Zhuangzi allegedly lived during the reign of and King Xuan of Qi, in the span from 370 to 301 BCE. Zhuangzi was from the Town of Meng in the . His given name was Zhou . He was also known as Meng Official, Meng Zhuang, and Meng Elder .
The book
The book ''Zhuangzi'' was named after its purported author. Since 742 CE, when Emperor Xuanzong of Tang mandated honorific titles for Taoist texts, it has also been known as the Nán huá zhēn jīng , literally meaning "True Classic of Southern Florescence," alluding to the tradition that Zhuangzi came from South China. Another explanation is that the place that Zhuangzi was born was placed within the administrative unit Nán huá County during the Tang dynasty.
The text is a composite of writings from various sources. The traditional view is that Zhuangzi himself wrote the first seven chapters and his students and related thinkers were responsible for the other parts . Strong proof of direct authorship by Zhuangzi of any of the text is difficult. The recension by Guo Xiang is the basis for practically all extant editions of the ''Zhuangzi''.
The inner chapters have great grammatical and conceptual coherence and are believed to have been primarily written by one hand, even if not by Zhuangzi himself. Zhuangzi has been categorized as a "Taoist" by the Chinese tradition, but especially in the inner chapters, he stands out from the rest. He also writes comparatively little about Tao in the inner chapters of the work, even less than Mencius and other prominent , prompting scholar A.
C. Graham to note, "Zhuangzi never knew he was a Taoist".
Zhuangzi's philosophy
In general, Zhuangzi's philosophy is mildly skeptical, arguing that our life is limited and the amount of things to know is unlimited. To use the limited to pursue the unlimited, he said, was foolish. Our language and cognition in general presuppose a to which each of us is committed by our separate past—our paths. Consequently, we should be aware that our most carefully considered conclusions might seem misguided had we experienced a different past. "Our heart-minds are completed along with our bodies." Natural dispositions to behavior combine with acquired ones—including dispositions to use names of things, to approve/disapprove based on those names and to act in accordance to the embodied standards. Thinking about and choosing our next step down our dao or path is conditioned by this unique set of natural acquisitions.
Zhuangzi's thought can also be considered a precursor of relativism in systems of value. His relativism even leads him to doubt the basis of pragmatic arguments since this presupposes that life is good and death bad. In the fourth section of "The Great Happiness" , Zhuangzi expresses pity to a skull he sees lying at the side of the road. Zhuangzi laments that the skull is now dead, but the skull retorts, "How do you know it's bad to be dead?"
Another example about two famous courtesans points out that there is no universally objective standard for beauty. This is taken from Chapter 2 "On Arranging Things", or "Discussion of Setting Things Right" or, in Burton Watson's translation, "Discussion on Making All Things Equal".
Men claim that Mao and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream; if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run. Of these four, who knows how to fix the standard of beauty in the world?
However, this subjectivism is balanced by a kind of sensitive holism in the conclusion of the section called "The Happiness of Fish" . The names have been changed to romanization for consistency:
Zhuangzi and were strolling along the dam of the Hao Waterfall when Zhuangzi said, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"
Huizi said, "You're not a fish — how do you know what fish enjoy?"
Zhuangzi said, "You're not I, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"
Huizi said, "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. On the other hand, you're certainly not a fish — so that still proves you don't know what fish enjoy!"
Zhuangzi said, "Let's go back to your original question, please. You asked me ''how'' I know what fish enjoy — so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao."
The butterfly dream
Another well-known part of the book, which is also found in Chapter 2, is usually called "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly" . Again, the names have been changed to romanization for consistency:
Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be ''some'' distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.
This hints at many questions in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and epistemology. The name of the passage has become a common , and has spread into Western languages as well. It appears, inter alia, as an illustration in Jorge Luis Borges' famous essay "A New Refutation of Time", and may have inspired H. P. Lovecraft's 1918 short story "".
Zhuangzi's philosophy was very influential in the development of Chinese Buddhism, especially Chán .
Anarchy
According to Murray Rothbard, Zhuangzi was "perhaps the world's first anarchist"; Zhuangzi said, the world "does not need governing; in fact it should not be governed," and, "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone." Rothbard claims that Zhuangzi was the first to work out the idea of spontaneous order, before Proudhon and .
Alan Watts, who in his mature and later years was sympathetic to , declared that Zhuangzi was a libertarian .
Evolution
In Chapter 18, Zhuangzi also mentions life forms have an innate ability or power to transform and adapt to their surroundings. While his ideas don't give any solid proof or mechanism of change such as Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin, his idea about the transformation of life from simple to more complex forms is along the same line of thought. Zhuangzi further mentioned that humans are also subject to this process as humans are a part of nature.
-Points that Zhuangzi makes-
* everything is everything
* there is no good or bad, only thinking makes it so
* The world around us may be perceived as an illusion from our senses our experiences and our interpretations, thus illusions are irrelevant to conclude a definite right or wrong way.
* Death is just a passage of the illusion of life.
Translations
The ''Zhuangzi'' text is widely regarded as both deeply insightful in thought and as an achievement of the Chinese poetical essay form. It uses the Chinese language in complex, multi-layered, and often playful ways, and is notoriously difficult to translate. Nevertheless, some have tried. There are complete English translations of all thirty-three chapters by Frederic Balfour, James Legge, Herbert Giles, James Ware, Burton Watson, Martin Palmer, Victor H. Mair, Wang Rongpei, and Nina Correa. There are selected translations of the seven "inner chapters" by Fung Yu-lan, Burton Watson, Gia-Fu Feng, A. C. Graham, Thomas Cleary, and David Hinton. There is also a translation of the seven "inner chapters" and twelve additional chapters by Jerome Seaton and Sam Hamill. There are interpretations of selected ''Zhuangzi'' passages by Thomas Merton and Brian Bruya. Graham's is, to date, the most academically thorough, but Watson's is highly praised for its poetic style. Mair's translation also has its highlights, including his decision to translate the poetic parts of the text into English poetry.
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