An Introduction to Daoist Thought: Action, Language, and Ethics in Zhuangzi (Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and Philosophy)

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT ACTION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHICS IN ZHUANGZI

There has been a growing interest in Daoism in the West, not only in academia but also in the culture at large. This is the first work available in English which addresses Zhuangzi’s thought as a whole. It presents an interpretation of the Zhuangzi, a book in 33 chapters that is the most important collection of Daoist texts in early China. The author introduces a complex reading that shows the unity of Zhuangzi’s thought, in particular in his views of action, language, and ethics. By addressing methodological questions that arise in reading Zhuangzi, a hermeneutics is developed which makes understanding Zhuangzi’s religious thought possible. The book is a theoretical contribution to comparative philosophy and the cross-cultural study of religious traditions. Additionally, it serves as an introduction to Daoism for graduate students in religion, philosophy, and East Asian studies. Eske Møllgaard received his PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. He currently is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Rhode Island. His teaching interests include Asian philosophy, comparative philosophy and continental philosophy. He is particularly interested in the ways East Asian traditions of thought make us reconsider and rediscover salient features of Western philosophical traditions.

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ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN ASIAN RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 1 Deconstruction and the Ethical in Asian Thought Edited by Youru Wang 2 An Introduction to Daoist Thought Action, language, and ethics in Zhuangzi Eske Møllgaard

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AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT Action, language, and ethics in Zhuangzi

Eske Møllgaard

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First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 Eske Møllgaard All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Møllgaard, Eske, 1954– An introduction to Daoist thought : action, language, and ethics in Zhuangzi / Eske Møllgaard. p. cm. — (Routledge studies in Asian religion and philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-415-42383-0 (alk. paper) 1. Zhuangzi. Nanhua jing. 2. Philosophy, Taoist. I. Title. BL1900.C576M66 2007 299.5′1482—dc22 2006100289 ISBN 0–203–94482–8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-42383-X (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-94482-8 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-42383-0 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-94482-0 (ebk)

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IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER

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Der Erde Rund mit Felsen ausgezieret Ist wie die Wolke nicht, die Abends sich verlieret, Es zeiget sich mit einem goldnen Tage, Und die Vollkommenheit ist ohne Klage. (The Earth round adorned with rocks Is not like clouds that disperse at night, It shows itself one luminous day, And the completion is without lament.) Friedrich Hölderlin, ‘Der Herbst’

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

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1

On reading Zhuangzi Can we understand Zhuangzi? 1 What bothers the other? 3 Is Daoist thought philosophy? 5 The religious 9 The figure of Zhuangzi 11

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2

Zhuangzi’s fundamental figures of thought The view of the world 14 Life against completion 15 Human life 17 The life of Heaven 20 The Way 22 Two kinds of transcendence 24 Non-understanding 27

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3

The drive towards completion Technique negates the Way 30 The Confucian view of technical action 32 Totalitarianism and strategic thinking 36 The metaphysics of action 39 Form (eidos) and completion (cheng) 43

30

4

Unraveling the drive towards completion Care for life 47 From potentiality to actuality 52 In-between Heaven and man 57 The occurrence of the ordinary 61

47

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CONTENTS

5

Saying the unsayable Indicative and logical discourses 67 Saying and disputation 70 The double-question 71 Shifting signifiers 72 The intended meaning 74 Language in itself 76 Impromptu words 80

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6

Bungled discourse Suddenly there is nothing 85 Just now something is born 89 Accept “this” for what it is 94 Is Zhuangzi a Sophist? 97 Zhuangzi and Socrates 101

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Ethics Confucian concern 105 Mutilation 109 Beyond the will to power 113 The moral law 117 The ethical subject 120 On Zhuangzi’s supposed naturalism 124

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Spiritual exercise Loss of self 126 Emotions are like music from empty spaces 130 Techniques of inner training 132 Completion without lament 137 To see the unique 138

126

Glossary References Index

142 149 156

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A small part of Chapter 1 appeared in “Eclipse of Reading: On the ‘Philosophical Turn’ in American Sinology,” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 4(2) (Summer 2005), pp. 321–40. Parts of Chapter 2 and the last section of Chapter 7 appeared in “Zhuangzi’s Notion of Transcendental Life,” Asian Philosophy, 15(1) (March 2005), pp. 1–18 (http://tandf.co.uk/ journals). Chapter 5 contains some material that appeared in “Dialogue and Impromptu Words,” Social Identities 12(1) (2006), pp. 43–58 (http:// tandf.co.uk/journals). Parts of Chapter 7 appeared in “Zhuangzi’s Religious Ethics,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 71(2) (June 2003), pp. 347–70.

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ON READING ZHUANGZI

1 ON READING ZHUANGZI

[Zhuangzi] contains both the very small and the very large. One half is like Kafka, but there’s another half as well – thus, he’s all the more complete. Elias Canetti Above Zhuangzi wanders with the Creator of things, and below he is friend with those who are beyond life and death and have no beginning and end. The Zhuangzi

Can we understand Zhuangzi? The study of Asian thought occupies a strange position in the postmetaphysical climate of the modern West. As Peter Sloterdijk points out, the metaphysical enthusiasm that once characterized Western thought is now largely excluded from the academy, but it has survived in exile in predominantly philological disciplines like Indology and Sinology. Today it is in these disciplines that scholars consider metaphysical propositions such as “you are that” (tat tvam asi), or “the way that can be spoken is not the constant Way (dao
).” The orientalists, says Sloterdijk, are the “bookkeepers of the ecstasies” imported from Persia, India, and China. Their day-to-day life as researchers and teachers at the universities may be prosaic, nevertheless “they can, as a matter of course, cite the thesis that notknowing, avidya, is the matter from which reality is made” – or, as Zhuangzi says, that “not-knowing is profound, knowing is superficial” – and in their professional capacity “they handle the ‘great sayings’ of the East, like trusted Bank employees move gold bars around in the security vaults under the Bahnhofsstraße in Zurich” (Sloterdijk 1993: 218). But what if we aspire, perhaps unreasonably so, to be more than bookkeepers of ancient wisdom? What if we want to understand what is said in the entries made in our scholarly works? Here we, as scholars, run up against the limits of scientific understanding. For it seems to be true that, as 1

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

Hans-Georg Gadamer writes, “the enigmatic statements of profundity and wisdom, which were developed in other cultures, especially in the Far East, stand in an ultimately incommensurable relation (nicht überprüfbaren Verhältnis) to what is Western philosophy, especially because science (Wissenschaft), in the name of which we ask, itself is a Western discovery” (1986b: 77). Since our science is ours, a Western discovery, it has not been able to free itself from prejudice. In hindsight, as has been demonstrated with abundant evidence, the previous generations of orientalists were prejudiced to an almost comical degree, and it is not reasonable to expect that progress in our science will give us less to laugh about in the future. This is probably all for the better, for, contrary to the well-known saying, the one who laughs last does not laugh best. The last laugh (or the last word) is only conceivable in complete abstraction from our historical existence, and therefore it will sound rather hollow. Instead of such hollow laughter, we should have enough sense of humor to appreciate Gadamer’s point that our prejudices far from being an impediment to understanding are in fact the very source of understanding. For, says Gadamer (1986a: 302), we always “understand differently,” if we understand at all. This does not mean that we entirely give up the notion of objectivity that is central to reading in the human sciences. For understanding is gained through a certain detachment from our prejudices that allows us to play out our prejudices against the other and so reach a more objective point of view. In the human sciences this detachment is codified in historical and philological methodologies, but as Gadamer has emphasized, methodologies do not by themselves deliver truth. In the human sciences, says Gadamer, we are concerned with “the experience of truth that transcends the domain controlled by scientific method.” The exemplary texts we study in the human sciences embody “modes of experiences in which a truth announces itself that cannot be verified by the methodological means of science” (Gadamer 1986a: 1–2). In regard to Indology, Richard King points out that scholars have “tended to believe that a rigorous and detailed knowledge of the culture, language and tradition under consideration would yield the true import of the text,” but, King continues, “[i]n the light of Gadamer’s work, this can be seen to be hermeneutically naïve” (1999: 80). The same holds true in Sinology. Sinological methods are helpful tools in understanding ancient Chinese thought, but a thinker like Zhuangzi
 cannot be understood within the confines of a Sinology that subscribes to a naive historical objectivism and has no speculative-hermeneutic dimension. To suppose that “what Zhuangzi meant” is deposited in the past context and ready to be sifted out by some appropriate methodology only shows an acute lack of hermeneutic imagination that hampers productive research. With some humor Martin Heidegger once remarked that suppose “there could be an explanation and

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ON READING ZHUANGZI

representation of the poetry of Sophocles in itself and that it fell under the eyes of Sophocles, he could only find this interpretation utterly boring” (Clark 2002: 95). It would be even more comical to imagine what Zhuangzi would have thought if presented with a historicist reconstruction of “what he said.” For Zhuangzi explicitly says that he himself is not sure if he has really said something with what he has just said.

What bothers the other? It is a well-known but under-appreciated fact of translation that we know that even our best translation is not adequate, but we do not know exactly what it is we know in knowing this. For instance, we know that the English word “humanity” does not quite cover the meaning of the Chinese ren
, but we do not know precisely what it is we know when we know this (if we did the deficiency could easily be remedied). But Confucius
 himself was not really sure what the word ren meant. For him, too, the word had an uncanny excess of meaning that he could not express. Furthermore, just like the modern translator, Confucius knew that he did not know the full meaning of the word, but he did not know precisely what he knew in knowing this. This uncertain and ambiguous knowing is not reducible to a linguistic or conceptual base, and it is not a definable “problem.” It is perhaps the mark of philosophy, but it is surely where universality and cross-cultural understanding come into play. Referring to this “context-free” openness of language precisely where “words fail,” Slavoj figek makes the insightful observation that in trying to understand another culture we should not focus on its specificity (on the peculiarity of “their customs,” etc.); we should rather endeavor to encircle that which eludes their grasp, the point at which the Other is in itself dislocated, not bound by its “specific context.” . . . I understand the Other when I become aware of how the very problem that was bothering me (the nature of the Other’s secret) is already bothering the Other itself. The dimension of the Universal thus emerges when the two lacks – mine and that of the Other – overlap. (1997: 50) On the basis of figek’s insight Eric Santner proposes his notion of a “universal-in-becoming,” which is not the abstract universal of “global consciousness” but rather an existential, embodied universal based on the experience of “the agitation and turbulence immanent to any construction of identity, the Unheimlichkeit or uncanniness internal to any and every space we call home.” Santner writes:

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AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

What makes the Other other is not his or her spatial exteriority with respect to my being but the fact that he or she is strange, is a stranger, and not only to me but also to him- or herself, is the bearer of an internal alterity, an enigmatic density of desire calling for response beyond any rulegoverned reciprocity; against this background, the very opposition between “neighbor” and “stranger” begins to lose its force. (2001: 9) The other, just like the self, is always also an other or a stranger to herself. Precisely in this split in the self and in the other lies the possibility for a concrete universality. For if the other is a stranger to herself, then the dichotomy between the familiar and the strange, the self and the other, is unsettled. What is important is that something bothers the other, something is beyond the grasp of the other, that is to say, beyond the possibilities inherent in her context. In reading the other this “beyond” is also what bothers us, and since both self and other are bothered by the same thing, there is the possibility of a “we.” In other words, linguistic, conceptual, spatial, and temporal differences are not essential; what makes the other “other” is her strangeness, not only to an other but also to herself, and this split in the other contains the possibility of a “we.” The split in the other is also the condition for thought. Thought is precisely what does not coincide with its own context (Deleuze and Guattari 1994), and therefore it necessarily has universal import. Since thought always exceeds its context, Daoist thought is not coextensive with Daoism. Furthermore, the extension of the term “Daoism” is hard to define. If we, with Russell Kirkland (2004), define Daoism broadly as the vast corpus of texts collected by self-identifying Daoists in the Daozang
, then we find that this collection includes the Zhuangzi
 but also the Mozi
 and the Hanfeizi
 , texts that today are not considered Daoist by any definition. If we, on the other hand, define Daoism narrowly as the so-called “philosophical Daoism” of the Laozi
 and the Zhuangzi, then we find that these two “founding” texts of Daoist thought are very different, not just in their content but in the very nature of their thought. The Zhuangzi, and the first seven chapters in particular, is an eminent example of thought in the emphatic sense I use the term here. A. C. Graham says that in reading Zhuangzi we get “the sensation of a man thinking aloud, jotting the living thought at the moment of its inception” (1969/1970: 137). In the Laozi, on the other hand, there are, as Hans-Georg Moeller points out, no “individual thoughts,” no “unique insights,” no “dialogues,” and “no discernable issue at stake,” one simply has “to identify with its teachings” (2006: 3). The Laozi proclaims in voiceless anonymity, secure in its teachings and bothered by nothing: unlike Zhuangzi, the Laozi never interrupts itself to ask “what did I just say?” This unbothered anonymity is even more pronounced in the 4

ON READING ZHUANGZI

Neiye
 (Inner Training), an early manual of self-cultivation that some scholars now consider to be “original Daoism,” that is to say, more original than the Laozi and the Zhuangzi and the real precursor for later Daoism (Roth 1999, Kirkland 2004). In light of these considerations, I suggest that no matter how one defines the scope of the term “Daoist,” Zhuangzi – who could not identify himself as a Daoist, since no such classification existed at his time – will be included, and if we look for an introduction to Daoist thought in the emphatic sense of this term, then the text that bears his name must be considered the best place to begin.

Is Daoist thought philosophy? We witness today an increasing technification and professionalization of philosophy, and philosophy itself is about to dissolve into methodologism. Generally, technical philosophy adopts one of three methods in reading Chinese thought. The first method is to read Chinese thought in terms of universal “problems of philosophy.” Here the Chinese thinker is subjected to a purely formal questioning that can be applied to any thinker at any time. We ask, for instance, is Zhuangzi a relativist? Is he a realist, a pragmatist, or an antirationalist? But this formal questioning has little to do with what specifically motivates a particular thinker, and it has not been proved that the specific set of problems that constitutes modern philosophical discourse also constitutes philosophy as such. Furthermore, an essential ambiguity may be characteristic of all philosophy, just as it is characteristic of human existence itself, and his essential ambiguity cannot survive if it is objectified as a “problem” with some positive solution. The second method by which technical philosophy reads Chinese thought emphasizes difference. It is claimed that the West and China rely on opposed conceptual schemes: whereas the West values being, individuality, freedom, and rights (as in human rights), the Chinese value becoming, relation, spontaneity, and rites (or ritual). To be sure, awareness of difference is important, but the construction of contrasting conceptual schemes comes at the price of interpretive reductionism. For the very moment we establish the difference between the two traditions, we homogenize difference within each of the traditions. All Chinese thinkers are now mere representatives of underlying linguistic and conceptual formations, and the same holds true for the Western interpreter. The result is that all unique (existential) features are abstracted as the other as well as the self is objectified in the manner of scientism. Furthermore, as Haun Saussy (2001: 91–117) has shown, these constructions of China as other are all rhetorical constructions that say more about the time and place they were made than about China itself. What does it really tell us about Chinese thought when we are told that the Chinese lack notions of objective truth, dialectics, and definition? It depends on your point of view. Not long ago it would have relegated Chinese thought 5

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

to the densest substantiality without any development towards autonomy. In the present postmodern climate of the Western academy, Chinese thought is seen rather as an aesthetic expression liberated from all foundationalism. The third method technical philosophy adopts in reading Chinese thought is a standardized form of deconstruction that is inspired by but should not be confused with the notion of deconstruction developed by Derrida (which is not a methodology at all). This method deconstructs the first two methods and reveals how sameness and difference are produced historically and rhetorically. Deconstruction shows that we are all embedded in a web of signifiers from which we can never escape, and that the ethical demand to understand the other as other is likewise infinite and inescapable. This is a valuable lesson, but deconstruction too easily falls back into the bad infinity characteristic of positivistic historical research. Like construction, upon which it exercises its beneficial parasitic activity, deconstruction is an endless response to infinite complexity but never says anything about the thing itself. Haun Saussy, who engages in deconstruction understood as a reading that reveals the rhetorical means by which various comparative projects produce differences, says that his task of deconstruction situates him in “an infinite web of nonhierarchical distinctions to which any node (or particular signifier) provides an entry” (2001: 187). Similar to positivistic historical research, which, as Gadamer has shown, chases a “phantom object,” deconstructive readings oscillate in pious distance before the other. Technical philosophy is a particular ritual performed in the academic world, “repeating the same structures over and over again in a quasi-obsessive manner” (Faure 2004: 47), and there is no reason why this particular obsession should be imposed on Zhuangzi, who employs prose poems, fables, satire, song, fictitious dialogue, spiritual exercise, didactic verse, aphorisms, and a number of other literary genres we have still not identified and understood, and who presents us with a series of striking images – in the first chapter alone, we have the darkness of the Northern Ocean, the bird Peng, the cicada and the dove, the giant gourd and the useless tree, a weasel, and a yak. This proliferation of genres and images suggests that literary reading, not philosophical analysis, is best suited to bring out the thought of Zhuangzi (Hoffmann 2001). For Zhuangzi employs what Pascal Quignard (1995) calls “speculative rhetoric,” a mode of thought that cannot be understood by philosophical analysis but only by reading. We elude the essential task of reading Zhuangzi by solving philosophical puzzles, chasing the phantom objects of historical reconstruction, constructing contrasting typologies, and playing with the infinite complexities of deconstruction. There is another kind of philosophy that is not purely positivistic but accepts the essential ambiguity in metaphysical questioning; a philosophy that takes into account what is existentially at stake in reading, and where there is no clear division between philosophy and literature (or philology). This kind of philosophy is rather imprecisely called “continental philosophy.” 6

ON READING ZHUANGZI

Continental philosophy offers an abundance of figures of thought that conceptualize even the most ambiguous phenomena of human experience, and with its origin in the exegesis of religious texts, the hermeneutic tradition in continental philosophy remains close to the religious experience (which is alien to technical philosophy). Continental philosophy is also known for its emancipatory intent, its critique of power and its call for personal transformation, and such engagement, and not just detached scholarship, is essential if we want to understand Zhuangzi at all. Finally, but perhaps most importantly, continental philosophy has a view of language that is radically different from that of analytic philosophy. Whereas most modern philosophy of language has an objectified (scientific) view of language, continental philosophy has an experience with language (Critchley 2001: 103–4), and this is also true of Zhuangzi. I suggest, then, that something like the way of reading characteristic of continental philosophy will be most appropriate in reading Zhuangzi, and in the following I will draw on continental philosophers when I find that they can help us understand what is at stake in Zhuangzi. Continental philosophy does not, however, entirely heal the split between knowledge and wisdom and remains tied to the idea that philosophy is exhausted in philosophical discourse, and this limits its heuristic value for our understanding of Zhuangzi. For, as Pierre Hadot points out, in ancient philosophy, philosophical discourse does not have the dominant role it has in modern philosophy, and therefore to understand an ancient thinker like Zhuangzi entirely at the level of propositional discourse is to impose an anachronistic view of philosophy on his thought. In particular, Hadot advises that we should not “conflate language and cognitive functions,” because in reading ancient philosophy we continually “encounter situations in which philosophical activity continues to be carried out, even though discourse cannot express this activity” (2002: 5). This is good advice to heed in reading Zhuangzi. For in Zhuangzi the activity of philosophy goes on beyond discourse in the pursuit of the Way. In ancient philosophy, says Hadot, it is first of all a question of adopting a way of life, and theoretical discourse is only philosophical to the extent that it justifies and supports such a way of life. The most immediate expression of the philosophical life is the set of spiritual exercises promoted and practiced by the philosopher. Zhuangzi too has a number of spiritual exercises that express his way of life. Among the most important are how to contemplate death so we can meet it without fear; how to analyze the distinction between the inner (nei
) and the outer (wai
) so we know what is important for the spiritual life and what is not; how to relate to our emotions in such a way that we neither repress them nor indulge in them but let them unfold in a clarity that cannot be disturbed; how to treat all things as equal, which is the necessary step to attain the universal (cosmic) point of view; how to know the difference between the realm of man (ren
) and 7

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

the realm of Heaven (tian
), which is the prerequisite for being a true human being; how to transcend the self and plunge into the infinite; and, above all, how to be aware in the present moment of self-emerging life (sheng
). In one form or another all these exercises are also found in ancient philosophy in the West, and in India as well, and Hadot’s description of the goal of such exercises applies perfectly to Zhuangzi. The aim of spiritual exercises, says Hadot, is to “become aware of the splendor of existence” and to perceive each moment of time “as if it were the first, in all the stupefying strangeness of its emergence” (2002: 196, 230). When we see that in ancient philosophy spiritual exercise is the heart of philosophy, then we will avoid the interminable quarrels about epistemological relativism and incommensurability between traditions that plague comparative philosophy. For these disputes make sense only if we consider theoretical discourse in isolation; from the point of view of philosophical practice the disputes are irrelevant. Hadot points out that philosophical practice is relatively independent from philosophical discourse. The same spiritual exercise can be justified after the fact by widely different philosophical discourses, in order to describe and justify experiences whose existential density ultimately escapes all attempts at theoreticizing and systematizing. . . . Seen in this way, the practice of philosophy transcends the oppositions of particular philosophies. (2002: 275–6) The theoretical discourse of Plato is very different from that of Zhuangzi (Plato talks about the Forms, Zhuangzi about the Way), but the practical goal of their philosophies may be the same, namely to attain the universal (cosmic) perspective. Therefore, if we wrongly assume that in Zhuangzi discourse is primary, and we try to make Zhuangzi’s thought conform to the technical requirements of modern philosophy, then we may become entangled in problems of incommensurability between his and our own conceptual schemes. If, on the other hand, we see that in Zhuangzi spiritual exercise is more important than discourse, then we will recognize the similarity between the attitudes adopted by Zhuangzi and those adopted by ourselves or someone we know in our own tradition. Although cautious about making comparative claims, Hadot believes that the forms of life experimented with in ancient Greece and Rome “correspond to constant, universal models which are found, in various forms, in every civilization, throughout the various cultural zones of humanity” (2002: 278). Therefore Hadot can cite passages from Zhuangzi to exemplify the notions of indifference and transcendence that are so important in ancient philosophy in the West. Today’s academy is not the place to experiment with such spiritual exercises. As Hadot points out, “[i]n modern university philosophy, philosophy 8

ON READING ZHUANGZI

is obviously no longer a way of life or form of life – unless it be the form of life of a professor of philosophy” (1995: 271). Today the experimentation that is essential for philosophy takes place outside the university in groups organized around various teachers and traditions. There is, however, still the possibility that the academic study of Zhuangzi may become more than historical reconstruction and philosophical analysis and become the spiritual exercise that Zhuangzi calls for. For, as Hadot (2002: 175) points out, in ancient philosophy philosophical discourse not only justifies a way of life and explains the exercises we must adopt; philosophical discourse can also in itself be spiritual exercise, or a practice to transform our perception and being. In Plato, for instance, dialogue is such a discursive practice, and Plato invites the reader of his dialogues to take part in this practice. Zhuangzi’s discourse too is a spiritual exercise in which the reader is invited to take part. This means that even the academic reader – if he or she is able to muster enough hermeneutic imagination, and that requires above all the ability to question the science in the name of which we ask – will be able to understand Zhuangzi’s discourse as spiritual exercise. This understanding, however, cannot be expressed in a set of propositions (a theory); it is expressed rather in the actual practice of reading Zhuangzi as the understanding that first allows us to say anything true about Zhuangzi at all.

The religious Zhuangzi rejects sage-knowledge (shengzhi
), and so he ultimately goes beyond the tradition of ancient philosophy elaborated by Hadot and enters a realm we can only call the religious. The religious, however, is notoriously difficult to define. Instead of discussing the competing definitions we may follow Jonathan Z. Smith (1998: 281) and define religion formally as a “disciplinary horizon” projected by scholars of religion. But here again we face the question: what is this science in the name of which we ask? Paul J. Griffiths (1999: x) provocatively answers that it is a science that is incapable of reading its subject. Even worse, scholars of religion actually destroy the very traditions they study: “Indologists and anthropologists have done more to destroy traditional Sanskrit learning than ever Christian missionaries could” (Griffiths 1999: 185). For, according to Griffiths, religious studies and the academy at large has succumbed to “consumerist reading”: The university treats what comes within its grasp with the same unnuanced deadness that McDonald’s and Exxon give to what comes within theirs: the former consumes in the service of witty display, and requires the same of its acolytes; the latter consumes in the service of profit, and requires the same of its servants. (1999: 184) 9

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

Perhaps the religious is not that easy to obliterate. A distinction must be made between the religious, or religion in the singular, and the various religious traditions, or religion in the plural. Borrowing a distinction from Heidegger, Derrida (1998: 16–21) says that all revelation (Offenbarung) conceals a more originary revealability (Offenbarkeit), unless it is the other way around, and one particular revelation (Christianity) has revealed revealability itself, and therefore this particular revelation is more originary than revealability itself. Derrida further suggests that a “new ‘tolerance’ ” could issue from the respect for this “indecisive oscillation” between revelation and revealability. In other words, the properly religious can come into view only if we keep open the possibility that besides the various religions there is religion in the singular. This is particular important to emphasize today when the so-called “turn to religion” in the academy privileges the position of the Christian revelation. When Zhuangzi says that the Way (dao
) is more originary than the highest god, does that not mean, in Derrida’s terms, that the Way is revealability as such, and not this or that revelation? Or, in more formal terms that owe less to Christianity – but then perhaps owe too much to the Greeks (as if we could only escape the one by fleeing to the other) – is the Way not pure appearance (no-thing) as opposed to the appearance of this or that thing? And is it not precisely the recognition of this difference that, for Zhuangzi, is the religious? We must postpone answers until the following chapters, but we can already suggest that it is from this oscillating difference between what appears (revelation) and appearance as such (revealabilty) that Zhuangzi’s religious thought emerges. Where does this leave our science? Like Griffiths, Hent de Vries notes that “relentless historicization and conceptual reduction” and “the conscientious and methodological study of religion” have “undermined the very object of its inquiry” (1999: 1). Unlike Griffiths, however, de Vries (2002: 236) believes that this nearly obliterated object of inquiry (religion) may return and decisively affect conceptualization in the human sciences, especially in the field of cultural analysis. Hent de Vries says that there are embedded in the religious traditions figures of thought that, if we turn to them with proper conceptual seriousness, may return and recast our conceptual schemes. Surely, we find figures of thought in Zhuangzi that can stand side by side with any of the “philosophemes” around which the turn to religion turns, such as, to mention just one, Levinas’ notion of adieu, which de Vries thematizes infinitely. Perhaps the turn to and return of religion does not curb the desire that Griffiths sees as the bane of the scholars of religion, namely “the desire to mention (but never to use) the vocabulary, the conceptual tools, and the practices of what they study” (1999: 184). And yet, there may be a genuine humbleness in the turn to religion. There may be a sense that philosophy

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ON READING ZHUANGZI

(science) should be practiced within the limits of the religious alone – as if the religious placed conceptual boundaries for thought. Fundamentalists and postmodernists agree that truth is generated by and confined to particular practices. Science, however, is the practice that lets truth emerge from the particular, not in the light of natural reason, but through that crack in the other that opens because the other is also an other to itself. A science that itself is fragile detects a slight trembling in the other, and a light (an aura perhaps) appears when the particular passes into the universal without being cancelled out. Science can do this if it does not fall into scientism, or, worse, consumerism, but takes its own historicity into account, and above all if it becomes what it was originally (and therefore still is essentially): spiritual exercise.

The figure of Zhuangzi Zhuangzi flourished in the late fourth century , and like Socrates he is known to be atopos, “strange, extravagant, absurd, unclassifiable, disturbing” (Hadot 2002: 30). The earliest assessment of Zhuangzi is contained in the last chapter of the collection of texts that bears his name. It recognizes that Zhuangzi is unique (du
): “unique he came and went with the spirits of Heaven and Earth” (33/65– 6) (references are to chapter and lines in Zhuangzi yinde). This recognition is, however, quickly displaced by the disapproval of Zhuangzi’s “absurd,” “extravagant,” and “bizarre” language and unease with his unrestrained freedom and “liberation from things” ( jie yuwu
 ). Ultimately, in the judgment of these early scholars, Zhuangzi is incomprehensible (33/62–9). In his “biography” of Zhuangzi, the historian Sima Qian
 (c.145– 86 ) also singles out Zhuangzi’s language as a central characteristic: “His saying surpassed all bounds and followed his whim.” To this Sima Qian adds, “therefore the men in power could not utilize him” (1959: 2144). As Jean François Billeter points out, this remark by Sima Qian should be allowed its full weight. Sima Qian, who himself was a victim of imperial power, saw in Zhuangzi a man who could not be appropriated by the rulers but would always remain the site of a radical critique of power (Billeter 1996: 876–877). The early testimony is sparse, but we gather these essential facts about Zhuangzi: he is unique and therefore unclassifiable; he is one of those remarkable people who are liberated from things; his use of language is astonishing and disconcerting; and he puts forward a critique of power so radical that it cannot be assimilated by the tradition. As a historical person Zhuangzi hardly exists, but his unique and uncanny cognition can be clearly recognized. As Billeter rightly points out, the strangeness of many of the passages in the Zhuangzi

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is not primarily due, as one might be inclined to think, to their being Chinese or ancient, but to their being creations of minds that had a sharp sense of the intrinsic strangeness of human existence, with the consequence that we can only grasp their truth by discovering, or rediscovering, this underlying strangeness for ourselves. (1995: 23–4) Zhuangzi’s essential cognition can be recognized today – differently but just as well as in the past. (As Kierkegaard pointed out, hearing the Gospel does not depend on historical proximity but on being truly provoked by the word.) In the first decade of the twentieth century, in the midst of CentralEuropean bourgeois culture, Martin Buber heard in Zhuangzi a call for the “truthful life” (Herman 1996: 70–1). In the midst the chinoiserie of the Victorian period, Oscar Wilde read in Zhuangzi a critique of a culture where we are “always trying to be somebody else” and so miss our “own existence” (1969: 223). In London in the late 1970s, after the rise and fall of the counterculture, A. C. Graham saw in Zhuangzi a “man so much himself that, rather than rebelling against conventional modes of thinking, he seems free of them by birthright” (1981: 4). It is precisely because everything depends on such recognition that anybody who seriously engages Zhuangzi must begin with the claim that Zhuangzi is as yet not understood. The Zhuangzi is divided into thirty-three chapters. The first seven chapters, the “Inner Chapters,” are generally considered to be the work of Zhuangzi himself. The rest of the book contains texts that are consistent with and in many cases develop and elucidate the thought of the “Inner Chapters.” Some of these texts may well be by Zhuangzi himself. There are, however, also texts that do not agree with the “Inner Chapters.” How one distinguishes between these two strands depends, at least to some extent, on one’s interpretation of Zhuangzi’s thought. The following reading of Zhuangzi is based mainly on the “Inner Chapters.” When I quote from the “Outer Chapters” and the “Mixed Chapters,” I introduce the quotation with “the Zhuangzi says” as opposed to “Zhuangzi says.” I do believe, however, that all the passages I use from the later chapters elucidate Zhuangzi’s thought from a position identical with or very close to his own. In these cases the Zhuangzi is the first and best commentary on Zhuangzi. (For textual studies of the Zhuangzi, see Rand 1983, Graham 1990a, Liu 1994, Roth 1991, and Roth 1993.) The thirty-three chapters of the Zhuangzi extant today were edited by Guo Xiang
 (d. 312). This edition together with Guo Xiang’s commentary became very influential among the Chinese literati, who, especially in times when they had to retreat from their positions of power, found consolation in Zhuangzi. The Chinese literati were, however, tied to their ideology of social and aesthetic harmony, and François Jullien (2000: 321) rightly questions if they could fully understand and accept Zhuangzi’s transcendent 12

ON READING ZHUANGZI

freedom. Jean François Billeter says that Guo Xiang’s commentary transformed Zhuangzi’s thought of radical autonomy into an apology for disengagement that served the literati’s “natural conservatism by offering an imaginary counterpart to their servitude” (2002: 133). The emphasis on harmony and adaptation in recent Western aesthetic-pragmatic interpretations of Zhuangzi is in line with this traditional Chinese view. The Zhuangzi is of such immense scope, polymorphic thought, and boundless variety of expression, and it shows such disdain for our attempts to make sense, that some scholars declare it beyond unified comprehension. This judgment, however, only reflects our failure to gain a thematic focus for our reading. Once we collect ourselves and ask the right questions, the unity of Zhuangzi’s thought will become apparent. Billeter correctly points out that beyond Zhuangzi’s “disconcerting imagination” we find “a well determined philosophical position and an intellectual coherence without faults. Zhuangzi expresses simple things that are difficult to say, not obscure things that it is permissible to say any old way” (1990: 165). In order to discover the conceptual coherence in Zhuangzi, we should follow the advice of the early interpreters of the Bible, who recognized that in order to understand a text we must first consider its scopus, the central thought of the text, “its inexplicit logos” or “the view with respect to which the book was composed” (Grodin 1994: 43). I will, therefore, before the specific textual analysis and the arguments that follow, first consider Zhuangzi’s fundamental figures of thought.

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AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

2 ZHUANGZI’S FUNDAMENTAL FIGURES OF THOUGHT

Wir suchen überall das Unbedingte, und finden immer nur Dinge. Novalis What things things is not a thing. Zhuangzi

The view of the world It is a metaphysical tendency in human beings to enclose themselves in a world of their own making and neglect the experience of the world qua world. The neglect of the world through technical mastery is a universal problem. It may be particularly pronounced today in the age of technology, but, as Pierre Hadot points out, it was already evident in antiquity: People in antiquity were unfamiliar with modern science, and did not live in an industrial, technological society; yet the ancients didn’t look at the world any more than we usually do. Such is the human condition. In order to live, mankind must “humanize” the world; in other words transform it, by action as well as by his perception, into an ensemble of things useful for life. Thus, we fabricate the objects of our worry, quarrels, social rituals, and conventional values. That is what our world is like; we no longer see the world qua world. (1995: 258) The world qua world is not an object extended in space – it is not a thing – but the ceaseless coming-into-being of things, and we neglect the cominginto-being of things when we fabricate our world of things. Zhuangzi brings to view the world qua world before it is humanized and turned into the world of man (ren
), which is Zhuangzi’s technical term for humanity fallen into the realm of things. 14

ZHUANGZI’S FUNDAMENTAL FIGURES OF THOUGHT

Zhuangzi’s essential experience is of the moment just when ( fang
) something appears or comes forth (chu
). This coming-into-being is not yet a thing (wu
), but it is also not the absence of things (as when things remain absorbed in a primordial unity). Zhuangzi acknowledges the simple, almost banal fact that there is something rather than nothing, or as Isabelle Robinet says, that “ ‘there is’ world” (‘il y a’ du monde). Zhuangzi’s thought, says Robinet, is entirely oriented towards the “coming of the world” (l’avènement du monde) and “coming into existence” (advenir à l’ex-sistence): the moment when something begins to emerge from nothing (wu
) into being (you
) – or, from “there is not” to “there is” – without as yet being a positive, differentiated, and identifiable thing. This moment – Robinet calls it the “birth of beings” and the “origin of the world” – is ceaseless, but it is not a fact in the world, it is “a hole in time, an atemporal forgetfulness” (un trou dans les temps, oubli atemporal ). When we experience this moment of emergence, we feel the force of the spontaneously self-so (ziran
), or the force of nature as self-emerging being (Robinet 1996: 115–16). In order to regain this sense of self-emerging being, Zhuangzi develops his discourse as spiritual exercise, through which, to borrow the words of Hadot, the world then seems to come into being and be born before our eyes. We then perceive the world as a “nature” in the etymological sense of the word: physis, that movement of growth and birth by which things manifest themselves. We experience ourselves as a moment or instant of this movement; this immense event which reaches beyond us, is always already there before us, and is always beyond us. We are born along with the world. (1995: 260) Or, as Zhuangzi says, “Heaven and Earth are born together with us” (2/52). For we too are born of the ceaseless movement of self-emerging life, and in experiencing ourselves as being born of this movement we live engendered by Heaven (tianersheng
 ).

Life against completion Normally, however, we do not experience self-emerging life (sheng
), for we are too preoccupied with bringing things to completion (cheng
). Zhuangzi’s most important rhetorical gesture, the opposition between life and completion, captures the human predicament. Life is the spontaneously emerging life generated by Heaven; completion, with connotations of “formation” and “fulfillment,” “accomplishment” and “achievement,” is what human beings add to life (yisheng
), when they enclose themselves in a world of their own making. This opposition structures Zhuangzi’s thought on action, ethics, and language: 15

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

life (sheng) is engendered by Heaven; completion (cheng) is fashioned by man (ren). Technical action – skill ( ji
), method (shu
), and making (wei
) – serves the drive for completion (cheng); non-technical action, or non-action (wuwei
), does not aim at completion, but cares for life ( yangsheng
). Technical language, completed, conclusive, and valid discourse (chengyan
) imposes a completion (cheng) on the world; Zhuangzi’s own saying, in particular his impromptu words (zhiyan
), are exposed to life (sheng) itself.

This opposition between life (sheng) and completion (cheng) must be understood in its full psychological and metaphysical depth. The completion that human beings add to life is a defense against the inevitable (budeyi
 ) course of life ending in death, and the remarkable acceptance of death in Zhuangzi, which Graham (1981: 23–4) in particular has emphasized, is due to the fact that Zhuangzi is free from what I call the drive towards completion. As Zhuangzi sees it, the real human tragedy is that the very drive that tries to avoid death withdraws from life itself. But what exactly is this drive towards completion, this excess human beings add to life? Here we can take our cue from Eric Santner’s analysis of the Jewish-German philosopher and religious thinker Franz Rosenzweig. At the center of Rosenzweig’s philosophy is the attempt to break with metaphysical thinking and return to the experience of being “in the midst of life.” According to Santner, here “metaphysical thinking” should not only be understood as philosophy (German Idealism) but as a tendency inherent in everyday life itself, namely “a kind of withdrawal from, a kind of fantasmatic defense against, our being in the midst of the flow of life” (2001: 21). Santner explains: We are dealing here with a paradoxical kind of mental energy that constrains by means of excess, that leaves us stuck and paralyzed precisely by way of a certain kind of intensification and amplification, by a “too much” of pressure that is unable to be assumed, taken up into the flow of living. (2001: 22) Paradoxically, everyday life gives rise to fantasmatic defense structures that “keep us from opening to the temporal flow of life even though they are in some fundamental way immanent to, constitutive of, everyday life” (Santner 2001: 23). Santner says that these defense structures are the 16

ZHUANGZI’S FUNDAMENTAL FIGURES OF THOUGHT

fantasies that effect “social adaptation” and the “the social bond”; they are “the fantasies that underlie our political and ideological captivation, that sustain our psychic entanglement with regimes of power and authority, our psychic attachment to existing social reality” (2001: 24). They are “the fantasies that keep us in the thrall of some sort of exceptional ‘beyond’,” for we are “captured” by social relations and this hinders “our openness to the world, our being in the midst of life” (Santner 2001: 31, 100). This is a psychoanalytic formulation of what Hadot describes as the humanization of the world that results in the neglect of the world qua world. In Zhuangzi’s terms it is the drive towards completion (cheng) that results in the neglect of life (sheng). To this Santner adds the important point that, strangely enough, it is precisely our absorption in the fantasmatic structures of social relations that prevents the ethical experience, or the true encounter with the other. The truly ethical encounter with the other can only happen through an unbinding of the fantasmatic structures so we again inhabit the “midst of life.” “I am suggesting,” writes Santner, “that the task of truly inhabiting the ‘midst of life’ involves the risk of an unbinding or loosening of this fantasy as well as the social bond effectuated in it” (2001: 33). As we will see, precisely such risky unbinding ( jie
) of the drive towards completion (cheng) is at the core of Zhuangzi’s ethics.

Human life What is most evident in Zhuangzi is dark despair and a pitiless wisdom that at times seems unbearable. It is strange, therefore, that so many scholars find in Zhuangzi mainly sunny optimism, playful aestheticism, happy immersion in know-how, and an apparent ability to entertain everyone to no end. In a recent comparative work on Zhuangzi and Kierkegaard, we learn that Zhuangzi’s vision is “remarkably optimistic,” and that Zhuangzi assures us that “[t]hings are fine – and we too are just things among things – just as they are” (Carr and Ivanhoe 2000: 120). One may perhaps have expected that the comparison with Kierkegaard would have precluded this misunderstanding. For Zhuangzi despairs precisely at the fact that we have become things among things and treat each other as things, that is to say, as objects that can be manipulated, mutilated, killed, and discarded. To be sure, Zhuangzi also celebrates our freedom, but as Chen Guying (2005a) rightly points out, Zhuangzi’s “free and easy wandering” must be seen against the background of a “tragic consciousness”. In the Zhuangzi we read the following chilling description of the human condition. Intellectuals are not happy without the permutations of thoughts and ideas. Disputers are not happy without well-ordered arguments. Investigators are not happy without the task of making accusations. All of them are confined by things. . . . Farmers are uneasy without 17

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

the busyness of plowing and planting; merchants are uneasy without the busyness of buying and selling. The common people exert themselves diligently when they have occupations from dawn to dusk; the various artisans are full of vigor when they exercise their skills with tools and machines. If their money and goods do not accumulate the greedy worry; if their power and influence do not increase the ambitious are sad. Those who go for power and material things delight in changes – the moment something can be put to use, they cannot but act. They all follow the times and change with things. They rush their physical forms and their natures and are submerged in the thousand things. All their life they never turn back. How sad! (24/33–8) We should easily recognize ourselves in this description. The Zhuangzi precisely describes what happens when we, as Hadot says, “humanize” the world by transforming it “into an ensemble of ‘things’ useful for life.” When we turn the world into a realm of things (wu), the various objects of our concern, then we are “confined by things” (you yuwu
 ) like animals in a pen. Once enclosed in a world of our own making, we are unable to be happy unless we are engaged with our own thoughts, arguments, and technical abilities, and we feel uneasy without this constant busyness. Preoccupied with things, we learn timely action and how to change along with things. The Zhuangzi laments: “How sad that human beings are only inns for things! They understand what they encounter [as a thing] and do not understand what they do not encounter [as a thing]” (22/82). In other words, human understanding has become a mere container for the transit of things and does not understand anything beyond this commerce. “Now that we have already become things,” says the Zhuangzi, “if we wish to return to the root [the Way], will it not be difficult?” (22/10). It is a pervasive theme in the Zhuangzi that human life (renzhisheng

) is a life of misery and a sad delusion. Human life, says Zhuangzi, is tied to our form (xing
), that is to say, to our body and self, both of which are visible in the outer (wai) realm. The body, obviously, is visible, but the self ( ji
) too is visible in names (ming
) and achievements (gong
). As long as we identify with this outer body/self we exhaust ourselves in competition with others and in pursuit of imaginary goals. Zhuangzi writes: Once we have received the completed physical form, we do not forget it while we wait for extinction. Cutting into and grinding together with things we rush on to the end like a galloping horse no one can stop. Is it not sad? All life we labor and do not see any results. We exhaust ourselves in tiresome labor and do not know where it comes to rest. Is it not lamentable? (2/18–19) 18

ZHUANGZI’S FUNDAMENTAL FIGURES OF THOUGHT

Furthermore, the human heart-and-mind (xin
) has become mechanical, swift and deadly in its judgments, and right (shi
) and wrong ( fei
) fly from it like arrows from the crossbow trigger. Such mechanical heartsand-minds, says Zhuangzi, decline day by day, until they can hardly be made to recover life (2/11–13). In the view of Zhuangzi, human life is a dream. We think that we are awake and with dense, stubborn confidence we say: “Ah, there is a ruler! Oh, that is a shepherd!” (2/83). For we know our way around in our world, and we take it for real. But this absorption in the symbolic order, which is characteristic of human life, is a defense against the inevitable (budeyi) course of life ending in death. Zhuangzi wants us to overcome this defense mechanism, and therefore he repeats again and again that we must give up our love and lust for human life, and that the perfected person views life and death as one unity and is not affected by the transformation of one into the other (2/73, 4/44, 5/5, 5/30, 6/1, 6/8, 6/24, and 6/69). This release from human life into the life of Heaven, the life beyond “life and death,” is like a great awakening. Because human life is a miserable delusion, Zhuangzi’s sage does not identify with the states and activities that define human life. The sage, says Zhuangzi, sees “knowledge as a curse, social bonds as glue, virtue as making connections, and skill as peddling. The sage does not scheme, so what use does he have for knowledge. He does not split things up, so what use does he have for glue. He is deprived of nothing, so what use does he have for making connections? He has nothing to sell, so what use has he for peddling” (5/52–3). But if the sage does not take part in the commerce of human life how does the sage sustain himself ? The sage, says Zhuangzi, “receives food from Heaven, so what use does he have for man?” (5/53– 4). To be sure, the sage has the form of a human being, and so in the outer realm the sage “groups together with humans” (5/54), but the sage does not have the essence (qing
) of a human being, that is to say, he does not issue nor is he affected by value judgments in terms of right and wrong (the deadly arrows from the crossbow). The key point is that for the sage the center of gravity has shifted from human life to the life of Heaven: “How tiny and small is that which categorizes him as a human being, how huge and great is the way he uniquely completes his Heaven” (5/54 –5). In the immediately following passage, Zhuangzi elaborates on what it means to be without the essence (qing) of the human. It means, says Zhuangzi, that “human beings do not harm themselves inside with [value judgments in terms of ] good and bad, but rather always follow the spontaneously self-so ( yinziran
 ) and not add to life” (5/57–8). Zhuangzi’s friend and interlocutor, Hui Shi
, is obviously shocked at Zhuangzi’s proposal and asks: “If human beings do not add to life how can they even maintain themselves [as humans]?” (5/58). In other words, if nothing essentially human is added to life, how can there be human life at all? Zhuangzi answers that 19

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

the appearance and form of human beings have been given us by the Way and by Heaven. It is our fate to have the form of a human being, but the form is merely something outer, it is not our true being. Unfortunately we do not recognize this but get lost in appearances and entangled with things. Look at yourself, says Zhuangzi to his friend, you wear yourself out with your sophistic logic and disputation, and in the process you harm your inner (nei): you “push your spirit (shen
) into the outer realm and wear out your vital essence (qing
)” (5/58–60). It may seem that Zhuangzi totally strips the human subject of all that is quintessentially human – the ability to impose values on the world, the exercise of skill, logic, virtue, and even wisdom – and that he is rightly criticized, as he was early on, for being absorbed in Heaven and neglecting the human. But Zhuangzi’s meditations on human life are spiritual exercise, where it is not a question of providing information but rather of provoking transformation. Zhuangzi wants to liberate human existence from the false values and views we have added to it; above all he wants us to see through the human form to the ceaseless emergence of life itself. Therefore, when Zhuangzi negates human life he at the same time affirms that very life as being engendered by Heaven. Furthermore, when Zhuangzi negates the human, then it is not an outlandish proposition but a view shared by many ancient philosophers. In regard to the ancient Greek philosophers, Hadot writes: Doesn’t “stripping off man” mean that the philosopher completely transforms his vision of the universe, transcending the limited viewpoint of what is human, all-too-human, in order to elevate himself to a superior point of view? Such a perspective is in a way inhuman; it reveals the nudity of existence, beyond the partial oppositions and false values which human beings add to it, in order, perhaps, to attain a state of simplicity prior to all distinctions. . . . This tendency to strip ourselves of “the human” is constant throughout the most diverse schools – from Pyrrho, who remarked on how hard it is to strip ourselves of the human, to Aristotle, for whom life according to the mind is super-human, and as far as Plotinus, who believed that in mystical experience we cease to be “human.” (2002: 113, 211)

The life of Heaven The word tian
, which I translate as “Heaven,” is sometimes translated as “nature,” but in Zhuangzi tian does not mean “nature” in our modern sense of a natural world understood in terms of biological evolution, nor in the seventeenth-century sense of matter extended in space and governed by a set of mechanical laws, nor in the Christian medieval sense of God’s creation 20

ZHUANGZI’S FUNDAMENTAL FIGURES OF THOUGHT

subservient to His purpose. If we must translate tian as “nature” the word should be understood rather in the ancient Greek sense of an alive, intelligent, ceaseless movement of coming-into-being (Collingwood 1960: 3–13). In this sense nature is not an outer object but rather an inner experience. As Pierre Hadot writes, according to ancient Greek philosophy nature ( phusis) is “that movement of growth and birth by which things manifest themselves,” and it is “within ourselves that we can experience the coming-intobeing of reality and the presence of being” (1995: 260). Zhuangzi says that perfected human beings rely on Heaven’s texture (tianli
) (3/6), draw on their Heavenly mechanism (tianji
) (6/7), equalize things within the bounds of Heaven (tianni
) (6/90), rest in the potter’s wheel of Heaven (tianjun
) (2/40), illuminate things in the light of Heaven (zhaozhi yutian
 !) (2/29), and ultimately they enter into unity with vast Heaven (ruyu liaotian yi
 !") (6/82) and live engendered by Heaven (tianersheng
 ) (6/1). This inner experience of Heaven (tian), should be distinguished from the common experience of heaven and earth (tiandi
), that is to say, physical nature, or the experience of things as things. Physical nature can, of course, give us intimations of the transcendent. In Zhuangzi tian often means “sky” in the concrete sense of the sky above us, and since the vast blue sky above us seems to be infinite, Zhuangzi wonders: “Is the deep blue of the sky (tian) its true color? Or is it that it is so distant that it reaches no limit?” (1/4–5). Here the sky, part of physical nature, comes to represent the infinite (wuqiong
) associated with Heaven. Heaven is opposed to the realm below Heaven (tianxia
), that is to say, the world in general and the world of human beings in particular. According to A. C. Graham (1989: 107–11), this split between Heaven (tian) and the realm of man (ren) caused a “metaphysical crisis” in the fourth century . Zhuangzi’s thought is a response to this crisis, but it should be emphasized that for Zhuangzi the split between Heaven and man does not preclude the experience of Heaven; on the contrary, the split is the very condition for this experience. For only by breaking with the natural, prereflexive unity with Heaven, which is proper only to animals, do human beings attain the experience of Heaven. The crucial point is that, according to Zhuangzi, we can transform our human life and experience that this life is moved by Heaven, or, better, that it is the movement of Heaven. “The life of the sage,” says the Zhuangzi, “is the movement of Heaven” (15/10), and “when he [the sage] moves he is moved by Heaven” (15/18). Zhuangzi’s experience of wandering (you
), which is his spiritual exercise par excellence, is precisely this experience of being moved by Heaven. Wandering is not a technique or a method, but the simple release of human life into its pure coming-into-being, which is the inner experience of being engendered by Heaven. Victor Mair says that in Zhuangzi “’wandering implies a ‘laid-back’ attitude towards life in which one takes things as they come and flows along with the Tao [Dao] 21

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

unconcernedly” (1994: 385). A. C. Graham, for his part, says that in Zhuangzi the term you (wandering) is “used rather like the ‘trip’ of psychedelic slang in the 1960s” (1981: 8). We should follow rather Fukunaga Mitsuji (1946), who understands Zhuangzi’s wandering in terms of the profound religious experience of surrendering to the chaos of self-emerging life, entering Heaven and becoming a friend of the Creator of Things. For Zhuangzi uses the term you (wandering) in a very precise sense that can only be understood against the background of Zhuangzi’s crucial distinction between human life (renzhisheng
 ) and the life of Heaven (tianzhisheng
 ). Human life is engendered by Heaven, but usually we are so immersed in human life that we have no sense of being engendered by Heaven. Wandering ( you) happens when we do experience ourselves as being engendered by Heaven and experience a freedom and joy that is not found within the confines of human life. Far from simply going along with the flow of things and the events of human life, which is precisely what prevents us from experiencing the life of Heaven, the person who is wandering is liberated from things.

The Way In Zhuangzi the Way (dao) and Heaven (tian) are closely connected. The Way is, as Isabelle Robinet says, “the essence of life” (2002: 80), and Heaven engenders life. The Way is the pure self-emergence of beings, but it is not itself a being. Things flourish and decay, but the Way, which is the movement of this flourishing and decay, does not itself flourish and decay (22/51). Things complete and destruct, but the Way, which is the movement of this completion and destruction, does not itself complete and destruct (2/35–6). Like Heaven, the Way is the transcendental life that gives life to the living but does not itself live and die. Like Heaven, the Way is an inner experience. As Izutsu Toshihiko says, the Way is the absolute, beyond being and nonbeing, but “man alone is in a position to grasp the Way from the inside, so to speak. He can be conscious of himself as a manifestation of the Way. He can feel and touch within himself the palpitating life of the Absolute as it is actively working there” (1984: 53). Similarly, Livia Kohn explains that “one always participates in the Tao [Dao], the absolute, the One. The absolute is the now; it is right here to be participated in absolutely” (1992: 55). A. C. Graham remarks that in Zhuangzi the Way is an “inner experience,” it is an “unformulable path” and an “unnamable whole.” The Way, says Graham, is entirely beyond any distinctions we can draw, it is “nothing less than the universe flowing from its ultimate source (not just the course of its flow, which would be to draw a distinction)” (1989: 188). Chen Guying (2005b), for his part, explains, that for Zhuangzi the Way is the inner experience of the totality of things after we break out of the confinement of the

22

ZHUANGZI’S FUNDAMENTAL FIGURES OF THOUGHT

completed mind and the objectified self and attain cosmic consciousness. These scholars come close to explaining Zhuangzi’s Way, but ultimately the Way is supra-discursive, and any discourse on the Way can only be an exercise in saying the unsayable. Zhuangzi says: The Way is real and true. It has no action and no form. It can be handed down but not received. It can be apprehended but not seen. Rooted in itself, founded in itself, before there were Heaven and Earth, from ancient times assuredly existing. It divinizes the ghosts and the highest god. It engenders Heaven and Earth. It is above the highest point without being high, it is below the world without being low; it is prior to Heaven and Earth without being longlasting, it is senior to high antiquity without being old. (6/29–31) It is a widely held opinion among Western scholars that for the ancient Chinese thinkers the real is one homogeneous process, a continuity of being without ontologically different levels of being. François Jullien (2000: 280), for instance, argues that unlike the Greek tradition with its difference between being and becoming, the intelligible and the sensible, in the Chinese tradition “the difference introduced within the real operates between two stages” and there are not different ontological levels of being. To be sure, the Way (dao) is invisible and escapes the senses, but, according to Jullien, in China the invisible “does not constitute another level, such as another world . . . The invisible is indeed beyond the visible but as an extension of it; it is of the order of the evanescent and not the unintelligible (noeton). . . . This invisible is rather the diffuse basis of the visible from which the latter ceaselessly actualizes itself. In short, this invisible lacks metaphysical consistency.” Therefore, although the Chinese stages of the visible and the invisible constitute “an original dialectic that can be seen as parallel to Western ontology,” they do not imply “an ontological rift” (Jullien 2000: 290–1). In China, says Jullien, “there is no metaphysical rupture between the phenomenal and its foundation,” and in reading Chinese texts “we quit Greek ontology for the Chinese conception of the process of the real” (2000: 280–1), which instead of ontological levels operates with stages between the not yet actualized and the actualized. The Zhuangzi, however, explicitly says that the Way is beyond the dichotomies of full and empty, root and branch, to accumulate and to disperse (22/51–2), that is to say, the Way is beyond the continuum that according to Jullien constitutes the totality of the ancient Chinese philosophy of process. The Zhuangzi also explicitly says that the Way cannot be attained through meditation, reflection, knowing, abiding, submission, following, or by any method in general (22/1–28). Therefore it is highly questionable if in Zhuangzi,

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as Jullien says, the Way “is of the order of the evanescent and not the unintelligible.” When the Zhuangzi speaks of the Way as the real (qing
) beyond form, color, name, and sound (13/67), then it is not thinking of a Platonic form (eidos). Nevertheless, in these discussions the Zhuangzi does, as Christoph Harbsmeier says, enter “a higher metaphysical realm” (1998: 236), and it is unnecessary to insist with Jullien that Zhuangzi’s conception of the Way “lacks metaphysical consistency.” Zhuangzi’s categorical distinction between the realm of things and the Way makes the transcendence of the Way especially clear. In Zhuangzi the realm of things, including human beings (as things), is the totality of facts that make up our world as every thing we perceive, name, and use. All these facts are relative, they are all a this as opposed to a that, and this opposition gives rise to disputes, strife, and general insecurity. Therefore, according to Zhuangzi, the highest attainment of the ancients was to realize that there is “a realm [or state] before there are things” (2/40). The realm before there are things is the Way, which “things things” (wuwu

) but is “not a thing” (22/75), and so, strictly speaking, is nothing. Zhuangzi says that the realm “before there are things,” namely the Way, is posited at a different level from things, distinctions, and the ensuing value judgments (2/40–2). There is no continuity between these two realms: “what things things,” the Way, “has no border with things,” for borders are only found in the realm of things (22/50–1), and the outer (wai), or the realm of things, and the inner (nei), or the realm of the Way, “do not touch upon each other” (6/66–7). In this way, Zhuangzi makes a categorical if not ontological distinction between the realm of things and the Way. Western Zhuangzi scholars generally disregard this crucial difference between the realm of things and the Way, but Chinese and Japanese scholars often treat it as central to Zhuangzi’s thought. Ikeda Tomohisa (1996: 143–52), for instance, places early Daoist thought squarely in the fields of ontology and metaphysics, and he says that in Laozi and Zhuangzi there are two distinct realms: the realm of things (wu), which is under the constraint of time and space, and the realm of the Way (dao), which transcends beings and forms in time and space.

Two kinds of transcendence On November 12, 1210, some followers of Amalric of Bena were burnt at the stake, because Amalric had interpreted the claim of the Apostle that “God is all in all” to mean that, as Giorgio Agamben writes, “God is in every thing as the place in which every thing is, or rather as the determination and the ‘topia’ of every entity” (1993: 13). Agamben adds that the consequence of this heretical view is that the transcendent “is not a supreme entity above all things; rather, the pure transcendent is the taking-place

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ZHUANGZI’S FUNDAMENTAL FIGURES OF THOUGHT

of every thing” (1993: 14). Agamben then extrapolates on this idea of transcendence: God or the good or the place does not take place, but is the takingplace of the entities, their innermost exteriority. The being-worm of the worm, the being-stone of the stone, is divine. That the world is, that something can appear and have a face, that there is exteriority and non-latency as the determination and the limit of every thing: this is the good. Thus precisely its being irreparably in the world is what transcends and exposes every worldly entity. (1993: 14) We should, then, distinguish between two kinds of transcendence. In the first kind, the orthodox Western kind from Plato’s Forms to Descartes’ cogito, transcendence means that there is a realm or an entity y that goes beyond and surpasses x. This beyond is conceived of as static, abstract, and absolute. In the second kind of transcendence, it is the taking-place of x, the being-such of x, that goes beyond x as a thing or an object. Or, as Agamben says, it is the very “taking-place of the entities,” their “being irreparably in the world,” the very fact “[t]hat the world is, that something can appear” that is “the pure transcendent.” This second kind of transcendence eludes the distinction between immanence and transcendence, and I suggest that this is the fundamental sense of transcendence in Zhuangzi. It is this second kind of transcendence that Isabelle Robinet has in mind when she says that Zhuangzi’s essential experience is the moment when something begins to emerge from there is not (wu) into there is ( you) without as yet being a positive, differentiated, and identifiable thing. According to Robinet, in Zhuangzi there is a wu (nothing) more radical than the wu that is opposed to you (something). The Zhuangzi calls this radical nothing the “non-existence of nothing” (wuwu

) (22/67), which Robinet renders with “the absence of absence” or “the non-being of non-being.” Robinet says that this radical nothing, which is also the Way, transcends the continuum of opposites that define an immanent process. For the radical nothing is the ontological precondition for “there is world,” but it itself is never given as a fact in the world. There is, then, a genuine ontological difference at work in Zhuangzi between what appears (differentiated things) and appearance as such which does not appear. Robinet writes: In regard to the order to which the undifferentiated and the differentiated pertain, the difference is absolute. . . . This invisible [the radical nothing, the Way] manifests as invisible in the visible, as that which cannot appear and does not appear. The possibility of this double mode of being, invisible and yet visible (invisible et par

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là visible), is a sign of its irreducible immanence. That is to say, that one should not confuse that which appears, the ontic content, with the event of appearing independent of this content (le fait d’apparaitre indépendant de ce contenu). (1996: 125) When Zhuangzi says, “that which gives birth to the living [Heaven, the Way] is not born” (6/42), Robinet adds the explanatory comment: “and so it does not appear, in the same way as appearance does not appear (l’apparaitre n’apparait pas)” (1996: 141). We have in Zhuangzi, then, an ontological difference between the event of appearing and that which appears. As Robinet points out, this ontological difference is not incompatible with immanence – but an immanence more radical, indeed more transcendent than the transcendence of some y in relation to some x: “To insist, as does Jullien, on the immanence of the foundation of the world and not see that the nature of this immanence is to be irreducibly and forever invisible is to stop half-ways. That which is immanent can never become an object of knowing without losing its character of immanence” (1996: 125, n. 27). The essential form of transcendence in Zhuangzi is the pure appearance of things, which transcends things without being some-thing beyond the realm of things. And yet, Zhuangzi mentions a Creator of Things (zaowuzhe

) (6/67) and a Creator of Transformations (zaohuazhe

) (6/59), and so he brings into play the other kind of transcendence, where there is a y (a Creator) that is beyond and causes x (things). Indeed, one of the earliest accounts of Zhuangzi, which is found in the last chapter of the Zhuangzi itself, characterizes Zhuangzi as someone who “above wanders with the Creator of things” (33/67). Zhuangzi describes the Creator of Transformations as a smith whose forge is heaven and earth (6/59–60). The Creator is a kind of Demiurge who fashions the material world. Similarly, Zhuangzi says that the Way and Heaven give forms to things (5/56). The picture of Heaven as a transcendent creator is reinforced when Zhuangzi says that Heaven determines the destiny of things (5/10) and their life-span (6/2), and that Heaven can punish human beings (5/31, 6/71). This conception of Heaven and the Creator of things as anthropomorphic, transcendent causes of things seems incompatible with the idea of the Way and Heaven as the self-emergence of things. Why does Zhuangzi vacillate between these two notions of transcendence? From a historical point of view, the answer is that Zhuangzi joins a wider debate in the fourth century concerning the question of whether or not there is something that causes the changes in nature (Tu 1985: 1–10), but one may also venture a psychological explanation. For it is perhaps natural that someone like Zhuangzi, whose essential experience is the awareness of pure coming-into-being – the astonishing fact that the world is – should sometimes retreat from this experience and contemplate how the world comes into being. Furthermore, it is much 26

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easier to understand transcendence as some y that surpasses and causes x than to tarry with the notion of transcendence as the pure emergence and being-such of x as opposed to x as a thing. The difficulty is, on the one hand, not to let this form of transcendence collapse into a simple immanence, and, on the other hand, not to objectify pure self-emergence into a principle or a force external to things themselves. Everything here depends on being able to think transcendence without a transcendent object or being. For it is a split in the thing itself that constitutes transcendence, namely the split between the thing as being this or that thing and the thing as beingsuch as it is and indifferent to differences. Finally, it may also be pointed out that the vacillation between seeing the ceaseless emergence of beings (nature) either as self-generated or as caused by some agent is a universal problematic. The Greeks, as we have noted, saw nature (phusis) as a ceaseless self-generating movement of coming-into-being. Plato shares this notion of nature, but in Book ten of the Laws, he argues that a movement that engenders itself can only be ascribed to the soul – the soul that is “older than matter.” For, says Plato, selfgenerating motion is “the source of all motion” and “infinitely superior to all other forms of motion.” In other words, the self-engendering movement of nature is now seen as a first principle and a first cause (Laws 889e–899d, cf. Hadot 2002: 11). There seems, then, to be a universal tendency for transcendence as the pure emergence and being-so of the thing to slip into transcendence as an agency and cause beyond the thing.

Non-understanding The Zhuangzi radically questions the distinction between understanding (zhi
) and non-understanding (buzhi
), or knowing and not-knowing: “Is then not to understand to understand? Is then to understand not to understand? Who understands that understanding which is notunderstanding?” (22/61). Zhuangzi himself says: “How do I know that what I call to understand is not not-to-understand? How do I know that what I call not-to-understand is not to understand?” (2/66). The Zhuangzi says that not to understand is the more authentic way of understanding: “Not to understand is profound, to understand is shallow. Not to understand is inner (nei), to understand is outer (wai)” (22/60–1). Furthermore, “to conform to what understanding understands is shallow indeed” (22/84). The Zhuangzi says that understanding is to connect with ( jie
) the object and then to scheme (mou
) in making use of it. In other words, it is a technical ability. This agrees with the Mohist logicians’ definition of understanding (Graham 1978: 266). Zhuangzi’s non-understanding or not-knowing, on the other hand, is like looking awry (ni
), for nonunderstanding does not confront and appropriate the object as something that enters the field of vision as a thing (23/71). This non-objectifying field 27

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of vision (non-understanding) is the precondition for understanding anything at all. Or, as the Zhuangzi says, just like the ground on which we do not step is the precondition for taking any steps at all, non-understanding is the precondition for understanding anything at all and in particular for understanding Heaven. For Heaven is not a thing and therefore it cannot be connected with ( jie) understanding. The foot treads on the earth, but even as it treads, it relies on where it does not tread in order to walk far. Man understands little, but little as it is, he relies on what he does not understand in order to understand what we call Heaven. (24/104–5) For Zhuangzi non-understanding has to be retained as the essential element in understanding, in order for understanding to be more than a merely technical procedure and open to Heaven. To understand on the basis of non-understanding is, says Zhuangzi, like a wingless flight. To leave no tracks is easy, but not to walk on the ground is difficult. What is caused by man is easy to falsify, what is caused by Heaven is hard to falsify. You have heard about flying by having wings, but you have never heard about flying by having no wings. You have heard about understanding by having understanding, but you have never heard of understanding by having no understanding. (4/30–2) The understanding that comes from non-understanding cannot be falsified, for it is not the result of a method but generated by Heaven. When we live engendered by Heaven, then “to understand seems like not to understand; only when there is non-understanding can there be understanding” (24/109). True understanding is granted only by non-understanding, and, as we will see in the following chapters, the situation is the same in regard to authentic action and saying: authentic action is granted only by non-action, and authentic saying is granted only by non-saying. Zhuangzi’s non-understanding runs counter to the Western tradition from Aristotle, who begins his Metaphysics by stating that “all men by nature desire to know,” to Heidegger, who in Being and Time (1996: 309) defines understanding as a fundamental characteristic of our very being-in-the-world. According to this tradition non-understanding is a deficiency that indicates a failure to fully actualize one’s human potential. And yet, Friedrich Schlegel recognized that incomprehension, far from being a deficient state, is in fact the productive force in comprehension. In addressing the criticism of the Athenaeum for being incomprehensible, Schlegel, with some irony, writes:

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But is incomprehensibility really something so unmitigatedly contemptible and evil? Methinks the salvation of families and nations rests upon it. . . . Yes, even man’s most precious possession, his inner happiness, depends in the last analysis, as anybody can easily verify, on some such point of strength that must be left in the dark, but that nonetheless shores up and supports the whole burden and would crumble the moment one subjected it to rational analysis. Verily, it would fare badly with you if, as you demand, the whole world were ever to become wholly comprehensible in earnest. And isn’t this entire, unending world constructed by the understanding out of incomprehensibility or chaos? (1971: 268) Werner Hamacher points out that the dominant tradition in the West has interpreted understanding “as techne, ars, art, and has furthermore taken it for a methodologically controllable procedure.” But, says Hamacher, there remains “something uncomprehended and incomprehensible . . . an incapacity and an impossibility” at the heart of understanding. What remains is “nonunderstanding,” which is not the opposite of understanding but “its inconceivable ground and ungraspable background. . . . incomprehensibility is what first grants understanding, discloses its possibility, and preserves it as a possibility.” Therefore, says Hamacher, “understanding must understand itself from its impossibility” (1996: 2–5). Similarly Zhuangzi claims nonunderstanding as the very condition for understanding, and in particularly for understanding Heaven. Zhuangzi’s discourse is a spiritual exercise that aims to retain this productive element of non-understanding in understanding – and the reader is invited to take part in the exercise.

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3 THE DRIVE TOWARDS COMPLETION

It is not right for what is to be incomplete. Parmenides Do not sacrifice yourself for completion. The Zhuangzi

Technique negates the Way Technical mastery of the world is something specifically human, and technique is as enigmatic a phenomenon as the human being itself. Technique, writes Arnold Gehlen, “truly mirrors man – like man himself it is clever, it represents something intrinsically improbable, it bears a complex, twisted relationship to nature. . . . Technique constitutes, as does man himself, nature artificielle” (1980: 4–5). It belongs to the enigmatic nature of man to be a product of nature and at the same time to be able to negate nature, and technique takes part in this ambivalence. On the one hand technique is a continuation of nature with other (human) means (technique is merely a function of unchanging natural laws), on the other hand technique goes against nature (technique neutralizes certain natural laws by means of others in order to achieve a goal) (Hösle 1995: 94). For instance, the waterwheel is made to rotate by the force of the natural downward flow of the water, and by this action it forces the water to run upward against its “nature,” so it can irrigate the fields. It is in simple but ingenious contraptions like the waterwheel that the essence of human action becomes an object for philosophical reflection. We are told in the Zhuangzi, that during his travels Zigong
, one of the leading disciples of Confucius, sees a gardener watering his plot of land: “through a dug tunnel he entered the well, embracing a jug he came out to water the garden. Huffing and puffing he used a lot of energy but saw little result.” Seeing this Zigong says to the man: “There are machines for this that can irrigate a hundred plots of land in one day. You’ll use very little energy and see great results. Wouldn’t you like one?” The gardener asks 30

THE DRIVE TOWARDS COMPLETION

how it works, and Zigong explains the mechanics of a well-sweep (12/52–5). Having heard this the gardener “puts on an indignant look and says with a laugh”: I have heard from my teacher, that if there are mechanical contraptions, then there is sure to be mechanical dealings; when there are mechanical dealings, then there is sure to be a mechanical heart; when a mechanical heart exists in the breast, then the pure and simple is impaired; when the pure and simple is impaired then the spiritual life-force is unsettled. When your spiritual life-force is unsettled then the Way does not carry you along. It is not that I do not know [about mechanical contraptions], it is out of a sense of shame that I do not act that way. (12/55–7) According to the gardener the use of technology has far-reaching consequences. First, the use of mechanical contraptions will cause human beings to have a mechanical mind ( jixin
). Second, when the mind becomes crafty and mechanical, it will impair the pure and simple ground of human existence. Third, once this ground is impaired, then the spiritual life-force becomes unsettled, and human beings will no longer be supported by the Way. Therefore, for the gardener, it would be shameful (we would say immoral) to rely on such technical mastery. Zigong is mortified and has no reply to the gardener. The gardener then asks Zigong what he does. Zigong answers that he is a disciple of Confucius. This provokes the gardener to a diatribe against the Confucians, which ends with the words: “You can’t govern your own self, so what leisure do you have to govern the world?” Later, when he has recovered from the shock of the encounter, Zigong tells his disciples that he has heard from Confucius that the way of the sages consists in seeking success in one’s affairs, seeking completion (cheng) in one’s undertakings, and in using little energy and seeing great results. In other words, the way of the sages consists in that drive towards completion and wish for great results that is the essence of technical mastery. However, after having met the gardener Zigong realizes that the opposite is true: to truly follow the way of the sages, one must forget all about results, profit, mechanical ingenuity, and skillfulness. A person who is able to do this, says Zigong, is unaffected by praise and blame and oblivious to whatever the common opinion may be (12/57–67). This story contains the main points of the critique of technical action that we find in the Zhuangzi. First the Zhuangzi affirms an un-made “ground” as the source of all authentic human action. This “ground” is here described as being pure and simple, but is also called the uncarved block ( pu
). The image of the uncarved block indicates that state of pure potentiality that Zhuangzi wants to retain in human action, so that completion (cheng), the 31

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

aim of technical action, does not end in total closure, and human action can nourish life ( yangsheng). The uncarved block is not a static substratum but an active force that moves human beings along together with everything else, and this movement is also named the Way. The experience of being moved along in this way is the experience of ceaseless self-emerging life (sheng). According to Zhuangzi, human beings lose touch with this moving ground, when they become preoccupied with governing the world through their technical ingenuity. When human beings enclose themselves in a world of their own making, they become obsessed with controlling the outer (wai) world, the world of man (ren), and they lose contact with the inner (nei). They are no longer able to govern themselves, and morality deteriorates into mere moralism, where the demands put on others are only an excuse for not facing the demands that are always already placed on oneself. For Zhuangzi there is a deep connection between moralism and technical cleverness: both focus on mastering the outer and neglect the inner; both are fragmented and anxious states; and both lose touch with the movement of the Way. Therefore, in transcending the drive for technical mastery, Zhuangzi’s sage remains unaffected by the moralistic praise and blame of the outer world of man (ren), and he exhibits a certain absentmindedness in his dealings with the world of man, which is an indication that he has withdrawn from that world and is in contact with the inner or the movement of the Way.

The Confucian view of technical action The Zhuangzi criticizes the Confucians for having a technical view of human action. It may be objected that this critique cannot be leveled at Confucius
 (551–479 ) himself, who is generally suspicious of all artificial and technical intervention into the natural order of things. Confucius finds aesthetic, even moral enjoyment in nature (Lunyu 6.23), and he contemplates the natural flow of water as an image for the ceaselessly emerging and swiftly passing flow of life (Lunyu 9.17) (chapter and section follow Lau 1983). In teaching moral conduct Confucius emphasizes a similar nontechnical, natural and spontaneous movement. He says that the moral influence of the noble man works spontaneously like nature itself, without the need for techniques or methods to implement it: “the virtue of the noble man is like the wind; the virtue of the vulgar is like the grass. When the wind blows over the grass, the grass must bend” (Lunyu 12.19). The example of the noble man spontaneously instills a sense of shame in the vulgar, so that they willingly submit and reform themselves (Lunyu 2.3). In governing a state, Confucius wants, ideally at least, to rely on the rituals (li). Confucius sees that in ritual action, broadly understood as all civilized conduct ranging from a formal greeting to an animal sacrifice, the spontaneous force of the symbolic order comes into play, and when the individual submits to this force he or she is naturally “carried” to moral 32

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action. According to Confucius, ritual action is natural and unforced, it has a passive and spontaneous element as its constitutive part, and therefore it is qualitatively different from technical mastery, which is artificial and forced and relies on skill and cunning. Where technical mastery is always close to being immoral, in ritual action human beings act morally and spontaneously at the same time. Herbert Fingarette has well described that elusive non-technical dimension of ritual action that Confucius took as the paradigm for all truly moral action. Through ritual, writes Fingarette, we can accomplish our will “directly and effortlessly” without “strategies and devices” and without using “coercion or physical forces.” The participant in ritual “simply wills the end in the proper ritual setting and with the proper ritual gesture and word; without further effort on his part, the deed is accomplished” (Fingarette 1972: 3). To be sure, ritual action has a spontaneous dimension, but it cannot be denied that ritual action is a technique, namely the technical ability to function within the context of references that structure a particular culture. The performative ritual act does not really function by magic but depends on the cultural setting. As Fingarette himself observes: “I cannot effectively go through the ceremony of bequeathing my servant to someone if, in our society, there is no accepted convention of slavery” (1972: 12). Zhuangzi, for his part, sees ritual action as a form of technical action, it depends on a particular setting and a pre-determined goal, and therefore it cannot be authentic ethical action. Mencius
 (371–289 ), a contemporary of Zhuangzi, claims for morality the same non-technical and effortless character that we see in Confucius. The difference is that whereas in Confucius it is the ritual gesture that spontaneously unfolds our humanity, in Mencius it is the good heartand-mind (xin
) that serves as a similar starting-point. Thus, where Confucius says that he who knows the explanation of an important sacrifice could manage the world as easily as if he had it in the palm of his hand (Lunyu 3.11), Mencius says that when one governs with the heart of compassion, “then ruling the world is as easy as rolling it in your palm” (Mengzi 2A6) (numbering follows Lau 1984). Both Confucius and Mencius have tremendous faith in their own prescriptions – one will, as Zigong says in the Zhuangzi passage discussed above, see great results from using little energy – but at the time of Mencius the spontaneous force of the symbolic order had weakened, and Mencius could only hope to recover this spontaneity in essence by turning inwards towards human nature (xing
). According to Mencius human nature naturally tends towards the good. Mencius does not claim that the good is actually effective in the world – the endless strife of the Warring States period (403–221 ) would make a mockery of such a claim – but that moral impulses are present in their incipient stage and can be the place from which the saving power arises in a time of brutality, craftiness, and cunning. According to Mencius, these moral 33

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tendencies are part of that dimension of life which human beings cannot, need not, and indeed should not control. This is the point of Mencius’ story about a man who tried to force his seedlings, or his incipient moral tend=encies, to grow by pulling at them, but in this way only destroyed them (Mengzi 2A2). If these moral tendencies are properly attended to and nourished, then moral action will be “like a fire catching on and a spring gushing forth” (Mengzi 2A6), it will be an irresistible force “like streams and rivers bursting their banks, flowing in torrents, and nobody can hinder it” (Mengzi 7A16). Mencius valiantly defends this idealistic view of the irresistible force of spontaneous moral tendencies in a time that increasingly turned to the technical mastery of humanity and nature. Mencius denounces the men of mere technical ability, “the clever who make cunning devises and tricks,” in the strongest terms he knows: the clever are without shame, which, for Mencius, is equivalent to being without the source of morality, or the sense of what is right ( yi
) (Mengzi 7A7, 2A6). Mencius says that he detests the wise (in the sense of the overly or aggressively clever), but if only the wise were like the sage Yu
, who in regulating the waters “moved them along the path of no resistance” – or, as Lau translates, “guided the water by imposing nothing on it that was against its natural tendency” (1984: 169) – then Mencius would approve of them (Mengzi 4B26). In this way Mencius tries to retain a dimension of something effortless and natural in the technical action of the sages, just as he argues for something that is not made, forced, or calculated, at the heart of moral action. Zhuangzi shares Mencius’ contempt for the merely technical and his emphasis on the spontaneous dimension in human action; and yet, Zhuangzi thinks that Mencius’ ideal is “hopelessly confused” (2/70). For, although it is true that authentic, ethical action issues from a spontaneous source, Mencius turns things upside down when he claims that specifically Confucian values – humanity (ren
), righteousness ( yi
), ritual (li
), and wisdom (zhi
) – issue from this source. This is, says Zhuangzi, like claiming that one can set out for one’s destination today and arrive yesterday (2/22). For, according to Zhuangzi, all human values are a product of prejudice (chengxin
), or some particular way of proceeding (xing
), and they do not sprout naturally in human nature. In spite of Mencius’ attempts to show the opposite, Confucian values are made (wei
), they are a technical achievement, and therefore, according to Zhuangzi, not authentically ethical. It was up to Xunzi
 (c.335–230 ) to bite the bullet and resolve the contradiction inherent in the Confucian view of ritual and moral action as at once natural (spontaneous) and man-made (technical). Zhuangzi had already noticed this contradiction, but contrary to Zhuangzi, who develops a view of non-technical action, Xunzi gives up the earlier Confucian claim that Confucian rituals and values are natural, and he unabashedly affirms 34

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the supremacy of technical action. Unlike Confucius, Xunzi has no patience with passive contemplation of nature. Rhetorically he asks: “What is better, to contemplate things and observe them, or to order things and not let them slip?” (Xunzi 17.9) (chapter and section follows Knoblock 1988–94). Correspondingly, Xunzi sees nothing positive in the spontaneous, non-technical dimension of human action. Unlike Confucius, Xunzi describes the rituals as methods or standards, and he views them as external restraints just like the marking line and the compass and the square, the tools with which the craftsman imposes his order on the material (Xunzi 19.2). For Xunzi the rituals are tools or techniques to laboriously form human nature, regulate desires and so strengthen the state. With Xunzi it becomes clear, as François Jullien writes, that “[i]n the last analysis, ritual itself, the basis of Chinese civilization as a whole and Confucian morality in particular, can be considered purely as a mechanism” (1995: 66). Zhuangzi, of course, already knew this. Unlike Mencius, Xunzi does not try to pass off Confucian values as if they sprouted spontaneously in nature. Xunzi decisively breaks with the earlier Confucians when he not only affirms the world of man (ren) but affirms it as an artificial construction. Xunzi drives home this point when he promotes not just human action (wei) but human artifice (wei
), using a term that traditionally had negative connotations meaning “artificial,” “counterfeit,” and “false.” For Xunzi the only truly human action is the action that is the result of conscious effort, the action that goes against nature and therefore is artifice. Relying on such artifice, human beings are able to organize themselves in a unified group and dominate chaotic and dangerous nature, so they can “can obtain houses and dwell safely” (Xunzi 9.16a). Xunzi’s technical term for this ability to form groups is qun
, a word that has connotations of “crowds” and “herds,” and that, as a description of human association, would have offended the sensibilities of Confucius. The societies that arise out of these crowds must, of course, organize themselves according to what is right and proper according to the methods of the Confucians (rushu

) (Xunzi 10.9). If one follows the methods of the Confucians, says Xunzi, then goods and commodities will “flow inexhaustibly like a spring, torrential like the Yellow River and the sea.” As if he had a premonition of the accelerated circulation and “over-production” characteristic of advanced capitalist societies, Xunzi even foresees that this artificial production may become a force as overpowering as the very nature it replaces: the goods and commodities “will pile up like hills and mountains. If you do not burn them from time to time, there will be no place to store them” (Xunzi 10.9). Xunzi pushes his vision of the total control of the world into the imaginary, and he celebrates a situation where, to borrow the words of Hans Jonas, “the natural is swallowed up in the sphere of the artificial, and at the same time the total artifact . . . generates a ‘nature’ of its own” (1984: 10). 35

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Those who seek in Confucianism the root of the economic success of industrial East Asian or, for that matter, the cause of the appeal of Maoism in China, need look no further than Xunzi. Here we have the total mobilization of all natural and human resources for the sake of production, and everything is ordered from the perspective of utility and profit. To be sure, utility and profit are under the constraints of what is right (yi), but this moral constraint is largely justified in terms of the ultimate goal: the wealth and power of the state. Xunzi shows no reluctance to subdue and master the world ( pace Max Weber), nor does he exhibit that ecological consciousness that has recently been claimed for Confucianism. Xunzi has a wish to dominate nature as strong as any Western thinker – only Xunzi did not have the powerful modern economic and technical means to fulfill his wish. Philosophically Xunzi expresses his will to dominate nature and spontaneously self-emerging life in his valuation of completion (cheng) over life (sheng). For Xunzi life as such is of little importance – as he points out, even grass and plants have life (Xunzi 9.16a) – and it is useless to yearn for the experience of life (Xunzi 17.9). It is the completion of life through human action that alone counts, for, says Xunzi, “Heaven is able to give life (sheng) to things, but it cannot differentiate things. Earth can support man, but it cannot govern man” (Xunzi 19.6). Consequently, the proper division of labor is that “Heaven and Earth give it life (sheng), but the sage completes (cheng) it” (27.41). In refusing to live with the contradictions inherent in the earlier Confucian world-view, Xunzi admits that Confucian ritual and moral action essentially is a technical drive towards completion. Zhuangzi had already seen that and criticized the Confucians for being out of touch with ceaseless self-emerging life. Xunzi, for his part, thought that to be of no consequence.

Totalitarianism and strategic thinking From Confucius to Xunzi the Confucians increasingly emphasize the technical side of human action and the completion (cheng) imposed on life (sheng) by man (ren). This drive towards completion is also seen in the other major contemporary schools of thought, and here I will briefly consider the Mohists, the Legalists, and the theorists of warfare. Mozi
, who flourished in the late fifth century , had been a student of Confucian practices but became very critical of the contemporary followers of the teaching of Confucius. Mozi thought that Confucian ritual practice was anachronistic and only showed that the Confucians were unable to meet the exigency of the present time. For Mozi there is nothing inherently right (yi) about Confucian practices, such as their elaborate funeral rituals and long mourning periods, they are simply a matter of custom. A particular practice is right only if it brings profit under the present circumstances, 36

THE DRIVE TOWARDS COMPLETION

and from this perspective the Confucian practice of lavish expenditure in funeral rites is clearly wrong. Mozi also strongly objects to the Confucians’ constant reference to fate (ming
), because such fatalism prevents the creation of a rich and wellordered state. For Mozi, writes Benjamin Schwartz, there is no “preexistent, immanent order of things,” rather order must be achieved by strenuous efforts of the will, for “the good is nothing pregiven. The good must be achieved!” (1985: 141–3). Mozi is the first to break with the early Confucian way of dwelling in a world that is already completed by ritual, the order of Heaven, and fate, and he introduces the self-assertion and the drive towards completion that became characteristic of the Legalists and later Confucians like Xunzi. The Mohist, says Schwartz, is “an aggressive activist in every sense” (1985: 158). The beginning of argumentative philosophy in China is closely connected with this break with the pre-existing order. Among the Mohists arose the idea that rational discourse in the form of disputation (bian
) is the way of attaining truth. Unlike the Confucians, who relied on their ritual action and their moral sense, the Mohists excelled in argumentation and technical knowledge. Schwartz, rightly, sees this as a change in the very notion of truth in ancient China. Whereas Confucius relied on a pre-existing truth that he could only transmit, the Mohist creates his truth. The Mohist is a craftsman who brings forth a new, artificial reality: “Like the good craftsman, the Mohist is an active, goal-oriented individual bent on realizing his project in the world” (Schwartz 1985: 167). According to the Legalists, rewards and punishments are the “two handles” held by the ruler to govern the state. Hanfeizi
 (c.280–233 ) tersely explains the use of this most important tool: “To inflict mutilation and death on men is called punishment; to bestow honor and reward is called favor” (Watson 1963: 30). The Legalists call for “a regime based on invariant laws and manipulative ‘techniques’ ” (Lewis 1999: 71), and they promote “a vision of society in which ‘objective’ mechanisms of ‘behavioral’ control become automatic instruments for achieving well-defined sociopolitical goals” (Schwartz 1985: 328). The ultimate goal is the wealth and power of the state, and the Legalists laid the theoretical foundation for “the all-powerful Chinese state,” which, as John King Fairbank writes, is “the greatest of all China’s technological-social achievements” (1985: vi). Zhuangzi, for his part, as Heiner Roetz writes, sees that the primordial ground of the ethical “perishes with the emergence of technique, the bloody foundation of the state with its physical and psychical means of coercion, and the spreading of overrefined culture” (1993: 250). The Legalists clearly recognized the essence of the totalitarian aspiration, namely that technical mastery of the world will create a second nature in which the primary oppression is felt as freedom. Jullien explains that according to the Legalists, 37

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

the whole strength of totalitarian authoritarianism lies in the following in no way paradoxical fact: oppression carried to extremes will no longer be seen as oppression but as its opposite, something spontaneous, natural, and requiring no justification. This is the case partly because such pressure creates a long-term habitus that becomes second nature to the individuals subjected to it. More fundamentally, human law, in becoming inhuman, takes on the characteristics of natural law. Insensitive and hence equally pitiless and omnipresent, it imposes its constraints on everyone, at every moment. As the Chinese Legalists saw it, the law they establish is a perfect extension of the Dao and accords with the logic of things: it merely translates the inherent order of nature into social actuality. (1995: 51–2) We should see in this Legalist view a specific interpretation of a more general idea that became dominant in ancient China. This idea can be formulated as follows: it is possible to reach the Way (dao) through technical mastery, for at its height technical mastery of the world becomes indistinguishable from the Way itself. From this point of view, Confucian ritual mastery follows the same logic as Legalist state craft, for in both cases it is a question of developing something man-made (rituals or laws) to the point where it appears completely natural. This idea is also evident in the art of warfare that developed between the fifth and the third century . In ancient China warfare was not merely a particular domain of the exercise of state-power, it was the enacted substance of the state itself. “The great services of the state,” says the Zuo zhuan
, “are sacrifice and warfare” (Lewis 1999: 138). The theory of warfare therefore went far beyond its proper field and, as Jullien writes, “projected its form of rationalization on reality as a whole” (1995: 25). This is particularly evident in the writings of Sunzi
 (fourth century ), who explains that the ideal military commander never takes a fixed position but flexibly responds to the movements of the enemy, just like the changes of day and night and the seasons follow the logic of nature. This flexibility assures that the dynamism of the situation works to the commander’s advantage. “In this way,” writes Jullien, “the military commander becomes as unfathomable as the great process of the world itself in all its infinity (the Dao) that, never settling into any particular disposition, is bound to be unique, and offers no clue to its reality” (1995: 33). The Confucian sage exhibits the same flexible response and total control of the situation as the military commander, and, as we will see, Sunzi’s picture of the ideal military commander is nearly identical with Mencius’ description of Confucius as the timely sage who never takes any particular position but always falls in with what is right.

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The metaphysics of action Ancient Chinese philosophy is characterized by what I call a metaphysics of action. To begin to explain this, it may be helpful to provide a schematic overview of the terms that enter into the disputes between the various strands of thought in ancient China.

sheng (life) > xing (nature) > ming (fate) >/ yu (desire) > < xin (mind-heart): shi (right) fei (wrong) > shu or ji (technique) > cheng (completion)

Sheng (life) is self-emerging life; it is comparable to Greek phusis as “that movement of growth and birth by which things manifest themselves” (Hadot 1995: 260). Xing (nature) is the spontaneous movement and natural development of a being in the movement of life. Graham says that the xing of a thing “is its proper course of development during its process of sheng” (1990b: 10). The particular course of life of a being is fated (ming
). With human desires (yu
) there first arises the possibility of a break with this natural development (indicated with /). For the human heart-and-mind (xin) may have to go against nature and regulate desires (indicated with > <). Value judgments are imposed and techniques are employed in the service of some desired completion (cheng). As we see, desires (yu) occupy a pivotal position in the scheme, and in fact a whole discourse on desire developed in early China. The character xing (nature) is formed by adding the “heart” radical to the character for “life,” and it indicates that human nature is at once part of spontaneously self-emerging life and a conscious moment, a heart-and-mind (xin), in this ceaseless stream. This heart-and-mind has to exercise conscious exertion in order to stabilize and secure its position in the swift and dangerous flow of things and events. All early Chinese thinkers recognize that there is a spontaneous movement that emerges sponta sua, and most of them thought that this movement should be regulated and controlled. Therefore they strive to impose some sort of completion (cheng) on the ceaseless emergence of life. The whole development after the break (/) – from the right and wrong of the mechanical mind to the final completion – is metaphysical, in the sense that it goes beyond self-emerging life, and, as Zhuangzi says, adds to life (yisheng
). What is added to life are socio-ethical structures beginning with moralized human relationships and ending in the culture-state. These structures are created and maintained by means of various techniques (ritual,

39

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theories of naming, laws, and so on), and they are justified by the doctrines of the various philosophical schools. As Mark Edward Lewis has shown, the ancient Chinese philosophical schools create in their texts “parallel realities,” or an “imaginary realm” in which they imagine ideal models for “founding a world empire.” In the texts of the philosophers, the master or the sage (who himself was a textual creation) is put in a position that parallels that of the king in the actual polity. “The master,” says Lewis, “became the double of the king,” and the master-philosophers claim to be able “to command the state through their wisdom” (1999: 4, 63, 82). This wisdom was of a very special kind. It was a “flexible wisdom,” or “an encompassing, adaptive intelligence that combined and regulated particular skills in the service of a higher good” (Lewis 1999: 6, 80). The master-philosophers (Mozi, Mencius, Xunzi, Hanfeizi, and others) claim that “mastery of change” – “flexibly responding to the needs of the moment” – define both the ruler as well as the sage (Lewis 1999: 38–40). The Chinese philosophers see this higher level, adaptive, and regulatory intelligence as their own distinctive possession. This wisdom (zhi) has been compared to Western notions of practical wisdom, such as phronBsis or prudentia (Yearley 1990), but it should be understood rather in terms of the Chinese philosophers’ attempt to put themselves in the position of the ruler and occupy the “empty” position beyond all particular regulative discourses that regulates these discourses by an exceptional act. This exceptional and paradoxical act is at the core of the Chinese metaphysics of action, and in order to get it into full view I will now turn to François Jullien’s analysis of efficacious action in ancient China. According to Jullien, the (ancient) Chinese go about realizing their aims in the world in a way that is fundamentally different from that of the ancient Greeks. Whereas the Greek philosophers theoretically set up models (forms, ideals) as goals and then try to attain these goals in practice through willful acts and the exercise of prudence, the Chinese, for their part, depend on how things evolve and strategically let themselves be carried along by the potential (shi
) of a situation (Jullien 2004a: 16). For, if one knows how to discern and evaluate the potential of a situation and follow the unfolding of this potential by way of continuous adaptation then one will be able “to produce great effects with very little effort” (Jullien 2004a: 19). This, it will be recalled, is precisely the kind of action the Confucian Zigong proposes to the gardener in the story from the Zhuangzi discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Availing himself of the potential (shi) of the situation, the sage is like a pivot or a hinge that in a “fathomless” and “inexhaustible” way responds adequately to any change. In this way the sage slowly weakens the other and secures his own supremacy. Furthermore, the sage will not only succeed

40

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easily but also inevitably. The sage, who discerns and adapts to the unfolding of the potential of the situation, will without fail gain supremacy, for, Jullien writes, “the potential of the situation makes it impossible that things ‘should be otherwise’ ” (2004a: 27). This idea of the inevitable unfolding of the potential of a situation is as thoroughly metaphysical as, say, Plato’s theory of Forms, it is just that in China the metaphysical ideal, namely the ideal of a completely successful flexible response to the inevitable unfolding of the real, is not placed in some other world that is accessible only to theory but is situated right here in the world of human action and is attainable in practice. In his eagerness to establish a categorical opposition between Western philosophy (metaphysics) and Chinese thought, Jullien fails to notice this crucial point that follows from his own account of efficacious action in China. In the Nicomachean Ethics (Book VI), Aristotle distance himself from Plato’s metaphysics by defining practical reason as reasoning about that which could be otherwise, and he distinguishes it from scientific theoretical reasoning, which is about the immutable laws of the cosmos and mathematics. According to Aristotle, it is in the area of practical reason, and in this area only, that we deliberate and choose, for it would be senseless to deliberate about what cannot be otherwise. Furthermore, since human action is exposed to contingencies, fortune, and luck, practical deliberation can never rely on an inevitable unfolding of events. Clearly, the Chinese notion of efficacious action, as described by Jullien, is profoundly un-Aristotelian. The Chinese sage is not concerned with things that could be otherwise but with detecting and conforming to the inevitable movement of the real. Therefore in his strategic manipulations of the potential of the situation the Chinese sage has no need for the kind of practical deliberation outlined by Aristotle. How the real can become an object for practical manipulation and strategic action is, of course, very hard to explain, and in trying to do so the Chinese thinkers get entangled in a whole metaphysics of action. How, precisely, is the real inclined to follow our inclinations? Jullien explains that all we need to do is implant “our most selfish ends . . . in the trajectory of things. In this way, left to its immanence, the desired effect is realized” (2004a: 119). But how can a particular selfish wish (that of the sage, the ruler, or the general), as an injunction, infiltrate the order of things to the extent that it becomes pervasive, undetectable, and inevitably fulfilled? All we have to do, says Jullien, is “to assist whatever happens naturally” (2004a: 90). But, as Jullien himself notes, this idea “borders on or even slips into a contradiction,” and it is this seeming contradiction that “Chinese thought, from one angle or another, strives continually to elucidate” (2004a: 88). In doing so, however, Chinese thought has to posit an act before actuality – a truly metaphysical figure of thought.

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Jullien explains that one has to “assist” the realization of one’s desire at the level of “preactualization,” which contains “the fund of immanence from which an effect will spontaneously flow,” and not at the level of “actualization,” where the effect will necessarily collide with other effects and therefore cannot be totally effective (2004a: 125). But how can action take place if nothing is yet actualized? Jullien says that at the level of preactualization, “there is no such thing as ‘things’ ” (2004a: 130). How can action, even if it is understood as response ( ying
) and transformation (hua
), take place at all if there is no thing to respond to and no thing to transform? Surely, from the point of view of our physical world of cause and effect, that is an impossible proposition, and we are forced to choose between two possibilities: either we, with Jullien, posit a “constant transition of reality,” or we posit a split in the real. Jullien’s own distinction between “preactualization” and “actualization” seems to imply a split in the real. Jullien (2004a: 130), however, is keen to avoid this impression, and therefore he says that the proper terms to use here really are “upstream” (for “preactualization”) and “downstream” (for “actualization”), for these terms imply “pure processivity” without an ontological break. To opt for pure processivity, however, comes at a price. For if there is no break with the logic of processivity, then manipulation (technical action) can be exercised at the very source of becoming, and life itself can be put under human administration. Jullien himself is acutely aware of the terrible consequence of a worldview of pure processivity. He points out that it is precisely because the European tradition posits an ontological split in the real that Europeans tend to confine manipulation to “the scientific and technological domain,” or the realm of things, and they are reluctant to extend the concept of manipulation to human beings. (As Kant said, human beings must be viewed not just as means but as ends in themselves, that is to say beyond the realm that is open to pure manipulation.) The Chinese, on the other hand, says Jullien, “had no qualms about conceiving of manipulation upstream, in an ongoing process. . . . For Chinese thought, everything constituted a process – everything, including human behavior” (2004a: 137). This dominant Chinese view was, however, contested. Zhuangzi, for his part, argues that by pushing technical action back to the very source of becoming, the efficacious action of sage-wisdom negates life itself. It is precisely in order to avoid the terrible consequences of a philosophy of pure process that Zhuangzi, as we will see, introduces a split in the process of the real and shows that spontaneous self-emerging life is not available for technopolitical manipulation. Before I, in the following chapter, turn to Zhuangzi’s own view of action, I will briefly compare the Chinese notion of cheng (completion) with the Greek notion of eidos (form). This comparison may bring into clearer view the Chinese metaphysics of action, which is based on technical manipulation and the drive towards completion. 42

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Form (eidos) and completion (cheng) Greek technB, translated variously as “art,” “craft,” or “skill,” is the knowledge and ability that aims at production, forming, and making. For the Greek philosophers technB occupies a middle position between experience and science (epistBmB). Unlike purely empirical knowledge, craft-knowledge involves reason (logos) and therefore is able to give a clear account of its way of knowing. Plato, therefore, separates the true crafts from what is done by relying on mere practice, knack, or routine. For instance, medicine is technB but pastry baking is not (Gorgias 500e–501a). Plato furthermore distinguishes crafts according to their degree of exactness or precision. Thus in making music the harmonies are found “by the hit and miss of training” but carpentry and building use various measures and therefore these crafts are more accurate (Philebus 56a–c). According to Plato, when the carpenter wants to make a shuttle he looks to “the form” of the shuttle (Cratylus 389b). For Aristotle, to be sure, “the carpenter must keep in close connection with his timber and the potter with his clay, and generally all workmanship and the ultimate movement imparted to matter must be connected with the material concerned,” but Aristotle’s notion of technB is just as idealistic as that of Plato. For Aristotle also maintains that no material part comes from the carpenter to the material, i.e. the wood in which he works, nor does any part of the carpenter’s art exist within what he makes, but the shape and the form are imparted from him to the material by means of the motion he sets up. It is his hands that move the tools, his tools that move the material; it is his knowledge of his art, and his soul, in which is the form, that moves his hands or any other part of him with a motion of some definite kind, a motion varying with the varying nature of the object made. (Generation of Animals 730b5-20) In both Plato and Aristotle it is the form (eidos) that is grasped by the logos that is operative in technB. It is the knowledge of the form that moves the hand of the carpenter and is imposed on matter. The Greek philosophers’ understanding of technB presupposes their interpretation of emerging nature ( phusis) in terms of form (eidos). As Heidegger points out, we do not find this emphasis on form (eidos) in the pre-Socratics; it is only with Plato and Aristotle that we have that metaphysical interpretation of nature ( phusis), and consequently of technB, which “imitates nature,” in terms of eidos that became decisive for the later tradition. “What remains decisive,” says Heidegger, “is not the fact in itself that phusis was characterized as idea,” for it is natural that what emerges appears to human beings in 43

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

some form, “but that the idea rises up as the sole and definitive interpretation of Being” (2000: 194). In Ancient Greece the opposition was between self-emerging nature ( phusis) and matter (hulB) on the one hand and the form (eidos) on the other. In ancient China the opposition was between self-emerging life (sheng) and the uncarved block ( pu), or the raw material, on the one hand and completion (cheng) on the other. But the imposition of completion (cheng) on life is just as metaphysical – in the sense that it goes beyond and so neglects selfemerging life – as the imposition of form (eidos) on nature and matter. In fact, in Xunzi, who could be said to represent the culmination of the drive towards completion in ancient China, we have an even more pronounced neglect of self-emerging life than in the metaphysical tradition of the West. For, as we have seen, Xunzi totally disregards life (sheng) and emphasizes artifice (wei) and completion (cheng). Xunzi uses the analogy of a potter to explain that a society regulated by proper ritual (the vessel) is formed purely from the artifice of the potter (the sage) and not from anything inherent in human nature (the clay) itself. According to Xunzi, the transition from the original raw material to the ordered flourishing of society is brought about by a mysterious transformation (hua
) through which the material basis simply beautifies itself but does not change in its substance, for the material basis, the substance of what is transformed, contributes nothing to the final product (Roetz 1984: 330–1). Xunzi’s notion of transformation (hua) as an inexplicable change brought about in the material basis (human nature, the common people) without any direct contact with this material itself has its origin in the Confucians’ highly idealistic view of their own effect. For Confucius the noble man is like the wind that makes the grass (the common people) bend (Lunyu 12.19); Mencius says, that “the places where the noble man passes are transformed (hua)” (Mengzi 7.A13). As if by magic the Confucian potter is able to form the pot (the socio-ethical order) without touching the clay (the common people). The Confucian is not an artisan who works with his own hands but the overseer of production. Xunzi admits that the noble man is not as good as artisans when it comes to using tools, but in supervising others he is superior to everyone else (Xunzi 8.3). Thus the Confucian division of labor: the artisan concentrates on his tools; the noble man concentrates on the Way (Xunzi 21.6b). The Chinese philosopher is superior to the manual laborers, because his regulatory intelligence can bring the task of organizing the culture-state to completion (cheng). The Greek philosopher is superior to the manual worker because he has scientific knowledge (epistBmB) and contemplates the form (eidos). According to Aristotle, those who know the cause and the “why” are superior to the men of mere experience: “the master-workers in each craft are more honorable and know in a truer sense and are wiser than the 44

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manual workers, because they know the causes of things that are done.” The manual workers, on the other hand, “are like certain lifeless things which act indeed, but act without knowing what they do, as fire burns” (Metaphysics 981a30-981b5). In spite of this important difference, both the Greek and the Chinese philosopher keep their distance to self-emerging life, the material that is transformed by technB or artifice (wei). For Aristotle the distance is epistemological: “matter is unknowable in itself.” For Xunzi the distance is pragmatic: “human nature is what I am not able to make (wei) but which nevertheless can be transformed (hua)” (Xunzi 8.11). Finally, it is significant that both Aristotle and Xunzi argue that it is because the given (matter and human nature) is deficient that it seeks completion (in form and culture). In spite of the fact that he tries to give some account of matter (hulB) itself, in Aristotle matter remains subsumed under form. According to Aristotle, matter is productive exactly because it is defective and desires form: “The form cannot desire itself, for it is not defective; . . . what desires form is matter, as the female desires the male and the ugly the beautiful” (Physics 192a20-25). Similarly, Xunzi argues that the press-frame comes into being because the wood is warped; the plumbline arises because things are not straight; and because human nature is evil it must submit to rulers and ritual (Xunzi 23.3b). To this kind of argument, which obviously may provide ideological support for a great deal of violence, the Zhuangzi answers: “Could it really be in the nature of clay and wood to wish to fit the compass and square, curve and measuring line?” (9/5). This brief comparison should be enough to make it clear that to say that the Greeks are theoretical and the Chinese are pragmatic is only half of the story. To be sure, the Greek view of the form (eidos) is theoretical (epistemological); the Chinese drive towards completion (cheng) is practical. The Greeks subsume technB under scientific knowledge (epistBmB) that aims at the form; the Chinese subsume skill (shu or ji) under general regulatory sage-knowledge (shengzhi) that aims at completion. Billeter (1984) is right, therefore, when he says that the early Chinese philosophers do not generally adopt the theoretical gaze that dominates in Greek thought, and that their experience and knowledge comes rather through the medium of action. The decisive point is, however, that the Chinese focus on action generates its own metaphysics. We are familiar with Plato’s Republic, his “city of words,” but not with the “imaginary counterstate” constructed by the Chinese master-philosophers. We are familiar with the tradition of metaphysics that begins with the theoretical view of the forms. We know, as Peter Sloterdijk writes, that in the tradition of Greek idealism “the ideas stand at the top and gleam in the light of attentiveness; matter is below, a mere reflection of the idea, a shadow, an impurity” (1988: 104). But we are not familiar with the Chinese metaphysics of the perfect act, the flexible and timely action of the sage. In this act, pragmatic coping becomes absolute mastery, and technical skill transcends itself into a second nature where great deeds are 45

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accomplished effortlessly. Sage-knowledge (shengzhi
) represents precisely that limit situation where all resistance to skill-mastery is eliminated and technical action becomes as natural as nature itself. In the sage-knowledge of the Chinese master-philosophers the technical rules supreme. Zhuangzi, for his part, sees that this metaphysical, techno-pragmatic drive towards completion destroys life. Zhuangzi is the only major thinker in early China who is entirely beyond the technical. Just as Zhuangzi is the one exception to the rule that all early Chinese thinkers are concerned with ruling the world (politics), he is also the single example in early China of a major thinker who does not fall into that strategic, technical, and manipulative thinking that gradually gained dominance in the Warring States period. (There is, of course, a connection between these two facts.) Zhuangzi is the important exception to Jullien’s generalization that strategic thinking and manipulation were “the Chinese way” (1995: 69). For Zhuangzi there is no continuity but a radical break between technical action (wei) and the Way. We will now turn to Zhuangzi’s remarkable unraveling ( jie
) of the drive towards completion.

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4 UNRAVELING THE DRIVE TOWARDS COMPLETION

Perhaps these studies had amounted to nothing. But they are very close to that nothing which alone makes it possible for something to be useful – that is, to the Tao. This is what Kafka was after with his desire “to hammer a table together with painstaking craftsmanship and, at the same time, to do nothing – not in such a way that someone could say ‘Hammering is nothing to him,’ but ‘To him, hammering is real hammering and at the same time nothing,’ which would have made the hammering even bolder, more determined, more real, and if you like, more insane.” Walter Benjamin Between those joints there are spaces and the edge of the knife has no thickness. When you insert what has no thickness in where there are spaces, then the knife is bound to have more than enough space for its vast wandering. That is why after nineteen years the edge of the knife is as if it just came from the grindstone. Zhuangzi

Care for life Faced with the increasing emphasis on technical action and the accelerating drive towards completion (cheng) in the Warring States period, Zhuangzi insists that a non-technical way of action is open to human beings. This non-technical way of action is not aimed at completion but carried by the ceaseless flow of life (sheng), so that it nourishes life or cares for life (yangsheng
) in its very movement and avoids the decline of humanity into the world of man (ren). For Zhuangzi care for life does not mean care for biological life, or human life (renzhisheng). Zhuangzi does not advocate techniques to ensure longevity or immortality, for, according to Zhuangzi, the desire for immortality is just another example of our identification with our outer form, and if prolonging human life becomes our main concern then we forget the source 47

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that generates human life. Therefore the Zhuangzi says, “How sad, that people of the world think that caring for their form ( yangxing
) is sufficient to preserve life” (19/3). In Zhuangzi to care for life is not to care for some form in the outer realm, it means to care for the inner experience of the ceaseless, self-generating life of Heaven. Zhuangzi, of course, does not imply that we should not care for human life. Zhuangzi advises that we do not exhaust our life (wusheng
), that is to say, our limited human life, in the pursuit of knowledge and fame, which will dangerously entangle us in the outer (wai) world of man (ren). We should strive rather, through some kind of inner training, to preserve our body (baoshen
) and complete our (human) life (quansheng
), that is to say, live out our full span of years (3/1–2). Zhuangzi certainly wants us to take care of our psycho-physical well-being, and if he had seen how popular taijiquan
 and qigong
 exercises have become in the West, he would probably have approved of these ways of caring for one’s life. But our human life is not the life of Heaven, and for Zhuangzi the higher aim is to care for the life of Heaven. If we do not make this crucial distinction we will fall into the common misunderstanding that Zhuangzi seeks to live in safe harmony with the social and natural order, much like it is envisioned by our New Age philosophies. The Chinese literati held a similar view of Zhuangzi. The commentators Guo Xiang and Cheng Xuanying
 ( fl. 630–60) both explain that in Zhuangzi to care for life (yangheng) means to stay within the confines of one’s allotted place and the limits of one’s allotted life. The idea is that if one coincides with one’s limits, then the limits are no longer a constraint but an expression of one’s spiritual freedom (Guo 1982: 115–16). Some important modern Chinese scholars follow a similar interpretation (Tang 1973: 355–64, Mou 1963: 205–8). We should bear in mind, however, that there is always considerable pressure on human beings to imagine that their limited human life is in fact the life of Heaven. The Chinese literati used Zhuangzi as consolation in their unpredictable fortunes under a totalitarian state; the modern Western subject uses Eastern philosophies to escape the pressures of the relentless and equally unpredictable changes of modern risk societies. Zhuangzi himself was not at all interested in such consolation and escapism; he calls rather for the unraveling of the very center of power and submission. How is it possible to care for transcendental life, or the life of Heaven? To answer this question let us turn to Zhuangzi’s celebrated story of the masterful Cook Ding
, who performs his task of cutting up an ox as if it were a dance. Whatever his hand touched, wherever his shoulder leaned, where his foot stepped, where his knee pushed, 48

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Swish! The flesh would fall from the bone; the zips! and zaps! of the slicing knife all hit the note and combined in the dance of “The Mulberry Grove” and hit the rhythm of “The Fox Head” song. (3/3–4) When Lord Wenhui sees the cook’s performance he exclaims: “Oh, excellent! That skill should attain such heights!” But Cook Ding answers, “That which I am fond of is the Way, which goes beyond skill” (3/4–5). First, note that Cook Ding does not say that that he is fond of our (human) life (wusheng), but of the Way, which is the experience of the life of Heaven. Second, it is decisive for our understanding of the whole story how we understand the phrase jinhuji
 . Do we take it to mean that the Way “proceeds from skill,” or do we take it to mean that the Way “goes beyond (or transcends) skill”? The first reading is grammatically possible, but, in my opinion, it is incompatible with the rhetorical structure of the passage and with Zhuangzi’s thought in general. Just as the experience of the Way, or the life of Heaven, presupposes a religious conversion, the force of the argument of the story of Cook Ding depends on a complete conversion of view. Lord Wenhui expects to learn about skill ( ji), for that is what is within his horizon of understanding, but instead he gets from the cook a lesson in caring for life ( yangsheng). Through this rhetorical move Zhuangzi indicates that to understand the action that cares for life we must give up the common view that human action is necessarily aimed at mastery through skill. Skilled technical action pertains to human life (we do x in order to get y) but not to the Way, or the life of Heaven. This conversion of view is directly related to the turn from the outer (wai) to the inner (nei). That a person is skillful is readily observed from the outer behavior, but whether a person cares for the life of Heaven – or the Way that is the ceaseless self-emergence of life – is not so easily determined from the outside, for this care is a matter of inner experience. Lord Wenhui is unable to see beyond Cook Ding’s outer skill – which admittedly is dazzling – and only after Cook Ding’s explanation does he see that the cook’s action is qualitatively different from skill mastery, namely the kind of action that cares for transcendental life. At the end of the cook’s explanation, Lord Wenhui exclaims: “Excellent! From hearing the words of the cook, I have learned how to care for life ( yangsheng)” (3/12). In a sudden reversal of view the outer display of Cook Ding’s superior skill mastery turns into an entirely different configuration, namely the movement of the Way or care for transcendental life. This happens in much the same way that the well-known drawing of two meeting faces suddenly flips into a picture of a vase, and then back again, without any continuity between the two pictures (it is either one or the other and never both). The whole point of the story is precisely this reversal: what looks like technical mastery 49

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suddenly flips into a picture of authentic action without any continuity between the two pictures. For Zhuangzi only a total break with the perspective of technical mastery brings to view the action that cares for transcendental life, or the life of Heaven. Some scholars take Zhuangzi’s Way (dao) to be a form of skilled coping with the world (Hansen 1992, Eno 1996); others see it in some important way to be connected with skill-mastery and claim that there is continuity between skill mastery and Zhuangzi’s idea of care for life (Cai 1985, Ivanhoe 1993, Yearley 1996). In my opinion, such readings remain within the perspective of Lord Wenhui. This becomes clear when we read how Cook Ding explains his way of action: When I first began to cut up oxen, where I looked there was nothing but oxen. Three years later I never saw a whole ox. These days I meet it with the spirit and do not look with the eyes. The senses know where to stop and the spirit moves as it pleases. (3/5–6) Apparently Cook Ding went through some process of learning, perhaps something like contemporary inner training (neiye), before he attained his outstanding level of mastery. We should not, however, jump to the conclusion that this is Zhuangzi’s central point. Zhuangzi is highly ironic when he describes inner training, and he often flatly denies such training can lead to the Way. Zhuangzi is a religious thinker and not just a transmitter of the instructions in meditation manuals, and what makes Zhuangzi a religious thinker is precisely the philosophical weight of his rhetorical gestures and the figures of thought he employs. Furthermore, Zhuangzi is here addressing one of the most urgent and difficult questions of religious thought, namely the relation between human life and transcendental life, or the life of Heaven, and we cannot expect his explication to be transparent to a quick reading eager to draw its conclusions. Cook Ding explains further: I rely on Heaven’s texture. I strike at the big hollows, guide the knife through the great cavities. I follow what is inherently so. In my skill [with the knife] I have never passed through where the meat adheres to the bone and how much less a big bone. (3/6–7) The point to emphasize here is that Heaven’s texture (tianli
) and the inherently so (guran
) do not refer to an objective and normative order in the outer (wai) world. Like the Way the inherently so is not a thing; it is nothing objective or outer (it has no form) but refers to the inner experience of the ceaseless coming-into-being of things, the spontaneously self-so (ziran) that is also Heaven’s texture. Since it is not an objective order one can adapt 50

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to more or less skillfully, it takes no skill to follow the inherently so. Therefore in the following and most crucial passage of the story Zhuangzi deconstructs the image of skillful cutting. Cook Ding says: A good cook changes his knife once a year because he hacks. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month because he smashes. Now I have had this knife for nineteen years and have cut up several thousand oxen, and the edge of the knife is as if it just came from the grindstone. Between those joints there are spaces and the edge of the knife has no thickness. When you insert what has no thickness in where there are spaces, then the knife is bound to have more than enough space for its vast wandering. That is why after nineteen years the edge of the knife is as if it just came from the grindstone. (3/7–10) Cook Ding’s knife is really extraordinary. It is a knife whose edge “has no thickness.” Since the edge of any actual knife, however sharp, is bound to have some thickness, Cook Ding’s knife is strictly speaking no knife at all, or, perhaps it is a non-knife in the same way that Cook Ding’s action is non-action, that is to say, non-technical action. It is crucial to see that Zhuangzi’s image of this non-knife is not just literary hyperbole, that it has philosophical significance. As is often the case, at the most crucial points in his argument Zhuangzi resorts to a rhetorical gesture in order to indicate what cannot be said directly. And what is it that cannot be said directly? Cook Ding is certainly not a bad cook; but the point of the story is not that he is a good or even an extraordinarily good cook. All these technical distinctions between good and bad, right and wrong, skill and clumsiness, are drawn only in the realm of man (ren). It is in this realm that Lord Wenhui so confidently can say, “Ah there is a cook of superior skill!” But Cook Ding has transcended the realm of man (ren), the outer symbolic order where we with a false sense of confidence (for it is really a dream) say, “Ah, there is a ruler! Oh, that is a shepherd!” (2/83) or “That’s a cook!” The point is not that Cook Ding “cuts apart” ( jie
) better than any other cook but that he “unravels” ( jie, same word) precisely these distinctions that define human life and releases his action into the life of Heaven. Like wandering and non-action, this unraveling is not a technical accomplishment, for all technical action depends on the distinctions that structure the realm of man (ren). How then did the unraveling happen? Zhuangzi cannot say how it happened. For if he could explain how the transcendence happened, then there would be a technical procedure, a method, by which we can pass from human life to the life of Heaven. But techniques and methods pertain only to human life, in fact they define that life, and they cannot go beyond their 51

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proper field of application. Even the celebrated “flow experience” that occurs at the height of skill mastery is entirely inscribed in human life and the horizon of technical action. The flow experience occurs when skills are evenly matched with a specific set of goals. In such a setting skill mastery may be perfected to a point where is seems perfectly spontaneous (Csikszentmihalyi 1991) – but it remains in its setting. So for good reasons Zhuangzi does not and cannot spell it out for us how Cook Ding comes to care for transcendental life. And yet he indicates it by rhetorical means. For the transition happens the moment the knife become a non-knife and the action non-action. An ontological difference comes into play, and the cutting itself – dazzling as it is in the outer world – becomes nothing. It is as if Cook Ding’s whole performance, the outer form of the action, becomes transparent, and we get a glimpse of life beyond the form: the transcendental life that is an inner experience for Cook Ding. Like the knife, Cook Ding’s action dissolves in “its vast wandering.” This is the moment of care for transcendental life. For human action now transcends technical doing (wei) and is recognized as being engendered by Heaven. We will now look closer at this remarkable form of action that transcends technical action and the drive towards completion.

From potentiality to actuality For Zhuangzi human life, in so far as it is generated by Heaven, is potentially ceaseless and infinite life, but when human beings are in the grip of the drive towards completion, then their every act and every word limits their originary potentiality. In the end all that is left are names (ming) and objects (shi
), action (wei) and accomplishments (gong
). Zhuangzi wants to avoid this closure, and he suggests that it is possible to find a way of passing from potentiality to actuality – a way of action, for it is action that mediates between the two – that does not negate potentiality but retains potentiality in actuality. A saying from the Laozi can exemplify what Zhuangzi has in mind: “When the uncarved block is split up, it is made into vessels” (pusan ze weiqi

) (Laozi 28). The uncarved block (pu
) is the pure potentiality of life. The vessels (qi
) are useful things brought into actuality through making or doing (wei). It is the ontological fate of human beings to transform life into things, but the problem is that this movement from the uncarved block to the vessels – the fall into the technical – limits or even (as in Xunzi) negates potentiality. According to Laozi and Zhuangzi, it would be better if the uncarved block splits itself up and in sacrificing its pure potentiality to not be split retains this potentiality in its movement “into” actuality (the vessels). On this understanding of the movement from potentiality to actuality the saying must be read as does Kah Kyung Cho: “when the uncarved block splits itself then it becomes vessels” (Cho 1987: 326, my 52

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italics). The different translations hinge on the reading of the word wei, which can mean either “to make” or “to become.” The decisive point is, as Cho points out, that on the second reading, the emergence of the vessel is seen as the possibility inherent in the uncarved wood itself. The transition from the uncarved wood to the vessel is then no longer a transformation imposed by force from the outside, but an inner, perhaps even necessary development, the way of being of the Dao itself. (1987: 326) These two readings of the sentence from Laozi show the difference between inauthentic and authentic action. In inauthentic action the uncarved block is carved up by man and made into an object. In authentic action the block of potentiality splits itself up as it passes into actuality; it gives up its pure potentiality to not be split in the movement of the Way (dao), the movement from potentiality to actuality in which pure potentiality is preserved. But how is it possible to retain pure potentiality in the act that brings something into actuality? To fully appreciate what is at stake in Zhuangzi’s notion of authentic action, it is helpful to consider Giorgio Agamben’s analysis of the relationship between potentiality (dunamis) and act (energeia) in Aristotle. In order to explain potentiality in itself as an effective mode, Aristotle distinguishes between two states of the potential: one where it immediately passes into actuality and one where it does not pass over into actuality. The first is the potentiality to do or be, the second is the potentiality not to do or be, or what Aristotle also calls im-potentiality (adunamia). Aristotle writes: “What is potential can both be and not be. For the same is potential as much with respect to being as to not being” (Agamben 1998: 45). Now, as Agamben points out, the potentiality that exists “is precisely the potentiality that can not pass over into actuality.” But how can something exist without passing into actuality? Agamben explains that the potentiality that exists “maintains itself in relation to actuality in the form of its suspension; it is capable of the act in not realizing it, it is sovereignly capable of its own im-potentiality [impotenza].” To be sure, in passing into actuality, im-potentiality, the potentiality to not do or be, is given up, but it can be given as a gift instead of simply being left behind. Or as Agamben says: “To set im-potentiality aside is not to destroy it but, on the contrary, to fulfill it, to turn potentiality back upon itself in order to give itself to itself.” Aristotle calls this passing of potentiality into actuality, in which potentiality is not altered or destroyed but preserved in actuality “the gift of the self to itself and to actuality.” Following Avicenna, Agamben calls it “perfect potentiality” and says that “an act is sovereign when it realizes itself by simply taking away its own potentiality not to be, letting itself be, giving itself to itself ” (1998: 44–7). 53

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Another way of expressing this is to say that the potentiality to do or be has as its object a determinate activity (do this or be that), whereas the object of the potential to not do or be, perfect potentiality, is potentiality itself. In the first case the passing from potentiality to actuality is through technical action, in the second case we have a potentiality for potentiality, which cannot be actualized through technical action but only through the gift in which potentiality returns to itself. In Zhuangzi only the act that retains this perfect potentiality is the authentic act, for it retains something that in principle cannot be mastered in its “mastery,” namely the original simplicity, the uncarved block ( pu), that, as Xunzi correctly saw, cannot be made (wei), that is to say, cannot be passed from potentiality to actuality, but which, as Zhuangzi emphasizes, nourishes life ( yangsheng) in the act in which it gives itself up and in which it is, by the same token, retained. Or, as Agamben explains, Only a power that is capable of both power and impotence, then, is the supreme power. If every power is equally the power to be and the power to not-be, the passage to action can only come about by transporting (Aristotle says “saving”) in the act its own power to not-be. This means that, even though every pianist necessarily has the potential to play and the potential to not-play, Glenn Gould is, however, the only one who can not not-play, and directing his potentiality not only to the act but to his own impotence, he plays, so to speak, with his potential to not-play. While his ability simply negates and abandons his potential to not-play, his mastery conserves and exercises in the act not his potential to play (this is the position of irony that affirms the superiority of the positive potentiality over the act), but rather his potential to not-play. (1993: 35) For understanding Zhuangzi, the crucial distinction is this: technical action simply negates potentiality; authentic action (non-technical mastery that is really non-mastery, or action that is non-action) “conserves and exercises in the act” pure, perfect potentiality (the potential to not-play). The passing of the potentiality to do or be into actual doing or being is through technical action; the passing of the potentiality to not do or not be into doing and being is through non-technical action. Authentic action not only realizes the potential to do or be but also the potential to not do or be: pure potentiality is retained in the very passing from potentiality to actuality. The unmastered is given as a supplement to what is completed through technical mastery, and because of this supplement the completion does not entirely reach closure but remains open to the facticity of life. In this way, authentic action breaks with the closure in praxis. 54

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We saw exactly this structure in the story of Cook Ding. The cook’s action “goes beyond skill,” it goes beyond the technical ability to bring something into completion, or beyond the action that is a movement from the potentiality to do to the actual doing of something. At stake in the cook’s action is an entirely different movement, namely the movement of the Way (dao). The “aim” of this movement is not some doing (wei) or some thing (wu), it is rather to nourish life ( yangsheng), to nourish the selfemergence of life that is not brought about by human action (wei). To attain his “aim” the cook retains his pure potentiality to not-cut in the midst of his activity: even after nineteen years of cutting, the edge of his knife “is as if it just came from the grindstone.” It is as if the knife has not yet cut, or, better, it cuts with its pure potential to not cut, which, in so far as it can be actualized, can never be dulled. But care for life ( yangsheng) is not really an object or an aim, for in that case it would fall under technical action, it is rather the continued retention of that which is necessarily given up in action (wei), namely the potential to not act (wuwei). To be sure, the cook is cutting: his hand and his knife, his skill ( ji), and, at least momentarily, his intentionality, all parts of his technical action, are in effect. But the constitutive part of his sovereign, authentic action is his retained potentiality to not act that nourishes life ( yangsheng) precisely because it cannot be brought to completion (cheng), and so it does not enclose the cook in the realm of man (ren). This non-closure is the gift of the self to the self in authentic action. It will be noted that Zhuangzi’s view of authentic action is opposed to the strategic manipulation promoted, in one form or another, by most other early Chinese philosophers. As Jullien says, these philosophers suggest that our own ends can be inserted into and become indistinguishable from the unfolding of the real, and so inevitably be moved to completion. All we have to do is to push human action back to the level of “pre-actuality” or pure potentiality. This move cancels out the difference between pre-actuality (potentiality) and actuality; all is now one process, and in Chapter 3 I remarked on the terrible consequences of this picture of human action. Zhuangzi, for his part, does not push action (the realm of actuality) back into pure potentiality (pre-actuality). On the contrary, he pushes pure potentiality (pre-actuality) into the realm of action (actuality), but in such a way that the split between potentiality and actuality is never closed. By way of contrast to the story of Cook Ding, we have Zhuangzi’s story about the two musicians Zhao Wen and Master Kuang and Zhuangzi’s friend, the sophist Hui Shi. These three are examples of highly accomplished individuals who, unlike Cook Ding, are not able to retain pure potentiality in their action. These three men, says Zhuangzi, all had their particular “completion” or “achievement” (2/44), but, according to Zhuangzi, they had no real accomplishment, for they only cultivated the technical aspect of action, and so Hui Shi “ended up in the darkness of logic,” and Zhao Wen’s son ended up with his father’s “strings,” or knowledge, that is to say, with 55

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his father’s technical ability and not with his father’s ability to not-play, which cannot be transmitted. According to Zhuangzi, human action declines when it is unable to retain pure potentiality, and therefore at the height of skill-mastery all life (sheng) dries up, or as Graham says: Systems of knowledge are partial and temporary like styles on the zither, which in forming sacrifice some of the potentialities of music, and by their very excellence make schools fossilise in decline. Take as a model Chao Wen [Zhao Wen] not playing the zither, not yet committed, with all his potentialities intact. (1981: 55) Or, perhaps better, take as a model Glenn Gould, who, as Agamben says, plays “with his potential to not-play.” For in Zhuangzi authentic action does not mean that no action is taken, nor does it refer to some magical action that effortlessly brings about great results (this is the Confucian ideal of action through transformation). The decisive characteristic of Cook Ding’s authentic action is precisely that he cuts by not-cutting and so retains all his potentialities intact, avoids closure in praxis, and nourishes life. The technical term wuwei (non-action) does not occur in the story of Cook Ding, but most scholars agree that this story presents a vivid picture of non-action. Pang Pu (1995), for instance, frames his comprehensive account of wuwei in ancient China with of the story of Cook Ding. Surely Cook Ding’s action exemplifies non-action (wuwei), but it should be emphasized that in Zhuangzi non-action does not imply going along with things in conformity with the natural or social order of things. According to Zhuangzi there is a radical break between the realm of things and the realm of no-thing, or the Way. The two realms are categorically distinct: one has borders the other has none (22/50–1). And yet the two realms do interact, for as the Zhuangzi says with an enigmatic but crucial formulation: “the bordering of the unbordered is the unbordering of the bordered” (buji zhi ji, ji zhi bujizhe ye
 ,

!") (22/51). “The bordered” are things, and “the unbordered” is the Way. Therefore we can say that when the Way (the unbordered) things things, that is to say, when the Way “borders,” then things (the bordered) become no-thing (unbordered). The unbordered (the Way) is what borders (things), and in this sense the unbordered “passes into” the bordered and liberates the bordered from its borders in the very movement that borders. In the same way, in authentic action the potentiality to not-act (the unbordered, the unlimited) passes into action (the bordered, the limited); in authentic understanding the potentiality to not-understand passes into understanding; and in authentic saying the potentiality to not-say passes into saying. Zhuangzi first posits two distinct ontological levels (things and the Way), and then he 56

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asks us “to proceed at two levels at once” (liangxing
), that is to say, to situate ourselves in-between the two levels, or, better, to become the very movement of the ontological difference between the Way and things. Strictly speaking, the transition between the Way and things – and between action and non-action, understanding and non-understanding, saying and nonsaying – is impossible, it implies, as the Zhuangzi says, “to be able to do what one is not able to do” (neng suobuneng

) (22/83). But it is through this capacity for doing what one is incapable of doing that the realm of things (wu) – which is the realm of man (ren), for things are the constructed objects of human action, speech, and understanding – receives the gift of non-closure, and the borders of things are unraveled ( jie).

In-between Heaven and man When the potentiality to not-act passes into action, the action (wei) characteristic of man (ren) does not entirely dissolve. To be sure, Cook Ding follows “what is inherently so,” but as he says, “whenever I come to a complicated spot, I see where it will be difficult to handle. I cautiously restrain myself, focus my gaze, and slow down my movement” (3/10). A moment of intentionality – the intentional action characteristic of the realm of man (ren) – is retained in what may otherwise appear to be a total surrender to Heaven (tian). Furthermore, the human hand and the cook’s knife are still applied in the cutting: “with the slightest movement of the knife: plop! It is already unraveled like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground” (3/10–11). Zhuangzi does not simply negate the moment of man (ren) but advocates the perfection of the specifically human ability to live in-between the two realms of man (ren) and Heaven (tian). Zhuangzi does not say that human action can become one with the processivity of Heaven; on the contrary his view of authentic action presupposes that there is a break between Heaven and man. The theme of being “in-between” is pervasive in Zhuangzi: human beings exist in-between Heaven and man; authentic action is in-between acting and not acting; authentic saying is in-between saying something and saying nothing; authentic understanding is in-between understanding and nonunderstanding; authentic use is in-between the useful and the useless. At one point Zhuangzi jokingly suggests that he would prefer “to dwell in-between worthiness and worthlessness” (20/5). This idea of being “in-between” is summed up in the important image of “walking two ways at once” (liangxing), that is to say, to have one foot in Heaven and the other in the realm of man. The Zhuangzi describes this state of being “in-between” in terms of skillfulness (qiao
) and clumsiness (zhuo
). The very skillfulness of human beings encloses them in a world of their own, the world of man; the redeeming clumsiness of human beings releases them from the world of man and makes possible an openness to Heaven. Where technical mastery 57

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solidifies and completes the world that is structured by man’s concerns, clumsiness breaks down these structures and reveals the pure facticity of life. The opposition between skillfulness and clumsiness is linked to the opposition between the inner (nei) and the outer (wai). If you are absorbed in the world of man, or the outer, you become unsettled and incapable of taking care of the inner, or the Way. The higher the stakes are in the world of man the more involved we become in the outer, and we forget the inner: “When the stakes are a piece of tile you are skillful, when the stakes are belt buckles you get fearful, when the stakes are gold you get flustered.” This emotional agitation is a sign that we have lost touch with the inner: “Whoever gives weight to the outside will be clumsy inside” (19/22–6). The theme of clumsiness and skill receives a more dialectical elaboration in the story of Archer Yi
(23/72–4). Here it is said that the famous archer Yi “was skilled at hitting the smallest target, but clumsy in making sure others did not praise him.” That is to say, Archer Yi was skilled (gong
) in the realm of man (ren), for he could hit the smallest target; but he was clumsy (zhuo) in regard to the realm of Heaven, for he could not avoid fame, he allowed names or reputation (ming) to cluster around him and so tie him to the realm of man (ren). The sage, on the contrary, “is skilled (gong) in regard to Heaven but clumsy (zhuo) in regard to man.” Due to his disregard for the outer (wai), the sage is clumsy in the realm of man (man) and seems dull and stupid, unconcerned with bringing anything to completion. The sage is skilled in regard to Heaven precisely because he is not tied to the world of man (ren) (he has no name and no accomplishments). It is not that the sage can skillfully manipulate Heaven, for Heaven is precisely the realm that cannot be manipulated, but the skillful withdrawal from the realm of man is skill in regard to Heaven. In other words, since the realm of man is the only realm where skill applies, it is only the skill that suspends itself as skill that is skill in regard to Heaven. We saw precisely this suspension of technical action in the story of Cook Ding. Only the complete human being (quanren
), says the passage, is able to be “skillful in regard to Heaven and good in regard to man.” Just like the sage, the complete human being is skilled in regard to Heaven, that is to say, she skillfully withdraws from the realm of man; but, unlike the sage, she is good (liang
) and not clumsy (zhuo) in regard to man (ren). It is significant that the passage does not say what we would expect it to say, namely that the complete human being is skilled in the outer realm of man (ren). The word “good” (liang) – the word that Mencius uses to distinguish good, innate knowledge from knowledge that is the product of skilled deliberation (Mengzi 7A15) – is used instead of the word “skilled” (gong or qiao). The text resists the strong desire in Chinese thought to harmonize opposing terms by exhausting all possible structural permutations of the opposition, and it will not call a perfected person skilled (gong, qiao, or ji) in the realm 58

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of man. This is a clear indication that in Zhuangzi skill in the normal sense pertains to the realm of man only and not to Heaven, and that the perfected person lives beyond skill mastery. The logic of Zhuangzi’s position can be seen from the following schema, where C stands for clumsy (zhuo) and S stands for skillful (gong or qiao).

Heaven (tian) C $ $

man (ren) S C

(Archer Yi) (the sage) (the complete human being)

This schema represents the three possible modes of existence for a being that neither coincides with Heaven nor with the world of its own making: the dialectic between S and C testifies to human existence in-between Heaven and man. What interests us here is the changing status of S. As can be seen, S only has its full sense in the top row. In the second and third rows S is barred, because in relation to Heaven its usual signification is suspended. Most importantly, in the third row, where, following the structure of the argument, we would expect S under man (ren), the symbol is absent. As explained, in the text the term that marks the absence of S is the word “good” (liang). The schema clearly illustrates, first, that in the Zhuangzi skill can only pass over into the realm of Heaven through its own suspension, and, second, that none of the perfected human beings (the sage and the complete human being) are defined in terms of the skill of man. In the Zhuangzi the perfection of humanity implies that human beings, through the interplay of skill (qiao) (technical action) and clumsiness (zhuo) (the break with technical action), properly situate themselves in-between man (ren) and Heaven (tian), and it does not imply an animal-like unity with the world. This decisive point is emphasized at the end of the story of Archer Yi, where it is said that “only the animal is able to be animal, only the animal is able to be Heaven. The complete human being hates Heaven, he hates man’s ‘Heaven,’ and even more he hates the question ‘am I Heaven or man?’ ” (23/73–4). The Zhuangzi does not suggest that we return to the unmediated spontaneity that is characteristic of animals, to do so would be to lose our humanity. The perfected human being lives in a dialectical relationship with, on the one hand, the realm of man (ren), and, on the other hand, the realm of Heaven (tian). If the element of man falls out, the remaining Heaven is merely the spontaneous naturalness of an animal. As Graham correctly points out, if we isolate the element of man (ren) and negate it, then “what is left as Heaven’s is the purely animal, and from this 59

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point of view it is wrong to prefer Heaven” (1981: 106). The naturalness of an animal lacks the openness to the world qua world that as potentiality defines human beings. The animal does not, as human beings do, live “in-between” the world of its own making and the world qua world; the animal, as Georges Bataille says, lives in the world “like water in water” (1992: 25). Conversely, if the element of Heaven (tian) falls out, and all that remains is the realm of man (ren), then we have the situation where human beings are totally enclosed in a world of their own making, and, like animals, they too are no longer open to the experience of Heaven. When human beings are totally absorbed in the world of their own making, then their actions are just as mechanical as the natural, instinctive actions of animals. The mechanical mind ( jixin), the mind entirely conditioned by its technical capacity, makes a human being just as mechanical as a millipede that marvelously moves its many legs by relying on its natural impulses (17/55). The spontaneous and natural action Zhuangzi has in mind is as far removed from the instinctive action characteristic of animals as it is from the technical action of the realm of man (ren). Zhuangzi does not want to return to a primordial unity with Heaven. On the contrary, for him the fall away from this primordial unity is the very unbinding ( jie) that liberates us from an objectified cosmic order and its correlative social order, both of which reduce us to the state of animals. To use the image of the uncarved block ( pu): it is not the block in itself but the splitting of the block that is the site of redemption. Or to put it another way, for Zhuangzi, the metaphysical crisis where Heaven parts from man is itself the site of the redemption. Mencius tries to gloss over the crisis by postulating continuity between Heaven and man’s innermost impulses. Xunzi tries to avoid the crisis by militantly promoting the part of man (ren). Zhuangzi, for his part, tarries unflinchingly in the midst of the crisis. Graham says that Zhuangzi does not expect to live in a permanent ecstasy moving like a sleepwalker guided by Heaven; he recognizes that one must be sometimes “of Heaven’s party” and sometimes “of man’s party,” and declares that “someone in whom neither Heaven nor man is victor over the other, this is what is meant by the Genuine Man.” (1989: 196) This is correct, except that for Zhuangzi it is not, as Graham suggests, a question of shifting back and forth between the two realms but of remaining in authentic presence in-between Heaven and man. In this “in-between,” Heaven (tian) and man (ren) are no longer objective orders under which the subject is subsumed; they have unraveled as things (wu) and become nothing. Therefore the Zhuangzi can say that for the perfected person ”there 60

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has never begun to be Heaven and never begun to be man” (25/17). In this “in-between” where the objectivity of Heaven and man unravels, we live beyond the drive for completion.

The occurrence of the ordinary The life lived beyond the drive for completion and in-between heaven and man is nothing extraordinary, it is no achievement at all, for any achievement is inscribed in the technical and motivated by the drive towards completion. Cook Ding made this point, and it is also well exemplified in the story of the swimmer. Zhuangzi’s Confucius sees a man swimming in the turbulent waters beneath a high waterfall and, thinking that the man wants to kill himself, sends his disciples to the rescue. But after a while the man comes out of the waters and wanders (you) around singing on the shore. This misplaced rescue operation is of course a joke on the Confucians, who are obsessively concerned with saving people who are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. Confucius then asks the swimmer about his extraordinary ability in the waters. Like Lord Wen Hui, who thought Cook Ding exhibited extraordinary skill, Confucius thinks the swimmer has some marvelous ability, but, like Cook Ding, the swimmer answers that there is no extraordinary skill involved at all: I began with the native, I grew up with my nature, and came to completion in the destined. I go under together with the whirlpool and issue forth together with the well-spring. I follow the way of the water and do not impose myself upon it. That is how I tread the waters. (19/52–3) Confucius asks: “what do you mean by ‘begin with the native, grow up with my nature, and come to completion in the destined’?” The swimmer continues to answer in the same impassive and inscrutable manner: I was born on dry land and feel at home on dry land – that is native. I grew up in the water and feel at home in the water – that is my nature. I do not know why I am like this, and yet that is how I am – that is destined. (19/53–4) The swimmer is not really, as Confucius wrongly thinks, performing some marvelous act, he is just staying with the native (gu
), his nature (xing
), and the destined (ming
). Here gu (the native) is the same as guran
 (the inherently so) which Cook Ding follows, namely the pure coming-into-being of things. Graham says that gu in this sense means “the 61

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

qualities which a thing has to start with” or “the original” (1989: 124). In this sense gu is closely linked with xing (nature), a word that, as Graham points out, is derived from sheng
, “be born, live” and is similar to Greek phusis, “nature,” which comes from phuD “I grow,” and Latin natura, which is derived from nascor, “I am born.” (1990b: 7) Xing, then, does not indicate a fixed identity, but rather, as Graham puts it, “the course in which life completes its development if sufficiently nourished and not obstructed or injured from the outside” (1989: 124). To care for life (yangsheng) is precisely to care for this spontaneous movement by which life (sheng) completes itself through one’s being. This movement is engendered by Heaven, and therefore it is incomprehensible, and it is fated or destined (ming). For Zhuangzi, however, destiny is not an objective end to which we passively submit. As Michael Crandell points out, in the Inner Chapters the notion of ming (the destined) can best be rendered with “the way things are” (1983: 123). Therefore, when the swimmer says that he “comes to completion in the destined” (cheng huming
 ), then this should be understood in something like the sense of Nietzsche’s injunction to “become who you are.” This, says Zhuangzi, is the most difficult task: “nothing is as good as fulfilling your destiny, but this is the most difficult of all” (4/53). In the story of the swimmer, the notions of the native, nature, and the destined do not imply that one fits into an objective normative order, or a primordial unity with nature; they all point to the experience of the pure facticity of life. Furthermore, the whole movement, beginning with the native (gu), developing with nature (xing), and coming to completion in the destined (ming), does not imply progress and completion in a particular way of self-fashioning; it is rather a phenomenological description of our coming-to-the-world, or the fact that we are in each moment born together with the world. This is at once the most ordinary and the most uncanny experience. When it is viewed from the outside (wai) – the view of Lord Wen Hui and Confucius – this sheer givenness and facticity of ordinary life is experienced as something supernatural and extraordinary, but when we are no longer in the grip of the view from the outside, then life (sheng) emerges in its super-natural and extra-ordinary simplicity beyond the horizon of the drive towards completion. Pure coming-into-being does not appear in the outer world and so it cannot be known. Therefore the swimmer says: “I do not know why I am like this, and yet that is how I am.” But if coming-intobeing cannot be known, it can be acknowledged in that state of authentic presence or awareness Zhuangzi calls shen
(spirit). Cook Ding says that when the cognitive faculties come to an end then shen begins to function (3/6), and Graham explains that in philosophical literature the word shen indicates “that supremely lucid awareness which excites a shudder of numinous awe” (1989: 101). There is nothing magical about acknowledging life. Awareness of life arises in cooks and cicada catchers, wheelwrights and woodworkers, swimmers 62

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and ferrymen, forgers and fundraisers. As Graham notes, the Zhuangzi is not at all interested in “unusual powers” (1981: 19), and the experience of life, the life generated by Heaven, is not a “peak-experience,” it is not even a particularly noteworthy or exciting experience. It reflects rather a mind that has come to rest in the dullness that is the mood in which the Way is apprehended. It is this dull ease and satisfaction Cook Ding expresses, when at the end of his cutting he says: “I stand there holding the knife in my hand, I look around at ease and content, and then wipe off the cleaver and put it away” (2/11). This dull mood reflects the cook’s ability to stay with the fact that nothing special is happening at all. There is no marvelous performance, no mastery, no ecstatic experience of “flow,” no extraordinary skill is employed, no drive for completion, only life itself. This dullness is one example of the “blandness” ( fadeur) that Jullien (2004b) identifies as a key figure of thought in Chinese philosophy and art. In this spacious dullness our sense of time is transformed, and we experience the temporality of a life lived beyond the drive towards completion. Zhuangzi’s temporality beyond the drive for completion is best highlighted in contrast to the Confucian notion of timeliness. In the Lunyu we learn that Confucius is not invariably for or against anything, but in a timely fashion he “falls in with what is right” (Lunyu 4.10), and that this knack for timely action does not depend on rules or principles but transcends all restriction in terms of allowable (ke
) and unallowable (buke
) (Lunyu 18.8). Therefore Mencius praises Confucius as “the timely one among the sages” (sheng zhi shizhe
 !) and he explains that Confucius “when he ought to be quick, he would be quick; when he ought to take his time, he would take his time; when he ought to stay, he would stay; and when he ought to take office, he would take office” (5.B1). According to Mencius, it is because of his timeliness that Confucius surpassed all the other sages, and Mencius envisions in the figure of the timely sage a complete grasp and control of the real aimed at completion, or what he calls “the ensemble of great completions” ( jidacheng
 ). Mencius writes: In Confucius we have what is called “the ensemble of great completions.” As for the ensemble of great completions, [it is like in making music when] the bronze bells sound and the jade tubes are shaken. The sound of the bronze bells is the beginning of an orderly performance. The shaking of the jade tubes is the completion of an orderly performance. To begin an orderly performance is a matter of wisdom. To bring an orderly performance to its end is a matter of sageliness. Wisdom may be likened to skill, sageliness may be likened to strength. It is like shooting an arrow from beyond a hundred paces. That it reaches the target is due to your strength; that it hits the center is not due to your strength. (Mengzi 5B1) 63

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Mencius’ picture of Confucius as the timely sage is diametrically opposed to Zhuangzi’s picture of authentic action. Confucius is entirely in the grip of the drive towards completion (cheng); Cook Ding’s action nourishes life (sheng). The completion imposed by Confucius and the completion experienced by the swimmer in Zhuangzi are totally different. Confucius sums up his program of learning as follows: “aroused by the poems, established in the rituals, and completed (cheng) in music” (8.8). In the Zhuangzi the swimmer says that he “begins with the native, grows up in nature, and completes (cheng) in the destined.” The Confucian progression outlines a particular program of education, socialization, and self-fashioning, and the completion is entirely inscribed in the realm of man (literature, rituals, music). The swimmer’s sequence, on the other hand, involves no program of learning, no socialization, no self-fashioning, and no completion in the realm of man. It simply indicates the inexplicable experience of being engendered by selfemerging life. Furthermore, Mencius says that Confucius’ wisdom is a kind of technical skill (qiao), it is a form of regulatory wisdom that brings things completion. Cook Ding, for his part, does not rely on technical skill or practical wisdom in any form. The main point here, however, is that Zhuangzi notion of time is entirely different from the temporality of Mencius’ timely sage. In his essay on the notion of time in China, François Jullien makes a distinction between time as occurrence and time as occasion. Jullien argues that whereas in the West time is conceived as a homogeneous, abstract movement from past through the present into the future, in China time is understood as a seasonal process of concrete and ever new moments (shi
). The abstract notion of time in the West, says Jullien, divides time into past, present, and future, but the Chinese moment (shi) has no beginning and end. For the subject the moment is a state of pure availability without any sense of project or even “existence” in Heidegger’s sense of ex-static standing-out in the full range of one’s possibilities and towards the final possibility/impossibility of death. As his first example of this Chinese “moment” Jullien takes the passage where Mencius describes Confucius as the timely sage, or as Jullien translates, the sage of the moment (shi). According to Jullien this Confucian moment is, first, a moment of availability (disponibilité): Confucius is not restrained by a principle but open to the demands of the moment. Second, it is a moment of opportunity (opportunité), for in making oneself available to the demands of the moment one also gains access to the opportunity of the moment. Corresponding to these two features of the moment, Jullien describes the moment as an occurrence (occurrence), or the fruit of the flow of time to which the sage is available, and as an occasion (occasion), or the flow of time objectified in a particular configuration, which the sage can exploit. In terms of the present essay (and very close to Jullien’s own description): as occurrence the moment is part of the flow of life (sheng); as

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occasion the moment has taken form as some completion (cheng) that can be manipulated. The occasion, says Jullien, is that which “the sage and the strategist constantly exploits” (2001: 117–23). If we look more closely at Mencius’ description of Confucius as the timely sage, we will see, however, that it in fact implies a notion of time that is quite different from Jullien’s moment (shi). According to Mencius, Confucius’ timeliness (shi) progresses like a piece of ritual music with a clear sense of beginning and end, and it is hard to see that this ritual marking of time is less abstract than the Western progression of past, present, and future. Surely, the completion (cheng) imposed by Confucius’ timeliness is an abstraction beyond the flow of occurring moments. The supreme ensemble of great completions ( jidacheng) that Mencius ascribes to Confucius is, in Jullien’s terminology, the occasion to trump all occasions. This supreme occasion is secure beyond all occurrence and so metaphysical. Furthermore, Mencius clearly views timely action in terms of a pro-ject (it is like an arrow that flies towards its target), and in fact Mencius has his own notion of messianic time: Mencius expects that the time is near when a new timely sage will appear and complete the Confucian project (Mengzi 2B13). Zhuangzi’s notion of time differs on every point from the Mencian notion of time. In Jullien’s terms, Zhuangzi’s moment is always occurrence and never objectifies into an occasion. Unlike Mencius, Zhuangzi does not view time as a ritually marked progression from beginning to completion, and, again unlike Mencius, Zhuangzi does not view time as a pro-ject aimed at a coming final completion. For Zhuangzi the occurrence of time never runs into an occasion, so there is nothing to take advantage of and nothing to hope for. The Zhuangzi explicitly denounces the timely action of those who appropriate the moment for their own use: “those who go for power and material things delight in changes – the moment something can be put to use, they cannot but act” (24/37–8). According to Zhuangzi the knack for timeliness (shi) is merely the temporality of technical mastery and radically different from the temporality of the Way. Zhuangzi’s notion of the unbinding of the gods (di zhi xuanjie
 !), or simply unbinding ( jie
) as in the story of Cook Ding, implies precisely the unbinding of any occasion that can be manipulated by man and a surrender to the pure occurrence of life. Zhuangzi says that “those who cannot unbind themselves are bound by things” (6/53), and to explain his notion of the unbinding of time as occasion, Zhuangzi tells a story about Laozi. When Laozi died some of his disciples mourned him by “doubling their emotions,” or, on another reading, “turning away from the real” (3/17). That is to say, psychologically they did not remain with the occurrence but added something artificial (ritual) to fit the occasion. They added to life ( yisheng), but they should have known better. For their Master, Laozi, was always living in the pure occurrence of life:

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Just when he happened to come (shilai), the Master was timely; just when he happened to go (shiqu), the Master followed along. Be at home in the moment and dwell in going along. Then sorrow and happiness cannot affect you. This is what the ancients called “the unbinding of the gods.” (3/18–19) It is crucial to distinguish Zhuangzi’s description of Laozi from Mencius’ description of Confucius as the timely sage, and here the word shi
(in the phrases shilai
 and shiqu
) is significant. Shi means that something happens, in the sense that it just reaches its point of appearance or cominginto-being (its destination or destiny) with natural ease and as if by chance, that is to say, uncaused and spontaneously. The Master’s coming and going was of this nature. His every action was at one with the moment just when an incipient movement emerged, or, better, his action was that movement. For, unlike the tears of his followers, the acts of the Master were pure occurrence, and they never became an occasion for any thing or event to take form. Like Zhuangzi’s own words, the Master’s coming and going is impromptu, that is to say, it is prompted by the moment just when ( fang) something appears (chu). In short, Laozi exemplifies the temporality of a life lived beyond the drive towards completion. Mencius’ Confucius, on the other hand, immediately turns the pure occurrence of life into an occasion for his own mastery. The timely sage proceeds from occasion to occasion. He is bound by things – not only the bells and drums of ritual, but by everything that is the case, every occasion – and he is not able to unbind himself (zijie
).

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5 SAYING THE UNSAYABLE

[ The language of the messianic world] is the idea of prose itself, which is understood by all humans just as the language of birds is understood by those born on Sunday. Walter Benjamin If saying is considered to be different from the sound of baby birds, is there really a distinction or is there no distinction? Zhuangzi

Indicative and logical discourses Zhuangzi has no philosophy of language as we know it from modern analytic philosophy but a profound experience with language. In particular Zhuangzi tries to attain the experience of language in itself, that is to say, not language as a thing with a useful signifying function, but language as a phenomenon that eludes all objectification. The background for understanding Zhuangzi’s view of language is twofold: early Confucian discourse and the logic of disputation (bian
) fashioned by the later Mohists. Mohist disputation had the most immediate and obvious impact on Zhuangzi, but the influence of Confucian discourse on Zhuangzi runs deeper. To highlight the view of language that Zhuangzi shares with the Confucians, I take my point of departure in François Jullien’s analyses of Confucius’ use of language. Jullien (2000: 196) says that early Confucian discourse is “indicative” rather than a dialogical or dialectical unfolding of logos. Thus the Master indicates one corner of the whole and leaves it to the disciple to orient himself and find the other three (Analects 7.8). Here there is no time for discussing generalities and giving reasons – and there is certainly no time for polemics and dispute – the lesson is given on the spot and must be understood on the spot. But this also means, as Jullien points out, that “the path of dialogue is definitely barred” (2000: 198). In indicative discourse the unsaid is more important than what is said. In order to be effective, says Jullien, the Master’s words “must remain 67

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inchoate, must merely begin to say; their richness comes from their implicitness” (2000: 200). Furthermore, the effectiveness of indicative speech depends on its “opportune intervention,” and it is, therefore, “a matter less of content than occasion” (Jullien 2000: 203). On the right occasion the indicative word “reveals the bottomless depths of things instead of passing through the mediation of a theoretical construction (which, in comparison would seem endless)” (Jullien 2000: 238). Correspondingly, failed speech is not speech that lacks content but words that have no effect and reveal “their uselessness when they have missed their mark” (Jullien 2000: 203). The aim of this indicative discourse is to regulate conduct and ultimately to regulate the whole socio-ethical sphere. For Confucius, discourse is a tool of regulation and should not be used frivolously – one should not become fascinated with the tool and forget the aim. Disputation should be avoided and when the order of things is established and functions spontaneously discourse can cease altogether. For the words of the Master have nothing more to communicate than the regulation they incarnate. However, because this regulation is continuously revealed everywhere and at all times, we are always overwhelmed by it and thus incapable of isolating it in order to become conscious of it. Indeed nothing is more difficult to grasp than the globality of the obvious. Thus once it succeeds in illuminating its source and connects us to the totality (of Heaven and the Sage), the smallest detail attains a strategic importance: Confucian discourse does not attempt to transcend the particular through definition (by raising it to its universal essence through abstraction) but, by treating it as an indication, allows for a glimpse of its source of immanence. (Jullien 2000: 238–9) The discourse of the Master is empty of specific content, and it is full (illuminating and regulating) precisely because it is empty of content. As Jullien writes, “it is precisely in saying nothing in particular that he [the sage] says what needs to be said and abides within globality” (2000: 243–4). Zhuangzi’s language is quite close to Confucius’ indicative saying. In both Zhuangzi’s impromptu words and in Confucius’ indicative saying, the moment of enunciation is more important than the propositional content of the discourse. In both cases it is by saying nothing in particular that saying reveals the real; and both Confucius and Zhuangzi value the unsaid, or the beginning-to-say, over elaborate dialogue and completed discourse. Furthermore, both Confucius and Zhuangzi detest empty disputation, and neither of them developed a logic of dialogue. The decisive difference between Zhuangzi and Confucius’ views of language is that for Zhuangzi language is not a tool of regulation. As a tool of regulation language is objectified and it is, so to speak, no longer itself. Therefore, Zhuangzi frees language from 68

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its regulatory function, and if, for Confucius, words that miss the mark (measured against their regulative potential) are useless, then for Zhuangzi it is precisely those useless words that regulate nothing that first reveal the real. Therefore Zhuangzi does not share Confucius’ unease with the proliferation of discourse. To be sure, like Confucius, Zhuangzi says that authentic saying is lost in rhetorical flourishes (2/25–6), but whereas for Confucius speech must be used sparingly and ultimately only silence can unify us with the spontaneous regulation of Heaven, Zhuangzi shows that there is a kind of saying, namely his impromptu words, that self-emerges and flourishes spontaneously like all phenomena of nature. Later Confucians could only see Zhuangzi’s discourse as extravagant and excessive, but Confucius himself may have been less judgmental and more appreciative of Zhuangzi’s most remarkable achievement. The writings of the later Mohists constitute a break with Confucian discourse. Mozi himself was already much more argumentative than Confucius, and among some of the later Mohists this interest in argumentative discourse culminates in a corpus of writing from around 300  that contains their canons of the logic of argumentation, scientific investigations, and ethical theory. The spirit of the canons is utilitarian, and informed by an intense concern for universal fairness, and Graham characterizes their ethical theory as “beautifully simple, complete and consistent, an achievement quite without parallel in Chinese philosophy” (1978: 45). This “comprehensive summa of Mohist disputation,” says Graham, “projects the vision of a universal knowledge organized in four disciplines, knowledge of names, of objects, of how to connect them, of how to act” (1989: 137). The intention is clear, the Mohists seek a total grasp of the real not unlike that of Western science. It is now rational discourse, and not the oblique indications of the Master, that lays the foundation for the new social order. Parallel to the increasing emphasis on the technical side of human action in the Warring States period, the Mohists introduce an unprecedented technification of language. In early Confucian discourse the truth of a statement largely depends on the proper conditions (ritual and hierarchical) for the felicitous exchange of words. The Mohists, however, realize that there is no logical but only performative force in Confucian discourse, and therefore it cannot be treated as necessary (bi
) (Graham 1978: 330–1). They begin, therefore, to craft their logic of necessary relations in new theories of naming and disputation. Zhuangzi clearly sees that this new technical language increasingly abstracts itself from the moment of enunciation, the specific moment in the flow of life (sheng) when what is said is said, and encloses itself in completed and conclusive discourse (chengyan
) (Graham 1978: 344). The Mohist logicians are entirely preoccupied with completion (cheng) at the level of discourse, and in their canons of disputation there is no need for the category of life (sheng) as a spontaneous force that can be cultivated or 69

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neglected. As Graham points out, the Mohist definition of sheng (life) “excludes from consideration all vital tendencies which can be nourished or thwarted,” and so it “makes nonsense” of the idea of care for life ( yangsheng) (1978: 281). Zhuangzi regarded this neglect of life (sheng) as the greatest danger, and it is in response to this technification of language in disputation (bian) that Zhuangzi develops his own saying (yan
) as exposure to selfemerging life. Although the discourse of the later Mohists is opposed to the discourse of the Confucians, both use language as a tool for regulation. The Confucian wants to rectify names (zhengming
) so that affairs will be successful and reach completion (cheng) (Analects 13.3). Once the Mohist logician has determined the necessary relations between names and objects, then he is in command of his world and he can craft a new social order. As a tool of regulation, however, language is objectified in names (ming) that belong to the outer (wai) realm no less so than the objects (shi) to which they fit. This objectified language is not an expression of a unique consciousness, but, as Hans-Georg Möller says, a “collective monologue” (1994: x–xi, 153). When he overhears himself speak and takes on language as a personal exercise, Zhuangzi breaks with this collective monologue and brings to view language itself before it falls into the propositional function and the name (ming)– object (shi) relation.

Saying and disputation Zhuangzi makes a critical distinction between saying ( yan
) and disputation (bian
). The completed mind (chengxin), which, as the commentator Cheng Xuanying explains, is the prejudiced mind (Guo 1982: 61), is the basis for disputation, paradigmatically the disputes between the Confucians and the Mohists, where each side “affirms what the other denies and denies what the other affirms” (2/26). In disputation there is no chance for mutual agreement. This closure in discourse is, however, only characteristic of the language of disputation (bian) that takes the binary terms shi
(right) and fei
(wrong) as the basis for its operation. Language in the broader sense, yan (saying), has its own characteristics, which Zhuangzi explains as follows: Saying ( yan) is not just the blowing of air, saying says something. It is only that what it says is not fixed. Is there really saying then? Or has there never been saying? If saying is considered to be different from the sound of baby birds, is there really a distinction or is there no distinction? (2/23–4) Zhuangzi is clear about the limitations of disputation (bian), but he is much more hesitant about making definite claims about the nature of language or 70

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saying ( yan). The reason is that disputation is merely a technique with obvious uses and limitations, but for Zhuangzi language ( yan) is an unknown in which he himself is deeply and inextricably involved. The mystery of language, which is constantly exhibited in the Zhuangzi, is that language or saying always hovers in-between saying something and saying nothing and so maintains an indeterminacy and openness in relation to that which it speaks about, namely the world. Disputation, on the other hand, denies itself this productive indeterminacy by deeming saying either right or wrong. Whereas authentic saying, like authentic action, is exposed in-between the realms of man (ren) and Heaven (tian), disputation is a purely technical procedure and entirely inscribed in the world of man (ren). According to Zhuangzi, only saying is exposed to the world qua world; disputation merely names objects, or the referential context of our world. Therefore Zhuangzi regards disputation as the decline of saying. At once sad and incredulous he asks: “How is saying (yan) hidden so there is right (shi) and wrong ( fei)? . . . How can saying (yan) exist and not be permissible?” (2/25). In other words, how did disputation come to obscure authentic saying? In Zhuangzi’s view, the problem is that the discourse of disputation takes the proposition to be the essence of language, and it reduces the question of what is genuine and real to the truth value of propositions. We find a similar shift in the view of language in ancient Greece, when, as Heidegger writes, “logos as assertion becomes the locus of truth in the sense of correctness,” a development that culminated in “Aristotle’s proposition according to which logos as assertion is what can be true or false” (2000: 199). Heidegger argues that originally the Greeks understood truth as unconcealment (alBtheia), as coming-into-being, or phusis itself, and not as a function of propositional discourse. Similarly, for Zhuangzi saying (yan) partakes in the movement of the Way, or the ceaseless coming-into-being that is life (sheng). Disputation (bian) obscures this movement, and therefore the Way and saying decline together as disputation arises. The Way, says Zhuangzi, is concealed in the petty achievements associated with the drive for completion (cheng) in the realm of man (ren). In a parallel development saying is concealed in the rhetorical flourishes characteristic of the empty techniques of disputation. When the Way is concealed, then there is true and false, when saying is concealed then there is right and wrong (2/24–6). The aim of Zhuangzi’s saying is to bring language itself out of this concealment and let it self-emerge like all phenomena of nature.

The double-question That Zhuangzi shuns propositional truth is especially noticeable in his frequent rhetorical use of the double-question. We have just seen a prominent example in the passage where Zhuangzi asks if there is a difference between saying (yan) and the chirping of birds: “Is there really saying then? Or has 71

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there never been saying? . . . is there really a distinction or is there no distinction?” On grammatical grounds Christoph Harbsmeier argues that the expected answer to the last question is “No!” (1981: 149–50). But clearly Zhuangzi does not expect such a clear-cut answer. The main function of Zhuangzi’s double-questions – is it so? or is it not so? – is to suspend propositional discourse and open up a space between affirmation and negation in which saying (yan) is able to speak the world. This suspension is similar to the epokhB of the Greek Skeptics, and Zhuangzi’s double-question corresponds to the expression ou mallon, “no more than” – it is no more so than it is not so – which, as Agamben points out, denotes the experience of epokhB. According to Sextus Empiricus, “the most important thing is that, in uttering this expression, the Skeptic says the phenomenon and announces the affect without any opinion [apaggellei to pathos adoxastDs]” (Agamben 1999a: 256). In this way, writes Agamben, the Skeptic displaces language from the register of the proposition, which predicates something of something (legein ti kata tinos), to that of the announcement, which predicates nothing of nothing. Maintaining itself in the epokhB of the “no more than,” language is transformed into the angel of the phenomenon, the pure announcement of its passion. As the adverb adoxastDs specifies, “passion” here indicates nothing subjective; pathos is purified of all doxa, all subjective appearance, and becomes the pure announcement of appearance, the intimation of Being without any predicate. (1999a: 257) Zhuangzi’s double-question has a similar function and similar metaphysical implications. For the double-question suspends the discourse of disputation, and it opens a space between affirmation and negation in which the phenomenon can announce itself. This is also characteristic of Zhuangzi’s impromptu words, which do not impose value judgments on the world, but are rather, to borrow Agamben’s words, saying as “the pure announcement of appearance.” Furthermore, as we will see, the emotional state (the pathos) that goes with Zhuangzi’s impromptu words is the objective emotion of joy (le
) that is purified of all subjective sentiments and therefore totally open to the experience of the world.

Shifting signifiers According to Zhuangzi, what saying (yan) says is never fixed and settled (ding
); but this is not a deficiency of language (yan), on the contrary, it is precisely because signification is indeterminate that authentic saying is possible. Authentic saying is the saying that is awake to the fact that fundamentally nothing is fixed in language. Therefore, Zhuangzi takes the shifters 72

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“this” (shi
) and “that” (bi
), or “I” (wu
) and “that other” (bi), to reflect the essence of all language. In one of his most dazzling passages, which I will discuss in the following chapter, Zhuangzi shows how these shifters suspend propositional discourse – which for Zhuangzi is a derivative (fallen) language – and infect discourse as a whole, so it becomes shifting, not fixed, and so again potentially open to the world in what Zhuangzi calls luminosity (ming
). To understand Zhuangzi on this point, it may be helpful to recall the linguistic features of shifters. According to Émile Benveniste shifters pertain to the unique instances of the actualization of discourse rather than to the syntax of language. Whereas names refer to constant and objective entities that endure in time, shifters refer to no stable object: each “this” and each “that” has its own proper reference uniquely posed in the moment of enunciation. In fact, shifters do not refer to an outside reality at all, they refer rather to the present moment of saying. Since they refer to no “reality,” says Benveniste, shifters are “empty” signs; since shifters do not assert anything, they “are not subject to the requirements of truth;” and since they have no necessary reference they cannot be misused. But precisely for these reasons, the shifters are always available to everyone, and they become “full” every time someone appropriates them in a moment of saying. For the function of the shifters is, says Benveniste, to bring about “the conversion of language (langage) into discourse (discours).” That is to say, language as a system of references is converted into language that a subject can appropriate precisely because the shifters are anonymous and – for the moment at least – open to use by anyone. Here the pronoun “I” is the paradigmatic term, and Benveniste says that this sign “is linked to the exercise of language (langage) and declare the speaker as such.” In the moment of saying “I” the speaker takes on language as a whole. The function of shifters, then, says Benveniste, shows that there is a profound difference between “language as a system of signs and language taken on as an exercise by an individual” (1974: 251–7). There is no doubt that Zhuangzi saw these characteristics of the shifters “this” (shi) and “that” (bi), “I” (wo) and “that other” (bi), as characteristic of all language if viewed properly. Unlike the Mohist logicians, Zhuangzi is not interested in language as a system of references, or the collective monologue of fitting names and objects, he is interested in what Benveniste calls “language taken on as an exercise by an individual.” It is precisely by being empty of fixed signification that language can be taken on as an exercise by an individual. In Zhuangzi language becomes “full” in the unique moments of authentic saying, in which the enunciation of the word (not its signification) announces the world. In these moments language is not a system of references but an exercise in saying what is concealed in the propositional discourse of disputation (bian). In a passage Graham takes to be related to the “Inner Chapters,” the Zhuangzi explicitly describes language in general as a collection of shifters, 73

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or shifting signifiers (yishi
). It is said that one cannot know and speak about these shifting signifiers, presumably because they are the essence of language itself and so cannot be an object of language. Nevertheless, an analogy is provided: when we inspect a house, we go to all the rooms, even to the toilet, and that, says the passage, is an example of shifting signifiers. In other words, in each moment of speaking we are always “here” or “there” (in this or that room), and no matter how thorough we are in our signifying, we only address the thing itself (the house, or the phenomenon in its totality) from these shifting positions. The problem is that we appropriate these shifting signifiers, regulate them, and impose them on others. The passage says that we “avail ourselves of right and wrong,” or as it is said in “On the Equality of Things,” we put ourselves “in charge of right and wrong.” (2/11) Once we have appropriated language in this way, then there is a system of names (ming) and objects (shi), and the self ( ji) becomes a substance, or, on another reading, a hostage (zhi
). In other words, the self objectifies itself in its own reified language, and it forces others to recognize this objectification as the model and measure ( jie
) for right and wrong (23/62–4). From the point of view of Zhuangzi, the problem is not that language is no more than shifting signifiers; the problem is that we regulate and control language. As long as we do not become attached to a particular way of signifying, a particular way of proceeding (xing
), and regard that as fixed (ding), but just let language (yan) be as it is in itself, empty like the shifters, then we may announce the world.

The intended meaning When Zhuangzi says that we must forget language (wangyan
), it means that we must forget propositional language. Furthermore, it is not a question of forgetting language in order to grasp some unmediated intention. The Zhuangzi says that in the same way as the fish is in the fish-trap, and the trap is forgotten once we have got the fish, the intended meaning (yi
) is in language (yan), and language is forgotten once we have got the intended meaning (26/48–9). Usually this is taken to mean that one should forget language and obtain the intended meaning (yi). But, as Hans-Georg Möller has convincingly argued, here the expression deyi
 (to get the intended meaning) is a pun and implies, not that one should obtain an intended meaning unmediated by language, but, on the contrary, that both language and the intended meaning should be forgotten: “de yi does not literally mean to ‘get the meaning’ but rather to ‘get what is intended’ and therefore to be ‘perfectly content,’ and thus to ‘have no intentions’” (Möller 2000: 496). The Zhuangzi in fact rejects intentionality altogether – the perfected person “causes people’s intentions (yi) to disappear” (21/5) and “casts intentions to the sheep” (24/96) – because for Zhuangzi intention (yi) is the beginning of the formation of the completed mind (chengxin) and 74

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therefore it should be rejected, or at least, as in the story of Cook Ding, given minimal play. The fish-trap passage ends by expressing the desire to get (de
) a person who has forgotten language ( yan) and speak with him. Here we get the full ironic twist of the word de in the passage. For we only get (de) a person who has forgotten language by speaking with him or her. In other words, we only get to forget language in language, and this getting (de) is not of the same order as getting (de) some thing – whether it be a fish or an intended meaning – it is rather as if we could only catch the fish by letting it swim away or get the intended meaning by suspending all intentionality. In short, the whole idea of getting (de), in the instrumental sense, becomes absurd and, no doubt, a joke. The story of the wheelwright who says that he cannot put his knack or feel for his craft into language or words (yan) (13/68–74) is also often taken to show that the Zhuangzi rejects language. The passage preceding the story of the wheelwright explains that it is a mistake to think that the Way is found in writing, for the value of writing depends on the spoken words. The value of spoken words in turn depends on the intended meaning (yi); and what the intended meaning pursues, namely the real (qing), is beyond positive, empirical verification and cannot be transmitted in language ( yan) (13/64–8). Here, again, we see that the intended meaning ( yi) is not what is aimed at: ontologically the intended meaning is at the same level as writing and other objectified language and separated from the real. As Liu Shaojin (1989: 141–2) points out, for Zhuangzi the intended meaning ( yi) is not, as the commentator Cheng Xuanying says, a “wonderful principle” that has to be attained; quite on the contrary, the intended meaning must be given up. After this explanation, the story of the wheelwright then begins with Duke Huan sitting reading the words of the sages, that is to say, the kind of objectified language that can never touch the real (qing). The wheelwright, for his part, closely tracks the real (qing) in his work – he “senses it in the hand and responds from the heart” (13/72). It is this sense of the real that the wheelwright says he cannot explain in language (yan) and cannot transmit to his son. What he means is that this sense of the real cannot be explained in objectified, propositional language fit for a technical manual, whether it be a manual of craft-knowledge or of moral self-cultivation, such as the words of the sages that the Duke is reading. For technical language speaks only of things (wu), or as the preceding passage says, form, color, name, and sound, but can never express the real (qing). There is, however, another kind of language that is capable of saying the real. That language is Zhuangzi’s impromptu words, which respond to the real in precisely the same way the wheelwright senses and responds to the wheel. For in Zhuangzi’s impromptu words, as Graham says, “meanings fluctuate but right themselves in the spontaneous flow of discourse” (1981: 26). Or, better, meaning dissolves in the intentionless moment of enunciation that 75

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announces the world. In this way, Zhuangzi speaks what the wheelwright must leave unspoken.

Language in itself When Zhuangzi asks if saying ( yan), even if it does say something, is different from the chirping of birds, he wants to draw our attention to the existence of language as such: language that is not mere sound but also not exhausted in meaningful propositions; language that exists in-between saying something and saying nothing; language that expresses neither the sayable nor the unsayable but only itself; language in its pure potential to notsignify, before it is appropriated in a particular discourse. This is the language Zhuangzi constantly tries to bring into play in “On The Equality of Things.” Zhuangzi shows that if we do not use language to construct our world but listen to language and let it pass, like music perhaps, then sound emerges as the “ground” of language, and as the signifying function of language withdraws into sound a sense of the world is awakened. Like the sound of the wind blowing through trees and hollow rocks, language signifies nothing beyond the moment of enunciation – but a slight trembling remains after the wind has blown away to indicate the presence of the world: “Have you not seen the leaves that quiver with tingling reverberations?” (2/7–8) (Mair 1994: 12). There are passages in the Zhuangzi that simply reflect the general tendency in classical Chinese to have the meaning of words cluster together according to sound (Akatsuka 1974–7: 57). In these passages meaning also yields to sound but without revealing language itself. They should, therefore, be strictly distinguished from Zhuangzi’s experience with language, in which language is not the senseless chirping of birds, for it is still language ( yan), but it is also not language exhausted in its signifying function. It is rather language as simply existing, before it is sunk into the sea of meaning. This, of course, is a rather romantic, even mystical, view of language, and it has little to do with the current view of language in linguistics and philosophy. But we do find similar views of language in Western philosophy. Walter Benjamin, for one, was searching for a language that is not just a tool for conveying a specific meaning content but able to express the Absolute. Benjamin begins with the claim that language and world are not separate: the world expresses itself in language, not in particular propositions, but in language as such. For Benjamin the urgent task is to translate this absolute language into specific human languages, for specific human languages easily fall into the dead objectivity of the subject–object relation, which obscures the magic and spiritual nature of the world. Benjamin says that only if we return to a life in pure language will we become blissful (selig) – a word with connotations in the same register as Zhuangzi joy (le), which, as we will see, is also linked to the experience of pure language – and 76

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he explains that this pure language “no longer means or expresses anything but is, as expressionless and creative Word, that which is meant in all languages.” Furthermore, in this pure language “all information, all sense, and all intention finally encounter a stratum in which they are destined to be extinguished” (Benjamin 1969: 80). This is the intentionless experience of language that Zhuangzi also describes, and as if echoing Zhuangzi’s saying about the chirping of birds, Benjamin says that this pure language “is understood by all humans just as the language of birds is understood by those born on Sunday” (Agamben 1999b: 48). François Billeter says that when Zhuangzi began “to ponder over the essence of language,” then he did not pursue some theory of language but the experience of language in itself. “What is remarkable,” writes Billeter, “is that he [Zhuangzi] did not answer the question with an explanatory myth, or with abstract speculation, but with the observation of what in fact happens when we speak – a much more difficult feat.” For in order to observe language rather than use it, says Billeter, we must “suspend intentionality” and “practice standstill,” that is to say not “allow ourselves to roam far beyond the frontiers of language” but “stay close to it and observe it near to” (1998: 27). In this suspension of intentionality, we attain what Billeter calls “vision” in which we are able to simply perceive language as: language appears to someone who, while listening to someone else talking or talking himself, suspends his intentionality and transforms himself into a spectator of what is happening: he sees someone else speaking, he sees himself listening or speaking, he perceives the words being uttered as if they were the twittering of birds; he hears them resonate in a world where objects no longer have a name and will soon cease to have distinct identities. Having left intentionality, he beholds strange scenes in which the twitterings produced by others have the appearance of implying a reference to some defined reality that exists for them, but exists no longer for him. (Billeter 1998: 21–2) When Zhuangzi suspends his intentionality and “sees” himself speaking, he gets a view of “language itself ” before it sinks into the sea of meaning and is appropriated in the endless disputes between the philosophers. This does not mean that Zhuangzi rejects language. As Billeter says, when Zhuangzi invites us “to become aware of the underlying arbitrary nature of language at the very moment when we are employing it – and of its narrow limits,” then this, paradoxically, “makes us even more inclined to let language do what it wills, to let it come into being and to act of its own accord” (1998: 31–2). As we will see, precisely this ability to let language be as it is 77

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“in itself ” and let it self-emerge at its own accord is the essential feature of Zhuangzi’s impromptu words. Here I will emphasize that it is language itself, and not a proposition in language, that alone is able to say the unsayable. “There is indeed something unsayable,” says Wittgenstein, “it shows itself; it is the mystical” (1984: 85). The mystical is that the world is, as opposed to what or how the world is. The experience that the world is, is also the ethical experience. In his “Lecture on Ethics,” Wittgenstein says that his ethical experience “par excellence” is when “I wonder at the existence of the world.” In this experience Wittgenstein is “inclined to use such phrases as ‘how extraordinary that anything should exist’ or ‘how extraordinary that the world should exist’.” A second example of the ethical, says Wittgenstein, is “the experience of feeling absolutely safe,” by which he means “the state of mind in which one is inclined to say ‘I am safe, nothing can injure me whatever happens’ ” (1993: 41). It is interesting to note that Zhuangzi expresses his essential experience in similar terms. Zhuangzi gives expression to the experience of the moment just when things appear, as opposed to how and what things are, and he describes the feeling of being absolutely safe that comes to the perfected human being: “If the great marches blazed, he would not be hot; if the great rivers froze, he would not be cold; if sudden thunder split the mountains and whirlwinds beat the seas, he would not be frightened” (2/71–2). The “family resemblance” between these expressions for the ethical (the absolute) suggests that there may be, as Wittgenstein says, “common ground” in such expressions. For Wittgenstein, however, “the verbal expression which we give to these experiences is nonsense!” – and not just nonsense in a relative sense (in which case a more correct expression may be found), but in the radical sense that “their nonsensicality was their very essence.” (Wittgenstein 1993: 41, 44). It makes sense to say “I wonder at the sky being blue” as opposed to being cloudy, but when I say “I wonder at the existence of the world,” what I mean is rather something like “I am wondering at the sky whatever it is” (Wittgenstein 1993: 42). The absolute (the ethical) cannot be expressed in meaningful propositions, but Wittgenstein suggests that it may be expressed in “language itself.” For there is the possibility that if we see – “as it were in a flash of light,” as Wittgenstein says – that “our words will only express facts” but the ethical is “supernatural,” then the ethical shows itself, not beyond language but in “language itself ”: “Now I am tempted to say that the right expression in language for the miracle of the existence of the world, though it is not any proposition in language, is the existence of language itself ” (Wittgenstein 1993: 43–4). Like Wittgenstein, Zhuangzi is aware that expressions of the absolute, ethical experience (the experience of the world qua world, the Way, and Heaven) should not be taken as a factual statements. Zhuangzi explicitly says that as a proposition the expression “the myriad things are one with 78

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me” contradicts itself in the saying. For, says Zhuangzi, the One and the saying “all is one” make two, and two and one make three, and from here on not even the most clever mathematician could keep track of the fragmentation (2/53–4). In other words, as factual statements these propositions fall into the endless fragmentation characteristic of the realm of things, and so they cannot express the absolute. For Zhuangzi expressions for the experience of the Way or Heaven cannot be propositions in language, they must be another kind of language, namely impromptu words, or language in itself freed from its useful signifying function. Zhuangzi’s language is sometimes compared to the language of Chan/ Zen, and just as Zhuangzi is often said to negate language, it is often said that Chan/Zen teachings are beyond words. In both cases the opposite is true – or, to speak with Chan/Zen, we could say that the opposite is also true. In both Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism the world speaks itself in a language that does not itself propose anything but merely announces what comes into being. Nevertheless, Zhuangzi does not use language in the same way as the Chan/Zen Buddhists. Like Mahayana Buddhism in general, Chan/ Zen operates with two levels of meaning: relative and absolute truth. Language pertains to what is relative, and the question is how to get from the relative to the absolute. Following Bernard Faure’s exposition (1992), we can identify three distinct Chan/Zen attitudes to language. One is to give up speech altogether and enter silence. This clearly is not Zhuangzi’s option. The second is to give language provisional value: words may be used but only as skillful means (upAya), or for their performative force (as opposed to their descriptive value), as it happens in the koan, or encounter-dialogues. It has been suggested that Zhuangzi’s language is similar to the highly ritualized and technical language of encounter-dialogues. There are two reasons why this cannot be the case. First, the Chan/Zen koans are techniques and their vocabulary is technical; Zhuangzi, as we have seen, shuns all technical discourse. Second, in the koans, as Faure emphasizes, the whole point is that the words themselves are tools and devoid of meaning. In Zhuangzi, on the other hand, words are never objectified as meaningless tools but allowed the full range of their expressibility, even as, or, better, precisely when specific meaning content is suspended – for the suspension of the specific gives free range to the possible. In this regard Chan/Zen discourse is perhaps closer to Confucius’ indicative discourse, in which words are also tools, namely tools of regulation. The third Chan/Zen attitude to language is to claim that words, ultimately any words, express the true suchness of reality. Just like any other phenomenon, language is a function of the “whole substance of the Buddhanature.” In this view, as Faure writes, “every word is the Dharma.” This view of language is close to Zhuangzi’s impromptu words that coincide with the bounds of Heaven (tianni). However, in the Buddhist case it is not, as it is in Zhuangzi, language itself as a unique phenomenon that comes into 79

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play, rather language is subsumed under the homogenizing force of the absolute. It is where Chan/Zen interfaces with poetry that we find the closest parallels with Zhuangzi, for here language truly returns to itself in Buddhist discourse. Faure says that in Chan/Zen poetry words become “reality speaking of itself . . . spontaneous speech in response to things” (1992: 171). As we will see shortly, this is also true of Zhuangzi’s impromptu words. Faure quotes Valéry’s words, “the poem is a prolonged hesitation between sound and meaning,” and he adds that “[t]his is also true of certain, if not all, words – for example, those uttered by a master” (1992: 167). As explained above, Zhuangzi sees in this hesitation between sound and meaning the essence of all authentic saying. Furthermore, for Zhuangzi the Way and authentic saying are one, and the two decline together in propositional discourse. Faure is correct, therefore, when he observes that in both Chan/ Zen and Daoism “language cannot express the absolute, yet it cannot not express it, for they share an identical nature” (2004: 170). The unsayable cannot be expressed in a proposition in language, but it is always already said in language itself.

Impromptu words The Zhuangzi identifies three kinds of saying (yan): metaphors (yuyan
), quotations (zhongyan
), and impromptu words (zhiyan
) (Mair 1994: 278). Metaphors presumably refer to the figurative language and the various fictitious or traditional tales in the Zhuangzi. It is said that in using metaphors one “relies on the outside in order to discuss the matter,” just like a father uses a go-between to arrange a marriage for his son. Such mediating language is necessary, says the Zhuangzi, because it is characteristic of people that “they consider right that which agrees with themselves; they consider wrong that which differs from themselves” (27/2–3). Zhuangzi’s figurative language acts as a go-between that negotiates between the entrenched positions. The second kind of saying, quotations, refers to quotations from the ancients, such as Confucius, Laozi, and the Madman of Chu
, and from the various traditions of folk lore. Like many other books of ancient Chinese philosophy, the Zhuangzi abounds in such sayings. In Zhuangzi, however, the well-known voices of the past are often presented in a humorous way and not as authorities, so they, just like the metaphors, serve to loosen up entrenched positions rather than fortify them. Impromptu words do not just soften entrenched positions, they are spoken entirely beyond the closure of disputation. Impromptu words, says Zhuangzi, coincide with the bounds of Heaven (tianni
), and so they transcend and equalize (qi
) or harmonize (he
) all particular eristic discourses: “impromptu words come forth day after day and harmonize 80

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within the bounds of Heaven.” But impromptu words are not tools of harmonization, they are not useful; in fact they cannot be used but can only be allowed to self-emerge: “Let them follow with extensive abundance, and in this way live out their years” (27/5). Zhuangzi recognizes that even impromptu words, in so far as they say something, differentiate rather than equalize and so fall away from the universal point of view of Heaven. The problem for Zhuangzi is that no language that is at all meaningful is able to avoid distinguishing (bian
) and thus engaging in the very activity that is the essence of disputation (bian
). If one does not speak, then obviously there is no problem: “if you do not speak, then it is equalized” (27/5). But for Zhuangzi it is never as simple as that, and the very demarcation between saying and not-saying is immediately called into question. On the one hand, “saying does not say anything; if you speak all life you have never once spoken”; on the other hand, “if you do not speak all life, you have never once not spoken” (27/6). We may put forward propositions and spin theories endlessly without saying anything that makes a difference existentially. On the other hand, silence may protect and preserve existential truth. Especially when you are asked about the Way, silence may be the best answer, and elaborate explanations may be mere chatter. Zhuangzi, however, adopts a number of ways of saying the unsayable: stammering, a just beginning to say that never reaches completion in the said; self-interruption that undermines the drive towards completed discourse; forgetting that lets intentions dissolve into presence; and, as we will see in the next chapter, bungled discourse. Zhuangzi’s impromptu words are his most important way to say the unsayable, for these words hover in-between saying something and saying nothing, and precisely therefore they are able to speak the inherently so of the world before it has been differentiated in the language of disputation. Zhuangzi’s impromptu words indicate an experience with language and not a theory of language. This may explain why some Western Zhuangzi scholars who are keenly interested in Zhuangzi’s philosophy of language show no or little interest in his impromptu words. In the West we have to move beyond the horizon of a positivistic philosophy of language to find some, perhaps unavoidably impressionistic accounts of Zhuangzi’s impromptu words (Wu 1988, Jullien 2000: 326–32, Yearley 2005). In the East, on the other hand, the view of Zhuangzi scholars has not been clouded by the positivistic view of language characteristic of analytic philosophy. Chinese and Japanese scholars generally take seriously the accounts of Zhuangzi found in the last chapter in the Zhuangzi and in Sima Qian’s “biography” of Zhuangzi, both of which highlight Zhuangzi’s unique language. Some relate these accounts to the description of the metaphors, quotations, and impromptu words found in the Zhuangzi, and they try to show how this view of language is intimately related to Zhuangzi’s thought, especially as it is 81

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expressed in the “Inner Chapters” (Kimura 1981, Yang 1991). This is, it seems to me, the right approach to take. In explaining the impromptu words, the Zhuangzi first points out that in disputation our affirmations and denials have no other foundation than the perspective from which they are being asserted. The act of affirming is the sole ground of any affirmation. From one perspective it is affirmed, from another perspective it is denied. From one perspective it is so, from another perspective it is not so. How is it so? Being so lies in being so. How is it not so? Not being so lies in not being so. How is it affirmed? Affirmation lies in our affirming. How is it not affirmed? Not being affirmed lies in our not affirming. (27/6–8) This is not a postmodern or neo-pragmatic celebration of the fact that our affirmations and denials have no foundation; it is rather an awareness of this fact and then the ability to look beyond it. For beyond the assertion of evaluative judgments in disputation lies the real, or what Zhuangzi calls the inherently so (guran
). The Zhuangzi says: “things inherently have that which is so, things inherently have that which is affirmed. No thing is not so, no thing is not affirmed” (27/8). This inherent “it is so” (ran
) is not stamped on the thing by us, it is the spontaneous self-so (ziran
) of the thing itself, which is affirmed by us when we, as Zhuangzi says, “accept ‘this’ for what it is” (yinshi
). This affirmation is an affirmation beyond the dichotomy between affirmation and negation, and therefore it cannot be disputed – for both negation and affirmation would situate it in a register where it does not belong. The crucial point is that for Zhuangzi the inherently so of the world lies beyond designation (wei
) and disputation (bian), but it does not lie beyond saying (yan). Like the Way, the inherently so is not a thing, and therefore it cannot be captured in the name–object relation that founds the discourse of disputation. But, again like the Way, the inherently so is not entirely beyond and opposed to all language. For the impromptu word speaks without imposing its own “it is so” (ran) on the inherently so (guran) of the world, and so the inherently so shows itself. Being without the shelter of a propositional “it is so,” Zhuangzi’s impromptu words are a kind of poetry according to Paul Celan’s well-known definition: “Poetry does not impose itself, it exposes itself ” (La poésie ne s’impose plus, elle s’expose). At the end of the magnificent “Autumn floods” chapter we find an exchange between Zhuangzi and his friend, the brilliant disputer Hui Shi, as they cross the Hao river. This short dialogue shows us the precise function of Zhuangzi’s impromptu words. The two friends are wandering ( you) across the Hao river, when Zhuangzi makes the following impromptu remark: 82

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“The minnows come out and swim around so at ease, that is the joy of fish!” (17/88). Wandering ( you) can be mere traveling or an excursion, or it can, as in Zhuangzi, name the surpassing ease of a life generated by Heaven. It is this authentic sense of wandering Zhuangzi is alluding to when he says the minnows “swim around so at ease.” In fact, it is the same word you that is used both for Zhuangzi’s “wandering” and for the “swimming around” of the fish. Zhuangzi’s saying is not simply a proposition with reference to the fish, it is rather an attempt to say the unsayable: the experience of living a life generated by Heaven. When Zhuangzi says that the fish “come out” (chu), then he is indicating pure coming-into-being, the very moment when something emerges from “there is not” to “there is.” When Zhuangzi adds, “that is the joy of fish!”, then this is not a protocol-sentence meant to record some fact of the matter, the statement names rather Zhuangzi’s own joy (le), which is not his but belongs to everybody and nobody in that moment of crossing the river. It is the kind of joy that the Zhuangzi calls heavenly joy (tianle
) (13/13). This joy is similar to the joy the Stoics defined as “the good flowing of life” (euroia biou). Pierre Hadot explains that according to ancient philosophy, “[ j]oy has its roots in that profound tendency of living beings which impels them to love that which makes them exist, and this means not only their own structure and unity, but the All, without which they would be nothing, and of which they are integral parts” (1998: 242). Such was the joy Zhuangzi felt in crossing the Hao river with his friend. Hui Shi, however, breaks the enchantment of the moment and the word. He reduces Zhuangzi’s words to factual propositions with a clear reference in the outer (wai) world, and, after that reduction, we hear the voice of the skeptic: “You are not a fish; how do you know the joy of fish?” Zhuangzi, who for the moment plays by the rules of disputation, responds: “You are not me; how do you know that I do not know the joy of fish.” But this argument is only too easy for the disputer to refuse: “I am not you, so certainly I do not know you. You surely are not a fish, so it holds true that you do not know the joy of fish” (17/88– 90). Hui Shi’s argumentation is irrefutable, it holds true, literally, it is complete or whole (quan
). But it is precisely this desire for complete or valid discourse (chengyan) that prevents Hui Shi from understanding Zhuangzi’s impromptu words. Zhuangzi realizes this, and therefore he abruptly suspends the technical discourse of disputation, and asks that they follow the dispute back to its root. Zhuangzi takes up Hui Shi’s initial proposition (“You are not a fish; how do you know the joy of fish?”) and clearly marks it as a proposition (in the text it is marked off with the quotation marker yunzhe

). Zhuangzi points out that Hui Shi’s proposition as a proposition presupposes something, namely the fact that Hui Shi already knew that he, Zhuangzi, knew the joy of fish: “You asked me already knowing that I knew it” (17/90). In other words, Hui Shi’s question itself presupposes the knowledge it questions. 83

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The knowledge presupposed here cannot be propositional knowledge, for Zhuangzi claims this knowledge as the presupposition for all propositional knowledge. It must be our always already acknowledged sense of selfemerging life – here the moment just when the fish emerge together with Zhuangzi’s impromptu words. Zhuangzi wants Hui Shi to return to the very moment of enunciation, the moment when what was said was said, and understood without immediately being deemed right or wrong – as a friend would understand our words as we walk, say, across the Hao river. For Hui Shi did know the moment of self-emerging life; he did know wandering and the life engendered by Heaven. His skeptical propositions are parasitic on this fundamental acknowledgement, and his technical argumentation can only negate it.

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6 BUNGLED DISCOURSE

Socratic irony is the only involuntary and yet completely deliberate dissimulation. . . . It is the freest of all licenses, for by its means one transcends oneself; and yet it is also the most lawful, for it is absolutely necessary. It is a very good sign when the harmonious bores are at a loss about how they should react to this continuous self-parody, when they fluctuate endlessly between belief and disbelief until they get dizzy and take what is meant as a joke seriously and what is meant seriously as a joke. Friedrich Schlegel Now I for my part have just designated something, and yet I do not know if what I have designated really is designated or if in fact it is not designated. Zhuangzi

Suddenly there is nothing Sometimes A. C. Graham sees Zhuangzi as a man of the “impossible” – to borrow Michel Leiris’ characterization of Georges Bataille, a writer Graham read with interest (see Graham 1985) – and sometimes he sees him as a rather mediocre disputer (bianzhe
). Graham’s wavering view of Zhuangzi stems from the unresolved opposition between reason and spontaneity (un-reason) that drives Graham’s scholarship and philosophy. In Graham’s scholarship the rationalistic tendency is exemplified in his work on the Mohist Canons and the anti-rationalistic tendency in his work on Zhuangzi. In his last major work, Disputers of the Tao, Graham explicitly states his predicament: Throughout [the Canons] one sees the Mohist trying to extract from Chuang-tzu’s [Zhuangzi’s] many-sided language propositions he can put in a refutable form. To the extent that he succeeds, his answers 85

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are just to Chuang-tzu. But whether one is satisfied or repelled by his attempt to pin down Chuang-tzu’s insights might serve anyone as a test of how rationalistic or anti-rationalistic his ultimate sympathies are. (1989: 186) Ultimately Graham’s sympathies undoubtedly were with Zhuangzi, but in his rationalistic mood Graham would proceed in exactly the same fashion as the Mohist. He would extract from Zhuangzi’s “many-sided language” propositions that are refutable in terms of contemporary disputation – even as he recognized that the Mohist’s attempt to refute Zhuangzi through disputation (bian) somehow missed the point. Consider the following passage from “On the Equality of Things”: Now, there may be [authentic] saying here, but I do not know if it belongs or does not belong to the category of a [propositional] “this” (shi). If belonging to a category and not belonging to a category together make a category, then one is not different from the other! At any rate, please let me try to say it. There is a beginning. There is not yet begun to be a beginning. There is not yet begun to be that not yet begun to be beginning. There is something. There is nothing. There is not yet begun to be nothing. There is not yet begun to be that not yet begun to be nothing. Suddenly there is nothing and yet I do not know if “there is nothing” really is something or nothing. Now I for my part have just designated something, and yet I do not know if what I have designated really is designated, or if in fact it is not designated. (2/47–51) According to Graham, Zhuangzi’s discourse is here squarely within the field of contemporary disputation (bian). “According to the current logic,” writes Graham, “an object either is an ox or is not, so that having distinguished the alternatives we ought to be able to recover the totality by adding non-oxen to oxen.” According to Graham, Zhuangzi objects to this logic and argues “that analysis always leaves an overlooked remainder, and that the whole cannot be recovered by putting the parts together again” (1981: 55). In his argument Zhuangzi is picking out points in common between oxen and non-oxen which distinguish them both from a still remaining Other. In the first place both have a beginning, which excludes from them whatever preceded the beginning of things. Can we continue, by negating and adding, to incorporate this remainder into the totality? (Graham 1981: 55–6) 86

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No, says Graham, for: What preceded things is that in which they “had not yet begun to have a beginning.” But in saying this retrospectively we speak as though things were somehow present before they began; we are driven to a further negation, “There had not yet begun to be that ‘not yet having begun having a beginning’.” (1981: 56) In trying to recover through analysis the whole that was broken up in analysis, or disputation (bian), we only end up in infinite regress. Similarly, Graham continues, Zhuangzi argues that it is “also common to oxen and non-oxen that they are ‘something’, what there is, in contrast with ‘nothing’, what there is not,” and he asks, “can we arrive at the totality by adding Nothing to Something?” Again the answer is no, for having added Nothing to Something, I have still to add a remainder which “has not yet begun to be without something.” But again we are speaking retrospectively as though there were already things to be present or absent, and again we have to negate: “There had not yet begun to be that ‘not yet having begun to be without something’.” (Graham 1981: 56) Both arguments, Graham concludes, “are no doubt intended to lead to an infinite regress.” Finally, Graham writes that Zhuangzi “concludes with the simpler point that as soon as we introduce Nothing as the remainder we contradict ourselves by saying ‘There is’ even of what there is not, Nothing” (1981: 56). Zhuangzi, however, does not mention the Mohists’ stock examples of oxen and non-oxen, and it is hard to say if that is what he has in mind. In explaining the passage, Graham assimilates Zhuangzi’s words to a reconstructed background discourse, but such reconstructions are always uncertain. Chad Hansen, for instance, who also reads Zhuangzi against the background of contemporary disputation, reconstructs the argumentative background for the passage entirely differently. According to Hansen (1992: 289–91), Zhuangzi is here experimenting with the kind of metaphysical discourse that pretends to speak about something outside any particular perspective. According to Hansen, such discourse is characteristic of Mencius, and Zhuangzi is questioning if such language really says anything. The vast difference in Graham’s and Hansen’s reconstructions of the argumentative background for the passage suggests that the passage resists interpretation in terms of ancient Chinese disputation. I suggest therefore that we do not immediately assimilate the passage to a meta-discourse on language but first 87

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pay attention to the rhetorical thrust of Zhuangzi’s own text. For here Zhuangzi does not argue about language; he has an experience with language. Graham does admit that the passage “is highly elliptical, and it is possible that he [Zhuangzi] intends his effect of making the mind fly off in a new direction at every re-reading” (1981: 55). But instead of pursuing a rhetorical analysis of the effects Zhuangzi’s text produces, Graham is drawn in the other direction: “in Chinese as in other philosophy a gap in the argument which hinders understanding (as distinct from a flaw in the argument which we do understand) can generally be filled by exploring implicit questions and presuppositions in the background” (1981: 55). These background presuppositions can, however, as we have just seen, be reconstructed in very different ways. To understand Zhuangzi’s discourse, it is necessary to realize that ancient philosophy is essentially spiritual exercise. Pierre Hadot points out that if we mistakenly assume that ancient philosophy, like modern philosophy, is primarily philosophical discourse, then we will tend to focus on the rational coherence of the propositions of the ancient texts. From this mistaken perspective the ancient texts will often look incoherent and lacking in their argumentation, and therefore modern scholars are prone to fill in perceived gaps in the ancient texts with their own constructed arguments. But, Arnold Davidson explains, “rather than deploring these ancient authors’ failures to measure up to the modern standard of the systematic philosophical treatise,” Hadot “realized that in order to understand and explain these apparent defects, one must not only analyze the structure of these ancient philosophical texts, but one must also situate them in the ‘living praxis from which they emanated.’ ” Especially important here is the oral dimension of ancient philosophy. Hadot points to the “ontological value of the spoken word,” which is not to transmit information but “to produce a certain psychic effect in the reader or listener.” In discourse as spiritual exercise the propositional element is less important than bringing about a transformation in oneself and the interlocutor (Davidson 1995: 19–20). Graham is surely correct in saying that for Zhuangzi analysis is unable to recapture the whole that is broken up in analysis. According to Zhuangzi disputation always leaves out a remainder that cannot be recuperated through disputation. Even as we put the final two pieces (“nothing” and “something”) together the puzzle is not complete, and we do not arrive at the whole. For in referring to or pointing at the unity of nothing and something we necessarily exclude something else, namely the hidden ground of this designation, the unknown that withdraws in every act of designating. As Zhuangzi says, “in disputation there remains something that is not seen” (2/58). In order to overcome this blindness in disputation we need to have an entirely different experience with language. Since Graham here confines Zhuangzi to the field of disputation, he sees only the negative thrust of Zhuangzi’s argument. The positive turn in the 88

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argument, and the moment with real conceptual weight, is when Zhuangzi says: “Suddenly there is nothing and yet I do not know if ‘there is nothing’ really is something or nothing.” Logically nothing (wu) cannot be, and yet “there is” (you) nothing. Nothing is not some-thing, so it cannot be designated and pointed out, and consequently it cannot be referred to as this or that category. Language, in so far as it designates, cannot capture no-thing but vacillates at its limit before the unknown: “Now I for my part have just designated (wei
) something, and yet I do not know if what I have designated really is designated or if in fact it is not designated.” But this vacillation, this apparent clumsiness in designation, is itself an indication that something beyond designation has shown itself: the pure facticity of the “there is” (you) – “there is nothing,” that is to say, there is simply “there is” or pure appearance – shows itself where the logic of referential language comes to its end. From the point of view of the technical discourse of disputation, this is bungled discourse, and a banality that can easily be refuted. But Zhuangzi has revealed what is always already presupposed in disputation – and since it is presupposed, disputation necessarily cannot see it – namely the pure “there is,” that is to say, the pure self-emergence of being, before any man-made categories are imposed on the real. Categories (lei
) – which in the Chinese case are more “explanatory” than “logical” (Harbsmeier 1998: 228) – endlessly appropriate things without ever getting to the thing itself. Zhuangzi’s double-question keeps open a space between affirmation and negation, between assigning the phenomenon to this or that category, in which the phenomenon can announce itself without being designated. In this short dialogue with himself Zhuangzi performs what Hadot calls an “exercise of authentic presence,” where the propositional content of the discourse is less important than the “psychic effect” it produces and the transformation at which it aims (Davidson 1995: 20). There are no gaps in the dialogue except those that are necessary according to its own logic, which is not the logic of discourse but what we may call the logic of life.

Just now something is born According to Zhuangzi disputation leads to interminable conflicts – each side “affirm what the other denies and deny what the other affirms” (2/26) – and the only cure for eristic dispute is to give up using right (shi) and wrong ( fei), the key terms of disputation, and instead use luminosity (ming
) (2/26–7). Zhuangzi does not simply negate disputation, for an outright negation would still keep him within the field of disputation. As the Mohist logicians pointed out, to reject disputation through disputation involves a performative contradiction (Graham 1978: 445–6). Zhuangzi transforms disputation into a peculiar literary style, where the very rules the discourse is 89

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supposed to follow are suspended. With his literary genius Zhuangzi confuses the language game of disputation just enough, so the game seems to go on, but we are not sure if its rules are still in effect, and therefore we get the uncanny feeling that at any moment any move is possible. In this moment of suspension Zhuangzi breaks the closure of completed (cheng) discourse and regains the experience of life (sheng). Zhuangzi’s argument for the use of luminosity (ming) is itself a paradigmatic example of his bungled discourse: the exercise and experience with language that transcends propositional discourse and discloses luminosity. The first proposition in Zhuangzi’s argument is: “No thing is not that (bi
), no thing is not this (shi
)” (2/27). We can readily understand this in terms of the linguistic notion of “shifters”, i.e. words such as “I” and “you,” “here” and “there,” “this” and “that,” which can only be understood with reference to the position from which they are spoken. Depending on the point of view, any particular thing can be “that” or “this.” As explained in Chapter 5, for Zhuangzi this shifting signification is characteristic not only of the shifters but of all language as a system of references. For Zhuangzi, however, it is not only the shifting signification of the terms “this” and “that” that is interesting; more important is a certain blind spot, ultimately a moral blindness, inherent in being attached to the relative positions of “this here” and “that other.” Zhuangzi writes: “From the position of that other (bi), then we cannot see [that other], but from the position of this here (shi), then we can know it [i.e. that other]” (2/27). This proposition can be construed in various ways, but the following interpretation is possible. The other cannot see itself as other (it cannot see itself from its own position), it can only be known or recognized as other by another subject. Only by entering the scene of disputation does each party become aware of the other as other. But since neither of the two parties can see themselves as other, each of them depends on the other for recognition of themselves as other. Absorbed in their fragmented points of views, the disputers seek to annihilate each other in disputation (“each affirms what the other denies and denies what the other affirms”), and they fail to see that they depend on each other, that their very existence as disputers presupposes that there is someone to recognize them as other, and that the two positions are constituted together. As Zhuangzi says in another context, if there were no other (bi) there would be no self (wo
) (2/14). In concluding this first part of his argument for using luminosity, Zhuangzi affirms the interdependence of the opposing points of view: “Therefore I say, ‘that other’ comes out from ‘this here,’ and likewise ‘this here’ depends upon ‘that other.’ This is the theory that ‘this here’ and ‘that other’ are born together” (2/27–8). So far Zhuangzi has put forward a nice little theory of the nature and effects of the language of disputation. But just as he has proposed his theory that “this” and “that” are born together ( fangsheng
), Zhuangzi lets his 90

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discourse slip into a rhythmic, impromptu mode that suspends the logic of the discourse at the propositional level. Zhuangzi writes: But then, just now it is born, just now it dies; just now it dies, just now it is born; just now it is affirmed, just now it is denied; just now it is denied, just now it is affirmed. (2/28) It is especially in moments like this that we get that sensation, peculiar to reading “On the Equality of Things,” which Graham describes as “the sensation of a man thinking aloud, jotting the living thought at the moment of its inception, of thought which is not yet systematic but ‘existential’ if you like the word” (1969/1970: 137). Graham, however, does not always remain true to his own insight. In the present case, Graham thinks that Zhuangzi is still playing by the rules of contemporary disputation, where one must either affirm (shi) or deny ( fei) a proposition – in the stock example: either it is an ox or it is not an ox. According to Graham, Zhuangzi “tries to discredit disputation by the objection that at any moment of change both alternatives will be admissible.” Zhuangzi, says Graham, refers to a paradox of Hui Shi, “the sun is simultaneously at noon and declining, a thing is simultaneously alive and dead,” and from this paradox he concludes “that any statement will remain inadmissible at the moment when it has just become admissible” (1981: 52). The argument Graham constructs on behalf of Zhuangzi is weak, it relies on a sophism, and the Mohist logicians certainly had the technical ability to deal with arguments of this type. In defending the conclusive nature of disputation (bian) against the Sophists, who claim that all propositions, including value judgments, are relative, the logicians make a distinction between judgments that are relative and those that are not relative. According to the logicians, judgments in terms of “having or lacking,” “more or less,” “departing or approaching,” “hard or soft,” “dead or alive,” “elder or younger,” “by interplay become relative” ( jiao defang
 ). The basic terms of disputation, on the other hand, such as “right” and “wrong,” “proved” and “not proved,” are not relative but absolute. In these cases, the Canons say, “the two sides break decisively” (liang juesheng
 ) (Graham 1978: 338–41). This debate over the relativity of terms resonates in Zhuangzi’s discourse, but it is important to note that Zhuangzi does not, as Graham sometimes will have us believe, share the position of the Sophists. Zhuangzi does not join the Sophists in showing, through disputation, that all judgments are mutually relative (xiangfang
). Zhuangzi is free of what the Zhuangzi, with reference to the Sophists, calls “the bondage of technique” ( jixi
) (12/42). For him the arguments of the Sophists as well as the counter-arguments of the Mohist logicians are mere technicalities that can be advanced by anyone at any time, and therefore they are without any 91

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existential force. Therefore, when he plays on the technical use of the word fang
, Zhuangzi immediately suspends any logical connotations that may be invested in the term and he foregrounds the temporal, existential connotations (“just now”, “just at the moment when”) of the word. This is not sophistry, but an attempt to free language from its objectification in completed and valid discourse, and return language to itself as an impromptu indication of pure appearance. There is no need to ascribe weak, sophistical arguments to Zhuangzi, a thinker of indisputable depth. As long as we do not too hastily assimilate Zhuangzi’s argument to contemporary disputation, but read it in the context of the philosophical and rhetorical thrust of Zhuangzi’s own discourse, where the proposition is always understood within the horizon of the existential moment of enunciation, then we see that the shift from a logical sequence of propositions to a sequence of free association and play with words is strictly logical. Zhuangzi’s logic, however, is not the logic of the proposition but what we may call the logic of life. On the spur of the moment, and prompted by his own use of the phrase fangsheng (born together), Zhuangzi is reminded of one of the paradoxes of his friend, the Sophist Hui Shi, which also contains the phrase fangsheng and suggests that the moment of birth is the moment of death, and, conversely, that the moment of death is the moment of birth. From this association Zhuangzi goes on to say, “just now it is born, just now it dies; just now it dies, just now it is born” ( fangsheng fangsi, fangsi fangsheng

,

), and he extends this temporality of pure emergence to include propositional discourse: “just now it is affirmed, just now it is denied; just now it is denied, just now it is affirmed” ( fangke fangbuke, fangbuke fangke

,

). By playing with the word fang
, and repeating it in only loosely connected sequences (now this now that, now alive now dead, now affirmed now denied), Zhuangzi suspends the logic of his argument, and with this shift from propositional discourse to the sheer joy of the moment of playing with the word fang – a word which also means “just in the moment when” – Zhuangzi affirms the sovereignty of his own discourse and points to the elusive experience of pure appearance in the present moment, the moment of enunciation, which is beyond the grasp of the disputers. Zhuangzi does not advance a proposition, but existentially he posits authentic presence against philosophy as mere discourse. Zhuangzi shows us something that cannot be articulated in discourse, namely the moment “just when something is born” ( fangsheng), a unique moment in the ceaseless transformations of life: the moment one thought passes into another and Zhuangzi forgot what he wanted to say, because he was just reminded of the words of his friend Hui Shi. To be reminded, in the middle of discourse, of the words of a friend is no small matter – it introduces the lacking other into the discourse. And when the friend’s words are about life and death, it also implicitly introduces the 92

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big Other of philosophy as discourse: it intimates that, one day, this discourse will come to an end, or, as Zhuangzi would say, return to the transformations of things, to which it always already belongs but shelters itself from in its own completion. In this moment Zhuangzi’s discourse becomes radically temporal and so marked by the “deficiencies” characteristic of temporal existence: Zhuangzi forgets what he was about to say, his discourse shifts and slips as he is reminded of things and new thoughts flash across his mind. It is now the discourse of authentic saying (yan) that speaks of passing, transient existence and not the discourse of disputation (bian) that pins down knowledge that holds by necessity. It is crucial to understand the systematic significance of these moments in Zhuangzi, where propositional discourse is interrupted and yields to existential, temporal discourse with all its productive “deficiencies” (forgetting, being reminded, slipping and shifting, not knowing what was said, interrupting oneself, stammering, and so on). These are moments of bungled or clumsy (zhuo) discourse, because here Zhuangzi’s discourse, in comparison with the technical discourse of the logicians, exhibits lack of skill and seems unable to realize its aim. For Zhuangzi, of course, the problem lies with technical discourse that aims at completion and regulation. Just like the clumsiness of Zhuangzi’s sage, Zhuangzi’s clumsy discourse indicates indifference to completion in the realm of man (ren) and openness to the life of Heaven. Completed (cheng) and whole (quan), or conclusive and valid discourse will necessarily enclose us in a world of our own making. Zhuangzi’s bungled discourse, of course, places him outside the language game of disputation (bian), but it is perfectly consistent with Zhuangzi’s own thought, where the opposition between life (sheng) and completion (cheng) is a central theme, and where clumsiness (zhuo) pertains both to authentic action and to authentic saying. That Graham insists on explaining Zhuangzi’s move entirely at the level of logical argumentation (Zhuangzi “objects”, “generalizes” and “concludes”) is all the more surprising since Graham better than most understands the philosophical significance of Zhuangzi’s literary style. Graham says that Zhuangzi is “a poet who changes course as new insights explode, elliptical even when most logical” (1989: 178), and he rightly emphasizes “the extraordinary rhythmic energy” of Zhuangzi’s writing: Zhuangzi “finds the imagery and rhythm to convey, any spontaneously emerging process of thinking which he senses is orienting him in the direction of the Way.” If one neglects the rhythm of Zhuangzi’s discourse, says Graham, then one “falsifies the pace and shifts and stress of his thinking” (1981: 33). This precisely describes a discourse that avoids completion (cheng) and remains open to the flow of life (sheng), and this central rhetorical feature of Zhuangzi’s discourse must be read back into our explication of Zhuangzi’s argument, otherwise we may take what is meant as a joke seriously and take what is meant seriously as a joke. 93

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Accept “this” for what it is Zhuangzi’s bungled discourse – “ just now it is born, just now it dies; just now it dies, just now it is born; just now it is affirmed, just now it is denied; just now it is denied, just now it is affirmed” – continues seamlessly, when Zhuangzi says: “you follow right (shi), you follow wrong ( fei); you follow wrong, you follow right” (2/28–9). Here Zhuangzi shifts from the demonstrative use of shi meaning “this,” as an antonym to bi (that), to the evaluative use meaning “right” as opposed to fei (wrong). The question is what precisely Zhuangzi means by yin
(to follow). In the Canons of the later Mohists the word yin means “take as a criterion,” or, as a noun, “criterion.” The Mohist logicians are aware that with the criterion (yin) we make distinctions according to usage and convention, but they also insist that going by the criterion (yin) is not an arbitrary procedure. First, when we go by a criterion, we must proceed according to category or kind (lei
); second, once we have chosen to follow a criterion, our way of proceeding (xing
) becomes binding. In this way the logicians fix the criterion (zhiyin
) in other to separate ways (of argumentation) (biedao
) (Graham 1978: 346). According to Graham, Zhuangzi thinks that since our judgments depend on our chosen criterion ( yin), they are arbitrary. Graham says that Zhuangzi “sees it as the lesson of disputation that one is entitled to affirm or deny anything of anything” (1981: 53). But this is rather the lesson a Sophist would draw from disputation, and this shallow view is not that of Zhuangzi. If we read Zhuangzi’s proposition “you follow (yin) right, you follow wrong; you follow wrong, you follow right” in its rhetorical context, then it becomes clear that we cannot simply understand Zhuangzi’s use of yin in terms of the technical use of yin in the contemporary canons of disputation. For, as we have seen, Zhuangzi deliberately lets his discourse slip into a rhythmic, impromptu mode that suspends the logic of propositional discourse and foregrounds the temporal, existential moment of enunciation. It is not that Zhuangzi negates the technical use of yin, for to negate it would be to remain within the field of affirmation and negation, which is the field of disputation. Zhuangzi is aware of the technical use of yin, but in appropriating the term in his own rhetorical context, he suspends its logical force and brings out the temporal connotations of the term. Just as he did with the word fang, Zhuangzi releases the word yin from its technical use in disputation and frees it into the whole range of its expressibility. The word yin is rich in connotations and divergent but related meanings. As a verb the word yin means “to follow [upon something],” as a loose temporal connective “thereupon,” with more logical force it means “to rely on” or “depend on,” “is due to,” “[logically] follows from,” and, as a noun, “cause,” “reason,” or as in the Mohist Canons, “criterion.” Zhuangzi plays on all registers of the word (and so makes translation nearly impossible), but he clearly prefers the 94

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temporal rather than the logical connotations of the word (“thereupon” and “to follow,” rather than “to be contingent upon” and “criterion”). In Zhuangzi the technical terminology of disputation, so painstakingly crafted by the Mohist logicians and so frivolously used by the Sophists, is again dissolved in the infinite play of meanings we call language, and the logic of discourse yields to the temporality of existence. One gets a sense of the philosophical complexity and existential depth of Zhuangzi’s play with words, when one realizes that in these few loosely connected sentences Zhuangzi quotes his friend Hui Shi, alludes to the technical discussion about what is relative ( fang
), suspends the logical force of the criterion ( yin
) of the Mohist logicians – so that it is no longer a question of logical stricture but of following the temporal unfolding of language – and at the same time shows how he himself transcends both the position of the Sophists and the position of the Mohist logicians by affirming the existential moment, the moment just when ( fang
) he, Zhuangzi, wrote what he wrote. In an exemplary way this presents Zhuangzi’s exercise and experience with language, in which luminosity (ming
) – the view of the pure selfemergence of beings, the moment just when something appears – dawns beyond the closure of disputation. After the break with disputation, Zhuangzi can conclude this part of his argument: “Therefore the sage does not take that road [i.e. the road of right and wrong, or disputation] but illuminates it in the light of Heaven, accepting ‘this’ for what it is” (2/29). I follow Victor Mair’s translation of the phrase yinshi
, “accepting ‘this’ for what it is” (Mair 1994: 15). Graham claims that Zhuangzi, relying on the Mohist logicians’ definition of yin (criterion), makes a technical distinction between the phrases yinshi, which Graham renders with “ ‘This’ according to what you go by,” and weishi
, which Graham translates “ ‘This’ which deems” (1989: 190). With the yinshi, says Graham, we make “provisional and relative” distinctions, “fluid distinctions varying with circumstances” and from “temporary standpoints.” The weishi, on the other hand, judges from “fixed positions” and makes “rigid distinctions,” it deems that something is “permanently” so (Graham 1989: 197, 201). According to Graham, for Zhuangzi it is all right to use the fluid yinshi, it is the rigid weishi that gets us into trouble. On Graham’s reading, then, Zhuangzi’s discourse is just a more pragmatic way of using right (shi) and wrong ( fei), it is a “fluid” and “provisional” way of making distinctions, but it is still inscribed in the technical discourse of disputation (bian). Graham’s interpretation gives license to read Zhuangzi in terms of a relativistic, aesthetic-pragmatic relation to the world. Zhuangzi, however, has a passion for the real, and he wants to bring to view the inherently so of things in the moment just when something appears. In the moment of its appearance, a thing cannot be deemed to be this or that – not even provisionally and relatively – it is only after the thing has appeared that it can be 95

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deemed to be this or that thing. The moment it appears the thing is not yet a namable thing, and yet it can be accepted as the “this” it is in the unfolding of its self-emergence. This acceptance is beyond the dichotomy between acceptance and denial; it is a transcendent point of view that can only be announced by the double question. Therefore Zhuangzi concludes: “This” (shi) is also “that” (bi), and “that” is also “this.” Both “that other” and “this here” (ci
) unites right (shi) and wrong ( fei). But are there really “that” and “this”? Or are there really no “that” and “this”? When neither “that” nor “this” attains its counterpart (ou
), it is called the pivot of the Way. (2/29–31) Such pivotal affirmation is luminosity (ming), which entirely transforms the blind and violent relation to the world characteristic of disputation. In luminosity we do not affirm or negate this or that thing – for no thing (wu) has as yet appeared – but affirm the very self-emerging of things by simply responding ( ying
) to their appearance: “Only when the pivot attains the center of its circle can it respond inexhaustibly. Both right (shi) and wrong ( fei) become one inexhaustible [responding]. Therefore I say, ‘nothing is better than using luminosity (ming)’ ” (2/31). The entire passage on luminosity (ming) is at once a serious argument, a parody of an argument, and an exhibition of the kind of clumsiness (zhuo) that, according to Zhuangzi, is characteristic of the perfected human being. It is these moments of clumsy discourse that have conceptual weight in “On the Equality of Things” and not the relatively weak arguments Graham reconstructs on behalf of Zhuangzi. Above all, it should be clear that Zhuangzi language (yan) is on a qualitatively different level to the rather impoverished language employed by the Mohist logicians. The logicians crafted one to one referential relations between names (ming) and objects (shi): in the Canons language or saying ( yan) is defined as “to emit references” (chuju
), and “to refer” ( ju
) is explained as “to present the analog for the object” (Graham 1978: 285–6). As Graham points out, for the logicians language is a “stream of references”, each of which by a name (the analog for the object) picks out one object from another. The ability of language to generate wholes of meaning was hardly considered by the Mohist logicians, who were hardly aware of the sentence except as a string of names (Graham 1989: 150). Zhuangzi, on the other hand, releases language into the full range of its expressivity, and he conjures sometimes striking, sometimes elusive wholes of meaning. The distance between Zhuangzi’s saying (yan) and disputation (bian) is as vast as the distance between the language in Shakespeare and medieval scholastic logic. Indeed, there is in Shakespeare a passage that mocks scholastic logic in a way that corresponds to the way Zhuangzi mocks 96

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contemporary theories of naming. In As You Like It Touchstone is asked how he likes a shepherd’s life, and he answers: Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life, but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect that it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect that it is not in the court, it is tedious. (Shirley 1992: 26) In medieval logic, as Samuel Shirley points out, the term quatenus, “in so far as,” or “in respect of,” is used to indicate “a restriction in the way a thing is considered, the seeing of a thing in a certain perspective.” The presupposition is that “the rich concreteness of the real can be approached only by isolating some one of its infinite aspects” (Shirley 1992: 26). This presupposition is shared by the ancient Chinese logicians, who use their “criterion” ( yin) to isolate and name the real precisely “in so far as” it has a particular quality (the horse is white in so far as its hair is white). Zhuangzi, however, holds the exact opposite presupposition. For him the “rich concreteness of the real,” or the phenomenon as it self-emerges, is a possible experience, and the logic of naming only prevents this experience. For both Zhuangzi and Shakespeare the language of logical stricture breaks up our experience of life as a whole, and through their surpassing use of language they reveal the limitation of this logic: they show that within the scope of a language that is able to evoke wholes of meaning, the language of logic becomes a joke.

Is Zhuangzi a Sophist? If it is clear that Zhuangzi’s language differs fundamentally from the language of the Mohist logicians, then it may seem as if Zhuangzi’s arguments at times are close to falling into sophistry. In fact, Zhuangzi’s bungled discourse is totally different from the artful disputation of the Sophists. This is clear from a passage in “On the Equality of Things,” where Zhuangzi has a short discussion on the proposition “a white horse is not a horse,” which is attributed to the Sophist Gongsun Long
 (c.320–250 ). The Sophist claims that if, in pointing to a white horse, one points to the “white” and not to the “horse,” then pointing out the white horse is not pointing out the “white horse” but just the “white.” And if you can point to the white horse without pointing out the horse, then “white” and “horse” must be two different objects, and the combination cannot be identical with one of its constituents, and so the Sophist can claim that “a white horse is not a horse.” This is how the Sophists “affirm what is not affirmed, and treat as so what is not so,” and it is their reason for claiming that they can separate 97

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“hard” and “white,” or mutually pervasive terms such as “white” and “horse,” “as if they are hanging in space.” It is as if the real cannot resist the wordplay of the Sophist. For the Mohist logicians this is a disturbing and unacceptable result, and they quickly put a stop to the sophistry. They explain that a “white horse” really is a “horse”; because, first, it is of the same kind (lei) as other similar objects we call “horse,” and, second, if we take the part of the horse that is white as criterion (yin), then the horse is not only “horse” but also “white” (in respect to this part of it). Consequently, the common-sense view that a white horse is a horse is logically sound. The confusion only arises because the Sophist does not know how to use the technical terms kind (lei) and criterion ( yin). Zhuangzi too objects to the Sophist splitting up the real, but he refutes the Sophist in an entirely different fashion. We have seen how Zhuangzi suspends the logical force of the criterion ( yin) used by the Mohist logicians, and Zhuangzi also refuses to take part in the language games of the Sophists. Instead Zhuangzi again displays his bungled discourse: To use “the pointed out” (zhi) to explain that “the pointed out” is not “the pointed out” is not as good as using what is not “the pointed out” to explain that “the pointed out” is not “the pointed out.” To use a horse to explain that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using what is not a horse to explain that a horse is not a horse. Heaven and Earth are one “the pointed out,” the thousand things are one horse. (2/31–3) Again a serious argument is made – and a joke; and the difficulty is to see what is meant seriously and what is meant as a joke, and especially to see that the joke is the argument. The word zhi
means “finger,” or as a verb “to point out,” and as a noun it is used in the technical discourse on naming for, as Graham translates, “what is pointed out” (1989: 91), or, with Harbsmeier, the “intended import” (1998: 192). The Sophist, then, uses “the pointed out” (zhi) “to explain that ‘the pointed out’ is not ‘the pointed out’.” Zhuangzi says, that the Sophist may point out that “the pointed out” (zhi) is not “the pointed out,” but he is still pointing something out and so making a distinction, which, according to Zhuangzi always leaves out a remainder, namely the whole before and beyond difference. Or, to put it another way, the Sophist remains within the dichotomy of meaning and reference that founds his positivistic view of language. Therefore, says Zhuangzi, it is better to use what is not “the pointed out” – namely the phenomenon as it self-emerges as a unique whole, which cannot be pointed out, it cannot even be intended, but it can be revealed in the luminosity (ming) of bungled discourse – to explain that what is pointed out is not what 98

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is pointed out. For in the luminosity of bungled discourse it becomes clear that it is precisely by not being pointed out that the object stands out by itself as it is. The Zhuangzi puts it admirably in a less technical context: “If you point out (zhi) the various parts of a horse, then the horse will elude you. But if the horse is tethered in front of you and stands there with all its parts, then you call it a horse” (25/60–1). Here the point is not what we call it, but that the phenomenon as a whole always already stands there before us before all deeming. The theories of naming based on referring ( ju) and pointing out (zhi) conceal this pure self-emergence of the thing. But if the play with names, at least momentarily, breaks down – in a joke for instance – then there is the possibility of acknowledging the self-emergence of things. Zhuangzi’s proposition, “Heaven and Earth are one ‘the pointed out’, the thousand things are one horse” – unfortunately it needs to be pointed out – is also a joke. Graham does not quite get the joke, and therefore he misses the point of Zhuangzi’s argument. Zhuangzi argues, says Graham, that the Sophist is “wasting his time” arguing that “a white horse is not a horse.” For, since “all disputation starts from arbitrary acts of naming, he had only to pick something else as the meaning of the word, name something else ‘horse’, and then for him what the rest of us call a horse would not be a horse” (Graham 1981: 53). Is it reasonable to assume that a thinker of Zhuangzi’s depth would seriously propose such shallow arguments? We know from Graham himself that the Mohist logicians had no difficulty in refuting the type of argument Graham ascribes to Zhuangzi. The logicians point out, writes Graham, “that the difference between X and Y is not abolished by a change of naming. You can call dogs ‘cranes’, but the difference between the creatures remains.” For the Mohists there is a logic of naming that neither the Sophists nor Zhuangzi can escape: “the essential point is that a common name is given to objects which are like each other” so that naming can “proceed” (xing) logically according to the real differences in the world (Graham 1978: 447–8). There is no need to ascribe arguments to Zhuangzi that the logicians can easily refute. For Zhuangzi does not argue for or against the coherence of the theories of naming; he suspends and transcends the whole discourse of disputation, whether it is used in the defense of common sense (the Mohist logicians) or to confound common sense (the Sophists). Zhuangzi’s saying is as far from the empty word play of the Sophists as it is from the crafted necessities of the Mohist logicians – and it is perhaps especially devastating for the Sophists. In the “Autumn Floods” chapter the Sophist Gongsun Long says of himself: When I was young, I studied the Way of the former kings. When I grew up, I understood the conduct of humanity and righteousness. I combined “same” and “different,” separated “hard” and “white,” 99

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considered so what is not so, and affirmed what is not affirmed. I made trouble for the knowledge of the hundred schools, and exhausted the disputation (bian) of the many. I considered myself extremely successful. (17/66–7) This picture of the Sophist fits the Greek case as well as the Chinese. Gongsun Long first studied the traditional ethos but gradually reflected himself out of it. Reflection, however, did not yield a new sense of unity to replace the sense of being at home with and dwelling in humanity (ren) that was lost together with the traditional ethos. The Sophist is only able to deny what is commonly affirmed (to deny, for instance, that a white horse is a horse) and by his superior skill in argumentation cause general confusion among the disputers (bianzhe). Just as Socrates reminded the Greek Sophists that love of wisdom is not the same as dazzling displays of argumentation, in ancient China Zhuangzi was the rock against which the shallow technicalities of disputation shattered. Gongsun Long says: Now I have heard the saying of Zhuangzi. In bewilderment I marvel at it. I do not know if it is my discourse that is not up to the level of his, or if it is my knowledge that is not as good as his. Now I cannot even open my mouth. May I ask what method to adopt. (17/67–8) But just as there is no method (methodos as a way of technical mastery) that could lead one to understand the ironic logos of Socrates, there is no method ( fang
) to adopt if one wants to follow Zhuangzi in his bungled discourse. There is, however a moment “just when” (also fang
) it is possible to follow Zhuangzi, but this moment is too often missed. It is the moment of bungled discourse, which in Zhuangzi is the functional equivalent of Socratic irony – the sort of irony where, as Schlegel says, “everything should be playful and serious, guilelessly open and deeply hidden” (1971: 265). For both Zhuangzi’s bungled discourse and Socrates’ irony surpass merely technical mastery of language and eristic disputation. Pierre Hadot points out that according to Socrates “[d]oing philosophy no longer meant, as the Sophists had it, acquiring knowledge, know-how, or sophia; it meant questioning ourselves, because we have the feeling that we are not what we ought to be” (2002: 29). In the Socratic dialogue, writes Hadot, “knowledge is not a prefabricated object, or a finished content which can be directly transmitted by writing or by just any discourse” (2002: 26– 7). For Socrates knowledge is self-knowledge. Similarly, Zhuangzi is not interested in acquiring know-how, technical skills, or completed discourse or knowledge. This is precisely where Zhuangzi decisively breaks with the

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empty disputation techniques and the relativism of the Sophists. The Zhuangzi says: There are people who master the Way as if [all things were] mutually relative (xiangfang), they affirm what is not affirmed, and treat as so what is not so. The disputers have a saying: “separate ‘hard’ and ‘white’ as if they are hanging in space.” Can people like that be called sages? (12/41–2) The answer is no. For, says the Zhuangzi, the way of the Sophists is the “bondage of technique” ( jixi) (12/42). Those who are in the bondage of technique think they master the Way, but in fact they master nothing but their petty methods and theories. Precisely this is Gongsun Long’s realization in encountering Zhuangzi. Perhaps it could also be the realization of our own pragmatic-relativist New Sophists – should they ever encounter Zhuangzi.

Zhuangzi and Socrates Towards the end of “On the Equality of Things” it becomes apparent that Zhuangzi has no recourse to dialogue to overcome disagreement at the level of disputation (bian). Suppose you and I have a dispute (bian). If you win over me, and I do not win over you, are you really right (shi), and am I really wrong ( fei)? If I win over you, and you do not win over me, am I really right and are you really wrong? Is one of us right and one of us wrong? Or are both of us right and both of us wrong? Since you and I cannot come to a mutual recognition [of the fact of the matter], then other people will certainly be in the dark. Whom shall I have to set the matter straight? If I have somebody who agrees with you set the matter straight, since he already agrees with you, how can he set it straight? If I have somebody who agrees with me set the matter straight, since he already agrees with me, how can he set it straight? If I have somebody that differs with both of us set the matter straight, since he already differs with both of us, how can he set it straight? If I have somebody who agrees with both of us set the matter straight, since he already agrees with both of us, how can he set it straight? Since this is the case, that neither you nor I nor a third person are able to come to mutual recognition [of the fact of the matter], should we wait for yet another person? (2/84–90)

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The answer is, of course, that there is no need to wait for yet another person to adjudicate the dispute, for mutual recognition (xiangzhi
) of the fact of the matter is simply not possible in disputation (bian). Unlike Socrates, Zhuangzi does not envision a situation where the differing points of view are played out against each other and, by modifying the entrenched positions, open up a common horizon of understanding. In the first book of the Republic, after Thrasymachus has enumerated the blessings of the unjust life, Socrates explains to Glaucon that there are two ways to persuade Thrasymachus that what he says is not true. One way, says Socrates, is to oppose Thrasymachus “with a parallel speech about the blessings of the just life, and then he replies, and then we do.” After this exchange of speeches, “we’d have to count and measure the good things mentioned on each side, and we’d need a jury to decide the case” (Republic 348a). In this case, just as in Zhuangzi’s dispute (bian), the debate would consist of a simple opposition of speeches without any real dialogue, and therefore the two sides must call in a third party to arbitrate the matter. The second way to persuade Thrasymachus, says Socrates, is when “we investigate the question, as we’ve been doing, by seeking agreement with each other, we ourselves can be both jury and advocate at once” (Republic 348b). This way of persuasion is guided by the desire to seek agreement; the pros and cons are not, as in the first case (and in Zhuangzi’s case), those of opposing parties but are advanced by the same entity; namely the common concern for shared understanding that both parties submit to in the dialogue. In this case there is no need to call in a third party to arbitrate, for the arbitration has already taken place in the dialogue itself (even if it may in the end be inconclusive). Glaucon agrees with Socrates that the second method is to be preferred, and this method is in fact Plato’s dialectical procedure, which originated in the Socratic dialogue. At the time of Plato, mastery of dialectic, or in Greek dialektikB technB, “the art of dialogue,” was necessary for those who wanted to take part in the political life of the city. In the eyes of Plato it was also a dangerous art, for dialogue could decline into mere eristic dispute, or eristikB technB, the art of strife or dispute. Therefore Plato develops his own dialectic, which is not merely a technical procedure but spiritual exercise – indeed, as Hadot says, Plato’s “spiritual exercise par excellence.” For Plato the “ethics of dialogue” was not a purely logical exercise. Instead, it was a spiritual exercise which demanded that the interlocutors undergo an askBsis, or self-transformation. It was not a matter of a combat between two individuals, in which the more skillful person imposes his point of view, but a joint effort on the part of two interlocutors in accord with the rational demands of reasonable discourse, or the logos. (Hadot 2002: 62–3) 102

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The Socratic dialogue and Plato’s dialectic are spiritual exercise, but they also embody, as Gadamer says, “the logos of science” (Logos der Wissenschaft). As spiritual exercise the authentic dialogue is never a purely technical achievement; as the logos of science it can never be entirely without technical mastery. As spiritual exercise the dialogue, as Gadamer says, “is distinguished from all disputation technique,” but as the logos of science the dialogue “is speech that exhibits the facts of the matter in a logical sequence ( folgerichtig sachaufweisende Rede)” (1991: 20). In other words, Plato’s dialectic is technical, but in a positive sense as opposed to the negative dialectic of the Sophists, which “does not present the reality itself but seeks out what speaks for it and what speaks against it” (Gadamer 1991: 18). In the Platonic dialogue, the eidos, the form, transcends the differing points of view. Hadot explains the eidos as that which exceeds philosophical discourse but can be approached through philosophy as spiritual exercise. The forms, says Hadot, are “inexpressible in language and inaccessible to any definition. One experiences them, or shows them in the dialogue and in desire; but nothing can be said about them.” For Plato, says Hadot, philosophical discourse is in the end “incapable of expressing that which is essential” (2002: 75–6). Gadamer ties the notion of eidos closer to logos in the sense of “language and the understanding of language,” but both Gadamer and Hadot agree that for Plato philosophy is an endless experiment with saying the unsayable. In fact, according to Gadamer, all philosophy worthy of the name has a pronounced “difficulty in expressing itself ” (Sprachnot). In ancient China the Mohist logicians defined disputation (bian) as a “struggle,” or a “quarrel” (zheng
), between opposing parties, where one point of view must necessarily “win over” or “conquer” (sheng
) the other (Graham 1978: 318 –19). Zhuangzi is correct when he describes disputation (bian) as battle between two mutually exclusive points of view. Like Plato, Zhuangzi sees that eristic dispute is an ethical problem and that spiritual exercise is necessary to remedy the situation. Therefore Zhuangzi develops his impromptu words and bungled discourse as forms of discourse as spiritual exercise. Like Plato’s dialogues, these discourses are exercises in saying the unsayable – in Plato the Form (eidos); in Zhuangzi the Way (dao) – and Zhuangzi must surely be included among those genuine philosophers who, as Gadamer says, suffer from a pronounced “difficulty in expressing themselves.” The decisive difference between Zhuangzi and Socrates in regard to language is that the Socratic dialogue conforms to the rational requirements of positive dialectic, in other words, it retains the technical moment of discourse in surpassing it – and this move is, of course, itself the essence of dialectic. Zhuangzi, for his part, breaks with the technical discourse of disputation (bian) by suspending its logic in his surpassing saying ( yan). In Greek philosophy language and logic combined in substantial dialogues, which in the case of Plato are literary masterpieces. In China substantial 103

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language and logic did not combine. The Mohist logicians developed a sort of logic, but they had only an impoverished notion of language. Zhuangzi, on the other hand, had a surpassing language, but he did not integrate it with the logic of disputation (bian), which he, not without justification, saw as being incapable of grasping that logic of life which his own saying ( yan) followed. Harbsmeier suggests that Zhuangzi’s “not-knowing” is comparable to the famous “I am aware that I do not know” attributed to Socrates. For, according to Harbsmeier, Zhuangzi’s not-knowing is “the product of an advanced piece of scientific theorizing. Zhuangzi thought that our knowledge, however well founded empirically and theoretically, is ultimately uncertain” (1993: 23–6). The decisive point is, however, that Zhuangzi does not integrate the moment of not-knowing into a procedure that becomes technical in the positive sense of Platonic dialectic. In Plato, as Gadamer says, it is a question of “pure self-abandonment to the facts of the matter” (reinen Hingegebenheit an die Sache) (1991: 39); for Zhuangzi it is, as Graham says, ultimately a question of “surrender to the incomprehensible” (1981: 19). Therefore we will not find in Zhuangzi a language (yan) that conforms to the requirements of logic in the way the logos of science does. We have instead Zhuangzi’s bungled discourse and impromptu words.

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7 ETHICS

Whatever singularity, which wants to appropriate belonging itself, its own being-in-language, and thus rejects all identity and every condition of belonging, is the principal enemy of the State. Wherever these singularities peacefully demonstrate their being in common there will be a Tiananmen, and, sooner or later, the tanks will appear. Giorgio Agamben I have never yet known sage knowledge (shengzhi) that did not become the wedges in cangues, and humanity and righteousness that did not become the pegs in the hole of the shackles. The Zhuangzi

Confucian concern Zhuangzi has long been admired for his philosophical depth and perhaps even more for his unsurpassed literary style. In regard to ethics, however, the general consensus is that Zhuangzi has little to offer. It is often assumed that no genuine ethical point of view can be found in Zhuangzi, and that Zhuangzi is an amoralist if not outright immoral. The great twelfth century Confucian Zhu Xi
 said that “Laozi still wanted to do something, but Zhuangzi did not want to do anything at all. He even said that he knew what to do but just did not want to do it.” Because Zhuangzi was perceived as someone who shrinks from the task of imposing a moral order on the world, he, as Wing-tsit Chan points out, “was so much rejected by Chinese thinkers that since the fifth century, his doctrines have never been propagated by any outstanding scholar” (1963: 178–9). Several modern Western scholars also see in Zhuangzi an ethical relativist or an amoralist. Robert Eno, for example, argues that for Zhuangzi “butchering people might provide much the same spiritual spontaneity as the dao of butchering oxen – as many a samurai might testify” (1996: 142), and Chad Hansen (1992: 290) 105

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says that Zhuangzi is unable to censure even the worst atrocities (such as the Nazi exterminations) beyond saying “it happened”. I will argue, on the contrary, that we have in the Zhuangzi a profoundly religious ethics that is as yet little understood. By a religious ethics I mean an ethics that transcends positive morality, the exercise of prudence, ends such as utility, propriety, and social harmony, even a certain conception of humanism. This does not mean that Zhuangzi is indifferent to human beings. On the contrary, like Christian ethics, Zhuangzi’s ethics is above all aimed at transcending the violence that characterizes human interaction. Recognizing the limitations of positive morality, and with great irony, Zhuangzi gives voice to his ethical point of view through a number of mutilated characters, the very victims of the Confucian concern with socioethical order. Concern ( you
) was the hallmark of the committed Confucian scholarofficial and today still informs the self-understanding of many Chinese intellectuals. In the Chinese tradition concern ( you) may be considered the functional equivalent of rationality in the Western tradition. The dark side of Western rationality has often been pointed out (one needs only mention Nietzsche, Foucault, Adorno, and Horkheimer), but Zhuangzi was the first, and one of the few, in the Chinese tradition to provide a truly radical critique of Confucian concern. The Confucians distinguish between two kinds of concerns. On the one hand there are the concerns of everyday life about poverty and other hardships. According to Confucius, these are petty concerns (Lunyu 6.11). On the other hand there are the more lofty concerns of the Confucian, who is “concerned about the Way not about poverty” (Lunyu 15.32). Mencius also distinguishes between these two kinds of concern, but in Mencius the lofty sense of concern is more directly linked with a concern for the empire (tianxia) and political power. Mencius says that the noble man is concerned ( you) all of his life, but he does not have common worries and apprehensions. The concern of the noble man is that the sage ruler Shun
, a human being like himself, “became a model for the empire,” whereas he himself remains “a common fellow.” “This,” says Mencius emphatically, “is something to be concerned about!” (Mengzi 4.B28). In the idealistic political philosophy of Mencius, this lofty sense of concern immediately translates into the benevolent exercise of state power. Mencius says that a ruler who is “concerned about the empire” is sure to come to rule the whole world and not just one state among others (Mengzi 1.B4). Furthermore, it is this lofty sense of concern that distinguishes “those who labor with their minds” from “those who work with their physical strength.” According to Mencius the sage rulers were constantly concerned with organizing and protecting the social realm and teaching the common people proper human relationships, and therefore they had no time for physical labor: “when the concern ( you) of the sages for the people is like 106

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this,” asks Mencius, “how could they have leisure to plow the fields?” Mencius leaves no doubt that the lofty concern of the Confucians is far above the petty concerns of everyday life: “he who makes it his concern that a hundred mou field is not managed is a mere peasant” (Mengzi 3.A4). In Confucian discourse different levels of concern justify the social order. The concerns of everyday life are petty and must be subordinated under the higher concern of the ruler; the practical concerns of the ruler are still limited and must in turn be subordinated under the superior, global concern of the Confucian. It is this self-assumed global concern that gives Confucian discourse its harshness and disregard for other points of view. Mencius explicitly says that when he argues against competing doctrines, then it is not because he is fond of disputation (bian) but out of a lofty apprehension for the state of the world (tianxia) only matched by Confucius himself. In the light of this lofty concern, Mencius relegates his opponents to the realm of wild beasts. Like the sage kings of old, who always appeared when the world of human beings was threatened by brutish nature, Mencius wants to oppose his opponents, Yang Zhu
 and Mozi, and he wants to make their teachings cease and banish their doctrines (Mengzi 3.B9). With Xunzi Confucian concern becomes even more focused on the wealth and power of the state. The Xunzi opens with chapters on learning and selfcultivation, but it continues with chapters on “the regulations of a king,” “enriching the state,” “the principles of warfare,” and on “strengthening the state” (Knoblock 1988–94). In Xunzi the concern for the state is so overriding that it justifies the most cruel punishments. Thus Xunzi argues against the view that since the good societies of antiquity did not employ corporal punishments but relied on more humane ritualistic and symbolic measures, contemporary rulers should also avoid cruel punishments. No, says Xunzi, a well-ordered society must rely on punishing mutilations such as black-branding, cutting of the nose, amputation of the feet, castration, and also the death penalty (Xunzi 18.3). Zhuangzi regards the Confucian’s obsessive concern with the world of man (ren) as a particularly pernicious expression of the drive towards completion that encloses human beings in a world of their own making and makes an experience of Heaven impossible. Therefore the Zhuangzi does not tire of pointing to the pettiness of Confucian concern in view of the life engendered by Heaven: “what the [Confucian] man of humanity is concerned ( you) about,” and “what the committed scholar toils over” is insignificant compared to the infinite self-emergence of things (17/13). Zhuangzi’s critique of Confucian concern is most poignantly expressed in a dialogue between Confucius and his favorite disciple, Yan Hui
, who, with proper Confucian eagerness and concern, wants to set out to reform a brutal ruler. Zhuangzi’s Confucius gives his diagnosis of this disturbed state: “Now we do not wish to mix up the Way. If it is mixed up, then it is fragmented. When it is fragmented, then you are agitated. When you are 107

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agitated then you are concerned ( you)” (4/4). Zhuangzi presents a genealogy of Confucian moral sentiment: far from being a distinctive and noble sentiment, Confucian concern originates in the disturbed or agitated state that results from the mix-up and fragmentation of the Way. According to Zhuangzi, Confucian concern is the symptom of disorder rather than its cure. Zhuangzi sees that when the Confucians project their concern onto the world, then the shift from perfectionism to moralism occurs: the self is no longer properly brought into question, and morality becomes a mere technique in the service of power. The moralists, who think they can influence the tyrants, are utterly self-deceived; for in their disturbed state nothing real exists in themselves that could possibly be a counter-weight to the force of unbridled power. As Zhuangzi’s Confucius points out, with the ancients it was different: The perfected people of old, first made it exist in themselves, and only then did they make it exist in others. If that which they made exist in themselves was not yet settled, what leisure did they have to confront the conduct of a tyrant? (4/4–5) Accordingly, at the end of the dialogue, Confucius prescribes to Yan Hui the fasting of the heart-and-mind (xinzhai
). The fasting of the heart-andmind is the proper cure for Confucian concern, for it stills the fragmented and anxious efforts that bind us to the realm of man (ren) and restores the sanity and unity of the Way. On an even more somber note, Confucius, in the same dialogue, tells Yan Hui that knowledge is an evil tool (xiongqi

) (4/6–7). Here Zhuangzi has in mind the sage-knowledge (shengzhi
) with which the Confucians propose to rule the empire. Zhuangzi’s denouncement of sage-knowledge could only have been seen as prophetic by his immediate followers, who experienced first-hand how the moralists provide the justification, the “wedges” and “pegs” in the cangues and shackles, without which statepower would not hold. In a later text collected in the Zhuangzi, we get a snapshot of the conditions that prevailed soon after the completion of the Chinese imperial state. In the present age the executed are piled up on top of each other. The shackled in cangues [are so crowded together that they] bump into each other. The massacred lie staring at each other, and yet the Confucians and the Mohists begin to put on airs and roll up their sleeves among the shackled. Ah! How extreme is their shamelessness and their having no sense of disgrace. It is too bad! I have never yet known sage knowledge (shengzhi) that did not become the

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wedges in cangues, and humanity and righteousness that did not become the pegs in the hole of the shackles. (11/25–8) Graham dates this text to the time of the civil war which followed the death of the first Emperor of the Qin
in 210 . Whether this dating is correct or not, Graham rightly notes that the author of this text “views the usurpation of the state as a crime which puts morality in the service of the victor,” and that one notices here “something of that vicious contempt for moralists which emerges in periods when the contrast between moral pretensions and political realities has become insupportable” (1981: 197–9). The same tension between Confucian moralistic pretensions and the political realities is also evident in China today. In The Trouble with Confucianism Wm. Theodore de Bary recounts how the Chinese government, only weeks after the massacre of the students at Tiananmen Square, celebrated the birthday of Confucius in a building next to the square itself. Here the leader of the Communist Party, Secretary General Jiang Zemin, “spent two hours recollecting fondly his own Confucian upbringing,” and in his keynote speech the scholar Gu Mu explained how Chinese traditional culture, which he claims to be essentially Confucian, could ensure harmony and prosperity for the state and counteract Western influence. In his “marvelous cultural ballet,” writes de Bary, Gu Mu “presents both Chinese tradition and the current regime as enlightened, progressive, and open to the world, while still relying on the Confucian values of harmony and social discipline as the criteria for excluding decadent libertarian influences from the West – screening out the ‘spiritual pollution’ already identified as responsible for the alleged unbridled disorders of T’ien an men” (1991: 107–8).

Mutilation Confucian moralism and Legalist state-craft combined to create the traditional Chinese state, which, if only because of its persistence even to this day, must be regarded as one of the great achievements in human history. However, in the view of Zhuangzi this unprecedented achievement or completion (cheng) violates life (sheng). Concretely this violated life shows up in the Zhuangzi in the form of mutilated persons: the mutilated criminals, punished by the state, return as exemplary characters to haunt the moralizers. For someone with a foot cut off is not restrained by laws and regulations, because he treats blame and praise as outer. The convict in iron chains will climb high up without fear, for he has left life and death behind. They have continually been intimidated but are not

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ashamed, and they have forgotten about the others. Having forgot about the others they then become people of Heaven. (23/76–7) The irony is that the very punishment that marks the criminal as an outcast from the world of man (ren) transports the mutilated person to the realm of Heaven (tian). Accordingly, the mutilated take on the characteristics of Zhuangzi’s perfected person: they are unaffected by praise and blame of others; they do not cling to life nor fear death; and the moralists are not able to shame them; in short, they have become a people of Heaven (tianren
). Far from being weakened by the punishment, the mutilated embody the power that pertains to everything that is heterogeneous in relation to the realm of man (ren). Zhuangzi himself tells two stories of mutilated persons from the state of Lu
, where Confucius had been police commissioner. There was, writes Zhuangzi, a man from Lu with a chopped foot, who attracted just as many followers as Confucius, and in fact Confucius himself acknowledged that there was something unique (du) about this mutilated person, who did not change with life and death, perceived the unity of things, and “looked at the loss of his foot as casting off some soil” (5/1–8). In the other and longer story, Zhuangzi says that once a man from Lu with a chopped off foot, Shushan the Toeless


, “came walking on his heels to see Confucius.” Because Shushan has been unable to preserve his body whole (quan), Confucius refuses to teach him. The mutilated answers Confucius: I just did not understand the affairs of the world and was careless in using my body, and therefore I lost my foot. Now I have come here, for I still preserve something that is more precious than the foot, and that is what I seek to keep whole (quan). Now heaven covers everybody, and the earth supports everybody, and I considered you, Master, as being heaven and earth. How could I know you would be like this? (5/25–7) Shushan the Toeless is a perfected person in Zhuangzi’s sense: he is portrayed as being clumsy in the outer (wai) world (he does “not understand the affairs of the world”) but able to preserve the inner (nei), which, of course, is much more important than any outer sign of wholeness. Confucius, the moralist, is only able to see the outer, and therefore he denies instruction to the mutilated. For if the mutilated was not able to preserve his body, then, for the moralist, that in itself, and regardless of circumstances, is a sign of moral deficiency. After he has heard what the mutilated has to say, Confucius realizes that he has been crude (lou
), and he changes his mind and invites the 110

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mutilated in to be instructed. But the mutilated has already left, and Confucius can only say to his followers: “Exert yourselves my disciples! That toeless had his foot chopped off, and still he was seeking learning in order to mend his former bad ways. How much more should people [like you] whose virtue is whole [pursue learning]!” (5/28–9). But the flaw is with the moralist: he can only see outer wholeness (quan) – the preservation of the physical body, which was a moral imperative for the Confucians – not the inner wholeness attained by the mutilated. Meanwhile Shushan the Toeless, who now realizes that Confucius is far from the perfect Master he had expected, has gone to seek instruction from Laozi, and he asks him: In his attempt to become a perfected person, Confucius has not quite got there has he? Why then does he so urgently teach his disciples? He seems to be seeking bizarre and deceptive fame. Doesn’t he know that the perfected person considers this as putting shackles on himself? (5/29–30) Here the reversal is complete: it is really the moralist not the mutilated criminal that is punished – only the moralist has shackled himself. By “seeking bizarre and deceptive fame” the moralist shows himself to be caught up in the outer (wai) world of man (ren) and incapable of preserving the inner (nei) unity of the Way, and therefore he has put himself beyond saving. Laozi, however, suggests that perhaps the moralist could still be saved. He says, “could we not just have him consider life and death as one strand and consider allowable (ke) and unallowable (buke) as a single string, and free him from his shackles?” In other words, could the Confucian moralist not be set free by absorbing a bit of Daoism? No, says the mutilated – and this radical stance above all shows Zhuangzi’s hand – for when “Heaven has punished him, how can he be set free?” (5/30–1). In Zhuangzi the mutilated criminal is expelled from the community of man (ren) but by the same token transported to the boundless realm of Heaven (tian), and so he attains ultimate freedom and realizes that no judgment imposed by man (ren) is ever completely binding. The Confucian, on the other hand, is obsessively concerned with the world of man (ren), he entirely encloses himself in a world of his own making, and for him there is no way out. For, says Zhuangzi, when you neglect the other of the world of man (ren), then there is no longer a saving power to remove the shackles of your own selffashioning. That is Heaven’s punishment (tianxing
). In rejecting that the wholeness of the body is a sign of virtue, Zhuangzi strikes at the very root of the Confucian moral world-view, where filial piety demands that a person preserves his or her body in the same state it was received from the parents: whole and complete. The complete body was the 111

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Confucian emblem of virtue, and filial piety was not only a duty towards parents, it was the root of the socio-ethical order. As Confucius says, it is unlikely that a person who is filial will defy his superiors and “start a rebellion” (Lunyu 1.2). Confucius’ disciple Zengzi
 movingly gives expression to the anxiety that accompanied this fundamental duty to preserve the body whole, a duty that could only be considered entirely fulfilled near death. When he was seriously ill Teng Tzu [Zengzi] summoned his disciples and said, “Take a look at my hands. Take a look at my feet. The Odes say, In fear and trembling, As if approaching a deep abyss, As if walking on thin ice. Only now am I sure of being spared, my young friends. (Lunyu 8.3, Lau 1983: 69) In Mencius this idea of preserving the body whole becomes an image for the inner development of the “body” of virtue. According to Mencius, the human heart inherently has four sprouts of virtue: a compassionate pain that naturally grows into humanity (ren); a sense of shame that is the beginning of righteousness ( yi); a sense of deference that is the sprout of ritual decorum (li); and an innate sense of right and wrong that is the beginning of wisdom (zhi). Human beings have these sprouts of virtue, just as they have four limbs, and, says Mencius, “he who has these four sprouts and yet says he is not capable [of developing them], he is a man who mutilates himself ” (Mengzi 2A6). That is to say, in order to be moral one must keep one’s body of virtue whole and make it complete. For Mencius virtue, like the body, is a wholeness that has to be preserved and nourished but not forced to grow and twisted into form. When Gaozi
 suggests that to make human nature humane and just is like making cups and bowls out of the willow tree, Mencius objects that this suggests that one must also “mutilate a man to make him humane and just” (Mengzi 6A1). According to Mencius, to teach this would bring disaster to morality, for it is the whole body of virtue, from its first emergence to its full expression, that is the completion of the moral life. For Mencius, the body of virtue is not just a metaphor, for the physical body reaches its completion through moral development: virtue creates a “harmonious and fresh” appearance in the noble man, “it shows in his face, it fills his back and spreads out in his four limbs, and his four limbs are understood without words” (7A21). The first sprouts of virtue are inner, but these sprouts must develop and show in the body and be displayed in the outer world in a completed pattern (7A24). Therefore, even if Mencius and Zhuangzi both focus on the inner, from the point of view of Zhuangzi, Mencius is entirely in the grip of the drive towards completion. 112

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Zhuangzi, for his part, says that the mutilated or deformed person, who looks ugly and startling to people, is in fact “equal to Heaven” (6/74). According to Zhuangzi, the very mutilation of the outer form is a sign that there is something unique about that person, namely the uniqueness engendered by the life of Heaven (3/13). Therefore, for Zhuangzi the mutilated outer form is far from being defective (as the moralist thinks); on the contrary, the mutilation, so to speak, opens a crack in the socio-ethical order through which we can see the real. In Zhuangzi, the misfit ( jiren
) (6/74) is equal to Heaven precisely because he or she does not fit into the human realm. As in the Bible, it is stone rejected by man that lays the foundation for the kingdom of Heaven.

Beyond the will to power In the stories of the mutilated Zhuangzi situates authentic ethics in a realm of freedom beyond the positive law, and here we should begin to think of Kant and Christian ethics. According to Antonio Cua, when Zhuangzi asks us to forget morality, then it means to adopt a certain attitude in which the moral experience far from being abolished first really comes to view. With its principles and rules morality is “blinding us to the heart of moral experience” (Cua 1977: 313), and therefore Zhuangzi adopts a “tao-attitude,” or a “meta-moral attitude,” which suggests no norms to the moral agent but is rather “an ideal orientation or perspective for conducting moral thinking” (Cua 1977: 317). Like the Western notion of forgiveness, the tao-attitude preserves the import of the distinction [wrong was done] in the light of an ideal perspective. Here what is transcended is not the distinction but the normal focus on the notion of blame that commonly attends the judgement of wrong-doing. (Cua 1977: 317) When we embrace the wrong-doer in forgiveness or in the tao-attitude, then we accept him or her as a person and so, in spite of the wrongful deed, as a moral agent. “It is as if,” says Cua, “we forgot, in the sense of ceasing to care for, his deed and are now ready to enter into a relationship with him as a moral agent qua moral agent” (1977: 318). We give to the person “the status of equality,” for the tao-attitude involves “an attitude of taking men as persons rather than things” (Cua 1977: 318). On Cua’s reading, with its emphasis on forgiveness and not treating the other as a thing, Zhuangzi’s view of ethics comes close to the Christian and Kantian moral pictures. Cua’s claim that a certain kind of concern for morality can in fact obscure the ethical experience agrees with Zhuangzi’s critique of Confucian concern ( you). As we have seen, it is precisely because of his concern that Confucius is unable to give the mutilated person equal status as a moral 113

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agent. Cua is also right when he describes Zhuangzi’s ethical point of view in terms of Christian forgiveness and Kantian equality. I disagree with Cua, however, when he takes Zhuangzi’s “tao-attitude” to be a kind of perceptual intuition of doing the right thing in particular situations and contexts (Cua 1977: 314). This view is mistaken for at least two reasons. First, Zhuangzi is not arguing against a morality of principle but against Confucian morality, which itself is largely context dependent and relies on the kind of perceptual intuition described by Cua. Therefore the modern opposition between a morality of principles and an ethics of situational perception is not helpful in explaining what is at stake in Zhuangzi’s ethics. Second, if this situational responding to changing events is understood as a kind of aesthetic perception, then Zhuangzi’s “tao-attitude” becomes aesthetizied and not ethical in the more strict and substantial sense we require of a genuinely religious ethics. Several Chinese scholars subsume Zhuangzi’s thought under the category of the aesthetic. Li Zehou, for instance, unreservedly claims that “Zhuangzi’s philosophy is aesthetics” (1985: 178). The attraction of the aesthetic as an explanatory category among Chinese scholars is due in part to the lack of a proper thematization of the category of the religious. Because of the dominance of the aesthetic in the postmodern sensibility and the emphasis on situational perception in neo-Aristotelian ethics, several Western scholars also attribute an aesthetic world-view to Zhuangzi. Lee H. Yearley, for instance, argues that Zhuangzi recommends that we “ought to deal with everything the way you deal with esthetic objects. All life should be viewed as an esthetic panorama” (1983: 136). But for Zhuangzi the truly ethical question is not how to adapt oneself to changing situations but how to constitute oneself as an ethical subject according to a certain law. As we saw in the dialogue about “the fasting of the heart-and-mind,” according to Zhuangzi, only a properly constituted subject can transcend the principle of power that dominates human beings – moral principles and aesthetic coping are entirely ineffective in this regard. The Zhuangzi contains a numbers of stories about Zhuangzi himself. These stories may only be legend, but they present a picture of Zhuangzi that, according to A. C. Graham, is “unmistakably” connected with the Zhuangzi of the “Inner Chapters” (1981: 115). A recurrent theme in these stories is Zhuangzi’s disdain for power. When a ruler offers him a high position, Zhuangzi says that he would rather drag himself through the mud (17/81– 4); when Hui Shi is afraid that Zhuangzi will take his place as chief minister, Zhuangzi tells his friend that the position is worth nothing more than a rotting rat (17/84 –7); and when a self-satisfied diplomat tells Zhuangzi how well he is rewarded by his ruler, Zhuangzi points out that the lower one stoops in serving the powerful the more rewards one will reap: one who licks the ruler’s hemorrhoids, says Zhuangzi, will get the greatest reward (32/22–6). For Zhuangzi the realm of man (ren) is totally dominated by power. Only with death will the regime of domination of one person over the other 114

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come to an end. In a dream a skull tells Zhuangzi that in the after-life there is no ruler and no subjects, and that the joy of being free from the domination of power is greater than that of the most powerful ruler alive (18/22–9). Jean François Billeter argues that the critique of power we find in the Zhuangzi goes far deeper than a simple rejection, and that it is not an apology for being apolitical. In his critique of power, says Billeter, Zhuangzi goes to “its very principle” (son principe même) (1996: 865). Zhuangzi shows how power is rooted at the level of intersubjective relations and of consciousness itself, and he indicates that there could be a place of equality beyond the dehumanizing power relations: “Throughout his work, Zhuangzi forcefully proclaims that domination is not fatality, that other relations than those of power of some over others are possible, and that they conform to the very essence of human subjectivity” (Billeter 1996: 875–6). Billeter refers to a passage in the Zhuangzi, which he says is comparable to some of the most striking stories in the New Testament. In this story a mutilated person (a punished criminal) and a prime minister are both studying with the same spiritual teacher. Every time the teaching is over, the minister refuses to leave at the same time as the mutilated, and he insists that the mutilated step aside for his superior. The mutilated points out to the minister that according to the teaching of their common master there is no such thing as difference in rank, and that the minister has shown himself to be a man of no integrity. At the end of the dialogue the minister, like Confucius in the dialogue with Shushan the Toeless, shamefully acknowledges his pettiness (5/13–24). Billeter comments that although the word “equality” is not used in the passage, the idea is there: for in refusing to leave together with the mutilated the minister commits “a sin against the spirit” (Billeter 1996: 861). According to Zhuangzi, says Billeter, power is a burden, and those who carry this burden either become brutes or they free themselves from it. The Zhuangzi tells a story about the ruler of Lu, Confucius’ home-state, who has a concerned look (you youse
 ). The ruler is spotted by a certain Yiliao from south of the market
 !, who asks him why he looks so concerned. In response the ruler enumerates all his duties: he has studied the way of the former kings, he follows the rites and is constantly busy with his tasks. And yet he cannot escape from worrying, for at any moment things could go wrong. Yiliao tells the ruler that concern (you) pertains to power itself and the only cure for this kind of worry is to rid oneself of power. For he who possesses others is weary, he who is being possessed by others is concerned. Therefore Yao
did not possess others, nor was be being possessed by others. I wish you would throw off your weariness, get rid of your concern, and wander unique together with the Way in the land of vast emptiness. (20/21–2) 115

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As Billeter (1996: 866) points out, we have here not just an unrealistic invitation to renounce all practical involvement with running a state. The real significance of the passage is philosophical, psychological, and even religious: salvation consists in refusing to dominate and be dominated. In Zhuangzi, ethics begins with a critique of the connection between Confucian concern and power, and this critique comes close to the Gospels when they teach the total negation of the realm of power. In Zhuangzi, as in the Gospels, this negation is not escapism but a call for the transformation and redemption of humanity. According to Billeter, Zhuangzi sees the regime of power as a regime of willing, and the task is to become “free to will or not will.” When we are liberated from the regime of willing we realize “non-power” (non-pouvoir); we renounce our power to influence others, and, paradoxically, it is through this renunciation that we gain true power to help others. Billeter writes: To exercise a beneficial action on others, it is necessary to have forgotten the very idea of such an action, any influence whatsoever and, furthermore, surely, any ascendancy, any power over the other. Paradoxically, it is the beings totally deprived of such intentions who have real power over others. . . . Because in the end the only definitive help that one human being can bring another human being, on the emotional or the intellectual level, is to liberate him or her from the subjugation to his or her own willing, to make him or her free to will or not to will, to make prevail in him or herself sometimes the state of intentionality, sometimes that of nonintentionality. But only non-willing can induce non-willing. (1996: 871, 877–8) Billeter’s analysis of Zhuangzi’s non-willing corresponds to Hadot’s analysis of the gentleness Marcus Aurelius advises we use in our relations with others. Hadot explains that we can act effectively upon other people only when we do not try to act upon them – when, that is, we avoid all violence, even spiritual, towards ourselves and others. It is this pure gentleness and delicacy which have the power to make people change their minds, even to convert and transform them. (2002: 219) As we will see, Zhuangzi incorporates precisely such transformative gentleness into his moral law. Billeter is correct when he sees in non-willing an ethical law of equality, which says that “in intersubjective relations, nobody can hope to cause a transformation in others if he does not accept to be transformed himself as well.” Billeter says that he is inclined to take this law 116

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as universal, and that Zhuangzi here “recognizes in his own way the essential equality of all human beings” (1996: 875). This equality is based on a law inherent in the interactions between human subjectivities: “a law according to which we cannot act on another, and so live and collaborate with him, if we do not accept that he equally acts on us” (Billeter 1996: 877). Billeter writes: [Zhuangzi] has also shown that our subjectivity, through a conversion, can have access to a condition that liberates it from the desire to exercise power over others and the temptation to submit oneself to the power of others. On this point his thought has not only a philosophic significance. It takes on, virtually, an eminent religious significance. (1996: 877) We will now see how Zhuangzi formulates his own moral law, which is designed to negate the will to power that dominates all human relations.

The moral law From the Kantian point of view, the problem with the Confucian notion of humanity (ren) is that it is defined in terms of feelings such as love towards parents. According to the Confucians, when such feelings are extended and in their application properly supplemented with wisdom and a sense of the right, then they become the basis for humane government. The Kantian would point out, however, that there is nothing in this picture that in principle can prevent Confucian morality from degenerating into favoritism, nepotism, merely strategic use of reason, and even despotism. Heiner Roetz, however, has argued that we do find in the Confucian moral picture something that, from a Kantian point of view, could serve as a principle that may anchor Confucian morality and prevent it from drifting into ambiguity and eventual decline into the immoral. The principle in question is no other than the age-old golden rule, which Confucius, in response to a question about humanity (ren), formulates as follows: “What you do not wish done to yourself do not do to others” (Lunyu 12.2, Roetz 1993: 131). There is no doubt that this principle is central to Confucius’ moral picture, for Confucius repeats the same maxim when he is asked for a saying that could guide one’s entire conduct and not just one’s response to a particular situation. Furthermore, Confucius links the maxim to his central notion of reciprocity (shu
) (Lunyu 15.24). What is decisive for Roetz, however, is that in applying the golden rule the moral agent incorporates a “formal, abstract procedure into ethical reasoning,” so that now “the moral nature of an action relates to its generalizability,” and not to some ambiguous notion of virtue (1993: 134–5). Here it does not matter that Kant himself says that the golden rule is “trivial” and that it cannot serve 117

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“as a standard or principle” (1964: 97). The important point is that Confucius proposes a maxim that could be a candidate for such a principle, even if he does not consider the limitations of his own maxim. Roetz takes this task upon himself and discusses several of the objections to the golden rule: the equality implied in the golden rule can easily decline into the hierarchical reciprocity characteristic of ancient societies; the rule could become a simple devise of prudence. Most importantly, the golden rule presupposes a concept of the good and the self-cultivation of the moral subject who is to apply the rule (Roetz 1993: 137f.). This means that Confucius’ golden rule is unable to immediately determine the will, the very ability that, according to Kant, is the mark of the moral law. In this regard Mencius’ striking formulation of his own universal moral maxim is perhaps closer to the Kantian intention. Mencius says: “Do not do what you do not do. Do not will what you do not will. This is all” (Mengzi 7A17, Roetz 1993: 146). Mencius’ maxim promises immediate translation of willing into acting and obtaining – a spontaneity that is also characteristic of the moral will in Kant. In Mencius, at least in this moment in Mencius, the endless approximation to the goal through self-cultivation falls away and the moral law takes effect immediately. On closer inspection, however, we find that the Mencian maxim is probably not intended to be entirely formal, that it in fact has positive, and so, from the Kantian point of view, potentially pathological content. For, according to Mencius, to do what we do and to will what we will presupposes that we first establish ourselves in our “greater part,” or in our true desire, which is the desire for humanity and the good, and not the desire for fine food, sex and power. D. C. Lau’s translation takes account of this implication in the Mencian maxim: “Do not do what you would not do; do not desire what you would not desire. That is all” (Lau 1984: II, 269–71, my italics). We see that just as in the case of Confucius, Mencius’ maxim presupposes a notion of the good, and the good is not determined by the maxim itself. Now, Zhuangzi provides his own universal maxim that totally breaks with these Confucian maxims and is more compatible with the Kantian moral picture. Zhuangzi’s “moral imperative” says: “Do for others in not doing for others” (6/61). The context in which this maxim is put forward contains a number of significant features. Three of Zhuangzi’s fictitious characters are “sitting together as friends,” and they ask each other: Who can be with others in not being with others, do for others in not doing for others. Who can ascend to Heaven, wander ( you) in the mists, roam in the infinite, and forget themselves and others in [the experience of ] life without end? The three men looked at each other and smiled. There was no opposition in their hearts, and so they became friends. (6/60–2) 118

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After some time, one of the three friends dies, and in defiance of all proper ritual decorum the remaining two friends sing and play music right next to and in plain view of the corpse. Confucius’ disciple Zigong sees this, and he is shocked. When he returns and reports what he has seen to Confucius, he exclaims: “What kind of people are they!?” Confucius answers that they are the kind of people that are outside the square ( fang zhiwai
 ), that is to say, outside the world of man (ren), and such people cannot be bothered with the rituals. Confucius, for his part, wanders “inside the square,” and as such he is one of “Heaven’s condemned.” Furthermore, Confucius now realizes that it was crude (lou) of him to have sent Zigong to observe the unusual funeral in the first place (6/62–71). First, it is important that Zhuangzi’s moral imperative is voiced in an atmosphere of intimate friendship ( you
). Friendship is a relation of equality, and it is the relation the Confucians found most difficult to accommodate in their moral picture, which was based on hierarchical relations and even on a fundamental inequality. For the Confucians, moral influence goes in one way only, namely from the cultivated noble man to the common people: “The virtue of the noble man is like the wind, the virtue of the common people is like the grass. When the wind blows on the grass, it must bend” (Lunyu 12.19). From Zhuangzi’s point of view, it is because the Confucian is not willing to engage in an equal relationship with the other, and, as Billeter says, be open to the possibility of being influenced by the other, that he does not attain genuine ethical consciousness. Friendship embodies the transformative gentleness of Zhuangzi’s moral law. Second, when Confucius realizes that in comparison with the transcendence of the three friends he himself is crude (lou), then we recall that the same feeling of being crude impressed itself on Confucius when he refused to teach Shushan the Toeless. In Zhuangzi the feeling of being “crude,” “low,” “shallow,” and “mean” (all connotations of the word lou) is the feeling that arises in the moralist when confronted with the truly ethical point of view. For the moralist never tastes the freedom of the ethical experience (so eloquently described by the three friends), but is left only with the bad taste of always falling short of it. The Confucian moral subject remains within the morality of the superego, where the subject is constantly worried in its endless progress to meet demands that are really of its own making but which it itself can never fulfill. Only with death do the demands of the superego end. For the Confucian “the burden is heavy, and the road is long,” for he “takes humanity as a burden for himself,” and “only with death does his road come to an end” (Lunyu 8.7). It is this condition that, in the view of Zhuangzi, makes Confucius one of “Heaven’s condemned.” If we now turn to Zhuangzi’s maxim, “do for each other in not doing for each other” (xiangwei yu wuxiangwei


), then it is clear that this maxim is not open to the criticism that can be leveled against Confucius’ golden rule. Zhuangzi’s maxim cannot be interpreted in terms of hierarchical 119

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reciprocity, for it suspends all reciprocal relations; it cannot fall into merely strategic action, for as a form of non-action (wuwei) it transcends all technical action (wei); and, unlike the golden rule, Zhuangzi’s maxim does not presuppose a concept of the good, for nothing is imposed on the other. Furthermore, unlike the Mencian maxim, Zhuangzi’s maxim makes no reference to a will or desire for a presupposed good. In Billeter’s terms, Zhuangzi’s maxim expresses that non-willing that alone sets the other free to will or not will, that is to say, free for the moral law. It is particularly significant that Zhuangzi’s maxim breaks with the idea of reciprocity that is fundamental to Chinese culture and to Confucianism in particular. Confucius’ central notion of reciprocity (shu) is based on empathy, but Confucius also subscribes to the more legalistic idea of retribution (bao
). When somebody asks if one should “repay hatred with kindness,” Confucius answers no, one should “repay hatred with justice, and kindness with kindness” (Lunyu 14.34). It is of course only the properly educated Confucian who is able to repay justly in this way, for, as Confucius says, “only the humane person can love and hate people” (Lunyu 4.3). Confucian education is essentially learning how to reciprocate properly. Zhuangzi’s three friends, for their part, are able to “be with others in not being with others” and “do for others in not doing for others,” and they “ascend to Heaven, wander in the mists, roam in the infinite, and forget themselves and others in [the experience of] life without end.” That is to say, for Zhuangzi the ethical subject is not constituted by its reciprocal relation to the other (the self–other dichotomy falls way). It is constituted rather by the experience of the life engendered by Heaven, which suspends the socio-ethical law (the three friends are “outside the square”) and mediates a non-reciprocal and truly ethical relationship to the other. The relation between human life and the life of Heaven is non-reciprocal: human life is engendered by Heaven, but Heaven expects nothing from human life. The experience of the non-reciprocal relation between human life and the life of Heaven mediates a new non-reciprocal relation in human life, namely the relation between friends. For Zhuangzi friendship is not, as it is for Mencius, based on trust; it is not a social bond at all. The three friends are friends solely because they experience themselves engendered by Heaven, and only this experience assures that there is no opposition (towards the other) in one’s heart (moni yuxin
 !).

The ethical subject Who is the ethical subject in Zhuangzi? Clearly it is not the subject, or ego, the wo and the ji – in Kantian terms the pathological subject – inscribed in the realm of man (ren). This does not mean, however, that Zhuangzi’s ethical subject is therefore entirely inscribed in the realm of Heaven (tian). As we saw, Zhuangzi’s authentic subject is situated in-between the realms of 120

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Heaven and man, and precisely therefore open to the experience of Heaven. Zhuangzi’s perfected person is free to be either in the realm of Heaven or in the realm of man, as so, in Billeter’s terms, “free to will or not to will.” Zhuangzi’s authentic and free subject – in Kant’s terms the autonomous subject – is split or divided between Heaven and man, in much the same way as Kant’s moral subject is divided, not between the pathological and the pure will but between the pathological and the freedom to choose between the pathological and the pure will (Zupaniii 2000: 21–2). This fundamental choice to be situated in-between Heaven and man is the paradoxical choice of our own fate and nature, and it is presupposed before all choices of positive morality – even Mencius’ choice to establish himself in humanity and righteousness. Therefore the Zhuangzi says that to be a fine person has nothing to do with positive morality (humanity and righteousness) but only with “trusting in the reality of one’s nature and destiny” (ren qi xingming zhiqing
 !"#) (8/29–30). Or, as Tsung-tung Chang translates: “What I call good, is not morality but the abandonment to the hidden essence of my life (die Hingabe an das verborgene Wesen meines Lebens)” (Chang 1982: 179). Without this choice of oneself at the deepest existential level, moral action, the choice between right and wrong, will decline into moralism and technicalities. It will decline into what Zhuangzi calls the mechanical mind ( jixin) from which judgments issue like deadly arrows. According to Zhuangzi, something needs to exist and be settled in us before we begin to think about ordering the world, otherwise the result will only be more violence. What needs to exist is first of all the ethical subject that is constituted by the split between Heaven and man. In other words, what needs to exist before the moral choice between right and wrong is the freedom to be either generated by man (ren) or by Heaven (tian), or in Billeter’s terms the freedom to will or not will – or, again, in Kant’s terms the freedom to be pathological or pure. In short, to be authentically ethical we must, paradoxically, first at the most fundamental level choose the ability to choose, or our freedom. But this choice, of course, cannot be a choice in the normal sense for it is the presupposition for all choosing. Here too there is a significant parallel to Kant. For Kant the Gesinnung is “the ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of maxims” (1934: 20). Now, Kant says that the Gesinnung itself is something chosen, and so, as Henry E. Allison observes, Kant seems “to affirm a paradoxical, if not totally incoherent, doctrine of a timeless act of self-constitution.” The incoherence is that “if choice presupposes Gesinnung, then it cannot be claimed that Gesinnung is itself chosen.” To remove this seeming incoherence, Allison takes Kant’s notion of Gesinnung not in an ontological, metaphysical sense but in a moral sense as a regulative idea for “the general orientation of the will,” or as a maxim “that provides a direction or orientation for the moral life of the agent viewed as a whole” (1990: 140–1). In Zhuangzi, of course, there is nothing that resembles a Kantian regulative idea, and we 121

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must interpret Kant’s paradoxical choice of Gesinnung differently if we are to see the structural similarity with Zhuangzi. In the course of a Lacanian reading of Kant’s moral philosophy, Alenka Zupaniii explains that the Gesinnung is chosen “from an entirely empty place,” by, as Kant says, an “act of spontaneity of the subject,” and the “empty place” from which this act issues is “the blind spot that sustains the difference between phenomena and noumena” (2000: 37–9). Similarly, we may say that in Zhuangzi the ethical subject chooses itself spontaneously from the empty space, or blind spot in-between man (ren) and Heaven (tian), which is not itself ethical but the sine qua non of ethical action. For both total immersion in the realm of Heaven and total immersion in the realm of man eclipses the ethical. The millipede that moves its many legs by relying on its Heavenly mechanism (tianji
) (17/55) is just as mechanical as human beings who rely on their mechanical mind ( jixin), the mind that can only do what it is programmed to do. In neither case does the ethical come into play. Only the choice to situate oneself in-between Heaven and man breaks with mechanical action (whether by nature or by culture) and makes possible the freedom to will or not will that is the presupposition for the ethical. But have we not said, following Billeter, that for Zhuangzi the fundamental ethical state is a state of not-willing, whereas in Kant, of course, everything depends on the good will. Here there seems to be a decisive difference between Kant and Zhuangzi. It is well-known, however, that nothing is more obscure in Kant than the status of the moral will. For the moral will is defined in terms of autonomy, that is to say it is defined negatively as being independent of all empirical motivation. The moral will must have its source in a non-empirical motivation, or what Kant calls “pure practical reason.” But how is such a pure motivation possible? Kant says that it is a “fact of reason,” or as he writes, a fact “of which we are a priori conscious, even if it be granted that no example could be found in which it has been followed exactly” (1985: 48). Still, it is hard to see what could be the motivation or drive for the moral will, if, as Kant says, the moral will does not have an “incentive” (Triebfeder) in the pathological sense. We must conclude with Zupaniii that it is precisely from the absence of the incentive, the object drive, that the moral will springs into action: Now even if Kant makes a point of stressing that the ethical act is distinguished by its lack of any Triebfeder, he also introduces what he calls the echte Triebfeder, the “genuine drive,” of pure practical reason. This genuine object-drive of the will is itself defined precisely in terms of pure form as an absence of any Triebfeder. (Zupaniii 2000: 18) The point is, says Zupaniii, that in Kant the very absence of pathological motivation “must at a certain point begin to function as an incentive”: the 122

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very emptiness of the form of the moral law itself becomes a material drive or motivation. This, says Zupaniii, is “the real ‘miracle’ involved in ethics,” and it requires, as Kant says, a “revolution” in our disposition (Zupaniii 2000: 15, 11). Here, surely, we can see the connection with Zhuangzi’s non-action (wuwei). For non-action is not the absence of action; it is rather the highest and most ethical form of action. As explained above, for Zhuangzi non-action is the transformative gentleness that eliminates opposition to the other and effectuates friendship between human beings. How this non-action can be practically effective is just as mysterious as how Kant’s pure practical reason can become effective. All one can say here is that from their different points of view both Zhuangzi and Kant indicate the existence of a willing that must remain a mystery, for if the moral will did not remain a mystery, it would be merely technical and, so, not moral. For Kant, all hypothetical imperatives – that is to say, all non-moral imperatives – are technical. Similarly, for Zhuangzi all technical action or doing (wei) is without foundation in a properly ethical subjectivity – what Kant called Gesinnung. Finally, does not Zhuangzi’s immersion in the native, the natural, and the fated, contradict Kant’s transcendental freedom and perhaps even the fundamental freedom in wandering (you) postulated by Zhuangzi himself? Here again we see a structural similarity between Zhuangzi and Kant. As is well known, Kant says that none of our actions are really free, for they may all be determined by some pathological motive, that is to say, natural causality. Nevertheless, as moral agents we must necessarily consider ourselves free agents. It is in explaining this paradox that Kant sometimes suggests that freedom presupposes that it is possible to act from the position of the noumenal; but, fortunately, the paradox can be explained without recourse to this presupposition. As Zupaniii says, Kant impresses upon us that we are entirely embedded in the causal flow of nature, and therefore we have no freedom. But just in the moment when the subject sees that it is not free but totally determined, when it “appears to be nothing but an automaton,” then Kant says, “and yet it is precisely in this situation that you are freer than you know.” It is as if there is a “crack” in the Other, and it is in this crack that Kant “situates the autonomy and freedom of the subject.” Zupaniii concludes: The crucial point here is that freedom is not incompatible with the fact that “I couldn’t do anything else,” and that I was “carried along by the stream of natural necessity.” Paradoxically, it is at the very moment when the subject is conscious of being carried along by the stream of natural necessity that she also becomes aware of her freedom. (2000: 27–8) 123

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In the same way, we can say that in Zhuangzi the experience of the native, nature, and the fated is at the same time the experience of wandering ( you). It is correct, when Billeter (1993: 558) says, that Zhuangzi’s freedom is not attained by some imaginary transcendence of the necessities of the human condition, and that for Zhuangzi there is no freedom except in the awareness of necessity in the midst of our own activity. Like Kant, Zhuangzi finds freedom in awareness of necessity, but awareness of necessity is not the same as conformity to necessity. On the contrary, awareness of necessity opens up a crack in both the cosmic and the social order.

On Zhuangzi’s supposed naturalism Zhuangzi’s awareness of necessity should be strictly distinguished from any naturalism. Critics of Daoism tell us that the highest perfection of the Daoist sage is a regression to an animal-like unity with nature, and that the ultimate wish of the Daoist is to be motivated by the same instinctive spontaneity that pertains to animals. One may be inclined to agree with these critics when one learns that in Zhuangzi it is the same Heavenly mechanism (tianji) that motivates animals, such as snakes and the millipedes, and the perfected human being (see 17/53– 60 and 6/7). If that really is the case, then the highest human perfection is essentially the same as the animal’s natural unity with nature, and then we should criticize Zhuangzi for his regressive naturalism. Furthermore, we should ask, why do human beings have to exercise themselves in order to attain a naturalness that animals have naturally? The answer is, first, that in so far as they are things (wu) human beings and animals are motivated by the same Heavenly mechanism, or the Way that things things (wuwu) but is not itself a thing (22/75). The crucial difference is that human beings can become aware that they are moved by the Way, and this awareness is their freedom. In this freedom, which Zhuangzi calls wandering (you), human beings are no longer mere things (wu) but companions of the Way that things things, and as such they experience the ceaseless self-emergence of life. Animals, on the other hand, do not experience transcendental life, and therefore animals cannot wander (you). Wandering (you) is not the experience of natural well-being, which animals too surely experience, but the experience of that which makes all natural being possible, namely the life of Heaven. This experience has nothing to do with the animal’s unity with nature, and Zhuangzi does not suggest that human beings must exercise themselves in order to attain a natural spontaneity that already belongs to animals. Conversely, we could also ask Zhuangzi: why is our mechanical mind ( jixin) with its marvelous ability to maintain human beings in the world not just as natural as the feet of the millipede? Does not the mechanical mind also get its motivation from the Heavenly mechanism? Again, the initial 124

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answer is yes the mechanical mind, in so far as it is a thing, gets its motivation from the Heavenly mechanism, or the Way. Graham correctly points out that according to Zhuangzi, “[i]n the last resort not only the spontaneous in man, but the deliberate actions for which he takes credit, derive from Heaven” (1981: 106). But just like the animal is not aware that the Way motivates its action, the mechanical mind is not aware that the Way motivates its deliberations. In fact, the mechanical mind is mechanical precisely because it does not have that awareness. We must distinguish between three different kinds of motivation in Zhuangzi. First, there is the thoroughly technical and mechanical motivation characteristic of the mechanical mind ( jixin). Zhuangzi likens this motivation to a crossbow trigger, from which value judgments issue and ensure human dominance of their world. This is the motivation behind Mohist disputation and Confucian sage-knowledge. Second, there is the inherent natural motivation of a natural being to maintain itself and express itself as the natural being it is. This is the motivation behind a millipede moving its legs and the swimming around of fish. These two kinds of motivation are essentially the same, for both affect things as things without any awareness of being engendered as things. Third, there is a motivation that springs neither from technical deliberation nor from a natural inclination but from the experience of being engendered by the life of Heaven. This motivation is transcendental in the sense that it does not spring from our natural being but from an awareness of the coming-into-being of this natural being. This is the motivation behind Zhuangzi’s wandering ( you) and his impromptu words about the joy of fish, and perhaps I may remark in passing that the best answer to Hui Shi’s skeptical question – “you are not a fish; how do you know the joy of fish?” – really is this: “it is precisely because I am not a fish (a thing) that I can know the joy of fish.” Lee H. Yearley (1996: 153 –5) identifies three “drives” in Zhuangzi: (i) dispositional drives where certain stimuli in our biological nature or social word trigger a specific response; (ii) reflective drives that reflect on and transform dispositional drives; and (iii) transcendental drives that come into play when the self has been fundamentally transformed by reflective drives. I agree with Yearley that it is important to posit a transcendental drive as the highest motivating force in Zhuangzi, otherwise we will see Zhuangzi falling back on natural, instinctive drives. Yearley’s approach to Zhuangzi is, however, too Aristotelian. In Zhuangzi the transcendental drive – what I call the life engendered by Heaven – is not the result of human reflection transforming human dispositions. To be released into transcendental life is rather like an act of grace. It is, says the Zhuangzi, to be born again (gengsheng
) (19/5). We cannot give birth to ourselves – no matter how much we reflect. Our first birth was into human life; our second birth will be into the life of Heaven.

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8 SPIRITUAL EXERCISE

True philosophy consists in relearning to look at the world. Maurice Merleau-Ponty With the clarity of morning light he could see the unique. Zhuangzi

Loss of self “On the Equality of Things,” Zhuangzi’s most brilliant essay, opens with a parody of the classical Chinese scene of instruction, as it is paradigmatically exemplified in the exchanges between Confucius and his disciples. These exchanges take place in an atmosphere that is often intimate and at times full of humor (Harbsmeier 1990), but the Master (Confucius) and the disciple always maintain their proper postures and their relative positions, for these are the conditions that ensure that the word of the Master can be passed on to the disciple. When it is said in the Lunyu that one should not sit on a mat that is not straight (Lunyu 10.12), then that is not just a minor point of etiquette, for proper posture and position were part of that particular stylization of the self that was the very foundation for the truth of Confucian discourse. Therefore, when Zhuangzi has Master Ziqi from the south wall
 ! “sitting leaning on his armrest, looking up at the sky, slowly exhaling – falling apart as if he has lost the counterpart of himself,” then this amounts to the total collapse of the conditions which made meaningful discourse possible in the traditional scene of instruction. The disciple, however, maintains his posture and position, he “stands in attention before the Master” and asks: What is this!? Can the body really become like withered wood, and can the mind really become like dead ashes? The one who is leaning on the armrest now is not the one who was leaning on the armrest before. (2/1–2) 126

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By using the particle ju
in his question “what is this!?” (hejuhu
 ), the disciple reveals the location of the scene of instruction, for this particle is peculiar to the areas of Qi
and Lu
, the heartland of Confucian learning (Wang 1988: 42). It is, then, the whole Confucian project of learning aimed at completion (cheng) that Zhuangzi ridicules. Zhuangzi’s humorous and intimate description of the Confucian scene of instruction (even as he has it fall apart), and his generally equally tender portrayals of Confucius (even as he shows him to be crude), suggests that Zhuangzi had a certain nostalgia for early Confucian learning. Indeed, Guo Moruo (1954) thought that Zhuangzi may have been affiliated with the school of Confucius’ disciple Yan Hui, and Graham speculates that for Zhuangzi “Confucius was a father-figure whose blessing the rebellious son liked to imagine would have been granted in the end” (1981: 18). Nevertheless, as we have seen, for Zhuangzi Confucian learning is entirely inscribed in the realm of man (ren), and therefore it neglects the experience of Heaven (tian); it aims at completion (cheng) and therefore it fails to nurture life (sheng). Because he saw these limitations in Confucian learning Zhuangzi has the traditional scene of instruction fall apart, and he transforms Master Ziqi into a mouthpiece for his own teaching. To the disciple’s question, if the Master, after he has fallen apart, is the same person as before, the Master answers: It is sure good that you ask, Yan! Just now I lost my self. Did you know that? You may hear the pipes of man but not yet the pipes of the Earth; or you may hear the pipes of the Earth but not yet the pipes of Heaven. (2/3–4) The pipes of man (renlai
) refer to the various forms of learning in the realm of man (ren): Confucian, Mohist, and so on. For Zhuangzi the transition from hearing the pipes of man to hearing the pipes of Earth and Heaven requires the loss of self. Zhuangzi says that the perfected person has no self ( ji
) (1/21–2), and Master Ziqi says he has lost his self (wo
). Kuang-ming Wu points out that in the Zhuangzi the wo “quite consistently means objectifiable self,” or “the self identifiable as a particular something,” the self as “completion-formation” (cheng), and the self that “originates division,” in particular the division between self and other (1990: 155, 185). Master Ziqi has not only lost his self (wo), he has also lost his counterpart (ou
). “Counterpart” is Graham’s translation of ou (Mair translates “soul”; Watson has “companion”). The word ou, written slightly differently, occurs again later in the chapter, where it is said that “when neither ‘that other’ (bi) nor ‘this here’ (shi) attains their ou, it is called the pivot of the Way” (2/30–1). In this case clearly “counterpart” is a good rendering of ou (Mair and Watson both translate “opposites”), for “this” is the counterpart of 127

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“that” and visa versa. Still, we can understand ou as “counterpart” in two ways: either as the counterpart, or the other (bi), of the self (the ji or the wo) – Zhuangzi says that “if there is no other, there is no self ” (2/14) – or as the inauthentic counterpart to authentic being. In the second case, the ou comprises both the self (the ji or the wo) and its other (bi), for this dichotomy constitutes inauthentic being. Authentic being, on the other hand, has no other, for it is totally Other – like a bell that only rings when it is struck, or a hollow tree that only sounds when the wind blows through it. At any rate, whether the counterpart (ou) refers to the other of the objectified self (the ji or the wo) or to the other of authentic being, the result of the loss of the “counterpart” remains the same. For since the objectified self is constituted by the self–other split, it follows that when you lose the other (bi) you also lose the objectified self ( ji or wo), and so the whole construct that forms the counterpart to authentic being. The decisive point is that the counterpart (ou) is our being in so far as it is inscribed in the social and symbolic order. Wu suggests that the ou is “the [authentic] self’s counterpart that is recognizable, identifiable, and objectifiable as ‘self’ (in one’s self-consciousness), or recognizable (by others) as an identity or even an object” (1990: 155). Wu adds that a name may be such an objectified counterpart to the authentic self. The name “Hui”
functions exactly in this way in the dialogue where Confucius suggests to Yan Hui that he tries the exercise of “fasting of heart and mind.” After the spiritual exercise Yan Hui reports that there is no longer any “Hui,” that is to say, he no longer identifies with his objectified, nameable self (4/28–9). We may conclude, then, that the ou and the ji, or the wo, are overlapping terms, with the term ou having the broader scope. When Zhuangzi says that the perfected person has no self ( ji) and no name (1/21–2), this means that the perfected person has transcended the self (the wo or the ji) as an entity constituted by its opposition to an other (bi) and inscribed in the outer (wai) realm of man (ren) as a name. The loss of this whole construct is the loss of the “counterpart” (ou). Lacan’s distinction between ego (moi) and subject (sujet) is suggestive in explicating Zhuangzi at this point. According to Lacan (2006), the ego is formed by a process of identification in the “mirror stage,” where the infant sees its own specular image and identifies with this image, because the image is whole, whereas the infant’s own sense of its uncoordinated body is fragmented. This primary identification with the counterpart gestalt forms the ego. For Lacan, then, the ego is not the center of the subject, it is rather an object and, furthermore, it is a product of misunderstanding (méconnaissance); for it is by identifying with its counterpart that the subject becomes alienated from itself. Lacan goes as far as saying that the ego “is structured exactly like a symptom. At the heart of the subject, it is only a privileged symptom, the human symptom par excellence, the mental illness of man” (1991: 16). The subject (sujet), on the other hand, is the subject of the 128

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unconscious; it is that dimension of a human being that cannot be objectified, it is “what in the development of objectivation, is outside the object” (Lacan 1991: 194). According to Lacan, psychoanalytic treatment has the aim of breaking the identification with the ego and letting the subject emerge. Zhuangzi would agree with Lacan that the ego (the objectified self, the ji or the wo) is a kind of mental illness, and Zhuangzi has his own therapies such as the “fasting of the heart and mind” (xinzhai) and “sitting in forgetfulness” (zuowang
), which withdraw cathexis from the objectified self and so make possible the emergence of the real self, or that dimension of existence that cannot be objectified as an identifiable, nameable thing but is the spontaneous force of the Other of the realm of man (ren), namely Heaven (tian). Furthermore, we find in Zhuangzi something like Lacan’s view that the ego is formed through identification with the counterpart as total Gestalt. For the word ou, “counterpart,” can be read as shen
, “body,” or “oneself (in person),” that is to say, the personal representative of authentic being in the outer (wai) world, the part of the self that can be perceived by others (or perceived by oneself in the mirror). Zhuangzi saw in the Confucian’s identification with this completed form in the outside (wai) the origin of the objectified self as counterpart (the wo, the ji, or the ou), and Zhuangzi’s praise of mutilated persons and his valuation of the incomplete over the complete are aimed at undermining this identification with the whole body (shen), or the objectified self inscribed in the realm of man (ren). When the objectified self formed through learning and self-fashioning is lost, then the pipes of the Earth (dilai
) are heard, and the true ground of human existence is revealed. Master Ziqi gives a rhapsodic description of this experience: When the Great Clod [the Earth] exhales, it is called the wind. But this is only when nothing arises. When it arises then ten thousand hollows howl furiously – haven’t you heard their howling? The ragged crags of mountain forests, the hollows and holes of big trees a hundred span around are like noses, like mouths and ears, like basins and bowls, like mortars and pools, like puddles. There is a splashing a hissing, a sniffing and a sucking, a screeching and a moaning, a whistling and a wailing. Those ahead sing out aiee, those that follow sing out wouu. In a light breeze there is a small ensemble, in a whirlwind there is the great ensemble. When the fierce gale has died down, then all the hollows are empty. – Have you not seen them swaying and creaking? (2/4–8) This music of the Earth is precisely what is neglected in the music and rituals of the Confucians: the jade bells and drums in the “ensemble of great completions” Mencius ascribes to Confucius. According to Zhuangzi, 129

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authentic existence is not such an outer completion (cheng) but pure coming-into-being, or life (sheng) itself. In Zhuangzi the sounds of nature – a nature with noses, mouths, and ears, for the wind blows equally through the human form – the howling and wailing, the aiee and the wouu, are the only way authentic being can articulate itself without objectifying itself in a self ( ji) or counterpart (ou). For as the wind blows nothing is formed and completed, the discourse has no identifiable, nameable content and the subject remains empty and hollow. And yet, from this void emerges a fuller sense of being: when the self that is only itself by virtue of the other falls away, a sense of autonomy and uniqueness dawns. After the pipes of the Earth we hear the pipes of Heaven (tianlai
), which “blow at all things in different ways” and so “make each be itself,” each phenomenon “chooses for itself,” there is no “agitator” (2/8–9). Or, as Mair translates: “the myriad sounds produced by the blowing of the wind are different, yet all it does is elicit the natural propensities of the hollows themselves. What need is there for something else to stimulate them?” (1994: 12). Paradoxically, authentic being is wholly a response to the Other (the wind) and at the same time its own unique articulation. This is the uniqueness (du) engendered by Heaven. “When Heaven engenders something,” says Zhuangzi, “it makes it unique (du)” (3/13). This uniqueness of each phenomenon generated by Heaven (tian) dawns only after all things are equalized (qi) by the pipes of the Earth. When man-made distinctions, the pipes of man, are equalized by the pipes of the Earth, then the world is seen afresh: beyond difference each thing shines forth in its uniqueness as it is engendered by Heaven.

Emotions are like music from empty spaces When the self is well lost the spontaneous self-articulation of the world appears, and we realize that our moods and emotions arise and change spontaneously just like self-emerging life (sheng) itself. Zhuangzi writes: Pleasure and anger, sorrow and happiness, worries and sighs, vacillation, sluggishness, frivolity, indulgence – they are like music that comes from empty spaces, like mushrooms that form from vapor. Day and night they alternate before us, and nobody knows from where they sprout. (2/13–14) The self-emergence of moods and emotions is part of the pure appearance (chu) of phenomena engendered by Heaven. Indeed, our very self (wo or ji) that depends for its existence on the other (bi) is part of the same unfolding of phenomena and ultimately caused by the True Ruler (zhenjun
), another name for Heaven or the Way. Zhuangzi says: 130

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If there is no other (bi), there is no self (wo); if there is no self there is no other to be had. Surely this is quite true, and yet I do not know what acts as a cause for it [the self constituted as self/other]. It seems that there is a True Ruler but we just do not see its trace. That it can set [the self] in motion is certain, but we do not see its form. It has reality (qing) but no form (xing). (2/14–16) What is this reality (qing
) that Zhuangzi ascribes to the True Ruler? In general usage, says Graham, the qing of something “is what confronts us as fact, irrespective of how we name, describe, or try to alter or disguise it” (1989: 99). In this sense qing means “reality” or “the facts” in contrast to names or reputation (ming) (which may not correspond to the facts); qing is the true or genuine (zhen
) in contrast to false or artificial (wei
). As a technical term, says Graham, qing refers to the essential definition of a thing, and Graham suggest that in technical usage qing is equivalent to “essence,” although, unlike in Aristotle, the essence defined “relates to naming, not to being” (1990b: 63). Zhuangzi sometimes use the word qing in the technical sense to indicate the essence of something. For instance, Zhuangzi says that it is better to be without the essence (qing) of a human being, or without that which essentially defines human beings, namely evaluative judgments and likes and dislikes (5/55–60). But when Zhuangzi uses qing to describe Heaven, the Way, and the True Ruler, then he uses the word in what Graham calls its general usage and not in the technical sense. For Zhuangzi, Heaven, the Way, and the True Ruler have no definable essence, but the experience of being engendered by Heaven and the Way is precisely the experience of reality (qing) that “confronts us as a fact” regardless of how we name or describe it. For Zhuangzi the experience of the reality (qing) of the Way is genuine and true (zhen) precisely because it is not a nameable form (xing) (6/29). If we recall the moment Zhuangzi and Hui Shi wander across the Hao river, then we may say that this moment has reality (qing). For here the world appears to Zhuangzi as it is in itself, that is to say, as pure selfemerging appearance. As explained above, Zhuangzi’s impromptu words do not describe this reality, they announce and acknowledge it. With his skeptical remarks, Hui Shi tries to describe the situation, but like the Mohist logicians, whose test of knowledge (zhi) is to see if one can describe (mao
) the thing after one has passed beyond (guo
) the facticity of the appearance of the thing – “having passed the thing one is able to describe it” (Graham 1978: 267) – Hui Shi passes over the reality (qing) of the situation in order to describe it. The reality (qing) of the moment of wandering above the Hao river is characterized by its facticity, but it also has emotional content. The emotion associated with the experience of the real (qing), the fact that we are 131

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

engendered by Heaven, is not desire ( yu) but heavenly joy (tianle). This joy may be called an objective emotion as opposed to the subjective emotions, the desires ( yu), which draw us away precisely from the real (qing). The Zhuangzi advises that we neither indulge in nor repress our desires, likes, and dislikes (24/2–3), but let them unfold naturally like music. In this way the egoistic emotions of man (ren) will be transformed into the joy of being engendered by Heaven.

Techniques of inner training Zhuangzi’s essay “On the Equality of Things” does not present us with a theory of equalizing (qi), it is rather itself, as discourse, a spiritual exercise in equalizing things. Meditating on death Zhuangzi says, How do I know that to find pleasure in life is not a delusion? How do I know that when we abhor death we are not like those who lost their way when young and do not know how to return home? Pretty Li was the daughter of the border guard of Ai. When the state of Jin first got her, her tears wet her dress. But when she came to the palace, shared the king’s bed, and ate the meats of grain-fed animals, then she regretted her tears. How do I know that the dead do not regret that they ever prayed for life? (2/79–81) This may seem a hard teaching, perhaps too hard, even for those who accept it as wisdom, and Zhuangzi may seem to be overly pessimistic. But the passage does not simply express Zhuangzi’s state of mind or his philosophy of life. It shows, rather, Zhuangzi engaged in spiritual exercise that aims at recapturing the heavenly joy that is lost as we cling to our human life and live only by resisting death. In a celebrated passage Zhuangzi dreams that he is a butterfly, and when he wakes up, he does not know if he is Zhuangzi dreaming he is a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming it is Zhuangzi (2/94–6). A little earlier in the same essay Zhuangzi has an equally magnificent meditation on the dream-like quality of life. Who banquets in a dream weeps in the morning; who weeps in a dream goes hunting at dawn. At the moment we dream, we do not know it is a dream. In the midst of a dream we may even interpret a dream. Only after we wake up do we know it is a dream. And only after the great awakening do we know that this is a great dream. Yet fools think they are awake and self-assured assume they know: that’s a ruler, that’s a shepherd. How secure they are! (2/81–3) 132

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These passages on dreams do not address epistemological questions of relativism and the difference between dream and reality. Robert Allinson’s philosophical analysis (1989) of Zhuangzi in terms of various notions of relativism, even as he tries to clarify the transformative impact of Zhuangzi’s text, misses the much simpler but decisive point of the dream passages. The dream passages are spiritual exercises designed to release us from our attachment to the world of our own making where we confidently pronounce: “That’s a ruler! That’s a shepherd!” The passages on dreams are not theoretical propositions but practical exercises meant to unravel ( jie) our reality. Pierre Hadot points out that texts of ancient philosophy are often spiritual exercises and do not directly reflect the personal views of the author. For instance, passages that at first seem to be an expression of gloomy pessimism may in fact be attempts “to dispel the false conventional judgments of value that people express concerning objects” and to render us “indifferent before indifferent things.” Hadot explains: No longer to make differences is therefore, first of all, to renounce attributing to certain things a false value, measured only according to human scale. This is the meaning of the apparently pessimistic declarations. But to no longer make differences is to discover that all things, even those which seem disgusting to us, have an equal value if one measures them according to the scale of universal Nature, that is, looks at things with the same vision that Nature looks at them . . . This inner attitude by which the soul does not make differences, but remains indifferent before things, corresponds to magnanimity of the soul [grandeur d’âme]. (Davidson 1995: 14–15) This is also a perfect description of Zhuangzi’s exercise of “equalizing things” (qiwu
), which equalizes some of our most fundamental distinctions – such as life/death, awake/dreaming – and in doing so opens up the experience of being engendered by Heaven. Similarly, as we have seen, Zhuangzi’s bungled discourse is a spiritual exercise that equalizes oppositions and prejudices in disputation and opens up the view of luminosity (ming), and Zhuangzi’s impromptu words are also discourse as spiritual exercise, namely, as explained above, the exercise in saying the unsayable. Zhuangzi’s spiritual exercises include care for life ( yangsheng), wandering ( you), fasting of the heart and mind (xinchai), and sitting in forgetfulness (zuowang). The Zhuangzi also mentions exercises that were part of contemporary inner training (neiye), such as guarding one’s unity (shouqiyi
 ) (11/39) and nourishing one’s vital breath ( yang qiqi
 ) (19/11), and the question arises how Zhuangzi views techniques of inner training. 133

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Harold D. Roth argues that Zhuangzi is part of a tradition of “Daoists” who “followed a regimen of inner cultivation first enunciated in Inward Training” (1999: 174). As a literary genre, however, the Neiye text is radically different from the Zhuangzi. The Neiye is a series of rhymed verses, with lines of mostly four characters. In other words, it is a very restricted literary form designed to help memorize technical knowledge. The Zhuangzi is so different from the Neiye in style that there is no doubt that here we have a different kind of text altogether – and the difference is not just stylistic. Russell Kirkland (2004: 47–8) points out that unlike the Zhuangzi the Neiye is focused on specific physiological or “biospiritual” practices by which one can appropriate the dao (the Way), which is here understood as a “force”. As a technical manual the Neiye has a thoroughly technical comportment to things; it wants to control things for its own ends. In the Neiye, writes Michael Puett, “the goal of the superior man is to unify and control things (shiwu) and, indeed, to gain power over them” (2002: 126). Zhuangzi, for his part, wants to be liberated from things ( jieyuwu), and, significantly, nothing like Zhuangzi’s notion of wandering (you), Zhuangzi’s spiritual exercise par excellence, is to be found in the Neiye (Kirkland 1997: 82). Roth quotes the following passage from the Zhuangzi as an example of “inner cultivation techniques.” The character Wearcoat says to the character Gnaw Gap: You must align your body, Unify your vision, And the heavenly harmony will arrive. Gather in your knowledge, Unify your attention. And the numinous will enter its lodging place. The inner power will beautify you, And the way will reside in you. You will see things with the eyes of a newborn calf And will not seek out their precedents. (Roth 1999: 158) Roth comments that “[a]lthough this advice is written in verse of an irregular meter, nevertheless its wording is quite close to that of Inward Training.” This is correct, but the text continues: “Before Wearcoat had finished speaking, Gnaw Gap had already fallen fast asleep.” The names of these two characters, which I have taken from Mair’s translation (1994: 213), already suggest playful fiction and not dogmatic transmission of knowledge, and here the text explicitly mocks Wearcoat’s instructions on inner training. The passage concludes with Wearcoat expressing in song his approval of Gnaw Gap nodding off during instructions on inner training. Wearcoat sings: 134

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His form is like a withered carcass, His mind is like dead ashes; He verifies his real knowledge, But doesn’t insist on his own reasoning. Obscure and dim, In his mindlessness, you can’t consult with him. What kind of man is he? (Mair 1994: 214) This song is very different in tone and content from Wearcoat’s initial instruction, and it is much closer to the tone and content of the Zhuangzi. In particular, the song is entirely consistent with its immediate textual context. The chapter in which the exchange between Wearcoat and Gnaw Gap is found tells us that the Way cannot be attained through meditation, reflection, knowing, abiding, submission, or following, nor by any method whatsoever. In fact, the Way cannot be obtained or possessed at all (22/1–28). The way (dao) of the Confucians, on the other hand, can be attained through making (wei) and even artifice (wei). The way of Inner Training is also a way of doing and making (wei), in this regard no different from the way of the Confucians, and it is no coincidence that Mencius directly adopts parts of the technical vocabulary of the Neiye (Kirkland 2004: 42). Both the Confucian and the Neiye reduce the Way to a method, but for Zhuangzi this is the fateful fall into the technical. For Zhuangzi there is no way or method that leads to the Way. The core teaching of the Zhuangzi is supposed to reveal this fact and so initiate a conversion in our acting and saying from the technical to the non-technical. Many later Daoists, however, were dissatisfied with a teaching that gives them no-thing, no method, and no road to follow, and, therefore, it was not to the Zhuangzi but rather to the teachings of the Neiye that they looked for practical guidance (Kirkland 2004: 39, 44). Nevertheless, later Daoists did refer back to Zhuangzi as the source for many of their practices, and Isabelle Robinet argues that the teaching of Zhuangzi is not opposed to the practices of religious Daoism, even if Zhuangzi seems to reject inner training. Robinet addresses the central question as follows: There is another question on which at first sight the attitude of Zhuangzi and that of the Daoists seem to differ: is the state of notknowing or the ecstasy of the saint the result of practical exercises and effort, or are they something given naturally, a sudden and inexplicable act of grace? Is training necessary, or, on the contrary, is it necessary simply to abandon all effort? Moreover, if there are practical exercises, can they become objects of a transmissible teaching, as is the case with all the methods of the Daoists? (1983: 74) 135

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In the light of the present discussion, I would venture a clear-cut answer: for Zhuangzi knowledge of the Way is not transmissible, because only technical knowledge is transmissible, and the Way is precisely what surpasses technique. The shift from the technical to the non-technical happens in Zhuangzi’s bungled discourse, impromptu words, and wandering, and it is an act of grace in the sense that it happens suddenly and unexpectedly, without cause or effort. Robinet, however, has a more dialectical answer. She writes that the “mystical experience” of Zhuangzi is “the result of practicing the very exercises that he questions, that he sees it necessary to transcend.” Zhuangzi, says Robinet, “is both the glorious, jubilant advocate of the results of these practices and the voice constantly reminding Taoists [Daoists] that they must go beyond them.” For the later Daoists, Zhuangzi “represents the ‘rejection’, the ‘forgetting’ of these practices because he is the culmination that signals their abolition, and in that role he is always invoked by the masters as the one who justifies their practices by going beyond them” (Robinet 1997: 33). But this rather ambiguous praise overlooks the fact that all technique aims at completion, and for Zhuangzi all completion (cheng) is a melancholic fact – and melancholic precisely because it is factual – and for Zhuangzi, no doubt, nothing would be more sadly ironic than the accomplishments of the Masters of the Daoist Church. In regard to Zhuangzi’s attitude towards inner training, the decisive point is that in Zhuangzi the text itself is a spiritual exercise in which the merely technical is surpassed in the rhetorical dimension of the text. The Neiye, on the other hand, transmits information on inner training, but the text itself does not do any work. Zhuangzi’s discourse unravels the bondage of technique ( jixi), and Zhuangzi’s freedom is not the result of toiling in such bondage. A short chapter in the Zhuangzi, which consists of a single passage, first rebukes various ways of self-cultivation. As one would expect, it rejects the Confucian practice of humanness, righteousness, and ritual in the service of the state, but it also distances itself from forms of self-cultivation that we may call Daoist, such as the practice of withdrawing from society and going into nature in order to practice non-action (wuwei), breathing exercises, and various other forms of psycho-physical exercises (15/1–6). Instead of these forms of self-cultivation, the passage proposes that we rest (xiuxiu

) in a state of natural tranquility and clarity that matches Heaven’s integrity. The symbol for this kind of rest is water that is naturally placid when not disturbed (15/9–17). The sage is in this state of rest, which does not mean that he does not move at all, but that his every movement is generated by Heaven: “The life of the sage is the movement of Heaven” (15/10), and “when [the sage] moves he is moved by Heaven” (15/18). In other words, we can rest in natural simplicity, in a released detachment from the realm of man (ren), and experience ourselves as engendered by Heaven. This experience, says the Zhuangzi, may be named “to be with god” (tongdi
) 136

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(15/19). No technique, either inner or outer, can bring us to this state of being.

Completion without lament Zhuangzi tells a story of Liezi
, who becomes completely intoxicated when he sees a shaman, who knows if people will live or die, have misfortune or good fortune, long life or short life – he can predict the year, month, week, and day (7/16). For Zhuangzi the shaman’s calculating knowledge is just another technique, another means to gain control over life in its totality and complete (cheng) it according to the perspective of man (ren). In this regard there is no difference between the predictive knowledge of the shaman, the sage-knowledge and methods of the Confucians, the argumentation of the Mohist logicians, and the techniques of the heart-and-mind of contemporary inner training. They are all driven by a desire for achievement and completion, and therefore they miss the sense of the life engendered by Heaven. Liezi is eventually brought back from his intoxication with technique and completion, and in this sober mood he returns home. For three years he did not go out. He cooked for his wife and fed the pigs as if he were feeding people. In carrying out his tasks he was not on intimate terms with anyone. From the carved and polished [the refined culture of completion] he returned to the uncarved block. Unique, like a clod in his shape, he took his stand. Sealed off from confusion, unified to the end of his life. (7/30–1) Liezi now lives the life that Zhuangzi defended, but which the various Master-philosophers saw as deficient and in need of completion: the Confucians wanted to order it with ritual, the Mohists wanted to render it logically consistent, the Legalists wanted to regulate it with rewards and punishments, the Neiye wanted to control it through biospiritual techniques. Zhuangzi leads us out of our intoxication with planning and ordering the world and back to everyday life in the kitchen and among the pigs. Liezi goes about his tasks without a desire for completion (cheng) but inwardly unified in the Way. Here a sense of the unique (du) is regained. For Liezi has withdrawn from the outer (wai) world with its network of relations, where each thing has no value in itself but only in relation to something else: human being in relation to animal, noble in relation to base, relatives in contrast with strangers, man in contrast with woman, “I” as opposed to “other.” Liezi has equalized things and released things from the structures of differences by which man (ren) imposes his perspective on the world. And so each thing, including Liezi himself, attains that unique (du) 137

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being that is engendered by Heaven but denied in the intimacy of the network of human relations emphasized by the Confucians. Pierre Hadot en passant compares Zhuangzi’s description of the way of life of Liezi with the indifference characteristic of Pyrrho. For like Liezi, Pyrrho is said to have “lived piously with his sister, who was a midwife. Sometimes he went to the market to sell chicken or pigs. He did housekeeping with indifference, and it is said he bathed a pig with indifference, too” (Hadot 2002: 112). Apart from the striking similarity of these descriptions, Zhuangzi and Pyrrho are also comparable in other ways. Neither of them proposed a theory of indifference, but both used indifference as a spiritual exercise. Both Zhuangzi and Pyrrho overcame the word-play of the Sophists. It was said of Pyrrho that he “escaped from the servitude of the sophists” and lost the “bonds of trickery and specious craft” (Diogenes Laertius 1925: 479), and Zhuangzi, for his part, avoided the “bondage of technique.” Pyrrho held that the ethical life is incompatible with involvement in politics, “because he had heard an Indian reproach Anaxarchus, telling him that he would never be able to teach others what is good while he himself danced attendance on kings in their courts” (Diogenes Laertius 1925: 477). In his critique of the Confucians Zhuangzi makes a similar point. What then is left after we have relinquished our sophistry and moralism, and after we have equalized things and transcended the drive towards completion? Only life. Pyrrho was fond of citing Homer’s line “As leaves on trees, such is the life of man.” Zhuangzi, for his part, says that when we live engendered by Heaven, the life beyond living and dying, then “there is nothing you would not take leave of, nothing you would not welcome, nothing you would not destroy, nothing you would not complete (cheng).” Zhuangzi names this “calm chaos” (yingning
) and explains that it is the calm that is completed (cheng) only through chaos (6/42–3). In other words, it is not a calm imposed on chaos, but rather the calm inherent in chaos (life) itself, and therefore a completion beyond the drive towards completion. In this completion beyond the drive for completion we will, says Zhuangzi, attain the clarity of morning light (Mair 1994: 57), and then we will be able to see the unique ( jiandu
) (6/40–1). This view of the unique is Zhuangzi’s true legacy to the Chinese tradition and to the world at large.

To see the unique Chan
Buddhism owes much to Zhuangzi, but before the Chinese could fully draw on Zhuangzi’s view of the unique to develop their understanding of the Mahayana, they first had to transform Indian Buddhist metaphysics. Huayan
 Buddhism completed the Sinification of Indian Buddhist metaphysics. The Huayan masters used the Chinese distinction between principle (li
) and phenomena (shi
) to describe the ontological difference drawn in Buddhist metaphysics between true suchness (zhenru
), or the 138

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Buddha nature, and the relative, or empty (kong
), interdependent existence of all phenomena. The Huayan school thematizes this ontological difference between principle and phenomena in terms of four dharma realms ( fajie
): the realm of phenomena (shi
); the realm of principle (li
); the realm of non-obstruction of principle and phenomena; and the realm of non-obstruction of phenomenon and phenomenon (Chengguan 672c12–13). The first three realms elaborate the ontological difference in traditional Mahayana Buddhist terms, but the fourth realm is the creation of the Huayan school. Here the Buddhist ontological difference is transformed: phenomena are no longer appropriated by principle (emptiness/true suchness) but selfemerge spontaneously. In the fourth realm of non-obstruction between phenomenon and phenomenon (shishi wuai

 ) the traditional Buddhist notion of causation is transformed. The concept of conditioned co-arising, as expressed in the twelve-linked chain of dependent origination, where distinct lines of cause and result are isolated, gives way to the Huayan notions of dharma realm causation ( fajie yuanqi
 !) and nature origination (xingqi
). Phenomena now flower spontaneously, expressing their “true thusness” without cause as pure self-emergence: there is “an abundant flourishing of the ten thousand appearances,” and the phenomenal world displays its wondrous existence (miaoyou
). The Huayan Master Fazang
 (643–712) uses the metaphor of a house to explain “causation” in this realm of non-obstruction between phenomena. Fazang’s point is that no phenomenon has full and “wondrous” existence as long as it is defined by its difference to other phenomena (e.g. the beam is not a plank). In so far as they are constituted by their difference all phenomena are empty (kong) – they are different and precisely therefore the same. Only when the phenomenon is seen beyond difference (and so beyond sameness) is it properly itself: only if the beam is not a beam, as distinct from the plank, is it uniquely a beam (Fazang 508a5–26). This thought is easily comparable to Zhuangzi’s central thought, that the unique life engendered by Heaven (the pipes of Heaven) emerges beyond difference (the pipes of man) and sameness (the pipes of Earth). Where the Huayan speaks of the “abundant flourishing” in the realm of non-obstruction between phenomena, the Zhuangzi says that in the Way “the myriad things cannot help but flourish” (22/33). Both the Huayan and the Zhuangzi point to the cognition of the ceaseless self-emergence of unique beings beyond difference and sameness. It is difficult to translate Zhuangzi’s notion of the unique into the metaphysical (philosophical) tradition of the West without doing violence to our most fundamental concepts. A case in point is Giorgio Agamben, who at the limit of Western metaphysics wrests a new meaning from the transcendentals of scholastic philosophy: quodlibet ens est unum, verum, bonum seu perfectum, “whatever entity is one, true, good, or perfect.” According to 139

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT

Agamben, what is unthought in this traditional enumeration is the adjective quodlibet (whatever). It is true, says Agamben, that this quodlibet is correctly understood as “it does not matter which, indifferently,” but literally quodlibet ens means “being such that it always matters,” for the Latin libet indicates a relation to the will and to desire (1993: 1). In other words, the “whatever” is indifferent to differences and precisely therefore uniquely desirable. In placing together Agamben’s reading of the quodlibet (whatever), the Huayan notion of non-obstruction between phenomenon and phenomenon, and Zhuangzi’s notion of seeing the unique ( jiandu), we see a certain family resemblance between these formulations of the notion of the unique. First, the unique emerges beyond sameness and difference, it is indifferent in regard to differences but irreducible itself. Precisely because it is indifferent to difference, the unique phenomenon can freely display its qualities. In the Huayan school phenomena display their “wondrous existence”; Agamben’s “whatever” is “the thing with all its properties, none of which, however, constitutes difference” (Agamben 1993: 19); and in Zhuangzi, the pipes of Heaven makes each thing be itself and articulate itself fully as it is, and so “the myriad things cannot help but flourish.” Second, the relationship between unique things as they arise according to their own manner is one of ease. Agamben says that the “unrepresentable space” of “the coming to itself of each singularity” is a space of “ease” (1993: 25). In Zhuangzi this space of ease is the space of wandering ( you), and in the Huayan, this sense of ontological ease is found in the realm of non-obstruction (wuai
) between phenomenon and phenomenon. Third, the unique is accompanied by a sense of total exposure. The being that emerges engendered from its own manner has no man-made shelters, and uniqueness is unthinkable apart from this fundamental vulnerability. Agamben calls this utter exposure of the unique the “irreparable”: Irreparable means that these things are consigned without remedy to their being-thus, that they are precisely and only their thus . . . but irreparable also means that for them there is literally no shelter possible, that in their being-thus they are absolutely exposed, absolutely abandoned. (1993: 38) In Zhuangzi this irreparable character of the unique is represented by mutilated persons: injured and rejected by the realm of man (ren), they are exposed to Heaven. (The sense of exposure is hardly found in the Huayan, which after all remains a philosophy of totality.) The fourth characteristic of the unique is the light that accompanies its rising forth. Agamben uses the halo to explain “the becoming singular of that which is perfect”: “The halo is this supplement added to perfection – something like the vibration of that which is perfect, the glow at its edges.” 140

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The “whatever” as the pure “being-thus” is the state of perfection, but a perfection that contains a tiny displacement (as if the “thus” never quite coincides with itself ). The halo is the “imperceptible trembling of the finite that makes its limits indeterminate and allows it to blend, to make itself whatever” (Agamben 1993: 55–6). In the Huayan, when phenonena blend with ease (rong
) in the realm of non-obstruction of phenomena they glow (another connotation of rong) as each shines forth in its own unique being (Dushun 654a25–7). Zhuangzi has his luminosity (ming), and yet he knows that luminosity is born from darkness (zhaozhao sheng yu mingming


 ) (22/30). Zhuangzi says that the Way that cannot be walked upon (budao zhidao
 ) is only seen in a shaded light (baoguan
) (2/62), which, in the light of the present interpretation of Zhuangzi, is the light that issues from the very split between light and darkness.

141

GLOSSARY

GLOSSARY

Terms and expressions bao
repay, retribution baoguang
 shaded light baoshen
 preserve the body bi
necessary bi
that, that other bian
distinguish bian
dispute, disputation bianzhe
 disputer biedao
 separate ways (of argumentation) budao zhidao
  the Way that cannot be walked upon budeyi
 inevitable buji zhi ji, ji zhi bujizhe ye
 ,

!" the bordering of the unbordered is the unbordering of the bordered buke
 unallowable, deny buzhi
 not know, not to understand cheng
complete, completion cheng huming
 come to completion in what is destined chengxin
 completed mind, prejudice chengyan
 completed, conclusive or valid discourse chu
come forth, appear chuju
 emit references ci
this here dao
the Way de
get deyi
 get the intended meaning di zhi xuanjie
 ! the unbinding of the gods dilai
 pipes of the earth ding
fixed, settled du
unique fajie yuanqi
 ! dharma realm causation fang
just now, just when, method 142

GLOSSARY

fang
relative fang zhiwai
 outside the square fangke fangbuke, fangbuke fangke

,

just now it is affirmed, just now it is denied; just now it is denied, just now it is affirmed fangsheng
 born together fangsheng fangsi, fangsi fangsheng

,

just now it is born, just now it dies; just now it dies, just now it is born fei
wrong gengsheng
 born again gong
accomplishments gong
skilled gu
the native guo
pass beyond guran
 inherently so he
harmonize hejuhu
 what is this!? hua
transformation ji
self ji
skill, technique jiandu
 see the unique jiao defang
 by interplay become relative jidacheng
 ensemble of great completions jie
connect with jie
unravel, unbind jie
model, measure jie yuwu
 liberated from things jinhuji
 go beyond skill jiren
 a misfit jixi
 the bondage of technique jixin
 mechanical mind ju
refer ke
allowable, affirm kong
empty le
joy lei
category, kind li
principle li
ritual liang
good liang juesheng
 the two sides break decisively liangxing
 to proceed at two levels at once lou
crude mao
describe miaoyou
 wondrous existence 143

GLOSSARY

ming
fate, the destined ming
luminosity ming
name, reputation moni yuxin
 ! there is no opposition (towards the other) in one’s heart mou
scheme nei
inner neiye
 inner training neng suobuneng

be able to do what one is not able to do ni
look awry ou
counterpart ou
counterpart pu
uncarved block pusan ze weiqi
 !" when the uncarved block is split up, it is made into vessels qi
equalize qi
vessel, tool qiao
skill qigong
 (system of breathing and physical exercises) qing
vital essence qing
essence, the real, reality qiwu
 equalize things quan
whole, complete, valid or true (argument) quanren
 complete human being quansheng
 complete our (human) life qun
form groups ran
it is so ren
humanity ren
human beings, man as opposed to Heaven ren qi xingming zhiqing
 !"# trust in the reality of one’s nature and destiny renlai
 pipes of man renzhisheng
 human life rong
blend (with ease), glow rushu

methods of the Confucians ruyu liaotian
 !" enter into unity with vast Heaven shen
body, oneself (in person) shen
spirit sheng
life, live, born sheng
win over, to conquer sheng zhi shizhe
 ! the timely one among the sages shengzhi
 sage-knowledge shi
moment, timely, timeliness shi
phenomena 144

GLOSSARY

shi
objects, concrete particulars shi
the potential of a situation shi
this, this here, right (as opposed to wrong) shilai
 just when he happened to come shiqu
 just when he happened to go shishi wuai

 non-obstruction between phenomenon and phenomenon shouqiyi
 guarding one’s unity shu
reciprocity shu
method, technique taijiquan
 (martial arts system) tian
Heaven tiandi
 heaven and earth tianersheng
 live engendered by Heaven tianji
 Heavenly mechanism tianjun
 the potter’s wheel of Heaven tianlai
 pipes of Heaven tianle
 heavenly joy tianli
 Heaven’s texture tianni
 the bounds of Heaven tianren
 people of Heaven tianxia
 below Heaven, the (human) world tianxing
 Heaven’s punishment tianzhisheng
 the life of Heaven tongdi
 be with god wai
outer wangyan
 forget language wei
artifice, false wei
make, act, do (for somebody) wei
designate weishi
 “This” which deems wo
self wu
self wu
thing wu
nothing, there is not wuai
 non-obstruction wuqiong
 infinite wusheng
 our (human) life wuwei
 non-action wuwu

to thing things wuwu

non-existence of nothing xiang fang
 mutually relative xiangwei yu wuxiangwei


 do for each other in not doing for each other 145

GLOSSARY

xiangzhi
 mutual recognition xin
heart-and-mind xing
form xing
human nature, nature xing
proceed xingqi
 nature origination xinzhai
 fasting of the heart-and-mind xiongqi
 evil tool xiuxiu

rest yan
saying, language yang qiqi
 nourish one’s vital breath yangsheng
 care for life, nourish life yangxing
 care for one’s form yi
intention, intended meaning yi
right, righteousness yin
follow, criterion ying
respond yingning
 calm chaos yinshi
 accept “this” for what it is yinziran
 follow the spontaneously self-so yisheng
 add to life yishi
 shifting signifiers you
concern you
friend, friendship you
there is (something) you
wander you youse
 have a concerned look you yuwu
 be confined by things yu
desire yunzhe

(quotation marker) yuyan
 metaphors zaohuazhe
 Creator of Transformations zaowuzhe
 Creator of Things zhaozhao sheng yu mingming

 !! luminosity is born from darkness zhaozhi yutian
 ! illuminate things in the light of Heaven zhen
true, genuine zheng
struggle, quarrel zhengming
 rectify names zhenjun
 True Ruler zhenru
 true suchness zhi
substance, hostage zhi
point out, the pointed out

146

GLOSSARY

zhi
know, understand, recognize zhiyan
 impromptu words zhiyin
 fix the criterion zhongyan
 quotations zhuo
clumsiness ziran
 spontaneously self-so zijie
 unbind oneself zuowang
 sit in forgetfulness

Names Archer Yi
Chan
Cheng Xuanying
 Confucius
 Cook Ding
 Daozang
 Fazang
 Gaozi
 Gongsun Long
 Guo Xiang
 Hanfeizi
 Huayan
 Hui Shi
 Laozi
 Liezi
 Lu
Madman of Chu
 Mencius
 Mozi
 Qi
Qin
Shun
Shushan the Toeless


Sima Qian
 Sunzi
 Xunzi
 Yan Hui
 Yang Zhu
 Yao
Yiliao from south of the market
 Yu
Zengzi


147

!

GLOSSARY

Zhu Xi
 Zhuangzi
 Zigong
 Ziqi from the south wall
 Zuo zhuan


!

148

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155

INDEX

INDEX

Buber, M. 12 bungled discourse 90, 93, 97–98, 100

accept “this” for what it is (yinshi) 82, 95 accomplishments (gong) 18, 52 act, make (wei) 16, 34, 52–55, 57, 123 add to life (yisheng) 15, 19, 39 Adorno, T. 106 Agamben, G. 72, 140, 141; on potentiality 53–56; on transcendence 24–25 Allinson, R. 133 Allison, H. E. 121 allowable (ke)/unallowable (buke) 111 Amalric of Bena 24 appear, come forth (chu) 15, 66, 83, 95, 130 appearance 10, 25–26, 89, 92, 95–96, 131 Archer Yi 58–59 Aristotle 28, 131; on language 71; on manual workers 44–45; on matter (hulB) 45; on potentiality 53; on practical reasoning 41; on technB 43 authentic action 50, 53–57, 64 authentic presence 60, 62, 89, 92 authentic saying 57, 72–73, 80, 93 Avicenna 53 Bataille, G. 60, 85 be with god (tongdi) 136 Benjamin, W. 76–77 Benveniste, É. 73 Billeter, J. F. 11, 13, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124; on experience of language 77; on Zhuangzi’s critique of power 115–117 blend, glow (rong) 141 born again (gengsheng) 125

calm chaos ( yingning) 138 care for life, nourish life ( yangsheng), 16, 47–52, 55, 56, 62, 64, 70, 133 care for one’s form ( yangxing) 48 category, kind (lei) 89, 94, 98 Celan, P. 82 Chan, Wing-tsit 105 Chan/Zen 79–80, 138 Chang, Tsung-tung 121 Chen, Guying 17, 22 Cheng, Xuanying 48, 70, 75 Cho, Kah Kyung 52–53 complete human being (quanren) 58–59 completion (cheng) 16; beyond drive for completion 138; compared with form (eidos) 43–46; complete in the destined (cheng huming) 62; completed discourse (chengyan) 16, 69, 83, 90, 92, 93; completed mind (chengxin) 70, 74; ensemble of great completions ( jidacheng) 63, 129; see also life (sheng) confined by things ( you yuwu) 18 Confucian 44, 70, 119, 137; body 111–112; concern ( you) 105–109, 113–114; discourse 67–69; golden rule 117–118; imaginary 31, 33, 44–46; regulatory intelligence 44; scene of instruction 126 Confucius 3, 31, 80; being crude (lou) 110, 119; on concern ( you) 106; Heaven’s condemned 119; and reciprocity (shu) 120; on ritual (li) 32–33; and swimmer 61–62; and

156

INDEX

technical action 32–33; as timely sage 38, 63–66 connect with ( jie) 27 Cook Ding 48–52, 55–56, 57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 75 counterpart (ou) 96, 127–130 Crandell, M. 62 Creator of Things (zaowuzhe) 26 Creator of Transformations (zaohuazhe) 26 Cua, A. 113–114 Daoism defined 4, and naturalism 124 Daozang 4 Davidson, A. 88 De Bary, Wm. T. 109 Derrida, J. 6, 10 designate (wei) 82, 89 desire ( yu) 39; and joy (le) 132 De Vries, H. 10 dharma realm ( fajie) 139; dharma realm causation ( fajie yuanqi) 139 disputation (bian) 37, 67, 69–71, 85–101, 103, 125 do what one is not able to do (neng suobuneng) 57 double question 71–72, 89 Duke Huan 75 efficacious action 40–42 emotions 130–132 empty (kong) 139 Eno, R. 105 equalize (qi) 80–81, 130, 132–133, 138 essence (qing) 19 ethics: and aesthetics 114; Christian 113, 116; ethical subject 120–124; Kantian 113; moral law 117–120; principles vs. situational perception 114; religious 106 Fairbank, J. K. 37 fasting of the heart-and-mind (xinzhai) 108, 128, 129, 133 fate, destiny (ming) 39, 61–62 Faure, B. 79–80 Fazang 139 Fingarette, H. 33 fish-trap 74–75 flexible response 40–41, 45–46 flow experience 52 follow ( yin) 94–95 forgetting language (wangyan) 74–75

form (xing) 18, 20, 131 Foucault, M. 106 friendship ( you) 119 Fukunaga Mitsuji 22 Gadamer, H.-G. 2, 6, 103–104 Gaozi 112 Gehlen, A. 30 Gongsun Long 97–101 good (liang) 58 Gould, G. 56 Graham, A. C. 4, 12, 16, 21, 22, 56, 60, 61, 62, 109, 114, 125, 127, 131; on Mohist canons 69–70, 73, 75; on Zhuangzi’s discourse 85–101, 104 Griffiths, P. J. 9–10 guarding one’s unity (shouqiyi) 133 Gu Mu 109 Guo Moruo 127 Guo Xiang 12, 48 Hadot, P. 17, 18, 21, 103, 138; on coherence of ancient texts 88; on dialogue in Plato 102; on gentleness towards others 116; on indifference 133; on joy 83; on seeing the world 14; on Socrates 100; on spiritual exercise 7–9, 133; on “stripping of man” 20 Hamacher, W. 29 Hanfeizi 37; Hanfeizi (the book) 4 Hansen, C. 87, 105–106 Harbsmeier, C. 24, 72, 98, 104 harmonize (he) 80 heart-and-mind (xin) 19, 33, 39 Heaven (tian) 20–21, 26, 28, 127, 129, 136; below Heaven (tianxia) 21; bounds of Heaven (tianni) 21, 79, 80; engenders the unique (du) 130; enter into unity with vast Heaven (ruyu liaotian yi) 21; heaven and earth (tiandi) 21; Heaven and man (ren) 57–61; Heavenly mechanism (tianji) 21, 122, 124–125; Heaven’s punishment (tianxing) 111; Heaven’s texture (tianli) 21, 50; illuminate things in the light of Heaven (zhaozhi yutian) 21; people of Heaven (tianren) 110; pipes of Heaven (tianlai) 130, 139; potter’s wheel of Heaven (tianjun) 21; and reality (qing) 131; see also life (sheng) Heidegger, M. 2–3, 10, 28, 43, 71

157

INDEX

Horkheimer, M. 106 Huayan 139–141 Hui Shi 19, 55, 95, 114, 125, 131; above Hao river 82–84; paradox 91–92 humans/animals 59–60, 124–125 Ikeda, Tomohisa 24 impromptu words (zhiyan) 16, 72, 75, 78, 80–84 in-between Heaven and man (ren) 57–61 inevitable (budeyi) 16, 19 infinite (wuqiong) 21 inherently so (guran) 50, 57, 61, 82, 95 inner (nei)/outer (wai) 20, 24, 27, 32, 49, 58, 110–111 inner training (neiye) 50, 132–137 intended meaning ( yi) 74–76 it is so (ran) 82 Izutsu, Toshihiko 22 Jonas, H. 35 joy (le) 72, 76, 83; and desire ( yu) 132; heavenly joy (tianle) 83, 132 Jullien, F. 12, 35, 37–38, 55, 63; on Chinese process philosophy 23–24; on Confucian discourse 67–68; on efficacious action 40–42; on time in China 64–65 just when ( fang) 15, 66, 92, 95, 100 Kant, I. 42, 113, 121; on freedom 123–124; on Gesinnung 121–122; on golden rule 117–118; on moral will 122–123 Kierkegaard, S. 12, 17 King, R. 2, Kirkland, R. 4, 134 Kohn, L. 22 Lacan, J. 128–129 language: exercise with 73, 95; experience of 7, 67, 76–77, 81, 88–89, 95; in itself 67, 70, 71, 76–80 Laozi 24, 80, 105, 111, 65–66; Laozi (the book) 4, 52, 53 Lau, D. C. 34, 118 Legalists 37–38, 109, 137 Leiris, M. 85 Levinas, E. 10 Lewis, M. E. 40 Li, Zehou 114

liberated from things ( jie yuwu) 11, 22, 134 Liezi, 137–138 life (sheng) 32, 39, 42, 56, 62, 90; against completion (cheng) 15–17, 31–32, 44, 47, 63, 64, 93, 109, 127, 130, 137; awareness of 62–63; complete our (human) life (quansheng) 48; engendered by Heaven (tianersheng) 15, 21, 84, 107, 113, 120, 125, 133, 136, 137, 138; of Heaven (tianzhisheng) 20–22, 48, 93, 120, 124, 125; human life (renzhisheng) 17–20, 22, 47–48, 50; logic of 89, 92, 104, 139; our life (wusheng) 48, 49; temporality of 63–66; transcendental 50, 52 Liu, Shaojin 75 looking awry (ni) 27 Lord Wenhui 49, 50, 51, 61, 62 luminosity (ming) 73, 89, 95–96, 98, 141 Madman of Chu 80 Mair, V. 21, 95 Marcus Aurelius 116 Master Kuang 55 mechanical mind ( jixin) 31, 60, 121, 122, 124–125 Mencius 58, 60, 120, 121, 135; on “body” of virtue 112; on concern ( you) 106–107; on human nature (xing) 33–34, 112; moral maxim 118; on technical action 33–34; on timely sage 63–65 metaphysical crisis 21, 60 metaphysics of action 39–42, 45–46 method (shu or fang) 16, 100 misfit ( jiren) 113 Mohist logicians 27, 89, 95, 104, 131, 137; canons 69; on criterion ( yin) 94, 97, 98; emitting references (chuju) 96; on the relative ( fang) 91; and Sophists 98; and Zhuangzi 85–86, 89, 91, 99; see also disputation (bian) Möller [Moeller], H.-G. 4, 70, 74 moralism 32, 108–114, 119, 121 Mozi 36; on fate (ming) 37; Mozi (the book) 4; on ritual (li) 36–37 mutilation 109–113, 115, 129, 140 mutual recognition (xiangzhi) 101–102 mutually relative (xiangfang) 91

158

INDEX

names (ming) 18, 52, 58, 131; and objects (shi) 52, 70, 74, 82 native (gu) 61–62 naturalism 124–125 nature ( phusis) 21; and form (eidos) 43–44 nature (xing) 39, 61–62 nature origination (xingqi) 139 Neiye 5, 137 Nicomachean Ethics 41 Nietzsche, F. 62, 106 non-action (wuwei) 16, 28, 51, 52, 55, 56, 120, 123, 136 non-existence of nothing (wuwu) 25 non-obstruction between phenomena (shishi wuai) 139 non-understanding (buzhi) 27–29 nourish one’s vital breath ( yang qiqi) 133 ontological difference 25–26, 52, 56–57 outside the square ( fang zhiwai) 119 Pang Pu 56 perfected human being: absolutely safe 78; clumsy (zhuo) 96; in-between Heaven and man (ren) 59–61, 120–122; as mutilated criminal 110 philosophy: Chinese 40–41; Chinese and Western compared 45–46; and manual labor 44–45; Western 5–9 pipes of the Earth (dilai) 129–130, 139 pipes of man (renlai) 127, 139 Plato 8, 9, 27, 41; on craft knowledge 43; on dialogue 102–103 point out (zhi) 98–99 potential of a situation (shi) 40–41 potentiality/actuality 52–57 prejudice (chengxin) 34 preserve the body (baoshen) 48 principle (li)/phenomena (shi) 139 proceed (xing) 34, 74, 94, 99; proceed at two levels at once (liangxing) 57 Puett, M. 134 Pyrrho 138 Quignard, P. 6 quotations (zhongyan) 80 real, reality (qing) 24, 113, 131–132, 75

religion, the religious 9–11 respond (ying) 42, 75, 96 Robinet, I. 22; on appearance 25–26; on coming-into-being 15; on Zhuangzi and later Daoists 135–136 Roetz, H. 37, 117–118 Rosenzweig, R. 16 Roth, H. D. 134–135 right (shi)/wrong ( fei) 19, 70, 89, 91, 95, 96, 101, 121 sage 19, 21, 40–41; and skill/clumsiness 58–59 sage-knowledge (shengzhi) 9, 45; an evil tool 108; motivation behind 125; technical 46 Santner, E. 3–4, 16–17 Saussy, H. 5, 6 saying ( yan): and disputation (bian) 70–71, 93, 96–97, 103–104; and non-saying 28, 56, 57, 81 scheme (mou) 27 Schlegel, F. 28, 100 Schwartz, B. 37 science (Wissenschaft) 1–3, 11 self ( ji or wo) 18, 74, 120; loss of 126–130; and other 90; and True Ruler (zhenjun) 130–131 Sextus Empiricus 72 shaded light (baoguan) 141 Shakespeare, W. 96–97 shifters 72–74, 90 Shirley, S. 97 Shun 106 Shushan the Toeless 110–111 Sima Qian 11, 81 sitting in forgetfulness (zuowang) 129, 133 skill ( ji, qiao, or gong) 16, 49, 55, 64; and clumsiness (zhuo) 57–59 Sloterdijk, P. 1, 45 Smith, J. Z. 9 Socrates 11, 100; and Zhuangzi 101–104 Sophists 91, 94, 95, 97–101, 138 spirit (shen) 20, 62 spontaneously self-so (ziran) 15, 50, 60, 82; follow the spontaneously self-so ( yinziran) 19 Stoics 83 Sunzi 38 swimmer 61–62

159

INDEX

Xunzi 45, 52, 54, 60; analogy of potter 44; completion (cheng) over life (sheng) 36, 44; concern ( you) for the state 107; on methods of the Confucians (rushu) 35; on technical action 34–36; on transformation (hua) 44

technique 37, 42, 45, 46; bondage of technique ( jixi) 91, 101, 136, 138; Confucian view of 32–36; Greek technB 43; negates the Way (dao) 30–32, 38 there is ( you)/there is not (wu) 15, 25, 83, 89 things/no-thing 24, 56 thought in the emphatic sense 4–5 three friends 118–119 timely action 45, 63–66 totalitarianism 37–38 transcendence 24–27 transformation (hua) 42 True Ruler (zhenjun) 130–131 true suchness (zhenru) 139

Yan Hui 107–108, 127, 128 Yang Zhu 107 Yearly, L. H. 114, 125 Yiliao from south of the market 115 Yu 34

unbind, unravel ( jie) 17, 46, 48, 51, 57, 60–61, 65, 133; unbind oneself (zijie) 66; unbinding of the gods (di zhi xuanjie) 65–66 uncarved block ( pu) 31–32, 44, 52, 54, 60 understanding the other 3–4 unique (du) 110, 113, 130, 137–138; see the unique ( jiandu) 138–141 useful/useless 57 Valéry, P. 80 vessels (qi) 52 vital essence (qing) 20 wandering ( you) 21–22, 51, 61, 83–84, 123–125, 133, 134, 140 Way (dao) 10, 22–24, 32; beyond technique 30–32, 49–50, 136; cannot be walked upon 141; and dullness 63; and inherently so (guran) 82; and inner training (neiye) 50; and methods 135; not a thing 24, 56–57; and reality (qing) 131; and saying ( yan) 71, 75; things things (wuwu) 24, 56; unbordered 56 Weber, M. 36 wheelwright 75–76 Wilde, O. 12 Wittgenstein, L. 78 wondrous existence (miaoyou) 139 Wu, Kuang-ming 127, 128

Zengzi 112 Zhao Wen 55 Zhu Xi 105 Zhuangzi: acceptance of death 16, 132; dark despair 17; on destiny (ming) 62; discourse as spiritual exercise 9, 29, 132–133, 136; on dreams 132–133; early testimony about 11; how to read 2, 7, 9, 11–13; and later Daoists 135–136; not a “Daoist” 5; not a Sophist 91; stripping of “man” (ren) 20; as unique (du) 11; Zhuangzi (the book) 4; rhetorical dimension 6; chapter divisions 12; see also authentic action, authentic presence, authentic saying, bungled discourse, care for life ( yangsheng), completion (cheng), disputation (bian), double question, equalize (qi), ethics, forgetting language (wangyan), Heaven (tian), impromptu words (zhiyan), intended meaning ( yi), joy (le), just when ( fang), language, liberated from things ( jie yuwu), life (sheng), luminosity (ming), non-action (wuwei), non-understanding (buzhi); perfected human being, saying ( yan), self ( ji or wo), unbind ( jie), wandering ( you), Way (dao) Zigong 30–31, 33, 40, 119 Ziqi from the south wall 126–129 figek, S. 3 Zuo zhuan 38 Zupaniii, A. 122–123

160