1. Chinese Philosophers Laozi and Zhuangzi
Instructor: Hua Wang
05/08/2015

2. Group Presentations: 6/12
Participation 20%
Class performance and homework 50%
Final presentation 30%
2-3 people in a group, choose a related topic,
presentation time: mins, preview: 6/5
6/19 no class
6/26 Fieldtrip: Confucius temple

3. Daoists: Laozi, Zhuangzi

4. Laozi’s depictions of Dao
10. Dao models itself after “nature”. (人法地，地法天，天法 道，道法自然。Ch25） “Nature” cannot be the totality of the natural world as we know it (or contradiction). Wang: “nature” is a natural process of “self-becoming”. “Nature” is not a separate entity from Dao. Liu: Dao in this context may be a moral principle, not a metaphysical principle. 11. The Dao is the female principle, which represents the soft, the passive, the infant, and other similar attributes.

5. Reflection: The Moral Dimension of Dao
The way of heaven, the source or the ultimate guideline for human morals.
Morality consists in imitating Dao, acting in accordance with Dao, which transcends human conception of the good, not relative to different cultures.
The all-embracing quality of the great virtue [De] follows alone from the [Dao]. (ch21:孔德之容，唯道是從。) De may be understood as the application of Dao.
The moral virtues: being subtle, mysterious, yielding, receptive, and self-effacing.

6. Prefer passive to active? Nietzsche’s Slave Mentality?
2 interpretations:
Graham: Laozi advices to prefer passaive to active.
Hansen/Kaltenmark: Laozi’s point is not to advocate negative values, but to teach people to forget the actual distinction between the positive and the negatives. The Daoist considered all social values to be prejudices, and as such, wrong, because they cloud reality and land us in the vicious circle of contradictions. The point is to get out of this circle by transcending it. (Liu: Zhuangzi’s idea)

7. Wu-wei/non-action 3 interpretations, all compatible with the text:
Doing nothing! (not to interfere.)
The agent not having intentions/deliberative effort in actions (about attitude)
An action which does not force, but yields. (about attitude?? Also about the kind of action taken. Responding to natural patterns and not to impose)

8. Wu-wei/non-action
Moral lessons are for rulers. The ruler should be self- effacing(not seen and not heard), modeling himself on Heaven and Earth which have no self-regard.
Laozi’s principle of inactivity is not meant to “correct” the world. It is not practical guidance, only an ideal.
Laozi: human nature is basically good. All unnatural desires are derived from artificial conditioning from society.

9. Discussion
If everything originates from Dao, is one’s intention and conditioning from society also from Dao? If yes, then why human actions would interfere nature? If not, then where do human intentions come from?

10. Confucius’ Effortless Rulership
The Master said, "May not Shun be instanced as having governed efficiently without exertion? What did he do? He did nothing but gravely and reverently occupy his royal seat.” (15.4) Ji Kang Zi asked Confucius about government, saying, "What do you think of killing the wicked and associating with the good?” Confucius replied, "In your government what is the need of killing? If you desire what is good, the people will be good. The character of a ruler is like wind and that of the people is like grass. In whatever direction the wind blows, the grass always bends.” (12.19)

11. Confucius’ Effortless Rulership
The Master said, "He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.” (2.1) The Master said, "If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good.” (2.3)

12. Compare Laozi’s and Confucius’ conception of ideal action/ ideal rulership

13. The Virtue of Ignorance
Once people know what they could have, they would not rest content with what they do have.
Reject three kinds of learning (the source of evil):
The knowledge of social distinctions  cause competitions
The knowledge from our senses  disturbing the mind
The moral knowledge moralists (including Confucians) teach  the pursuit of Dao is to decrease day after day.

14. Zhuangzi BCE
Many opposing interpretations, all supported by texts
33 chapters
1-7 “the Inner Chapters”, by Zhuangzi or a true representative
8-22 “the Outer Chapters”, by followers
23-33 “the Miscellaneous Chapters”, unclear

15. The Inner Chapters Free and Easy Wandering 逍遙遊
On the Equality of Things and Theories 齊物論
The Key to Nourishing Life 養生主
In the World of Men 人間世
Signs of Virtue Complete 德充符
The Great and Venerable Teacher 大宗師
The Proper Way for Emperors and Kings 應帝王

16. Laozi vs. Zhuangzi “Lao-Zhuang” 老莊 – since the 5th century
Liu on the contrast : “Unlike Laozi, Zhuangzi did not give any detailed strategies for political success.”
Chan on the contrast 178: “The Tao in Lao Tzu is still worldly, whereas in Chuang Tzu 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’.”

17. Laozi vs. Zhuangzi
Chan on the contrast 178, cont.: “His concept of te as Tao individualized in the nature of things is much more developed and more clearly stated. There is in him a greater stress on following one’s nature, nourishing it, and adapting it to environment. Thus there is a stronger emphasis on the individual, which eventually led to the over-all importance of particular nature in particular things in Neo-Taoism… Furthermore, the idea of self-transformation takes on a central focus in Chuang Tzu, which presents life and reality as dynamic and ever-changing… To regard transformation as the final abode of life is certainly a new note in Chinese Philosophy.”

18. Three Key Themes in the Inner Chapters
Zhuangzi’s view on truth and knowledge
Zhuang’s ethical ideal
Zhuang’s philosophy of life and death

19. Truth, Reality and Knowledge Different Interpretations I
Radical Skepticism/ Perspectivism: a metaphysical view All views are from a certain perspective, and all views are correct within that perspective. We can never know the Truth, since there is no truth outside our cognitive enclosures, no objective, mind-independent reality. There are multiple ‘realities’ relative to multiple perspectives. A dao is merely a linguistic convention.

20. Truth, Reality and Knowledge Different Interpretations II
Soft Skepticism/ Language Skepticism: an epistemological view Zhuangzi is only skeptical that we may know the truth in certain realms. In particular, language cannot be seen as a vehicle that can deliver a picture of the world as it actually is. Zhuangzi is skeptical of the possibility of using human intellect to grasp Dao or using human concepts and languages to depict Dao. This view does not entail any claim about how things are in the world nor does it in principle preclude other ways of knowing that might help us understand the world.

21. Truth, Reality and Knowledge Different Interpretations III
Theraoeutic Skepticism/ Methodological Skepticism: a mild epistemological view
Skepticism is used as a method for people who are bound by their ignorance of Dao.
Use skepticism to refute existing claims to knowledge
Recommend skepticism for people to suspend judgment
Not to endorse the claim that nothing can ever be known.

22. Truth, Reality and Knowledge Different Interpretations IV
Asymmetrical Relativism
Two realms of consciousness
The realm of ignorance: the pre-awakening state, where truth is relative
The realm of knowledge: the awakened state, where truth is absolute
Relativism exists only in the dialogical situation of the sage speaking to the aspirant. Similar to interpretation III.

23. Truth, Reality and Knowledge Different Interpretations V
Anti-rationalism or mysticism
One cannot know the objective reality through reasoning. But not all forms of knowledge are subject to doubt (contra II), and one may apprehend reality in a direct and unmediated way, by using a different epistemic mode, the “heightened mode of noesis” or pure spontaneity. (Zhuangzi’s ‘ming’, not accessible to everyone though!)
One who has true knowledge is one who can let one’s heart be like a mirror – it flows with the inevitable mutations of things, responds but does not retain.

24. Truth, Reality and Knowledge Different Interpretations VI
Realism
There is a fact of the matter with things in the world. Reality is not mind-dependent.
Incompatible with perspectivism

25. Truth, Reality and Knowledge
Liu:
realism with respect to Dao (the metaphysical sense of truth, reality) and the world as a whole,
relativism with respect to our conceptual schemes an our judgments,
skepticism about the possibility of true knowledge (the semantic sense of truth, a property of statements), cannot know Dao

26. Argument for conceptual relativism
The argument for the reality of preferences (value)
Different natural compositions generate different perspectives.
Different perspectives give rise to different preferences.
We have different natural compositions.
No universal perspective or preference.
Do you agree? (us vs. loach and monkeys)

27. Argument for conceptual relativism
The argument for the reality of judgments (truth)
Big and small, old and young, concepts as we know of are all relative to perspective, not absolute!
Note: This need not mean that everything is not different. There may be genuine comparisons and actual differences.
Zhuangzi may just mean that our concepts do not carve up the world as it really is. Our categorization of objects and their attributes do not reflect the way things really are.
Ch1: 朝菌不知晦朔，蟪蛄不知春秋，此小年也。楚之南有冥靈者， 以五百歲為春，五百歲為秋；上古有大椿者，以八千歲為春，八 千歲為秋。而彭祖乃今以久特聞，眾人匹之，不亦悲乎？

28. Argument for conceptual relativism
The argument for the interdependence of perspectives
this and that, right and wrong
No statement can possibly be made outside of all conceptual schemes, or from the point of view of nowhere.
A statement true to human conception is not necessarily true to another creature’s conception.
A statement true from one individual’s perspective could be false from her opponent’s perspective.

29. Relativism to Skepticism
Our ordinary knowledge is relative to perspective.
For there to be a judgment made with one of the opposing concepts, there would have to be another judgment made with the opposite concept.
We can never know what we believe is true. The truth that transcends all perspectives is unattainable and inconceivable by us. There is no knowledge that is the true knowledge. (Skepticism of the possibility of knowledge.)

30. Xunzi’s criticism
Xunzi: Zhuangzi is “prejudiced in favor of Nature and does not know man.” (「蔽於天而不知人」)

31. The Argument from Dreams
Our dreams seem to us as real as when we are awake. When we dream, we do not (always) know that it was just a dream.
Therefore, when we think we are awake, we could be dreaming.
Therefore, we can never be sure of our judgment that we are awake. Maybe it is all just a dream.
Skepticism about knowledge (a Cartesian argument)

32. The Argument from the Impossibility of Settling Debates
Different judgments of truth are necessarily relative to different perspectives.
Therefore, no two people with different perspectives can determine which judgment is true.
The third party can only make a verdict according to her own perspective. Agreements is also relative to perspectives, not a guarantee of truth.
Therefore, no way to settle debates.
Skepticism about obtaining truth based on a rational discourse. No knowledge independent of perspectives.

33. Zhuangzi and perspectivism
Perspectivism: All judgments are made in accordance with the speakers’ perspectives. All judgments are equally true since they are true relative to the speaker’s perspective. Zhuangzi: All judgments are made in accordance with the speakers’ perspectives. All judgments are equally true since they are true relative to the speaker’s perspective. Zhuangzi proposes the standpoint of Dao, which eliminates most distinctions (right vs. wrong, etc.), but not the distinction between Truth and Falsehood (in the absolute sense).

34. On True Knowledge
Zhuangzi: True knowledge is the knowledge that denies perspectival knowledge. Truth is not relative to perspectives; rather, truth transcends all perspectives. Compare perspectivism: All judgments are equally true since they are true relative to the speaker’s perspective. There is no perspective-independent reality. What’s the difference? Zhuangzi: All judgments relative to perspectives are necessarily false.

35. Zhuangzi’s two levels of truth
Truth Level One: truth in the semantic sense, employed by ordinary people, relative to perspectives Truth Level Two: truth in the metaphysical sense; beyond human conception of truth (level one), not a correspondence between human conception and the world; it transcends all human perspectives and it is a clear representation of the Way. Perspectivism: no level two truth (no perspective- independent reality)

36. Zhuangzi’s Ming明 A higher level of intuitive understanding of Dao
Not available to everyone (blindness and deafness, compare Confuciansim)
True knowledge is almost humanly impossible
Little knowledge, little understanding

37. Laozi vs. Zhuangzi
Liu more on the comparison: Both against names, descriptions, concepts, which carve up Dao Laozi focused on explicating the mind-independent reality. Zhuangzi focused on explicating the impossibility of our knowledge and our description of this mind independent reality.

38. Truth, Reality and Knowledge
Liu:
realism with respect to Dao (the metaphysical sense of truth, reality) and the world as a whole,
relativism with respect to our conceptual schemes an our judgments,
skepticism about the possibility of true knowledge (the semantic sense of truth, a property of statements), cannot know Dao

39. For Next Time Read assigned material for 5/15: Zhuangzi 2.pdf
Raise 2 thoughtful questions about the material and send them to our assistant (吳昱錡, due 5/14 Thursday at 5pm.