Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Dates
- 1 Chinese Philosophy
- 2 Confucius and the Confucian Concepts Ren and Li
- 3 The Cultivation of Humanity in Confucian Philosophy: Mencius and Xunzi
- 4 Early Mohist Philosophy
- 5 Early Daoist Philosophy: The Dao De Jing as a Metaphysical Treatise
- 6 Early Daoist Philosophy: Dao, Language and Society
- 7 The Mingjia and the Later Mohists
- 8 Zhuangzi's Philosophy
- 9 Legalist Philosophy
- 10 The Yijing and its Place in Chinese Philosophy
- 11 Chinese Buddhism
- Postscript
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Zhuangzi's Philosophy
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Dates
- 1 Chinese Philosophy
- 2 Confucius and the Confucian Concepts Ren and Li
- 3 The Cultivation of Humanity in Confucian Philosophy: Mencius and Xunzi
- 4 Early Mohist Philosophy
- 5 Early Daoist Philosophy: The Dao De Jing as a Metaphysical Treatise
- 6 Early Daoist Philosophy: Dao, Language and Society
- 7 The Mingjia and the Later Mohists
- 8 Zhuangzi's Philosophy
- 9 Legalist Philosophy
- 10 The Yijing and its Place in Chinese Philosophy
- 11 Chinese Buddhism
- Postscript
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The primary themes and argumentative strategies in Zhuangzi's philosophy bear some resemblance to those in the Daodejing. The philosophy of Zhuangzi is expressed in a text bearing his name. However, like the Daodejing, sections of the Zhuangzi (or Chuang-Tzu) were composed by different authors and the compiled text contains writings collected over a period of time. In the case of the Zhuangzi, the fragments date from between the fourth to the second centuries BCE (Graham 2003a:58), and debate persists concerning when particular sections might have been written. Traditionally, the two texts, the Daodejing and Zhuangzi, had been grouped as texts belonging to one tradition, the Lao-Zhuang tradition. There was also some consensus that the Daodejing was composed earlier than the Zhuangzi and, as they stand in that relation, the Daodejing is a less sophisticated text while the Zhuangzi represents a mature, developed Daoism. For example, Wing-tsit Chan notes:
The Tao [Dao] in Lao Tzu [Laozi] is still wordly, whereas in Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] it becomes transcendental. While Lao Tzu emphasizes the difference between glory and disgrace, strength and weakness, and so forth, and advocates the tender values, Chuang Tzu identifies them all. Lao Tzu aims at reform, but Chuang Tzu prefers to “Travel beyond the mundane world.”…It is not wrong, after all, to link Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu together, although it must be borne in mind that he [Zhuangzi] certainly carried Taoism [Daoism] to new heights.
(Chan 1963a: 178)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy , pp. 142 - 171Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008