinking about fr...
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  • Reading the Zhuangzi playfully: Stepping back from ‘Ancient Chinese Wisdom’.Paul J. D’Ambrosio - 2020 - Asian Philosophy 30 (3):214-229.
    Playfulness and humor are often recognized as key components of the Zhuangzi. Despite this, the text itself is rarely read in a playful or humorous manner. It is commonly treated, even in its most...
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  • Confucianism and Daoism: On the relationship between the Analects_, _Laozi_, and _Zhuangzi, Part I.Paul J. D'Ambrosio - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (9):1-11.
    The Lunyu 論語 (Analects of Confucius), Daodejing 道德經 (Classic of the Way and Virtuosity) or Laozi 老子 (Book of Master Lao), and the Zhuangzi 莊子 (Book of Master Zhuang) have been broadly classified as representative of Confucianism (Lunyu) and Daoism (Laozi and Zhuangzi). This loose grouping, and the similarities and differences associated with these “schools” include some of the most telling and simultaneously misleading generalizations about Chinese philosophy or thought in general. These articles seek to provide an overview of the (...)
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  • Imagination in the Zhuangzi: the madman of Chu’s alternative to Confucian cultivation.Paul J. D’Ambrosio - 2017 - Asian Philosophy 27 (1):30-42.
    This paper examines the role of the imagination in the Zhuangzi. There are many avenues through which the various types of imaginations in the Zhuangzi could be investigated, but this paper will concentrate on only one, namely the use of imagination to criticize Confucius’ way. Specifically, the Zhuangzi finds Confucius’ views on virtuosity, moral cultivation, and social roles to include exceedingly limited imagined restrictions. The Daoist classic thereby creates stories to inspire the imagination of its readers, with the goal of (...)
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  • Unmaking Roles in the Zhuangzi: Performances of Compliance, Defiance, and the In-Between.Sonya N. Özbey - 2024 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 23 (2):265-282.
    Many different and contradictory claims have been made about the political dimensions (or lack thereof) of the ancient Chinese text known as the Zhuangzi 莊子. The two main positions on this topic set the parameters of the debate. One interprets the Zhuangzi to be apathetic toward political participation, focusing on individual survival instead. The other emphasizes the text’s defiant streak and locates a deliberately subversive force within it. A third position redirects the focus of the debate to an important aspect (...)
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  • The Zhuangzi on Coping with Society.Paul J. D’Ambrosio - 2020 - Journal of Religious Ethics 48 (3):474-497.
    Stories in the Zhuangzi detailing expert artisans and other extraordinary people are often read as celebrations of “skills” or “knacks.” In this paper, I will argue that they would be more accurately understood as “coping” stories. Taken as a celebration of one’s “skill” or “knack” they transform the Zhuangzi into an implicit advocate of conforming to, or even identifying with, one’s social roles. I will argue that the stories of artisans and extraordinarily skilled people are less about cultivating one’s talents (...)
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  • Undermining the Person, Undermining the Establishment in the Zhuangzi.Sonya Özbey - 2018 - Comparative and Continental Philosophy 10 (2):123-139.
    This article draws a parallel between the Zhuangzi’s discussions of having no sense of “oneself” or “I,” on the one hand, and its critique of institutionalized order and visions of the unification of society, on the other. Highlighting the way the text distances itself from rituals and tradition, this article identifies the source of the shift in its view on personhood not simply in the situating of humans in the wider world or in acknowledgment of natural processes of change, but (...)
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  • Zhuangzi and Aquinas on Simultaneous Emotions.Matthew C. Kruger - 2023 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 22 (3):413-436.
    This essay is dedicated to exploring the experience of multiple, perhaps conflicting, emotions occurring at the same time. Though this experience is part of our common language, such as when we speak of feeling conflicted or torn, philosophical accounts of the emotions and the research on these accounts tends to approach emotion sequentially, as a process of one emotion after another. This essay thus offers an account of simultaneous emotions in the work of two thinkers, Thomas Aquinas and Zhuangzi 莊子, (...)
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  • Sincerity ( cheng ) as a civic and political virtue in classical confucian philosophy.Dawid Rogacz - 2022 - Philosophy Compass 17 (6):e12833.
    The paper reconstructs the classical Confucian approach to sincerity (cheng 誠) as a political virtue of the governing and a civic virtue of the governed. For Confucian thinkers, sincerity thus understood shapes both the rulers and the ruled in terms of the common good, and guarantees the stability of a just political system. It is shown that for Confucius and the Zuo Commentary one of the key political and civic virtues was reliability (trustworthiness, xin), which later came to be viewed (...)
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  • The Good Life Today: A Collaborative Engagement between Daoism and Hartmut Rosa.Paul J. D’Ambrosio - 2020 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 19 (1):53-68.
    Hartmut Rosa’s research has been extremely influential in promoting the view that modernity and late modernity are characterized by “speeding up,” or structural “dynamic stabilization.” More recently, Rosa has turned to describing the existential effects of living in late modernity, and the particular view of the good life it encourages. Late modernity began with the promise to make the world more available, attainable, and accessible. Unfortunately, however, the high-level instrumentalization that characterizes these changes led to feelings of alienation. Rosa’s solution (...)
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  • Confucianism and Daoism: On the relationship between the Analects, Laozi,_ and _Zhuangzi, Part II.Paul J. D'Ambrosio - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (9):1-11.
    This article is a continuation of Part I, which looked at the relationship between Confucianism and Daoism by first introducing general approaches, before moving on to (1) perspectives on names and actualities; (2) cultivation, learning, the natural; and (3) conceptions of the person. Continuing with the theme‐based comparison of Confucianism and Daoism by looking specifically at the Lunyu 論語 (Analects of Confucius), Daodejing 道德經 (Classic of the Way and Virtuosity) or Laozi 老子 (Book of Master Lao), and the Zhuangzi 莊子 (...)
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