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Commentaries

Like most Chinese classics, later readers typically made extensive use of commentaries to guide their understanding of the Classical Chinese used in the text.

Jin

• During the Jin, the historian Sima Biao (d. 306) was fascinated with the Zhuangzi, and wrote a commentary (莊子注; Zhuāngzǐ zhù): originally, the commentary consisted of 20 chapters, but only quotations now survive.
• Guo Xiang
• Zhi Dun

Tang

• Cheng Xuanying (d. 655) (莊子注; Zhuāngzǐ zhù)

Song

• Lin Xiyi (1193–1271) (莊子口義; Zhuāngzǐ kǒuyì) –

Ming

• Jiao Hong (1541–1620) (莊子翼; Zhuāngzǐ yì)
• Jin Shengtan (d. 1661) "Six Works of Genius" (六才子书; Liùcáizǐshū)

Qing

• Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) Annotation on the Zhuangzi (莊子解)
• Wang Xianqian (1842–1917) Zhuangzi with Collected Explanations (莊子集解)

Use of language

Analyses of the philosophical positions professed by the Zhuangzi in both Chinese and Western contexts have been attempted. Even limiting their analysis to the inner chapters, scholars have ascribed various incompatible positions to the text. of the inner that. Zhuangzi,

• language
• knowledge
• ethics

Relativism and skepticism

Analyses of Zhuangzi's views on knowledge almost exclusively focus on "On the Equality of Things" (No. 2). According to Guo Xiang, Zhuangzi believed that the knowledge one can possess is fundamentally relative to their perspective. This notion has been picked up by modern Western scholarship, which has usually characterized Zhuangzi's positions as variously perspectivist, relativist, or skeptical, with the emphasis given to each varying among authors. Additionally, scholars differ as to whether Zhuangzi's is—

The perspectivism ascribed to Zhuangzi is usually understood as a pragmatic technique. This is usually differentiated from the perspectivism characterized by modern figures such as Nietzsche, where it serves: where the former employs perspectivism as a A perennial point of discourse lies in Zhuangzi apparently both professing relativism, but also putting forth a particular holistic view as better than others.

A. C. Graham, who pioneered English-language analysis of the Zhuangzi, characterizes Zhuangzi as anti-rationalist.

物无非彼，物无非是。自彼則不見，自知則知之。故曰：彼出於是，是亦因彼。彼、是，方生之說也。
Everything has its "that," everything has its "this." From the point of view of "that" you cannot see it, but through understanding you can know it. So I say, "that" comes out of "this" and "this" depends on "that"—which is to say that "this" and "that" give birth to each other.

雖然，方生方死，方死方生；方可方不可，方不可方可；因是因非，因非因是。
But where there is birth there must be death; where there is death there must be birth. Where there is acceptability there must be unacceptability; where there is unacceptability there must be acceptability. Where there is recognition of right there must be recognition of wrong; where there is recognition of wrong there must be recognition of right.

是以圣人不由而照之于天，亦因是也。是亦彼也，彼亦是也。彼亦一是非，此亦一是非。果且有彼是乎哉？果且无彼是乎哉？
Therefore the sage does not proceed in such a way, but illuminates all in the light of Heaven. He too recognizes a "this," but a "this" which is also "that," a "that" which is also "this." His "that" has both a right and a wrong in it; his "this" too has both a right and a wrong in it. So, in fact, does he still have a "this" and "that"? Or does he in fact no longer have a "this" and "that"?

彼是莫得其偶，謂之道樞。樞始得其環中，以應无窮。是亦一无窮，非亦一无窮也。故曰「莫若以明」。
A state in which "this" and "that" no longer find their opposites is called the hinge of the Way. When the hinge is fitted into the socket, it can respond endlessly. Its right then is a single endlessness and its wrong too is a single endlessness. So I say, the best thing to use is clarity.

— Zhuangzi, chapter 2 (Watson translation)

Comparisons

The Zhuangzi was written in the context of the Hundred Schools of Thought of pre-Qin China. The text is demonstrably influenced by the other contemporary currents of Chinese thought. Moreover, the received text specifically contrasts its own positions with those of the schools of Confucius and Mozi.

Confucianism

Mencius

While the Confucian Mencius would have been direct contemporaries with the historical Zhuang Zhou, the former showed no interest or direct awareness of the latter, while the passages that could be plausibly engaging with the thought of Mencius within the Zhuangzi are few and indirect. Confucian concepts of the "Tao" are usually characterized as humanist.

Mohism and the School of Names

Zhuangzi has a particularly deep engagement with the School of Names, as portrayed by the recurring presence of Hui Shi.

References

• Alt, Wayne E. (1991). "Logic and Language in the Chuang Tzu". Asian Philosophy. 1 (1): 61–76. doi:10.1080/09552369108575336. ISSN 0955-2367.
• Hansen, Chad (1983). Language and Logic in Ancient China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-10020-0.
• Cook, Scott, ed. (2003). Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-791-45865-5.
• Chong, Kim-chong, ed. (2022). Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy. Vol. 16. Berlin: Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-92330-3. ISSN 2211-0275.
  • Tan, Mingran. "Wang Fuzhi’s Evaluation of the Zhuangzi". In Chong (2022), pp. 493–514.
• Coutinho, Steve (2015). "Conceptual Analyses of the Zhuangzi". In Liu, Xiaogan (ed.). Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy. Vol. 6. Berlin: Springer. pp. 159–192. ISBN 978-9-048-12927-0. ISSN 2211-0275.
• ———. "Zhuangzi". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002.
• Graham, A. C. (1969). "Chuang-tzu's Essay on Seeing Things as Equal". History of Religions. 9 (2/3): 137–159. doi:10.1086/462602. ISSN 0018-2710.
• Mansvelt Beck, B. J. (1990). The Treatises of Later Han: Their Author, Sources, Contents and Place in Chinese Historiography. Brill. ISBN 978-9-004-48284-5.
• Tan, Mingran (2015). "Wang Fuzhi's Interpretation of Spirit/"Shen" in His "Annotation on the Zhuangzi"". Frontiers of Philosophy in China. 10 (2): 239–254. ISSN 1673-3436. JSTOR 44156946.
• Van Norden, Bryan W. (1996). "Competing Interpretations of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi". Philosophy East and West. 46 (2): 247. JSTOR 1399405.
• Wang Xianqian (王先謙) (ed.). 莊子集解 [Zhuangzi with Collected Explanations] (in Chinese) – via the Chinese Text Project.
• Ziporyn, Brook, ed. (2009). Zhuangzi: the essential writings; with selections from traditional commentaries. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. ISBN 978-0-872-20911-4.

Selected translations

• Chuang Tzŭ: Mystic, Moralist and Social Reformer . Translated by Giles, Herbert A. London: Bernard Quaritch. 1889 – via Wikisource.
• The Writings of Chuang Tzu (in Literary Chinese and English). Translated by James Legge. 1891 – via the Chinese Text Project.
• James Legge (1891), The Texts of Taoism, in Sacred Books of the East, vols. XXXIX, XL, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fung Yu-lan (1933), Chuang Tzu, a New Selected Translation with an Exposition on the Philosophy of Kuo Hsiang, Shanghai: Shang wu.
• Burton Watson (1964), Chuang tzu: Basic Writings, New York: Columbia University Press; 2nd edition (1996); 3rd edition (2003) converted to pinyin.
• (in Japanese) Mitsuji Fukunaga 福永光次 (1966), Sōshi 荘子 [Zhuangzi], 3 vols., Tokyo: Asahi.
• Burton Watson (1968), The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, New York: Columbia University Press.
• (in French) Liou Kia-hway 劉家槐 (1969), L'œuvre complète de Tchouang-tseu [The Complete Works of Zhuangzi], Paris: Gallimard.
• (in Japanese) Kiyoshi Akatsuka 赤塚志 (1977), Sōshi 荘子 [Zhuangzi], in Zenshaku kanbun taikei 全釈漢文大系 [Fully Interpreted Chinese Literature Series], vols. 16–17, Tokyo: Shūeisha.
• A. C. Graham (1981), Chuang-tzu, The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings from the Book Chuang-tzu, London: George Allen and Unwin. Translation notes published separately in 1982 as Chuang-tzu: Textual Notes to a Partial Translation, London: School of Oriental and African Studies.
• Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu. Translated by Mair, Victor H. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. 1998 [1994]. ISBN 978-0-824-82038-1.
• Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings; with Selections From Traditional Commentaries. Translated by Ziporyn, Brook. Indianapolis: Hackett. 2009. ISBN 978-0-872-20911-4.
• Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings. Translated by Ziporyn, Brook. Indianapolis: Hackett. 2020. ISBN 978-1-624-66855-5.
• Zhuangzi: A New Translation of the Sayings of Master Zhuang as Interpreted by Guo Xiang. Translated by Lynn, Richard John. New York: Columbia University Press. 2022. ISBN 978-0-231-12387-7.