Experimental Essays on Chuang-Tzu 9780824847005

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E x p e r i m e n t a l Essays on C h u a n g - t z u

Asian Studies at Hawaii, No. 29

Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu

Edited by Victor H. Mair

Center for Asian and Pacific Studies UNIVERSITY O F H A W A I I

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS

Copyright ® 1983 by the University of Hawaii Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Experimental essays on Chuang-tzu. (Asian studies at Hawaii; no. 29) Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: Taoist spontaneity and the dichotomy of "is" and "ought" / A. C. Graham — A Tao of Tao in Chuang-tzu / Chad Hansen — Chuangtse, the happy fish / Hideki Yukawa — [etc.] 1. Chuang-tzu. Nan-hua ching—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Mair, Victor H., 1 9 4 3 . II. Series. DS3.A2A82 no.29 950s [299'.51482] 83-3615 [BL1900.C567] ISBN 0 - 8 2 4 8 - 0 8 3 6 - 3 (pbk.)

"Chuangtse" and "The Happy Fish" are reprinted from Creativity and Intuition: A Physicist Looks at East and West by Hideki Yukawa. Reprinted by permission of Kodansha International/USA.

For Thomas and Tom

Contents

Foreword

ix

Burton Watson Preface

xv

Acknowledgments

xix

Usages

xxi

Taoist Spontaneity and the Dichotomy of "Is" and "Ought"

3

A. C. Graham A Tao of Tao in Chuang-tzu

24

Chad Hansen Chuangtse

56

The Happy Fish Hideki Yukawa A Metaphorical Analysis of the Concept of Mind in the Chuang-tzu Harold H. Oshima

63

Chuang-tzu and Erasmus: Kindred Wits Victor H. Mair On Walking without Touching the Ground: "Play" in the Inner Chapters of the Chuang-tzu Michael Mark Crandell

85

101

The Perfected Person in the Radical Chuang-tzu Lee Yearley

125

The Chuang-tzu nei-p'ien: Michael Saso

140

A Taoist Meditation

Chuang-tzu Translations: A Bibliographical Appendix Hellmut Wilhelm

158

Index

162

Contributors

170

Foreword BURTON W A T S O N

W h e n Victor Mair first kindly invited m e to contribute to a v o l u m e of essays on Chuang-tzu, I felt that, interesting as the proposal s o u n d e d , I h a d better say no. For o n e thing, w h e n e v e r I sit d o w n a n d try to write seriously about Chuang-tzu, I seem, s o m e w h e r e in the back of m y head, to h e a r C h u a n g - t z u cackling away at the p r e s u m p t i o n a n d futility of such an endeavor. M o r e to the point, I felt that I had said all I had to say a b o u t Chuang-tzu, or the book called Chuang-tzu—I use the two t e r m s interchangeably, since they cannot really be s e p a r a t e d — i n the introduction to m y translation of the Chuang-tzu. I d o u b t e d that I h a d a n y fresh insights or observations that w o u l d be worth offering. Later, w h e n it was suggested that I might contribute s o m e t h i n g in the n a t u r e of an informal f o r e w o r d rather than a scholarly article, h o w e v e r , I did not think I could refuse the invitation a n y longer. If attempting to write about the Chuang-tzu is an unsettling experience, it is in some ways a peculiarly r e w a r d i n g one, too, for it compels o n e to look at a n d consider a n e w that brilliant a n d d e m a n d i n g text, a n d in d o i n g so o n e can p e r h a p s hit on ways to h e l p o t h e r s to see the work in a n e w a n d m o r e revealing light. Since my o w n relationship to the text is s o m e w h a t different f r o m that of the ordinary reader, I w o u l d like to speak in particular a b o u t m y experiences as a translator of the Chuang-tzu. S o m e years ago, I u n d e r t o o k to p r e p a r e for the C o m m i t t e e o n Oriental Studies of Columbia College a series of selected translations f r o m the works of four early C h i n e s e philosophers: Mo-tzu, Hsiin-tzu, H a n Feitzu, a n d Chuang-tzu. I give the n a m e s in that o r d e r because that is the

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order in which I translated these highly varied thinkers. As the reader will note, I left Chuang-tzu until the last. In part this was done in the pious hope that, by the time I got to the Chuang-tzu, my ability to read classical Chinese and my powers as a translator would have advanced to the point where I could do justice to that difficult text. At the same time, I was motivated by the same feelings as those that counsel a prudent diner to get his hash and potatoes out of the way before starting on his lemon pie. Chuang-tzu was to be the lemon pie that would lure me on through the duller fare preceding it. In spite of the invaluable experience I acquired in the course of translating the works of the three other philosophers, my ability to read classical C h i n e s e — o r at least Chuang-tzu's variety—was regrettably still not what it should have been by the time I got to the fourth work. On the other hand, the text turned out to be as delicious a finale to the project as I could have anticipated. It is the special pleasures that accrue to the Chuang-tzu translator that I would like to speak about first, leaving gloomier matters to be touched on later. Most early Chinese philosophical works are marked by a single and fairly consistent voice that runs throughout the book. Mo-tzu drones along in his repetitive and preachy manner; Mencius argues in a tone of sweet reasonableness; Hsiin-tzu is all lofty manner and rhetorical flourish; Han Fei-tzu is tough and acerbic. All illustrate their arguments with historical anecdotes, and these serve effectively to vary the tone and pace of the discourse. Mo-tzu's anecdotes in particular, since they deal so often with vengeful ghosts, are at times delightfully spooky, though his intention was assuredly not to delight his readers but rather to terrify them into virtue. But such anecdotes, lively as they may be, represent no more than ornaments to the argument, momentary detours from the expository highroad. With Chuang-tzu the case is quite different. If Mo-tzu, Hsiin-tzu, and the others each speak in a voice distinctively his own, Chuang-tzu speaks in a babble of voices. With him the anecdote is no longer an appendage to the argument but the argument itself. O n e historical or pseudo-historical figure, one talking creature after another appears on the scene, each representing a different personality and outlook, and as a result the tone of the discourse keeps shifting constantly. And though the anecdotes are at times preceded by or enclosed in brief passages of argumentation, we have no way of knowing whether the voice in such passages is meant to be that of the author himself or is yet another player in the cast of thousands. The trick in understanding the Chuang-tzu is to perceive, among all these shifting voices, just who is being parodied, who is being taken off in

FOREWORD

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any given passage. Like the Japanese senryu, those deft sketches of human folly compressed into a mere seventeen syllables of verse, the Chuang-tzu anecdotes confront us with a parade of wits and nitwits, fools and philosophers, and we must learn to recognize each personage from the merest gesture or turn of speech, and judge his words accordingly. Assuming that the translator can make these identifications correctly, he is then in the enviable position of being able to take on each of these personalities and voices in turn. When one translates a work of Confucian philosophy, he is given ample opportunity to play the moralist, delivering wise maxims in neatly balanced periods or pausing to cite some cautionary page from history. But the Chuang-tzu (along with its kindred texts, the Lieh-tzu and Huai-nan tzu) allows him to assume a dozen different roles, to be solemn or quizzical, rhapsodic or paradoxical by turns, to speak in the voice of a madman or a millipede, a long-winded sea god or a ruminative skull. Not only does the Chuang-tzu permit the translator to put on a variety of faces and participate in a wealth of droll and fanciful dramas, the very language of the text is marked by a range and vividness unmatched by anything else in early Chinese literature. At one moment the writer is poking about in the grubby minutiae of everyday life, the next he is soaring off on flights of language so rapturous that they threaten to go beyond the borders of meaning. Passages of this last type allow the translator—indeed compel him—to employ language with a daring and inventiveness that he would never venture when translating more conventional texts. And finally there is the incomparable wit and humor that lie at the very heart of the Chuang-tzu. Han Fei-tzu may at times treat the reader to a sardonic chuckle, but humor is on the whole a rare element in most Chinese philosophical writing. In the Chuang-tzu, on the contrary, it is the single most potent device employed by the writer to jar the reader out of his mundane complacencies and waken him to the possibility of another realm of experience. The translator of the Chuang-tzu thus has opportunities to display his talent as a humorist such as would be unimaginable if he were working with any other philosopher. And, as I can state from personal experience, when he manages to get an amusing passage from some two thousand years ago over into language that sounds funny even today, he feels a deeper sense of gratification and accomplishment than if he had translated a whole volume of lamentations. These, then, are the special pleasures that await the translator of the Chuang-tzu. And of course, looked at from a somewhat different point of view, these too are the special headaches that await him, for each poses severe demands upon his skill and ingenuity. In the introduction to my

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translation of the Chuang-tzu I have discussed at some length the problem of textual corruption, and I will not go into it again here. It is enough simply to note that with a text that uses language in such unconventional ways and that makes such frequent references to the daily life, customs, and folk beliefs of ancient China, the possibilities for misunderstanding and misinterpretation in later centuries are manifold. Errors have no doubt been introduced into the text by confused or baffled copyists, while other passages remain opaque because we lack the data needed to unlock the sense. All of this means that the translator must constantly be consulting commentaries, which often vary wildly in their interpretation of a given passage, and deciding which interpretation to follow, which emendation to adopt, aware all the time that one false turning may lead him into a forest of difficulties. And even when the wording of the text does not seem to offer any particular perplexities, there is the larger question of whether one is catching the tone of the passage correctly. When an author spends so much time mocking and satirizing, how can we tell when he means to be taken seriously? If he parodies so many others, is it not possible that he parodies himself as well? Where then is the real Chuang-tzu? At this point, the text turns into a hall of mirrors where a frightening succession of images recedes into infinity and illusion becomes indistinguishable from reality. One reviewer of my Chuang-tzu translation remarked that, although I had translated the text in full, I had failed to throw any light on it. One might be tempted to ask in indignation just what translation is if not a process of throwing light on a text. And yet in the case of the Chuangtzu, I'd have to say that I know what he means. When I was translating the Chuang-tzu, I would customarily sit down each evening with the day's work, usually two or three pages of typescript. (I accustomed myself to translate prose directly on the typewriter some years ago when I was working on the Shih chi, in part because my handwriting, particularly if any appreciable period of time elapses after writing, is likely to be unintelligible even to me.) The main decisions concerning interpretations had been made during the day and could not easily be reviewed or reconsidered without tracing back through the labyrinth of commentary that led to them. But there was an almost infinite amount of tinkering that could be done with the language of the translation, and this was where the real enjoyment came in. I would put a pan of water on the stove, heat some sake (I was living in Japan at the time), place the original and the translation side by side, and methodically question the latter to see whether there was not some better, briefer, or more effective way to convey the meaning and impact of the Chinese. At times, determined to discover just the right diction and euphony to match

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the eloquence of the original, I would go along rapping on each word of the translation to see if it was sound, while at others I mulled over the question of just how I would express myself if I were an English-speaking oak tree. I knew I would never again face such challenges or have such opportunities as a translator, and I was determined to make the most of the experience. And now it remains with me as a very important memory—those evenings when I sat by the kerosene stove and listened to the wind whistling in the Kyoto night, struggling to conjure up the kind of language that would do justice to Chuang-tzu's magic. But if I recall the pleasures of translating the Chuang-tzu, I also remember the doubts and apprehensions that troubled me at the time, and to some extent continue to trouble me still. That may be one reason why I always feel a greater reluctance to read over my Chuang-tzu translation than I do in the case of the other philosophical works I translated. And though in idle moments I sometimes imagine what it might be like to come face to face with Ssu-ma Ch'ien or Su Tung-p'o or some of the other authors I have worked on—would they be pleased with what I've done? angry? or, worst of all, indifferent?—the prospect of such an encounter with Chuang-tzu would scare the life out of me. He would undoubtedly see through me in an instant. The problem, I think, is that so much of the time I seem to be way down here, while Chuang-tzu is way up there, and I can see no way to get from here to there. Perhaps because I am a rather timid and unimaginative person by nature, all Chuang-tzu's ecstatic talk of spontaneity, of soaring and carefree excursions, exciting as it may be, seems hardly to pertain to any realm of being that is within my reach. Though he does not mean to be, I'm sure, I cannot help finding him somehow forbidding and unapproachable. The "way up there" from which Chuang-tzu so often speaks, and in which he so persistently urges the reader to join him, is, of course, the realm of nondualistic thinking. But, as the Buddhists noted long ago, it is one thing to talk about nondualism and quite another actually to experience it as a conviction or outlook. Buddhism offers certain practices such as meditation, chanting, or koan study that are in effect exercises in nondualistic experience, and through these the student can gradually initiate himself into the state of mind he is seeking. I cannot help thinking that the Chuang-tzu must have had some similar practice or set of practices that were meant to accompany the book and assist the student. And, as anyone knows, if you merely read the book but do not do the exercises, you cannot hope to get anywhere in the subject. Perhaps I am being misled by the recurring journey metaphor, which certainly suggests that there is a great deal of ground to be covered before

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one can get to Chuang-tzu's realm. Chuang-tzu would no doubt retort that one is already in it, since in a nondualistic universe, "there" cannot be any place other than "here." But once more I would ask, how can I really come to know this? Though the journey, like that described in koan study, may be a circular one, ending exactly where it began, shouldn't one have undergone the experience of the journey in order to understand once and for all that there is indeed nowhere to go? But in raising such questions, I am perhaps venturing into areas that will be covered more competently by some of the experts in the essays that follow. Certainly one would have to admit that Chuang-tzu exhausts every literary and rhetorical device in his efforts to liberate his readers, to pry their hands loose from their fierce grip on dualism. If his message is ultimately beyond one's grasp, it is not because he has not sincerely tried again and again to state it in terms that are comprehensible. And, the ultimate kindness, he even warns us that mere words are inadequate to the task, so that we need not unduly tax ourselves for our failure. And yet I open the Chuang-tzu and read about all these crookbacks and lamegaits and robbers and idiots who are disporting themselves on Chuang-tzu's level and I can't understand why I can't get there too. I suppose I should learn to resign myself to the situation, and in time perhaps I will. Meanwhile, writing about the text is one way of trying to make my peace with it. Burton Watson April, 1980

Preface

T h e p u r p o s e of this v o l u m e of essays is to i n t r o d u c e C h u a n g - t z u to a larger a u d i e n c e t h a n h e n o w enjoys. C u r r e n t l y , k n o w l e d g e of the Chuangtzu in the West r e m a i n s a l m o s t entirely restricted to sinologists a n d a f e w s t u d e n t s of c o m p a r a t i v e religion. This is grossly u n f o r t u n a t e , especially in light of t h e fact that the Chuang-tzu is s u p e r i o r to m a n y o t h e r C h i n e s e w o r k s that h a v e r e c e i v e d m u c h w i d e r r e c o g n i t i o n a n d circulation a b r o a d . T h e Chuang-tzu is p r o f o u n d l y e n t e r t a i n i n g a n d e d i f y i n g at t h e s a m e time. A s imaginative literature, t h e r e is no o t h e r C h i n e s e w o r k that e v e n r e m o t e l y c o m p a r e s to it b e f o r e the i n t r o d u c t i o n of B u d d h i s t n a r r a t i v e a n d d r a m a t i c traditions. T h e Chuang-tzu's u s e of l a n g u a g e is exquisitely sui g e n e r i s a n d h a s h a d a f a r - r e a c h i n g effect o n m a n y t y p e s of belles-lettres in later periods. C h u a n g - t z u , f u r t h e r m o r e , is h o n o r e d as o n e of t h e f o u n d e r s of p h i l o s o p h i c a l Taoism a n d is e v e n c o n s i d e r e d by m a n y to h a v e h a d a f o r m a t i v e i n f l u e n c e o n the d e v e l o p m e n t of Z e n . R e g a r d l e s s of his significance for t h e past, h o w e v e r , C h u a n g - t z u still s p e a k s to u s t o d a y with a n a u t h e n t i c voice of intelligence a n d g o o d sense. T h e Chuang-tzu a d u m b r a t e s a n intellectual attitude that is b o t h e n g a g i n g a n d c o m p e l l i n g . A d m i t t e d l y , t h e Chuang-tzu c o n f r o n t s u s w i t h m o n u m e n t a l textual a n d authorial p r o b l e m s . Intellectual historians a n d stylistic analysts a r e o n l y n o w b e g i n n i n g to attack seriously, systematically, a n d r i g o r o u s l y t h e difficult q u e s t i o n s of w h i c h parts of the b o o k b e l o n g t o g e t h e r a n d w h i c h p a r t s o u g h t to b e c o n s i d e r e d as interpolations, additions, a n d so on. T h e fact that a p p a r e n t l y c o n t r a d i c t o r y or s e e m i n g l y i n c o m p a t i b l e p o s i t i o n s e m e r g e f r o m t h e Chuang-tzu (such as w h e t h e r t h e r e is o n e o v e r a r c h i n g

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Tao/Way or only many discursive taos/ways) is evidence that we are dealing with a composite text. We are gradually coming to discover that the Chuang-tzu developed out of a series of dialogues with a number of other schools over a considerable period of time. Hence what may hold true for chapter 2 (or part of chapter 2) may not be directly applicable to chapter 5 and vice versa. Yet most of the book does cohere; those portions which do not fit at all are readily recognizable and can be rejected by the sensitive reader. Chuang-tzu himself, as a historical personage, largely remains an enigma. But an identifiable personality does emerge from the core of the book and it reveals him as a man of great wit and wisdom. The experimental nature of these essays needs to be emphasized. These are attempts to see Chuang-tzu in ways that sinologists have not been accustomed to viewing him. Indeed, it is for this reason that several nonsinologists were invited to participate in the writing of this volume. We hope thus to have demonstrated that Chuang-tzu is not the sole preserve of the specialist. Philosophers, pyschologists, game theorists, and those who simply have a broad interest in the humanities should all feel welcome to venture inside the covers of the Chuang-tzu. If they do, they are certain to be richly rewarded. The following essays are indicative of the broad range of responses that are possible to an encounter with the Chuang-tzu. Perhaps one day we will have the ruminations of a jurisprudent, a neural physiologist, or a poet on the Chuang-tzu. Already we can read what it meant to a nuclear physicist (Hideki Yukawa), a Catholic monk (Thomas Merton), and a Hasidic sociologist-theologian (Martin Buber). There is no authoritative and final explanation of the "meaning" of Chuang-tzu. He is too puckishly protean to submit docilely to any single approach. Only a variety of interpretations, such as those attempted herein, can begin to do justice to this marvelous anthology. We do not pretend to have attained a unanimity of opinion about our favorite Chinese philosopher. To force such a consensus now would be, we feel, presumptuous in the presence of a work of multifaceted genius. Instead, we have essayed to view Chuang-tzu from many different vantage points while using diverse methodological approaches. On the other hand, occasionally when we may appear superficially to be at odds with each other, such as in discussing the notion of "hsin/heart-mind," there is actually deeper agreement in terms of our appreciation of Chuang-tzu's intent. A large part of coming to understand the Chuang-tzu consists of realizing the limitations and prejudices both of our own initial positions and of traditional Chinese expositions. The present volume is offered in the spirit of eliciting interpretations of the Chuang-tzu from people in many different walks of life. We believe

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that it bears testimony to the vital power of Chuang-tzu's words and ideas to stimulate thought in our own time. It also demonstrates that a provocative mind, no matter what age or place it speaks from, does not go unheeded.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Nathan Sivin, who carefully and critically read the entire manuscript of this book. Thanks are due as well to the other readers who examined it in various stages of completion for the many helpful suggestions they have offered.

Usages

References in the form " ( 2 1 / 8 / 1 1 ) " are, respectively, to the page, chapter, and line of the text of the Chuang-tzu found in A Concordance to Chuang-tzu, Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Supplement no. 20 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956). Those in the form " ( W 3 8 ) " are to the page number of Burton Watson, tr., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968). The abbreviations B.I.E. and I.E. in this book stand for "Before International Era" and "International Era." They are derived from the Chinese notion of a "public calendar" (kung-li J%). Dates in this system are compatible with those of the Christian era (A.D., B.C.) and the common

era(c.E.).

E x p e r i m e n t a l Essays on C h u a n g - t z u

Taoist Spontaneity and the Dichotomy of " I s " and "Ought" A. C. G R A H A M

Even a m o n g the philosophies c o m m o n l y called "mystical," there can hardly be one m o r e resistant to an analytic approach than Taoism. By mocking reason and delighting in the impossibility of putting his message into words, the Taoist seems to withdraw b e y o n d reach of discussion and criticism. N o doubt one may try to pin him d o w n by translating "Live according to the Way" into s o m e m o r e manageable imperative such as "Live spontaneously," and then laboriously explain to him that either h e is expressing a taste for spontaneity which others m a y not share, or h e is making a covert inference f r o m "I a m spontaneously inclined to d o X" to "I ought to do X," an instance of that illogical j u m p from "is" to " o u g h t " to which Western philosophers have b e e n objecting ever since H u m e . But since all the great Taoists are poets as m u c h as they are philosophers, would it not be more to the point to approach Taoism as a view of life to be imaginatively explored and a p p r o v e d or rejected to the extent that o n e finds it fruitful? However, in the p r e s e n t essay I shall refuse to b e deterred f r o m trying to r u n d o w n that elusive imperative behind the denial of imperatives, the implicit logic b e h i n d the derision of logic, in the most sophisticated of the Taoist writers, Chuang-tzu. Instead of accepting him on his own terms—as a poet only incidentally interested in logic, w h o b y aphorism, verse, and anecdote guides us towards his view of life—I shall perversely insist on confronting him in Western terms. The enterprise has turned out, for m e at least, to be a m o r e stimulating experience than might be anticipated. It will be seen that, instead of e n d i n g u p with a take-it-or-leave-it imperative or a trivial

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example of a fallacious inference, I find myself colliding with an unexpectedly firm logical structure which forces me to approach the fundamental problems of moral philosophy from an unfamiliar direction. It is unlikely that Chuang-tzu, who lived in the times of King Hui of Liang (370-319 B.I.E.) and King Hsüan of Ch'i (319-301 B.I.E.), wrote more of the book that bears his name than the Inner Chapters (chap. 1 - 7 ) and some of the fragments assembled in certain of the Mixed Chapters (chap. 23-27, 32). However, we are exploring a structure common to all Taoist thought (and perhaps to much of Oriental philosophy), so that questions of authorship do not much concern us. We may note in the first place that what logic there is in Chuang-tzu is directed against reason itself, in particular against rational choice between one course of action and another. The book goes counter to the whole trend towards increasing rationality which had begun with Mo-tzu late in the fifth century B.I.E. Confucius (551-479 B.I.E.) had never needed to give reasons for his dicta; he presented himself simply as a man of mature judgment trying to restore the moral and cultural tradition of the dying Chou dynasty. But Mo-tzu's doctrines, universal love, rejection of fatalism, opposition to aggressive war, promotion on grounds of merit rather than of birth, were novelties which it was necessary to defend in public debate. With the emergence of Mohism, and soon of other rivals to Confucianism, debate intensified, and it became habitual to argue one's case, define one's terms, look beyond moral and political disputes to metaphysical problems such as the relation between morality and human nature, and at last, among sophists such as Hui Shih and Kung-sun Lung, to ponder logical puzzles for their own sake. Chuang-tzu was himself a disciple or younger friend of Hui Shih; he himself displays an intermittent delight in logical subtleties, and in his turn he becomes the target of criticism in the most logically sophisticated document which survives from the period, the Canons of the Later Mohists (ca. 300 B.I.E.).1 Chinese civilization, for the first and last time, was independently envisaging the prospect which unknown to it was already being opened up by the Greeks, that in the last resort all differences of opinion might be resolved by appeal to indisputable principles of reason. It did not sustain this vision, and to the extent, little or great as it may be, that individual thinkers do affect the course of history, much of the responsibility is Chuang-tzu's. In his time the crucial debate was still between Confucians and Mohists, and the issues on which it centered were moral. Confucians understood the word yia ("righteousness, duty") in terms of the customary "appropriateness" (another and etymologically related yi b ) of conduct to status, as ruler or subject, father or son, elder brother or younger brother. Thus it is appropriate for a son to mourn his father for

TAOIST SPONTANEITY, " i S , " AND " O U G H T "

5

three years. The Mohists exposed all traditional standards to the tests of whether or not in practice they benefited the people; in the case of mourning, they argued in detail that such a long period is not beneficial but harmful to everyone concerned. In the Canons, which start with seventy-five definitions and twelve analyses of ambiguous words, yi is given a radically new definition: " T o be 'righteous' is to benefit." 2 But with increasing care in definition, it became all the more obvious that every argument started from definitions which might be peculiar to the school. It happens that the Chinese words which established themselves as technical terms attract attention to this point, since the art of pienc ("disputation, arguing out alternatives") was conceived in terms of fitting names to objects, and the customary words for judging between alternatives were basically demonstrative, shihd ("that's it" [an ox, a horse]) and jane ("that's so" [that the horse is white, that one rides it]). Clearly, whether one is talking about oxen and horses or about morality, no argument can prove that something is it without agreement as to what the name refers to. Chuang-tzu has plenty of reasons for denying reason, but let us concentrate on his point that all disputation founders on the fact that words mean what the debaters choose to make them mean: S a y i n g is n o t b l o w i n g b r e a t h , t h e s a y e r s a y s s o m e t h i n g ; t h e t r o u b l e is t h a t w h a t h e is s a y i n g h a s n e v e r b e e n fixed. H a s h e r e a l l y said s o m e t h i n g ? O r n e v e r said a n y t h i n g ? If y o u t h i n k it d i f f e r e n t f r o m t h e t w i t t e r o f fledglings, c a n d i s p u t a t i o n s h o w t h e d i f f e r e n c e ? O r c a n ' t it s h o w t h e d i f f e r e n c e ? 3

He takes full advantage of the demonstrative nature of the key words in disputation, which show that the argument always depends on the initial choice of standpoint: It is a l s o O t h e r , O t h e r is a l s o It. T h e r e t h e y s a y " T h a t ' s it, t h a t ' s n o t " f r o m o n e p o i n t of v i e w , h e r e w e s a y " T h a t ' s it, t h a t ' s n o t " f r o m a n o t h e r p o i n t o f v i e w . Is t h e r e really It a n d O t h e r ? O r really n o It a n d O t h e r ? 4

W h e n I choose a name, am I not free to call anything or everything " X " and therefore to affirm or deny of anything whatever that it is X? W h e n the sophist Kung-sun Lung went to such trouble to prove that " T h e meaning is not the meaning" and " A white horse is not a horse," he was wasting his time: R a t h e r t h a n u s e t h e m e a n i n g to s h o w t h a t t h e m e a n i n g is n o t t h e m e a n i n g , b e t t e r u s e w h a t is n o t t h e m e a n i n g ; r a t h e r t h a n u s e t h e h o r s e t o s h o w t h a t t h e h o r s e is n o t a h o r s e , b e t t e r u s e w h a t is n o t t h e h o r s e . H e a v e n a n d e a r t h a r e the o n e m e a n i n g , the m y r i a d things are the o n e h o r s e . 5

As far as factual questions are concerned, Chuang-tzu's skepticism is

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well answered in one of the Mohist Canons. Provided that different things are indicated differently, it does not matter which of them is picked out as "this" or "that" (or as "horse" or "nonhorse"); the debaters, if they understand how each is using the words, will recognize that they are saying the same thing. 6 However, both Chuang-tzu and the Mohist are primarily concerned with issues of conduct; and in the case of moral terms the disputants cannot simply agree to differ, they must insist that their definitions are the right ones. To understand Chuang-tzu's criticism of disputation, it may be useful to stick to the instance of a Confucian and a Mohist debating whether it is one's duty to mourn a father for three years, each knowing that they disagree over the definition of "righteousness" yet compelled to insist on his own: You and I having been made to engage in disputation, if it is you not I that wins, is it really you who are on to it, I who am not? If it is I not you that wins, is it really I w h o am on to it, you who are not? Is it that one of us is on to it and the other not, or that both of us are on to it and both are not? 7

We cannot break out of the deadlock unless we can find an independent standpoint from which to judge whether the righteous is the appropriate or the beneficial, but there is none: W h o shall I call in to decide it? Suppose that someone of your party decides it, already being of your party how can he decide it? Suppose that someone of my party decides it, already being of my party how can he decide it?

Nor are we on any firmer ground if we appeal to someone whose general position differs from or agrees with both of ours (in the former case, we would simply reject his principles; in the latter, he would share principles of ours by which the issue could be settled for us both, but not necessarily for others): Suppose s o m e o n e of a party different from either decides it, already being of a party different from either how can he decide it? Suppose someone of a party embracing both decides it, already being of a party which embraces both how can he decide it?

Elsewhere Chuang-tzu goes several dizzying steps further. He concedes, as an argumentum ad homitiem, that the search for an independent standard might indeed arrive at something on which there is universal agreement: "Would you know something of which all things agreed 'That's i t ? ' " " H o w would I know that?" "Would you know what you did not know?" " H o w would I know that?"

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"Then does no thing know anything?" " H o w would I know that? However, let me try to find words for it. ' H o w do I know that what I call knowing is not ignorance, how do I know that what I call ignorance is not knowing?' " 8

Universal agreement that the righteous is the appropriate or is the beneficial would merely eliminate finally the possibility of an independent standpoint from which to judge. I would not know whether the righteous is really the beneficial, but would not I at least know what I did not know? That, however, would be a contradiction (or so Chuangtzu thinks, a position also found in Plato's Meno; the Mohist Canon takes him up on this point). 9 But then at any rate surely I know that no thing in the world knows anything? Another contradiction. One can never get further than the doubt expressed in the form of a question, "How do I know . . . ? " Skepticism and relativism as extreme as Chuang-tzu's are not in themselves unfamiliar to a modern reader, far from it. What is perhaps strange to him is that there is no vertigo in the doubt, which pervades the most rhapsodic passages of a philosophical poet who seems always to gaze on life and death with unwavering assurance. But there is anguish in ethical skepticism only if one feels bound to choose in spite of having no grounds to choose. For Chuang-tzu, to pose alternatives and ask "Which is beneficial, which harmful?" or "Which is right, which wrong?" is the fundamental error in life. People who really know what they are doing, such as cooks, carpenters, swimmers, boatmen, cicada-catchers, whose instruction is always available to any philosopher or emperor who has the sense to listen to them, do not go in much for analyzing, posing alternatives, and reasoning from first principles. They no longer even bear in mind any rules they were taught as apprentices. They attend to the total situation and respond, trusting to a knack which they cannot explain in words, the hand moving of itself as the eye gazes with unflagging concentration. A craftsman is not of course "thoughtless" in the sense of "heedless"; on the contrary, he is attentive in the highest degree. As the cicadacatcher is represented as saying to Confucius: I settle my body like a rooted stump, I hold my arm like the branch of a withered tree; in all the vastness of heaven and earth, in all the multitude of the myriad things, it is only the wings of a cicada that I know. I don't fret or fidget, I would not for all the myriad things exchange the wings of a cicada. 1 0

Indeed the craftsman may do a lot of hard thinking before he makes his move. Although Chuang-tzu detests pien, the arguing out of alternatives, there is another word for a kind of thinking, lunf ("sort out, grade,

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arrange") which throughout the book is used in a favorable sense. 1 1 And of course the craftsman does have to go on asking "What shall I do next?" until he has mastered his art, like the apprentice Taoist. But however long even the sage may take to sort out the elements of his situation in their interactions and interrelations, his move when he makes it is "spontaneous" (fzw jan& "so of itself"), as immediate as echo following sound or shadow following shape. In terms of the traditional dichotomy of "man," who thinks and chooses, and "Heaven," which is responsible for everything independent of man's will, his motions derive not from the man but from Heaven working through him.Even in governing the empire he is like Cook Ting, who when he comes to an especially intricate knot of bone and muscle, pauses until he has assimilated all the information, and then cuts through with a single deft stroke. 1 2 The many stories about craftsmen in Chuang-tzu (of which, however, only the story of Cook Ting comes from the Inner Chapters) are always especially illuminating to a Westerner grappling to understand Taoism. He learns from them that the Taoist art of living is a supremely intelligent responsiveness which would be undermined by analyzing and posing alternatives, a point easily appreciated in the case of physical skills—the tightrope walker who pauses to ask "Where do I put my foot next?" would fall from the rope. He comes to perceive also that the Taoist's refusal to lay down the Way in words is not mere evasiveness about a metaphysical truth which, since he is so coy about it, is probably nonsense anyway. Grasping the Way is a matter of "knowing how," not of "knowing that." As the wheelwright says to Duke Huan in one of the Outer Chapters, the "Way of Heaven," Chisel the wheel too slow and it slides and does not grip, too fast and it jams and will not enter. Not too slow, not too fast; you feel it in the hand and respond from the heart, the mouth cannot say it, there is a knack in it somewhere which I cannot convey to my own son, which my own son cannot get from me.13 Even the most rationalistic Westerner then has his times of accord with the Way, if he can drive a car with effortless grace. But he will probably spoil it all by supposing that this exercise in intelligent responsiveness owes its value to something else, that he must justify it either as a means to the end of arriving at his destination or as a source of pleasure. Not at all, says Chuang-tzu. This is one of the few activities that the rationalist conducts as he should be running his whole life, in the very manner in which the sage ruler governs the empire. That concentration on the total scene forgetful of self, in which one ceases to analyze and make considered choices, yet responds to variations so fine that one would not

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know how to analyze them, differs only in degree from the illumination in which all distinctions lapse, self and other, life and death, and it is no longer I that acts but Heaven. However, we are concerned here not with the depths of Chuang-tzu's thought but with its logical structure. It is enough for us to note that while Confucians and Mohists, like Westerners, would tend to think of the intelligent spontaneity exhibited on a humble scale by craftsmen as being no more than a means to ends for which reasons must be given, for Chuang-tzu it is the one and only end in itself. Taoists speak of spontaneity in a vocabulary curiously like that of behaviorist psychology; the crucial pair kanh ("stir, rouse") and ying1 ("respond" [primarily "reply" in dialogue]) recall the Pavlovian "stimulus" and "response": H e will not, to g a i n a n a d v a n t a g e , m a k e t h e first a p p r o a c h : H e will not, to e s c a p e m i s f o r t u n e , start t h i n g s off. O n l y w h e n s t i r r e d will h e r e s p o n d , O n l y w h e n p r e s s e d will h e m o v e , O n l y w h e n it is i n e v i t a b l e will h e rise u p . 1 4

The implication is not of course that the sage delays until the last possible moment; he waits without premeditation until the situation is ripe. The man who reacts with pure spontaneity can do so only at one moment and in one way; by attending to the situation until it moves him, he discovers the move which is "inevitable" (pu teyi\ the one in which he "has no alternative") like a physical reflex. But he hits on it only if he perceives with perfect clarity, as though in a mirror: " T h e utmost man uses the heart like a mirror. He does not escort things as they go or welcome them as they come, he responds but does not retain." 1 5 For the ancient Chinese the heart, not the brain, is the organ of thought. Most men use it to plan ahead, but the sage uses it only to reflect the situation as it objectively is, before he responds. Like a mirror, it reflects only the present; it is not stuffed with past information which it "retains" (ts'angk "stores, hoards") at the cost of being trapped in obsolete attitudes. The sage perceives and responds to every situation as new: W i t h i n himself, n o fixed p o s i t i o n : T h i n g s as t h e y take s h a p e d i s c l o s e t h e m s e l v e s . In his m o t i o n s , h e is like w a t e r , In his stillness, like a m i r r o r : H e r e s p o n d s like a n e c h o . 1 6

The first couplet relates the sage's inner freedom from a fixed standpoint to the objectivity of his vision; the external situation as it takes shape presents itself from moment to moment as it objectively is. He is as fluid

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as water which is unimpeded because it adapts to the contours of the ground; his response is as immediate as the echo to the sound. The metaphor of the mirror is developed farthest in a prose passage in the "Way of Heaven": As for the stillness of the sage, it is not that he is still because he says "It is good to be still"; he is still because nothing among the myriad things is sufficient to disturb his heart. When water is still its clarity shows up the hairs of beard and eyebrows, its evenness coincides with the water-level— the greatest of carpenters takes his standard from it. If mere water clarifies when it is still, how much more the stillness of the quintessential and daemonic, the heart of the sage! H e is the reflector of heaven and earth, the mirror of the myriad things. Emptiness, stillness, calm, serenity, Doing Nothing, are the even level of heaven and earth, the utmost reach of the Way and the Power; therefore the emperor, king, sage, comes to rest in them. At rest he empties, in emptiness is filled; and what fills him sorts itself out. In emptying he is still, in stillness he is moved; and when he moves he succeeds. 1 7

The essential point here is that, in responding, the sage's heart is not subject to the agitations that obscure the common man's clarity of vision, to which Chuang-tzu himself is represented as confessing in one anecdote ("I have been observing in muddy water and have gone astray from the clear depths"). 1 8 He keeps the heart empty and lets the external scene fill it, sort itself out in its own objective relations, and then "move" him (tung1). His heart has the "evenness" (p'ing m ), the neutrality to all human ends, of the universe itself. Having achieved this mirror-like lucidity, he no longer has to evaluate, even to judge that "It is good to be still"; it is enough that he does not value anything in the universe above his own clarity of vision (nothing is "sufficient to disturb his heart"). At this ultimate degree of awareness of his situation, his response is perfectly apt to the goal to which at that moment he spontaneously tends; "when he moves he succeeds." His response hits exactly on the Way, the ten ("Power" [his aptitude, his knack]) is perfected. It will by now be clear that from the Western point of view there is something very peculiar about the Taoist attitude. We are accustomed to think in terms of a dichotomy: either as a rational agent I detach myself from nature, study the objective facts about it, make my own choices, resist becoming the plaything of physical forces like an animal, or else I welcome the Romantic idea of spontaneity, as the free play of impulse, emotion, subjective imagination. The Taoist is somewhere where this dichotomy does not apply. He wants to remain inside nature, to behave as spontaneously as an animal, to be caused rather than to choose, and concepts resembling those of stimulus and response come easily to him

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without the science which for us provides their context; on the other hand, he has a contempt for emotion and subjectivity, a respect for things as they objectively are, as cool and lucid as a scientist's. Let us try then to identify that ultimate Taoist imperative, for which in the opening paragraph we tentatively proposed "Live spontaneously." Very evidently Chuang-tzu does not recommend a surrender to emotion and subjective imagination. The craftsman, far from welcoming temperamental upheavals, knows that if he gets flustered he will lose his knack, and the sage can never allow the clear mirror of his mind to be obscured by the turbidity of passion. The Taoist ideal is a spontaneity disciplined by awareness of the objective. Let us say then that "Follow the Way" is translatable as "Respond with awareness (of what is objectively so)." The awareness will be, not only of the mirrored situation, but of how as a matter of objective fact things can be done (not of what on prudential or moral grounds ought to be done), knowing how, knack, skill, art. Of how much one has to be aware may be left vague. Presumably the Taoist should be aware of everything relevant to his intent. But he has no fixed ends, only fluid goals to which he spontaneously tends, which will accord with the Way to the extent that he is indeed aware of all factors relevant to them. The more aware he is, the more likely he is to attain them ("When he moves he succeeds"). There would no doubt be some persuasive force in the claim that conversion to Taoism would help me to my goals (which would, however, change in the process of conversion). But within the logic of the Taoist position, the value of awareness will not depend on the value I set on any particular goal; it is assumed only that, to the extent that responses are purposive, it is valuable to move towards goals intelligently, with awareness, whatever they may happen to be. The stories of craftsmen may seem to make only the minor point (quite interesting as far as it goes) that in some circumstances we do better if we don't think than if we do. This however is a side issue. The implicit logic of Chuang-tzu's position has two steps: 1. all the reasons for which men depart from the spontaneity of the rest of nature to make choices between alternatives are logically baseless; 2. in reverting to spontaneity one remains bound by a single imperative, which we identify as "Respond with awareness." Now if "Follow the Way" is equivalent to "Respond with awareness (of what is objectively so)," we need no longer be exasperated that Chuangtzu should speak of following the Way as though its value were selfevident. "Respond with awareness" is an imperative which we all take for granted but hardly bother to formulate because it seems trivial; it comes as a surprise that a whole philosophy of life can be based on it. Whether I am deliberately acting or spontaneously reacting, I recognize that I ought

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to be aware of circumstances, of myself, of how to attain my goals, and sometimes I have to be recalled to attention by imperatives, "Face facts," "Know thyself," "Think what you're doing." In deliberate action such imperatives do not take me very far, since I can go on adding to the information forever without beginning to know what I ought to do. (If I doubt that, I confuse "is" and "ought"). But a spontaneous reaction has a merely causal connection with the perception which it follows, so that it can be judged without taking into account more than that the person is being insensitive or highly perceptive or has his facts right or wrong. Westerners are not accustomed to evaluating human beings by "Respond with awareness," only animals (as when comparing their sensitivity and adaptability to their surroundings, to rank them higher or lower on the "vast chain of being" or the evolutionary ladder). However, if like Chuang-tzu we sweep away all moral and prudential standards, certainly "Respond with awareness" will remain in force. Nothing is involved after all but preferring intelligence to stupidity, reality to illusion; of the traditional Western values, Truth, Good, and Beauty, only the first is assumed. If I am in the way of a car coming suddenly round a bend in the road, the intelligent reaction for me, as for a dog, will be to jump for the sidewalk before I know what I am doing. To stand paralyzed by shock, unaware of what is happening to me, or be aware of the danger but too confused to know how to escape in the instant available, would be reacting stupidly. This judgment, it may be noticed, has nothing to do with any value set on self-preservation. Even if I have made a firm decision to commit suicide, and have been pondering for weeks how to cheat the insurance company, the failure to jump would accord with my intention only by chance. It would be highly intelligent to take in the situation instantaneously and choose to stand waiting for death, but that would be not a reaction but a deliberate act. But it would be an insult to Chuang-tzu to suggest that there is anything subhuman about obeying the injunction "Respond with awareness." Suppose that I am sitting by a bowl of fruit: my hand hovers over a pear, then a peach catches my eye: their distinctive flavors revive in memory and pull against each other, then my hand moves over and picks up the peach. Let us assume nothing but a causal connection between the imagined sensations and the motion of the hand. I responded like a monkey to what I saw and smelled, but in full awareness of the two flavors, in obedience to "Respond with awareness." Could I in fact have taken one rather than the other in a manner more worthy of my human dignity as a rational agent? Perhaps it will be said that I should have combined some principle of conduct with propositions about the flavors. But I do not even have a vocabulary to describe the distinctive tang of a

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pear or a peach. The best I could do would be to say "I prefer peaches" or "I get more pleasure from peaches," but in the first place to derive "Choose the peach" from these psychological statements would involve a jump from "is" to "ought"; in the second place, reliance on a generalization about my preference could get me into a habit that would dim my awareness of the tastes, until I fail to notice that I no longer like peaches as much as I did or that at this moment I hanker after a change, so that the abortive try at rationalization would make my choice less intelligent. Or suppose that I am eating escargots for the first time and cannot bring myself to forget the disgustingly slimy look and feel of snails in the garden. You reproach me for being stupidly repelled by a taste of which I never dared to become fully aware. As a gourmet, you certainly think of yourself as a product of high civilization, as far above the animal as a scholar or a scientist is. Perhaps l a m myself no gourmet and think of food as a matter in which the rational man can excuse himself from making a fully considered choice. However, if I accept your demand for a considered choice, can I deny the justice of your reproach? If I reply that it does not matter whether or not one confounds a present taste with remembered sight and touch, whether one responds to reality or illusion, I plunge into a skepticism deeper than Chuang-tzu's. But since in practice I do admit that one ought to be on the lookout for perceptual error, ought to be aware of things as they objectively are (whatever metaphysical problems may incidentally arise), I have a principle for evaluating spontaneous behavior in general, which if I were a Taoist would supply me with all the ethics I need. Odd as it may seem, Taoism is a philosophy of life which, though of course criticizable as incomplete, assumes no more than is assumed in the sciences, depends only on a respect for things as they objectively are. By interpreting "Follow the Way" as "Respond with awareness," we can dispose of an apparent contradiction in Taoist relativism. The "Autumn Floods," one of the Outer Chapters, presents what looks like the most extreme moral relativism: Observing from the standpoint of the Way, no thing is either noble or base. Observing from the standpoint of the things, they judge themselves noble and each other base. Observing from the standpoint of custom, whether one is noble or base is independent of oneself. 1 9

It continues by asking us to accept with neutrality that "Yao [for Confucians a sage] and Chieh [for Confucians a tyrant] judged themselves right and each other wrong." Yet Taoists certainly do not treat their own evaluations as relativistic in this sense. A few lines later, after some historical instances of men who yielded or fought for a throne with

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differing results, we are told that "as for the propriety of fighting or yielding, the conduct of Yao or of Chieh, whether they are noble or base is a matter of timeliness, they are not to be adopted as norms." This is relativism in a more limited sense; there is no constant rule to apply to both Yao and Chieh because they lived in different situations, yet a Taoist does prefer the former to the latter. One can pronounce absolutely that a particular man in a particular situation did or did not accord with the Way. There is no contradiction here; as stock examples of the good ruler and the bad, Yao would be conceived by a Taoist as responding in awareness of the conditions of his time, Chieh as not. Since Western philosophy has almost given up hope of finding logical grounds for imperatives, it may seem a little unfair that a Chinese antirationalist should, without looking for it, have stumbled on such a firm rock bottom for his philosophy of life. Unfortunately it appears that a rationalized ethic cannot take advantage of Chuang-tzu's solution. If we accept the need for rational choices between alternatives, and allow only marginal importance to the realm of spontaneity, what can we do but note that among the exotica of remote civilizations there is at least one philosophy which escapes our dichotomy of fact and value? But are we perhaps still underestimating Chuang-tzu? Nothing forbids us to take over the model of man as a basically spontaneous being bound by the imperative "Respond with awareness (of what is objectively so)," but still insist against Chuang-tzu that rationality is a positive help in becoming aware. It might turn out that there are advantages in approaching the problems of moral philosophy from this direction. Let us explore this possibility. We shall continue to speak of awareness without bothering over the details of what degree or kind of awareness is appropriate to any particular situation, which might distract us from the main thrust of the argument. At the start of my life I was behaving as spontaneously as the animals from which my species descends. Like a young animal, I became progressively more aware of my surroundings, and my reactions developed accordingly—a change for the better, for our imperative recommends it. Being human, I learned also to reason about questions of fact and so became more widely and accurately informed; but by itself such information could still serve only to make my reactions more intelligent. I also became more rational in choosing means to the goals that attracted me; but so far our only grounds for preferring one goal to another as a rational end will be that it is the one towards which I spontaneously inclined when most aware of the conditions, so that it was backed by the authority of "Respond with awareness." In the course of this evolution I was being taught a varied assortment of

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imperatives by parents, teachers, other children. As I learned to choose in the light of imperatives, did my actions disconnect themselves from spontaneous motions? Let us suppose that a child at dinner wants to eat another helping but knows that he will be sick if he does. He remembers what it is like to vomit, and appetite is momentarily overwhelmed by nausea; but present sight and smell act on him more urgently and submerge the memory. His mother says to him, or he says to himself, "Don't or you'll be ill." A crisis of choice has arisen, and the issue is which of two suspended reactions is to be allowed to run its course. The more intelligent of them is in this case the weaker, and the force of the imperative is the force of the argument for preferring the weaker: Your choice is whether to respond in diminished awareness of the c o n s e q u e n c e s and eat or in full awareness and refrain. Respond in awareness of what is objectively so. Therefore refrain.

(This is quite different from fallaciously inferring the imperative "Don't eat" from the factual premises "Eating will make you sick" and " Y o u don't like to be sick.") Since the situation recurs in his own and others' experience, he can generalize the injunction as the principle " O n e ought not to eat too much." A Taoist sage can no doubt dispense with such principles, since he has trained himself not to let local reactions distract him from his mirroring of the total situation. But the rest of us do need them, like Confucius, whom Chuang-tzu represents as saying, " T h e y are the sort that travel outside the guidelines, I am the sort that travels inside the guidelines . . . . I am one of Heaven's convicts." 2 0 (He recognizes that he can never himself become a Taoist sage and cease to depend on rules.) For us, if we are rationalists, the Taoist sage will serve rather as a theoretical limit in ethics, and the significance of " R e s p o n d with awareness" will be, not so much that it requires us to become more aware and responsive, as that it has a corollary, "Prefer the response in fuller awareness," which can generate prudential imperatives on the model of " O n e ought not to eat too much." Since any collection of imperatives must be logically consistent if all are to be obeyed, we have to try to organize them in a coherent code. But even the most highly articulated system of standards will never, unless some new logical basis for it can be found, become more than an apparatus for criticizing and judging between conflicting reactions, in ultimate dependence on "Respond with awareness." The imperative we took as example is prudential; what of moral standards? Chuang-tzu declares that the sage "has no self" 2 1 and always

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implies that in perfectly mirroring the affairs of the world the sage responds on behalf of all men. "The benefits of his bounty extend to a myriad ages, but he is not deemed to love mankind." 2 2 At first sight one might suppose that he is overlooking man's spontaneous egoism. But in submitting to "Respond with awareness" I have to admit that awareness from my own viewpoint has no privileged status. This raises the interesting possibility that the concept of awareness might prove to be a bridge over which the equal status of self and other in objective knowledge transfers itself to ethics. Let us examine this possibility, first noting that there is a close analogy between awareness from personal and from temporal viewpoints. Suppose that I have a sudden impulse to settle when I retire in the village where I was born; but reality breaks in, I recognize that I had better try to remember it not as a nostalgic vision but as I indeed saw it before experiencing the city, try to anticipate living in it not as I am now but as an old man who no longer easily makes friends, try to see myself through the villagers' eyes as already a stranger who may not deserve a welcome. I respond in awareness of what is objectively so to the extent that I become independent of my individual and present viewpoint, reducing it to the level of other viewpoints. Whether the considerations that move me are prudential or moral, my whole understanding of the world of men requires that in thought and imagination I am constantly shifting between and responding from different viewpoints, remembered or anticipated, individual or collective, my own or another's (when I "put myself in his place" by an incipient mimicry), hypothetical, fictional, or simply indefinite; it is only in action that I have to settle in a present viewpoint, whether personal ("I") or social ("We"). There is of course the asymmetry that from other viewpoints I do not perceive but imagine. But I am still responding to what I suppose to be the objective situation, and it is of crucial importance that although I am imagining it, I am not imagining the response itself. This is the case just as much with personal as with temporal viewpoints. When trying to guess where someone went when I missed him at the airport I do not imagine his thoughts, I try to imagine his situation as someone like him would see it, and think; if he tells me that he has just learned that he has cancer, I may hear in imagination the doctor's grave voice, but I do not imagine the fear, I feel the chill of it; if I see him cut his finger, I do not imagine the pain as something objective before my "mind's eye," either I look on as though the knife were slicing through cheese or I incipiently wince. This viewpoint-shifting to other times or persons is not an ethical but a cognitive act, by which I explore how I might, would, or shall feel or how other persons feel. However, to perform it I do have to feel; and my

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reactions, for example, to a pain which I expect to suffer in the future or which I see another person suffer differ only in degree from my reactions to a present pain of my own. I may harden myself not to feel it, or take measures to relieve or avoid it, or even (if I am sadomasochistic) be sexually excited by it. The difference of degree is of course considerable, and there is no assurance that the forebodings for myself or the sympathies for others which stir in me when I am most vividly aware will be strong enough to move me to action. But even if I am m o v e d only a little, our imperative will oblige me to resist stronger impulses and choose to act on the prompting, as my response when most aware. The child experiencing a moment of nausea from an anticipated viewpoint was able to do that, and made a considered prudential choice; a moral choice following a faint tremor at someone else's pain, which one acknowledges without letting the mind uselessly dwell on it, will be closely analogous, and similarly grounded in "Prefer the response in fuller awareness." Do we have here the groundwork of a new anti-egoist argument? We can claim at least that the Taoist conception of man as a basically spontaneous being is revealing an important advantage. Philosophers are accustomed to start from the idea of a rational agent pursuing his own ends; at once the question arises, " W h y should I prefer anyone else's ends to my own?" and until it can b e answered the advantage lies with the egoist. The moralists—as it seems to many of us who have worried over that question—either shirk the answer or botch it. Yet if we start by thinking of man as a spontaneous but intelligent being, obliged to pursue an awareness independent of viewpoint, recognizing if he is wise that all his behavior starts from responses which c o m e about by causation, though able to suspend and choose between responses, the burden of proof is shifted. The egoist's question becomes, " W h y shouldn't I prefer the responses from my own viewpoint?" and invites the answer, "That would be like preferring the response from your present viewpoint. Awareness is neutral as to viewpoint, and you cannot be aware from any viewpoint without responding." The egoist may now make his stand: "Well, I am not neutrally aware from all viewpoints, and neither are you. I am most aware from my own, and it is my selfish reactions which are the strongest. Why shouldn't I choose to act as I please and numb myself to the hurt I do to others, resisting any enlargement of awareness which might arouse inconvenient sympathies in conflict with my present desires?" But now he is in open rebellion against " R e s p o n d with awareness." In the course of our argument we have found no rational grounds on which he could have chosen his present ends except that they were the ones to which he spontaneously inclined when most aware; on

i8

GRAHAM

what grounds can he now prefer these ends to a further advance in awareness which might undermine them? He is assuming something which is indeed commonly assumed, but which a consideration of Chuang-tzu is forcing us to question, that it is possible to choose in a void, and ordain one's ends by an arbitrary fiat; but can one do anything else but choose, in lesser or greater awareness, between goals towards which one is already spontaneously tending? Moreover he is no longer maintaining a coherent egoistic position. He began by preferring his own response to anyone else's; now he is preferring his own as it is n o w to his own as it would become with greater awareness. At its theoretical limit, to respond with awareness would be to attain full awareness from every viewpoint and react with sympathies and antipathies as impartial as those with which I read a play of Shakespeare or a novel of Tolstoy. The ideal sage of Taoism can presumably do that, so no more requires moral standards than I require that " V e n g e a n c e is mine, I will repay" which Tolstoy put under the title oiAnnaKarenina. T h e rest of us however are relatively unaware from other viewpoints, with the consequence that our altruistic reactions are relatively weak; like the child wondering whether to risk another helping at dinner, we need an "ought" to recall us to the reaction in fuller awareness when it is the weaker. But in moral as in prudential choices, it remains basic to our position that imperatives can serve only for judging between spontaneous reactions. Certainly duty can pull against one's strongest inclination, but could one recognize the force of a moral imperative without feeling some inclination, however slight, towards the course which it commands? It seems reasonable to claim that a man without the capacity to put himself in another's place could not understand a moral appeal (even if he should happen to be a law-abiding man w h o accepts commands and prohibitions on external authority), just as s o m e o n e incapable of temporal viewpoint-shifting could not understand an appeal to his own future interests. On the present analysis, a reduced capacity for either kind of viewpoint-shifting is not a moral but a cognitive defect. It is a relevant psychological fact that insensibility both to moral appeals and to appeals to future interests, imprisonment in both " I " and " N o w , " often appears in the same person, and that the combination is widely accepted as the strongest criterion for classing him as psychopathic and exempting him from moral judgment. The question now arises: Can that rational animal Man ever b e c o m e more than an animal which criticizes its own spontaneous tendencies in the light of its awareness of objective conditions? Perhaps I think it beneath my dignity to let myself be carried on the spontaneous flood, employing my divine gift of reason only to navigate on the course of

TAOIST SPONTANEITY, " i S , " AND " O U G H T "

19

greatest awareness. I wish to be wholly responsible for my acts, to be master of my fate; I shall make my own choice of ends, distance myself from my own reactions, and learn to manipulate them like external events. There is something paradoxical about this aspiration to lift myself out of nature by the use of reason, since I cannot without setting arbitrary limits to reason forbid the sciences of physiology, psychology, and sociology to reincorporate me into nature, as a p h e n o m e n o n in principle explainable and predictable like everything else. However, this has long been a Western ideal, at its most intransigent in Sartre's Being and Nothingness, which treats even emotion as a matter of choice, to the point of explicitly denying the distinction between genuine and willed feeling. 2 The ideal would indeed be attainable if a self-contained system of imperatives could be reestablished on foundations independent of "Respond with awareness." Philosophers have of course tried to do so, by deducing a priori a Categorical Imperative, or by deriving imperatives from theological, psychological, or sociological premises at the cost of leaping from " i s " to "ought." It is now widely recognized that all such attempts have failed, yet it continues to be assumed that the rational agent has somehow pulled himself up by his bootstraps out of reach of his own spontaneity. This is to mistake the will for the deed. As long as the scope of reason is confined to refining and systematizing imperatives and deducing them from each other, how can it ever change their relation to the spontaneous? The illusion that in rational choice I detach myself from the spontaneous and reduce it to the status of external events can be sustained for a long time through a stable life adequately covered by a system of principles. But then perhaps some goal at which I have been aiming for years loses all its appeal, the energy to pursue it dries up, and suddenly it is the rational project which seems external to me, a mechanism of means and ends in which I have been trapped. It b e c o m e s clear in retrospect that what I judged to be the right goal was at best the one to which I then spontaneously inclined after full consideration of the conditions; now, if no other ends or principles are involved, a whole galaxy of reasons for saying "I ought" has been annihilated by the waning of the ambition. Or I am caught in a dilemma between conflicting standards, deliberating whether to tell a truth which will do harm, or in the classic conflict between Love and Duty. I fall asleep pondering and wake the next morning knowing what I will do, like a compass needle that was swinging and has finally settled. Even assuming that I was conducting logical operations in my sleep, it was not like arriving at a balance of probabilities, for the conflicting principles were incommensurable. Nor was it like tossing a coin, for the preliminary reasoning was not a waste of

20

GRAHAM

time. Shall I dignify it by saying that I made an existential choice from the depths of my being? But that would only be a rhetorical way of saying that I responded intelligently, settled in the direction in which I spontaneously tended after taking account of every relevant consideration, with perhaps a further suggestion that it is by this kind of choice, not fully derivable from already acknowledged imperatives, that I learn and grow. I may try to shrink myself to an infinitesimal point of thinking Ego to which all spontaneous process is external, but the spontaneous is always springing up at the center of me, thrusting me forward or dragging me back, and it is only at the periphery that I can take full control of it. Nor is it sensible to wish that it were otherwise, since raptures, aesthetic, erotic, intellectual, mystical, in which the spontaneous floods the whole of consciousness, can lift us to heights of awareness beyond our ordinary capacities. They can also delude us, of course, and the obscured line between revelation and illusion is a distinction to cling to as best one can, to be clarified by reason in retrospect or not at all. But if I insist on forcing the spontaneous towards an end which I already deem rational, I remain imprisoned within a circle of old concepts, reason goes on doing the same kind of sums, there can be no novelty except the discovery of unnoticed implications of the familiar. In poetry such a transport is evoked by a pattern of words (selected by the poet perhaps with the most intense thought and effort), which stabilizes it and allows me to evaluate it at leisure. The reader of a poem may find himself "responding" (a word as fully at home in some dialects of literary criticism as in behaviorist psychology or as the Chinese ying in Chuang-tzu) with an extraordinary expansion and enhancement of awareness. To a degree unknown in any other use of language, he finds himself not only attending to what is said, but simultaneously hearing the words as textures of vowels and consonants, noticing rhythm, rhyme, assonance; meanings refuse to be tied down, disclose associations and nuances of which he has never been conscious; sights and sounds which he has never heeded become sensuously precise and vivid in imagination; emotion assumes a peculiar lucidity, undisguised by what he habitually feels or has been taught that he ought to feel; truths about life and death which he follows social convention in systematically evading stand out as simple and unchallengeable. (Chuang-tzu himself is that kind of a poet, very much more than he is a Westerner's idea of a philosopher, so that his writing is a practical illustration of a response which veers with the unanticipated bends of the Way.) Or it might be a poem which has the opposite effect, lulling him in established habits of perception and feeling, or fascinating with some novel and appealing fashion in self-deception. A literary critic devotes much of his space to analyzing such effects. We may raise,

TAOIST SPONTANEITY, "is,"

AND " O U G H T "

21

although this is not the place to answer, the question: Does he need any aesthetic standards which cannot be treated as implications of "Respond with awareness?" Among the wildest of the ecstatics who float themselves on the spontaneous, comparable only to the lover and the mystic, is the man of reason possessed by a new insight. When a routine problem arises he perhaps assembles the information and pursues his inferences to the conclusion almost as tidily as he would on paper. But on other occasions, to use a phrase of Nietzsche, 24 "a thought comes when 'it' wants, not when I want," explodes and opens out too fast and in too complex ramifications to be disciplined, takes bold analogical leaps in defiance of logical rigor; the problem on which it centers is obscure, defining itself in the process of being solved, and as he struggles to formulate it the thought is running in another direction, yet he yields to the flow out of a vague intimation that it will circle back; for the final effort to force the argument into a coherent and publicly testable form—the only assurance even for himself that he is illuminated and not deluded—he waits until the time comes to complete it on paper. Even for the creator of a philosophy of life, one may suspect, it is not the philosophy but these episodes which give meaning to his own life. It is curious that thinkers should explore the logic of rational conduct without coming to terms with this phenomenon at the very center of their own experience. It has after all become a commonplace that the creative imagination of a philosopher, mathematician, or scientist is not much different from that of a prophet or poet; what distinguishes him is how he treats his findings in retrospect. A great formula has been known to appear to a scientist ready-made in a dream as though he were a Siberian shaman, but unlike the shaman, he accepts it not on the authority of the dream but because afterwards it satisfies his most stringent tests. But if even in the sciences rationality is no more than the capacity to criticize the spontaneous, where can we expect it to be anything else? If we are right in arguing that the underlying logic of the Taoist position escapes the dichotomy of fact and value, because the spontaneous unlike the willed can be evaluated solely in terms of awareness, it is important to find a place for it in Western philosophy. But although we can do so without becoming Taoists, it sets limits to rationality which not everyone will welcome. It implies that however rational I become I can only suspend and choose between processes within me which are spontaneous, not themselves initiated by my own decisions. This is not easy to reconcile with the faith that a man is master of his destiny, can be wholly responsible for what he becomes, which from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century inspired the triumphs of rationalism in the West, and

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GRAHAM

has shifted us to the opposite pole of thought from Chuang-tzu's. Not that there is anything essentially new about it; most of mankind throughout most of history seems to have taken it for granted that they were moved by forces beyond them and mysterious to them, which might lift them above or drag them below the capacities of which they could presume to be in command (in Chuang-tzu it is the flooding of man by " H e a v e n " or his inexplicable crippling by "Heaven's punishments," in Christian theology the unpredictable visitations of divine grace assisting a will otherwise impotent to resist the temptations of the Devil), and in the present century, ever since Freud demonstrated that the same conception of man could be translated from a religious into a psychological language, we have found ourselves thinking our way back to it. T h e man of reason is becoming reconciled to admitting that the function of his reason is critical, that it is not itself the initiator of what it judges to be best in him. He can make this concession without allowing any limits to the scope of reason as a critical tool. Is this perhaps the only conception of rationality which is viable in the twentieth century? A rationalism which imprisons in systems of means and ends, in which the ends are both disconected from spontaneity and without rational foundations, resting on nothing, summons up irrationalism as its nemesis. The argument has digressed a long way from Chuang-tzu. But what higher compliment can we pay him than that he forces us to philosophize for ourselves? 2 5

NOTES 1.

T r a n s l a t e d b y A . C . G r a h a m , Later

Mohist

Logic,

Ethics

ami Science

(Hong Kong:

C h i n e s e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1 9 7 8 ) . F o r c r i t i c i s m s of C h u a n g - t z u , cf. Canons

B 35,48,

68, 71, 72, 79, and 82. 2.

Canon

3.

CT 4 / 2 / 2 3 - 4 .

4.

CT 4 / 2 / 2 9 - 3 0 .

5.

CT 4 / 2 / 3 1 - 3 3 .

6.

Canon

A 8.

B 6 8 . " O n e c a n n o t treat ' t h i s ' a s ' t h a t ' w i t h o u t i n t e r c h a n g i n g ' t h i s ' a n d 'that.'

E x p l a i n e d b y : ' t h e d i f f e r e n c e . ' " Explanation:

" I t is a d m i s s i b l e f o r t h e m a n w h o

u s e s n a m e s rightly t o i n t e r c h a n g e ' t h i s ' a n d 'that.' W h e n t r e a t i n g o n l y that a s ' t h a t ' a n d o n l y t h i s as 'this,' it is i n a d m i s s i b l e to treat t h i s a s 'that.' W h e n that is a b o u t to b e t r e a t e d a s ' t h i s , ' it is l i k e w i s e a d m i s s i b l e to t r e a t t h i s as 'that'; y o u t r e a t o n l y t h i s o r o n l y that a s ' t h i s ' o r 'that,' a n d if a c c e p t i n g t h i s c o n d i t i o n y o u treat t h i s a s 'that,' that will l i k e w i s e b e t r e a t e d a s 'this.' " 7.

C T 7 / 2 / 8 4 - 8 6 . After a brief ellipsis, the f o l l o w i n g t w o q u o t a t i o n s ( 7 / 2 / 8 7 - 8 8 a n d 7 / 2 / 8 8 - 8 9 ) continue this passage.

8.

C T 6, 2 / 6 4 - 6 6 ( n a m e s of i n t e r l o c u t o r s o m i t t e d ) .

TAOIST SPONTANEITY, " I S , " AND " O U G H T " 9.

23

T h e M o h i s t appeals to the distinction b e t w e e n k n o w i n g n a m e s and k n o w i n g o b j e c t s (laid d o w n in Canon A 8 0 ) . O n e can k n o w that a n a m e refers to s o m e t h i n g without k n o w i n g what it refers to. Canon

B 48: " K n o w i n g what o n e d o e s not

know. Explained by: 'picking out b y m e a n s of the name.' " Explanation:

" I f y o u mix

what h e k n o w s with what he d o e s not k n o w and question him, he is sure to a n s w e r 'This I d o know, this I do not.' T o be able b o t h to pick out the o n e and dismiss the other is to k n o w in both cases." 10.

C T 4 8 / 1 9 (Outer

11.

For the m e a n i n g of lun, cf. Later Mohist

Chapter)/19-21.

12.

CT 8 / 3 / 1 0 - 1 1 .

13.

C T 3 6 / 1 3 (Outer Chapter)

14.

C T 4 0 / 1 5 (Outer

Logic, p. 28.

171-7

Chapter)/!!.

15.

CT 2 1 / 7 / 3 2 - 3 3 .

16.

A s c r i b e d to Kuan-yin, the friend of Lao-tzu. C T 9 3 / 3 3 (Mixed

17.

CT 3 3 / 1 3 (Outer

Chapter)/2-6.

18.

C T 5 4 / 2 0 (Outer

Chapter)/66.

19.

CT 4 3 / 1 7 / 2 9 - 3 0 .

20.

CT 1 8 / 6 / 6 6 , 7 1 .

21.

CT 2 / 1 / 2 1 - 2 2 . Cf. also 2 8 / 1 1 / 6 6 and 4 3 / 1 7 / 2 8 .

22.

CT 1 5 / 6 / 1 1 .

23.

J e a n - P a u l Sartre, Being and Nothingness,

Chapter)/56-57.

tr. Hazel H. B a r n e s (London: M e t h u e n ,

University Paperbacks, 1 9 6 9 ) , p. 462. 24.

Friedrich W. Nietzsche, Beyond

Good

and Evil, tr. R.J. Hollingdale

(London:

P e n g u i n Classics, 1 9 7 3 ) , p. 28. 25.

This p a p e r has b e n e f i t e d from the detailed criticisms of H e n r y R o s e m o n t , Jr.

-s:

m

c

nffl

'JK

A Tao of Tao in Chuang-tzu CHAD HANSEN

INTRODUCTION

T h e accepted view has it that Taoism is a metaphysical theory about an absolute entity—the Tao. I reject that view. Such an absolutist interpretation is usually accompanied by the claim that Taoism is inherently contradictory. M y methodology treats this claim as an acknowledgment of failure on the part of the interpreter. O n e can maintain that Chuangtzu's philosophy is contradictory only if one can show that under no plausible interpretation is it consistent. There are plausible, nonabsolutist, interpretations. T h e following is an argument for one such interpretation—to the effect that Chuang-tzu's tao is a linguistic rather than metaphysical object (roughly equivalent to prescriptive discourse) and that his doctrine is relativist rather than absolutist; that is, according to Chuang-tzu there are many taos. S o m e of the argument is heavily textual. The sentences in the cited texts are represented by a novel method. Individual characters are represented by "slash-words," for example, yen/words:language. I thereby hope to make the textual argument accessible to nonspecialists. 1 An interpretation is a theory. Interpretive theories are evaluated by the same general criteria as scientific theories, that is, their logical consistency, explanatory coherence, elegance, and simplicity. Thus, while sinological expertise is required to evaluate some of the premises in the following argument for a radical interpretation, no special " C h i n e s e logic" is required to evaluate the argument's validity. An interpretive theory is a theory of the kinds of assumptions, interests, ways of putting

A TAO OF TAO IN CHUANG-TZU

2-5

questions, and so forth which, given the cultural context, would have motivated the expressions found in the text. The appropriate way to argue for an interpretive theory is to show that it gives a more coherent and consistent account ot the text than do the alternatives. Such an account views the text as the production of a human or humans who reason as we do, albeit from different background beliefs, guiding ideas, explanatory pictures, and so on. This interpretive theory treats Chuang-tzu's Taoism as a dialectical advance over primitive Taoism, that is, the Taoism associated with Shen Tao and Lao-tzu. According to the "T'ien Hsia" chapter of the Chuang-tzu, Shen Tao adopted a stoic attitude, "giving up shih/right and fei/wrong" and "going where he was pushed; following where he was led—like wind whirling, like feathers twisting, like grindstones turning." Shen Tao's attitude arises from confusing the trivial claim "what will be will be" with the dubious claim "evaluative judgments (shihs and feis) cannot affect what will be." He interprets the observation "Everything happens according to nature" fatalistically. Where Confucius, Mo-tzu, Yang Chu, and Mencius had a plethora of ways (prescriptive doctrines), Shen Tao observes that there is just one actual way—the natural one. "Even a clod does not lose the way." 2 Confusing this descriptive tao/way with the prescriptive taos, Shen Tao thought the latter irrelevant and came to the slogan, "Abandon knowledge." Traditional interpretations focus on the character "tao/way" and treat all Taoism as akin to Shen Tao's views. Taoist writings are taken to be about "The Tao." Yet this focus is bought at some price. To sustain it, the texts from mature philosophical Taoism require interpretive "filling in." Sentences with no subject are assigned "the Tao" as the implicit subject. This practice culminates in Legge's saying whole chapters are about "the Tao" even when there is no mention of that character in the text."... This enjoyment is secured by the Tao, though that character does not once occur in the Book." 3 Legge also illustrates the common technique among translators of asserting in footnotes that other distinct characters are synonyms or metaphors for "the Tao." 4 That kind of "filling in" prejudices the interpretation toward the absolutist view. The term "tao" is absent and the other terms and images are used in the writings of Chuang-tzu because Shen Tao's metaphysical concept of "the Tao" is not as central to mature philosophical Taoism as the tradition of interpretation assumes. The religious, cosmogonic notion of a tao-creator is not at the heart of the Taoist philosophical insight. Instead a linguistic notion of tao as doctrine is. Since this theory departs radically from traditional views of Chuangtzu, it should include a brief account of how these traditional views arose.

26

HANSEN

The explanation can be found in standard histories of Taoism. The central claim is that philosophical Taoism has not been a continuing "school." The classical Taoists have been interpreted by religious Taoists, Buddhists, cosmologically inclined Confucians, and Buddhist-influenced Neo-Confucians. The secondary claim is that Chuang-tzu's philosophy developed in response to insights and theories about language which informed Neo-Mohism and the School of Names. T h e schools which provided both the background theory of language and the philosophical interest in that kind of theorizing were virtually eliminated from the tradition by Ch'in repression and by Han orthodoxy. These doctrines were subsequently lost to the interpretive tradition in China. The aspect of the philosophical environment which has been ignored by the traditional interpretations is the work on philosophy of language done by the Neo-Mohists and dialecticians. The "Ch'i/equalize Wu/thing-kind Lun/discourse" (second chapter of the Chuang-tzu) contains many of the technical terms of analysis and reflects a lively interest in the issues and personalities involved in linguistic analysis during that period. Chuang-tzu is known to have been friendly with the dialectician Hui Shih; he cites the paradoxes of Kung-sun Lung; and he uses the terminology of the Mohist Canon. The traditional interpretation in China has developed without the benefit of this vital background. The analytic tradition in Chinese thought was aborted by the beginnings of imperial China—the Ch'in and Han dynasties. These dynasties, severely repressive and superstitiously orthodox, respectively, ushered in a philosophical "Dark Age." Critical, analytic philosophy in China never recovered, and Chinese thought was dominated by a cosmologized Confucianism which was overlaid by Buddhist versions of mysticism. Taoism itself had b e c o m e a cosmological religion drawing from the classical Yin-Yang cosmologies. The works of the pre-Han Taoist philosophers were invariably interpreted in a religious, cosmogonic framework and their underlying theory of language was either ignored or taken to be the same as the Buddhist theory of language. Taoism came to be seen as distinguishable from Buddhism only in textual details. The Han was dominated by an ethos of eclecticism marked mainly by the attempt to force together the classical antagonists—Taoism and Confucianism. Those doing the first commentaries on Taoist texts were avowed Confucians. T h e y achieved their harmonization of the doctrines by adopting a Confucian perspective in interpretation. The critical, analytic anti-Confucian Taoism based on philosophy of language was lost to the Chinese tradition because the classical philosophy of language was lost. There was, in other words, no continuing school of Taoist philosophy

A TAO OF TAO IN CHUANG-TZU

27

of language. Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu were retrospectively classified as Taoists by China's historical tradition and thus associated with a panoply of doctrines which, as I shall argue below, are baldly inconsistent with the theory in the "Ch'i/equalize Wu/thing-kind Lun/discourse." The philosophical form of Taoism that emerged from the Han mixture was both cosmological and Confucian in its basic orientation. The reconstruction of the philosophy of language in ancient China has given scholars an important datum for use in constructing interpretive hypotheses. 5 That the semantic theories of early China were not understood by the orthodox tradition is uncontroversial. They have been carefully studied and analyzed only in the last century. 6 Given the degree of Chuang-tzu's familiarity with and use of these theories, it should come as no surprise that new insights into his doctrine are available. The traditional interpretations, denied knowledge of the philosophically crucial analytic component, were bound to have misunderstood a theory so dependent on an analytic linguistic tradition. The native tradition was not unlike the pre-enlightenment understanding of Aristotle. In principle, to shy away from the conclusion that the cosmological, Buddhist-inspired, Confucian-dominated intellectual tradition has distorted the interpretation of the text is analogous to quailing at the suggestion that the Church fathers might not have understood Aristotle. The suggestion that we not be intimidated by the weight of that tradition in interpretation is not a new one. Herbert Giles, in his translation of Chuang-tzu, relays this sound (though difficult) advice from within that tradition itself—we should interpret Chuang-tzu "neither according to Lao Tzu, nor according to Confucius, nor according to Buddha, but according to Chuang-tzu himself." 7 The injunction to interpret Chuang-tzu according to Chuang-tzu himself is, of course, paradoxical. We have to know what Chuang-tzu meant to follow the advice. We must start interpreting the text from some theoretical perspective. This interpretation is experimental in the sense that it proposes starting from the hypothesis that Chuang-tzu is a skeptical, relativistic reaction to the philosophy of language of the Neo-Mohists. Fortunately, the traditional interpretations of Chuang-tzu contain relativist, skeptical themes alongside the metaphysical and absolutist ones. Witness this comment from Legge: To man, neither in nature nor in the sphere of knowledge, is there any other " H e a v e n " but what belongs to his own mind. That is his only " T r u e Ruler." If there be any other, we do not see His form, nor any traces of his acting. Things c o m e about in their proper course. We cannot advance any proof of Creation. Whether we assume that there was something "in the beginning" or nothing, we are equally landed in contradiction and

28

HANSEN

absurdity. Let us stop at the limit of what we know, and not try to advance a step beyond it. 8

I propose to explore Chuang-tzu's account of the limits of knowledge and of the mind by looking at his implicit theory of language. One might reach a similar view, however, with an interpretive strategy that follows the spirit of Giles's advice. Let us generate an interpretive hypothesis by subtraction. That is, assuming that the traditional interpretation has been influenced by these rival schools, we note what all schools would be inclined to read into the text to make it harmonious with their beliefs. W e then eliminate those assumptions from the conventional interpretation and evaluate the interpretive theory that results. The evaluation uses, as explained above, a test of internal and external coherence. If, without monistic mystical, metaphysical assumptions, the interpretation still explains the text as well as (or better than) the traditional view, then we have a prima facie case that the Confucian- and Buddhist-dominated tradition has distorted the text. The argument that the traditional view is wrong is not based on the supposed motivations of the interpreters but on the claim that, given the evidence from classical Chinese philosophies of language, the traditional interpretive theory is implausible as an explanation of the text. It suggests that Chuang-tzu is not capable of reasoning as we do and is further unable to see the objections to Shen Tao's theory found in the NeoMohist Canon. The usual assumptions about Taoism result in attributing an inconsistent theory to Chuang-tzu. That would be acceptable if there were no alternative consistent way to interpret the text, but I shall argue that there is. W e have two choices. W e can proceed on the assumption that Chuangtzu reasons as we do but from different assumptions or that he reasons differently from the same assumptions. I choose the former approach. Metaphysical interpretations choose the latter. Paradoxically, therefore, those interpretations assume that Taoists start their reasoning from a Western conceptual structure and with traditional Western philosophical presuppositions and then reason in a special " C h i n e s e " way. On the contrary, the conceptual apparatus, presuppositions, and motivations of a Chinese philosopher are reflected in the classical Chinese language and contrasting theories of the role and function of language. The language is strikingly different from the languages out of which the Buddhist and Western philosophical and religious traditions grew. Chuang-tzu's reasoning from his basis is, on the other hand, understandable by us as similar to the way we would reason if we had the same language structure and philosophical milieu.

A TAO O F TAO IN CHUANG-TZU

29

SENTENCE ANALYSIS

The following sketch of Chinese syntax is for use with the "slash-word for slash-word" translations. I hope to avoid importing traditional eighteenth-century Western views of language structure by substituting logical analysis of sentences for analysis in traditional grammatical categories. In giving the analysis, I will rely mainly on the following logical categories: sentence or formula (S), predicate (P), and term or individual variable (T). A sentence is a string of characters which can be true or false. A predicate of Chinese is typically a one-place (IP) or twoplace predicate (2P), that is, it takes either one or two terms or variables to make it a sentence. For example, ch'ang/constant is a one-place predicate and " X ch'ang/constant" is a sentence. 9 Wen/ask-^bout is a two-place predicate and "X wen/ask-about Y" is a sentence, and so on. There are some three-place predicate characters in Chinese, e.g., wei/call—"X wei/call Y Z" (X calls Y Z). Characters used as terms and one-place predicates can also be used as two-place predicates in Chinese. If F is a term or a IP, then the structure "X F Y" may be translated as either "X makes Y F" or "X construes (regards, believes) Y to be F." The number of terms in a sentence can also be increased by the use of preposition-like near-verbs, viz., i/with (usually before the main predicate) and/or yii/in (after the main predicate), e.g., "X i/with Y wen/ask-about Z yii/in W" (roughly, X, based on Y, asks W about Z). Some typical term expressions include (besides variables) proper names like Chou/Chuang-tzu, classificatory nouns like wu/thing-kind or jen/human, and pronouns (indexicals) like wo/I or shih/this. A significant difference between Chinese and English structure is that common English classificatory nouns are used as terms only in phrases formed by preceding the nouns with, for example, articles, quantifiers, or demonstratives ("the," "a," "some," "all," "this"). Chinese terms, like English mass nouns (water, rice, gold, and so forth) and like English plurals, function directly as terms. Modifying a term or a predicate usually consists of preceding the predicate with the modifying expression, and the resulting expression is of the same category as the expression modified. Sometimes a whole sentence can be a term in some other sentence, e.g., ju/as:like X ch'iu/seek te/obtain ch'i/Y's ch'ing/feelings:facts yii/and pu/negative te/obtain; wu/lack i/benefit sun/injure hu/to ch'i/Y's chen/real. "It's as if X's seeking and failing to get facts about Y neither benefits nor harms (the claim that) Y is real." Once sentences are in this analytical form, the reader can see the various ambiguities and possible readings and, consequently, the different ways of "Englishing" a Chinese sentence relative to a particular analysis. Basic interpretation, then, is relatively straightforward. Terms

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denote entities or objects, and predicates denote sets of objects (or object pairs, object triples, and so forth for 2P and 3P). A sentence like " C h o u / C h u a n g - t z u pien/discuss" is true just in case the object denoted by Chou/Chuang-tzu is a m e m b e r of the set denoted by the predicate pien/discuss. " C h o u / C h u a n g - t z u chih/know M e n g / M e n c i u s " is true if Chuang-tzu and Mencius are a pair in the set of pairs denoted by chih/know and so on. There are complexities and problems with this approach, but none that need detain us here. The basic idea is that rather than trying to decide which English word has the same meaning as s o m e Chinese character, we state in English plus logical symbols what are the conditions of truth and the implications of the Chinese sentences in the text. A rough beginning of an interpretive theory is given by the dictionary definition used in the slash-words. The traditional translation for each character should be viewed as a hypothesis about which English expression has the same denotation as the Chinese expression. W h e n the usual translation yields a sentence, an argument, or a doctrine that is incoherent with other parts of the doctrine, we alter that hypothesis and consider some other English word as a more justified translation in that context. The final goal of an interpretive theory is to explain the meanings of terms in ways that make the total text intelligible, i.e., to make it clear under what conditions it would be justified to assert the sentences, give the arguments, and propose the theories (the taos) contained in a text. T H E INTERPRETIVE

HYPOTHESIS—RELATIVISM

The accepted style of interpretation of the Chuang-tzu is, from a theoretical point of view, scandalous. The conventional wisdom on Taoism in general is that it countenances and is filled with contradictions. Yet it is difficult to find explicit statements of the permissibility of contradictions in the text. Most of the contradictions that are supposed to be characteristic of Taoism are introduced by the interpreter's theoretical explanation of the text. Now, it may be true that there is no consistent way to interpret the text, but we do not know that until we have examined all possible alternative interpretations. The core contradiction in traditional interpretations is the assertion "there is a tao about which nothing can be said." If there is anything described by that assertion, then it is not described by that assertion. The absurdity (perversity) of such assertions was known to the Neo-Mohists and, by hypothesis therefore, to Chuang-tzu. It is, accordingly, implausible that Chuang-tzu would uncritically be guilty of such an error. The radical experimental hypothesis behind this new look at Chuang-tzu is simply this: Chuang-tzu neither presupposes nor does his doctrine entail

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that a single ineffable Tao exists, nor that there is such a thing as knowledge of a single, ultimate Tao, nor that we ought to follow such a Tao, and so on. In short, Chuang-tzu's theory is not about The Tao. Another way to put this point is this: "The Tao " or "The Way," as used by most English speakers who choose to speak of such things, is not the correct translation of the Chinese character tao/way as found in this text. My attention in this essay is directed only at the second chapter of the text, the "Ch'i/equalize Wu/thing-kind Lun/discourse." I share the traditional perception that this chapter is the most profound expression of philosophical Taoism. A similar approach makes most of the writings of other classical Taoists more coherent than does the traditional approach, but the analysis here is limited to one chapter. Thus, when I speak of Chuang-tzu, I mean to use the phrase as an abbreviation for "the author of the 'Ch'i/equalize Wu/thing-kind Lun/discourse.'" 1 0 The reader can work out for herself how to extend the analysis and insights in interpreting other Taoist works. I here argue simply that the traditional assumptions about Taoism do not form a coherent framework for understanding this particular chapter. Either Taoism is not a theory about a single, absolute entity called "The Tao" or this chapter of the Chuang-tzu is not an expression of Taoism. I will offer and argue for an interpretation of the text in question which does not presuppose any claims about an absolute tao/way. Chuang-tzu is a relativist and not an absolutist, that is, he is best understood as speaking of many taos, and taos are to be understood as ways (i.e., prescriptive discourses). Confirmation of this interpretive theory consists in showing that the text is explained more coherently by the theory that "tao" has the same denotation as "discourse" than by the theory that "tao" denotes a mystical, monistic, incommensurable absolute. Consider the following: On the traditional absolutist interpretation, the Taoist's use of the character tao/way must be viewed as an unexplained departure from its normal usage in the pre-Han tradition. Whereas in other schools Tao means a system or moral truth, in this school [Taoism] it is the One, which is natural, eternal, spontaneous, nameless, and indescribable. 1 1 Tao at first meant " r o a d " or "path." From this it developed the sense of a method, and of a course of c o n d u c t . . . . And the Confucian tao was also an entity, since an individual or a state might "possess the tao" or "lack the tao." But this Confucian tao was still only a principle; it was never regarded as a substance, like the tao of the Taoists.

To support this claim, one ought to explain why Taoist writers would choose a term referring to prescriptive discourse to represent their

HANSEN

metaphysical absolute. According to the interpretation offered below, Chuang-tzu theorizes about "tao/way" in a manner that is wholly consistent with its use by the other classical philosophers. O n e objection to the Confucian traditional interpretive approach is that it blinds us to the dialectic between classical Confucianism and classical Taoism. The absolutism enshrined in Shen Tao's view that there is a prelinguistic "natural" tao/way to guide behavior is, essentially, the idealistic Confucian position—the view of Mencius. In inheriting a Confucian interpretation of these texts which was designed to promote the harmonization of Confucianism and Taoism, we have failed to appreciate the essentially anti-Confucian character of Chuang-tzu's relativistic skepticism. T h e belief in a single, absolute tao/way— especially of one that is "natural" and not conventional (and therefore a product of language)—differs only in details from the view that there is an innate organ with a complete set of dispositions to behavior—the Mencian heart. " T a o " was, as Professor Chan observes, initially a term for the doctrine—the body of discourse—which Confucius taught and advocated. O n e "tao-ed" (led or regulated) people with words from texts. 1 3 Confucius's tao could be spoken and written. It consisted of a set of traditional texts attributed to the sages. The texts contained poetry, history, rules of etiquette, religious ritual, and so on. The sages, in writing these texts, intended certain patterns of behavior by the people and society. Those patterns of behavior constituted the tao/way of the sage kings. Confucius's teaching was not focused only on reading the texts but on translating them into the correct behavior. This interpretation from a written text to a particular action in a particular context is one important function of the "rectification of names." T h e body of writings together with the outcome of a correct interpretation was the Confucian tao/way. T h e rectification of names consisted in saying "shih/this is the (kind of) thing or behavior referred to by the such-and-such expression (word) in the texts." Mo-tzu, the first philosophical rival of Confucianism, opposed the monopoly which that analysis of moral behavior gave to the Confucian scholar-priest. The tradition, he argued, is not the arbiter of shih and/d. 1 4 In place of a library full of prescriptive discourse, Mo-tzu offered China a single-rule moral tao—Utilitarianism. Like the Confucian, he regards the norms of his utilitarian tao as given by t'ien/heaven:nature. He also continues the Confucian practice of appeal to the discourse and the behavior of the sage kings. Mo-tzu's tao consists of the principle of utility and the total set of performances which accord with that principle.

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Confucianism and Mohism were paradigms of conflicting taos, but the "Hundred S c h o o l " period of Chinese thought produced many more. There were, to borrow Chuang-tzu's metaphor, ten thousand competing voices. 1 5 Confucius had originally assumed that we should do whatever the traditional code (the tao/way of the sage kings) prescribed. Mo-tzu brought a philosophical challenge to that essentially conservative view when he argued that it does not follow from the claim that something is traditional that it is right. The idealist wing of Confucianism tried to salvage the content of Confucian traditionalism against the Mohist utilitarian system by claiming that the behavior dictated by the conventional code is, in fact, the natural inclination of humans—built into their hsin/hearts as innate dispositions to good (social) conduct. Thus it is the innatist, Mencius, who first makes the way truly metaphysical, prior to language, one, constant, absolute for all peoples and all times. Now we ought to b e skeptical of a tradition that tells us that Chuang-tzu believed the same thing Mencius did—not only because it is a Confucian view, but because the "Ch'i/equalize Wu/thing-kind Lun/discourse" contains a clear rebuttal of Mencius. The Buddhist and Western distortions of Chuang-tzu have an aspect of form as well as content. They overstress the metaphysical content at the expense of the linguistic and evaluative focus more characteristic of this period of Chinese philosophy. Taoism is indeed a form of skepticism, but it is a skepticism based on a theory of prescriptive judgments made in a language, not one based on phenomenalism, nor on a rationalistic distinction between a real and apparent world. It is not skepticism of the senses but skepticism of evaluative distinctions made in prescriptive discourse. SHIH

AND S E M A N T I C RELATIVISM

A.C. Graham's translation of the "Ch'i Wu Lun" was informed by his lifelong interest in the Neo-Mohist works. 1 6 It represents a fundamental breakthrough in understanding the philosophy of Chuang-tzu. Graham recognized several crucially important structural features of the essay: (1) that the essay regularly "sets up" a position in order to express doubts—often ending with a radically skeptical double rhetorical question, "is it r e a l l y . . . ? or is there n o . . . ?" (2) that Chuang-tzu operates with a massive amount of terminology and apparently sound understanding of the schools of linguistic theory; (3) that his argument is for a general skepticism of the possibility of semantics as conceived by that tradition; and (4) that the core argument turns on the ambiguity of shih/this and its two opposites, pi/that and fei/not-(this). Let us look in detail at shih-fei. Shih/this is an indexical pronoun with

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pi/that as its "pair" or "mate." In other words, each use of shih or pi is indexed to the context to determine its reference. The reference changes with each utterance. It is not a "constant" name. T h e semantic function of fei/not is quite different from shih/this, but their surface grammar in simple positive and negative assertions is deceptively similar. 1 7 A descriptive judgment like " X niu/ox y e h / p t " 1 8 would be affirmed and denied by "shih/this n i u / o x y e h / p t " and "fei/not n i u / o x y e h / p t " respectively. 1 9 Shih and fei can also be used as 2P meaning affirm-deny, approve-disapprove, treat as "this" or treat as "not-this," and so on. To mark all the functions of shih for the purposes of Chuang-tzu's argument would yield the following slash-word: shih/this: right: assent. In two uses (right:assent) shih contrasts with fei and in one with the indexical pi/that. Chuang-tzu exploits the "shifting" reference of the indexical use of shih/this to suggest that in the other uses, those in which it contrasts with fei/not:wrong:dissent, the shih-type judgments are dependent on one's perspective and context, i.e., all judgments expressed in such language are made from a point of view. However, the point of view should not be considered as only a spatial or visual point of view. Chuang-tzu thought of the acts of shihing and /eiing as relative to linguistic-social distinctions and dispositions to behavior rather than to inner-mental representations. To affirm a judgment was to "shih" it. In treating things as s/iiTi/the-one-in-question, we abide by linguistic conventions and conform to the social practices associated with our linguistic classification scheme. To shih something is to act in an appropriate way—not just to utter appropriate sounds. Fei is just the opposite. To fei the Viet Nam war was to refuse to classify it as a just war, to resist the draft, to march in protests, to withhold taxes. . . . All these features of the use of shih and fei are difficult to get into a single translation, and changing translations for different contexts makes it hard to feel the force that the argument has in Chinese.

T H E A N A L Y S I S OF

TAO/WAY

In strict translation terms, the hypothesis of this interpretive theory makes no radical change in the treatment of tao. The English word way is a common noun that, except for the vagaries of mass-noun syntax, works just as tao does in Chinese. We can speak of "a way/' or of "various ways." The " o n e tao" view found in Taoist stoics like Shen Tao reflects the insight that while there are many "ways" to do something, there is only one way the world is—one actual world history, one way things actually take place. An explanation for the appearance of a singularity in the concept of tao comes from the logic of all Chinese nouns. Since tao/way is, like other

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classificatory nouns of Chinese, a mass noun, if any two things are tao, then the sum of the two is still tao. "Discourse" as a translation reflects the logical structure of tao particularly well in this regard. Chuang-tzu sees that the actual tao consists of taos, that is, the way the world is includes the many contending systems of discourse. The translation of tao as "way" also correctly reflects the focus in Chinese philosophy on social-political, practical issues. Discourse shapes the social world. It is in this practical realm that the contrast between Taoism and Confucianism is crucial. Taoist theory, in being naturalist, is relativist; that is, there are many ways. They are all "actual" and each is k'o/admissible:justified from some perspective or other. Confucian theory is absolutist in the sense that it holds that there is only one correct way. Fingarette highlights this Confucian attitude by using the image of a way without crossroads: 2 1 there is only the Way and failure to follow the Way. For Confucians, that is, translations using the definite article "the" before "tao/way" are usually justified—not because they believe in a metaphysical tao but because they are committed to one particular moralsocial way among those being advocated in the philosophical context. For Chuang-tzu, by contrast, all ways are equally valid—none has any special status or warrant from the point of view of the universe. Not only is the traditional view wrong in saying there is a single metaphysical tao, it also errs in suggesting the Taoist philosopher is committed to a metaphysical flux a la Heraclitus. Chuang-tzu is neither a Chinese Heraclitus nor is he a closet Parmenidean. To Chuang-tzu, or to any Chinese philosopher for that matter, there is nothing philosophically problematic in the simple observation that things change. The distinctive claim of the Taoist is that, totally apart from actual physical process, our conventional ways of doing things with prescriptive language are always changing—there is no constant, absolute, guide to behavior in all circumstances and times (contra Mencius). More generally, any social practice, any conventionally based way of doing something that can be spelled out and expressed to serve as a guide can also be altered. If it can be advocated—captured in prescriptive discourse—then it can be modified. There is nothing ultimate or "constant" in such systems. And, as the Lao-tzu points out, the reason no such discourse is constant is that language (names) is inconstant—artificial, conventional, changeable. No tao is constant because no name is constant. The Grammatical Evidence In his discussion of Taoism, Herlee Creel has addressed a grammatical issue closely related to the argument given above. "It seems impossible to find an appropriate rule for capitalizing tao. I therefore always write it only against a background assumption that taos are normally interpreted

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lower case, which accords with Taoist simplicity." 22 Creel's solution is, I submit, the right one (though his reason borders on the facetious). The applicable rule is a basic rule of English and is not hard to come by. One capitalizes proper nouns and not classifying nouns. Grammatically tao/way is a classificatory noun. Like other classificatory nouns in classical Chinese, it has no plural and can function as a term without articles like "the," "a," "some," and so on. All Chinese nouns, thus, grammatically resemble English proper nouns in some respects more than English common nouns. There is, however, a distinction between a classifying noun and a proper noun in Chinese. A classifying noun can be modified while a proper noun cannot. Tao/way is modified regularly in Chinese texts: "constant tao," "heavenly tao," "kingly tao," "Mohist tao," and so on. Tao/way is no more a proper name than is ma/horse. Even claims like "tao/way i/one yeh/pt" do not show that tao/way is a proper name because a clearly parallel understanding of that phrase allows the Neo-Mohists to say "ma/horse i/one yeh/pt." 2 3 In translation we must either use the plural or choose one of the articles or quantifiers according to context. But that is a problem of English. Only such a noun phrase can make classifying nouns into terms in an English sentence. Ordinary nouns in Chinese, as I have argued above, have the syntax of mass nouns of English. Mass nouns, aside from their individuating principles, function very much as plurals do in English. I propose, therefore, to translate "tao" not only with lower case, but as a general noun without definite article. I will translate in the plural or with "some" or "a," depending on the context. In "Ch'i Wu Lun" "tao" never requires the definite article, "the." The Conceptual Link with Language A tao/way is a shihmg and feiing of performances of conventionally or socially defined actions. It is by inference a s/ii7iing and/ding of a scheme of distinctions for judging things as t'ung/similar and i/different. Margaret feis abortions. She probably, therefore, shihs uttering "children" in referring to fetuses. Her opponent distinguishes between fetuses and children. Prolife and prochoice discourses are supported by different schemes of dividing and grouping things. A tao is a scheme of classifications (names) which generates a pattern of behavior via its influence on affective attitudes—desires and aversions. To have learned how to use a name is to classify or divide things in the way one's linguistic community does and to have the appropriate pro and con attitudes. Taos are, thus, linguistic. They are systems of names that lead to conventionally appropriate behavior. Any claim that there is some tao that cannot be told is significant and distinctive only against a

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background assumption that taos are normally interpreted as prescriptive discourse. The claim that taos are linguistic, while heretical, would not be surprising to students of classical Chinese thought were it not for the dominance of the traditional view. All the philosophy of the pre-Han period exhibits a fascination with the importance of language (an interest abandoned by the Han). The first chapter of the Tao Te Ching, for example, begins with parallel assertions about taos and names. In Chuang-tzu's "Ch'i/equalize Wu/thing-kind Lun/discourse" almost every mention of tao is paralleled with a similar claim about language. The character tao/way is used thirteen times in the chapter, and eleven of those times the claim about taos is introduced, followed, or explained by a claim about yen/words:language, wei/call:say, or the paradigmatic linguistic distinctions shih-fei. For example: By what are taos hidden that there can be c h e n / r e a l and wei/false? By what is yen/words:language obscured that there can be shih and fei? H o w can there be conduct without there being a t a o / w a y ? How can there be yen/words:language that are pu-k'o/non-assertable? T a o / w a y s develop as we act; things become so by being wei/called so. T a o / w a y s do not have boundaries; y e n / w o r d s : language does not have norms.

And so on. The Adequacy of Language The crux of Chuang-tzu's skepticism is this. Our assignments of things to evaluative or descriptive categories are constantly changing. He is not saying that our senses deceive us about some unchanging reality behind the changing phenomenal realm. Nor is he even technically committed to there being any unchanging reality behind our names and categories. The central issue of flux in the Chuang-tzu is "saying says something, but what it says is never fixed." There is a distinction between categories/names and things/reality (otherwise we could make no sense of the claim that the category assignments change). However, Chuang-tzu's skepticism does not depend on any claim about whether or not real things change. Taoist relativism, in other words, does not require a belief in an absolute, unchanging, eternal, single, and ultimate metaphysical Tao. Chuang-tzu's skepticism is, in fact, inconsistent with any such absolute assumption. If there were a unitary, absolute, and distinctionless Tao, and if affirmations presupposed divisions in what could not be divided, the conclusion would be that all judgments are wrong—they presuppose distinctions where there are none. Yet, far from claiming that we can shih

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and fei nothing, Chuang-tzu argues that we can shih and fei ANYTHING. That is to make a point about shihing and /rang, not about the ultimate reality. If we accept Graham's argument that Chuang-tzu was knowledgeable about dialectics, then the absolutist interpretive theory faces an especially interesting difficulty. Chuang-tzu would have failed to understand a perfectly clear refutation of Shen Tao's absolutist Taoism in the NeoMohist Canon, viz., to say that all yen/language is pei/perverse: wrong is pei/perverse:wrong. The Canon argues that any such claim is selfrefuting. 24 No doubt Shen Tao is guilty of something like this kind of error and, arguably, Lao-tzu is. Chuang-tzu, however, does not say that all language is wrong. On the contrary, he insists that there is no absolute ground behind the various competing practices of shilling and /eiing. Such assignments are parts of systems of assignments (perspectives). The appropriateness of any such assignment is internal—relative to a system of discourse. When we fully understand that, he suggests, we will see that we can shih-fei "without limit." T H E A R G U M E N T S IN T H E " C H ' I W U

LUN"

My strategy is to argue that the theory set forth in the "Ch'i/even Wu/thing-kind Lun/discourse" is an argument for relativism rather than absolutism. To do this, I will show that key passages throughout that chapter are more plausibly interpreted (especially given the philosophical context) as expressing a nonabsolutist view. 25 The passages will be discussed in roughly the sequence in which they occur in the text. 2 6 This arrangement will show how the chapter as a whole is a coherent exposition of a relativist position. Without further argument, the fact that I do not discuss certain passages should not be taken to show that they support an absolutist interpretation. 27 T h e N a t u r a l E q u a l i t y O f All T a o s "Tell me about the pipes of heaven." " W h o is it that blows the ten thousand disputing voices, who when of themselves they stop their talk has sealed them, and puffs out of them the opinions that they choose for themselves?" 2 8

The metaphor of the pipes of heaven is the focus of Chuang-tzu's introduction to the chapter. Graham's translation makes the analogy with discourse explicit. The pipes of heaven are the sounds made by people in accordance with their nature. The "disputing voices" of the Hundred Schools period in China, of course, each claimed to be expressing the "will" or "mandate" or "way" of heaven-nature. To the question, "Is any

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of the various n o r m a t i v e t h e o r i e s of the time a 'naturally c o r r e c t ' way of c o n d u c t ? " t h e traditional a c c o u n t of Taoist t h e o r y w o u l d a n s w e r no. C h u a n g - t z u ' s answer, in characteristic style, is delightfully p e r v e r s e . H e shifts the perspective. All the w a y s of s p e a k i n g a r e natural. All discourse, all the disputing v o i c e s are natural. It is as natural for p e o p l e to e x p r e s s and dispute their o p i n i o n s as for the wind to roar in h o l l o w s and birds to sing in the trees. T h e implications of this i m a g e give C h u a n g - t z u an e a s y a n s w e r to the criticism that h e s h o u l d not b e using language. H i s writing o r uttering his t h e o r y w a s as fully in a c c o r d with nature as the s o u n d of rain. C h u a n g tzu's t h e o r y d o e s not imply that all the disputing v o i c e s are w r o n g — rather that all a r e equally " r i g h t " — a t least equally " n a t u r a l . " At the s a m e time, the m e t a p h o r illustrates the t h e m e of the chapter. T h e r e can b e n o i n h e r e n t priority a m o n g the various w a y s p r e a c h e d b y t h e s e pipes. All such l u n / t h e o r i e s are equal. T h e r e is n o t h i n g in the v i e w p o i n t of n a t u r e to distinguish b e t w e e n the different p o i n t s of view such that s o m e a r e shih a n d s o m e fei. All such shih-fei j u d g m e n t s a r e internal to the v a r i o u s s y s t e m s of d i s c o u r s e — t h e " w a y s " that are " p u f f e d out." C h u a n g - t z u ' s m e t a p h o r is arguably a i m e d at a class of strategies for getting h e a v e n on the side of o n e ' s discourse. T h e s e strategies a s s u m e that h e a v e n had m a d e a d h e r e n c e to s o m e particular w a y innate. T h i s a r g u m e n t was, as n o t e d a b o v e , p u r s u e d m o s t t h o r o u g h l y by M e n c i u s (although M e n c i u s m a y h a v e stolen the central idea f r o m a proto-Taoist, Y a n g C h u ) . 2 9 M e n c i u s treats the b e h a v i o r s dictated b y t h e C o n f u c i a n d i s c o u r s e s as natural in the s e n s e that t h e y a r e o u t c o m e s of innate feelings of a p e r s o n ' s h s i n / h e a r t . T h e h e a r t is e n d o w e d b y t ' i e n / h e a v e n : n a t u r e . P r o a n d c o n attitudes (shihs and feis) of h u m a n s result in b e h a v i o r that is the natural r e s p o n s e of the h s i n / h e a r t to particular c i r c u m s t a n c e s . C o n f u c i u s ' s t a o / w a y is simply the m o s t accurate, lang u a g e - b a s e d a p p r o x i m a t i o n of this total set of natural r e s p o n s e s . P r e scriptive C o n f u c i a n d i s c o u r s e w a s g e n e r a t e d f r o m the shih-fei r e s p o n s e s of the sages. Like the sages, w e have an innate d i s p o s i t i o n to discrimi n a t e — t o shih-fei in the c o n v e n t i o n a l C o n f u c i a n way. T h e conflicting view in C h i n a s e e m e d to b e that the pro and c o n attitudes, the e m o t i o n s a n d d e s i r e s a n d inclinations to c o n v e n t i o n a l b e h a v i o r in the heart w e r e the p r o d u c t of l a n g u a g e socialization. David Nivison has s u g g e s t e d that M e n c i u s v i e w e d the M o h i s t s a n d his m o s t f a m o u s d e b a t i n g o p p o n e n t , Kao-tzu, as c o n v e n t i o n a l i s t s in this s e n s e . 3 0 T h e y s e e m e d to M e n c i u s to b e asserting that o n e ' s m o t i v a t i o n s w e r e a c q u i r e d f r o m y e n / w o r d s : l a n g u a g e , a n d with this M e n c i u s p o i n t e d l y disagreed.31

4o

HANSEN

Lao-tzu's Taoism is another version of this kind of response. Desire (like its companion, wei/deliberate-action) is generated by names and distinctions, i.e. by learned conventions. Lao-tzu, on the one hand, confronts the Confucian with the view that the conventional attitudes and desires arise from the acquisition of a system of names and from learning the evaluatively loaded distinctions that are associated with names in a conventional system of discourse. At the same time, he seems to suggest, Mencius-like, that abandoning all names and reverting to "natural" behavior would result in "correct" behavior. Insofar as Lao-tzu thought right conduct could be achieved without convention and language, his theory—like that of Mencius—is a kind of innate realism. A True Ruler Chuang-tzu's discussion soon leads to an analysis of innate realism. His refutation of Mencius's theory of the heart and its shilling and /eiing applies to all versions of innate realism. The fact that there is some faculty (conscience, intuition, and so forth) that makes judgments does not prove that it ought to make such judgments. Any contrary inclinations— lusts, desires, doubts—are equally natural, equally given by heaven. Chuang-tzu's view is that a heart that issues such judgments is a natural product of environment and history. A heart accumulates judgments and is shaped in its reactions by its past patterns of s/iiTiing and /eiing. The heart is just the accumulation of pro and con reactions. The discussion of the heart is a poignant soliloquy on mental aging. The acquisition of a system of discrimination both gives the heart its character and simultaneously constrains and limits its future reactions. Eventually it loses all flexibility, b e c o m e s old, and dies. Its vigor lies in its ability to respond in different ways, and that is lost as a historical pattern of shih-fei judgments accumulates over time. "The heart shoots its thoughts like bolts from a crossbow," referring to its judgments, " T h a f s it, that's not [shih-fei]." "It ties us down as though by oath or treaty," referring to the way it holds fast to the winning alternative. "It declines as though through autumn and winter," referring to its daily deterioration. As it sinks it cannot be made to repeat what it once did. "Its source is stopped as though it were sealed," referring to its degeneration in old age. As the heart nears death nothing can restore its 32 vigor.

Chuang-tzu's philosophy of mind suggests an explanation of how generation gaps arise. The young at heart have the mental flexibility to adopt new ways of dividing and discriminating and responding to things. As we accumulate more and more judgments in a particular pattern or

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from a particular perspective, we become less and less able to adopt new perspectives and outlooks. Our investment in the old patterns is a kind of mental old age. Thus, as conventional "knowledge" changes, the young absorb the new theories easily. The older generation has a large investment in another way of dividing things up—in fact, all of its knowledge is "stored" in the old categories. The position of Mencius, by contrast, helps explain the reverence for age that is characteristic of Confucian China. There is a single correct way among the various patterns of approving and rejecting (shifting and /eiing). The shih-feis dictated by the hsin/heart are the "real" way of feeling, judging, and acting. The heart is cultivated and grows to maturity according to a fixed pattern—dividing and discriminating in the same way. The aged have more knowledge. The evaluations of someone old are outcomes of more mature systems. Mencius's theory entails a true ruler among our faculties and feelings. For Mencius the true ruler is the hsin/heart, which contains the shihs and feis innately. It is a faculty for making discriminations instilled in us by heaven to effect the command (mandate) of heaven. He takes the heart to be our essential nature—the real "me" which should rule over my other desires and inclinations. Chuang-tzu's rebuttal, though methaphorical, is the standard philosophical analysis. 1.

2.

3.

Even allowing that there is such an innate responding faculty or organ as the hsin/heart, it does not follow that its inclination to respond ought to rule over and control the contrary responses of the other faculties of judgment. Since, by hypothesis, all people have a hsin/heart, the appeal to a ruling heart provides no basis for criticizing any particular person's "spontaneous" behavior. The shih-fei responses of the hsin/heart are in any case not innate but the products of convention and past practice. The heart mirrors rather than justifies conventional morality.

" W i t h o u t pi/other there is no wo/I, without w o / I no choice b e t w e e n alternatives." This is rather close, but we don't k n o w what is m a d e the cause. It is as if there were s o m e c h e n / r e a l tsai/minister:premier and yet, for s o m e special reason we have no evidence of it. That it can be followed s e e m s enough to trust in, yet we cannot make out its features—it has facticity but no features. O f the hundred joints, nine openings, six inward organs, all present and complete in us, which should I take to be most kin to m e ? Are you thinkers pleased with them all? Have you rather a favorite a m o n g them? In that case are they all ministers and servants to it? Are the ministers and servants not up to governing each other? How about letting t h e m take turns

42

HANSEN

as ruler and minister? Is there rather a c h e n / r e a l c h u n / k i n g a m o n g them? It's as if seeking for the facts and not getting them has no effect on its truth. 3 3

All these arguments against innate realism or intuitionism suggest skepticism of the claim that there is a "true ruler." These are versions of the standard philosophical critique of any ethical theory based on conscience or some other natural inclination or guide to behavior. It does not follow from the fact that such a guiding faculty exists that it ought to rule us. Besides, various people's "guides" disagree. Finally, consciencelike responses are a product of training and socialization—an internalization of conventional practices—rather than an absolute source of moral guidance. Witness how consciences of people from different cultures differ (Chuang-tzu likes to make this point with other animal species as well). It is in the context of this rejection of the ruling role of the hsin/heart that we encounter a purported reference to a realist tao/way, i.e., to some natural guide of our emotions and norms of behavior. A textual issue must be addressed here. The section containing these skeptical remarks on the ruling function of any particular organ is bracketed by two references to a "true ruler" ( 4 / 2 / 1 5 and 17). Graham, like Legge, treats these as oblique references to the ubiquitous Tao. "Nevertheless, they do have an order among them, which shows that they have a 'true ruler' which is not the heart, namely the T a o . " 3 4 Graham treats the penultimate sentence as an assertion, " O r rather than that, they have a genuine ruler present in them." The Chinese commentary tradition is split on the analysis of that sentence. It may grammatically be treated as a question or an assertion. 3 5 Wing-tsit Chan, like Graham, translates these problematic sentences as assertions and says there is no justification for the alternative choice. 3 6 Let me offer a justification. First, consider the argumentative context. Reading these references to "true" rulers as assertions within Chuang-tzu's theory makes that theory into a kind of realism which differs from Mencius only in denying that it is the heart which has the role as ruler. It ignores the fact that all of Chuangtzu's arguments apply equally well against any purported source of correct feelings and actions. It also contradicts the tone of this entire section of the chapter. Immediately preceding these references is Chuang-tzu's argument that the action-guiding feelings simply occur "like mushrooms from damp." "Let it be! Let it be! Morning and evening we have them. What about their origins?" 3 7 The skeptical, questioning tone is unmistakable. We need not translate the penultimate sentence as a simple question to reflect that t o n e , 3 8 but the grammatical and logical context forbids our taking the other sentences under consideration as direct

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assertions that there is some entity which we unqualifiedly ought to obey. Second, both mentions of true rulers are punctuated by pointed reference to the lack of evidence for them. "It is as ¿/there were a true ruler which is deliberately hidden." ("Jo/like x yu/have chen/real tsai/ minister:ruler erh/and:yet t'e/purposely pu/negative te/get ch'i/it's chen/traces.") "Ch'i/X's:could-it-be X yu/have chen/real chun/king yen/in-it? Ju/as:like x ch'iu/seek te/obtain ch'i/Y's ch'ing/feelings:facts yii/and pu/negative te/obtain; wu/lack i/benefit sun/injure h u / t o ch'i/it's chen/real." 3 9 Chuang-tzu's position on the true ruler is characteristically agnostic. In the last passage, Chuang-tzu pointedly uses the pair (i/benefit sun/injure) in talking about the lack of evidence. Traditional interpretations must read him as intending only to say that the lack of evidence does not "injure" the claim of "reality." However, Chuangtzu is definitely not asserting that lack of evidence strengthens the assertion! The logic of his argument is that if we have no reason to believe one of the present and complete organs is a natural ruler, we have no more reason when we lack any indication of such a ruler. Given the traditional acknowledgment that Chuang-tzu is a skeptic, it is simply bizarre to choose a reading of these sentences that commits him to the existence of a true ruler just after he has pilloried a logically parallel view and when he follows the statements with emphasis on the lack of evidence for such a claim. Third, the grammatical case for reading the sentence in question as a nonassertion is really quite strong. The character ch'i/X's which introduces the question is frequently used in a "modal" sense, that is, as an indicator of something resembling subjunctive or interrogative mood. This is an especially plausible way to construe ch'i where the pattern of questions dominates the context. The pattern, including the sentence referring to a true ruler, is "ch'i. . . yen? c h ' i . . . hu? ch'i. . . hu? ch'i. . . yen?" 4 0 Simply put, the argument for rejecting the assertory reading of these passages is that (1) the criticisms Chuang-tzu levels against the Mencian heart apply with equal force to any Taoist "true ruler" as well. We may ask of any allegedly authoritative instinct, organ, or feeling, "Why should it rule?" "Is one person's guide better than another?" and "Doesn't the guiding, in fact, reflect the influences of learning?" The text contains no attempt to distinguish two versions of realism which salvages a Taoist version from the refutation. (2) If we treat these references to the true ruler as assertions of some real "way" or guide, Chuang-tzu's tone fluctuates in the space of one hundred odd characters between blatant dogmatism, sardonic skepticism, and back to dogmatism. Given the skeptical context coupled with the expressed skepticism at each mention

HANSEN

44

of a "true ruler," Chuang-tzu must be treated as doubting the position normally attributed to him. (3) The grammatical context, coupled with the argumentative one, yields a strong presumption in favor of either interrogative or subjunctive interpretation of the passages talking about "true rulers." Instead of reading ch'i/ifs:could-it-be (the modal ch'i) as the subject of the sentence, read it as a sardonic questioning—parallel to the introductory reference and consistent with the tone of the chapter at this point. That way, rather than treating the passage as committing Chuang-tzu to the dogmatic view that the true ruler is there despite the lack of evidence, we treat the author as recognizing the force of his own refutation of such a notion. The argumentative context and the grammatical structure together require that we treat these references as other than theoretical assertions. Only the stubborn faith that Chuang-tzu believes in some absolute tao can contradict the impression here that he is at least being ironic. Perspectival Relativism Chuang-tzu, having argued that there is no absolute, heavenly, or natural "giver" of the content of any particular system of prescriptive discourse, turns to the question of whether the distinctions in such discourse and the shih-fei judgments based on them might reflect some natural order of things. At this point, Chuang-tzu confronts more formidable opponents—the School of Names. The School of Names could b e represented as holding that there is some " w a y " to be discovered by the study of n a m e s and objects. They engaged seriously in the disputes about, for example, whether the compound "hard-white" picks out one thing or two. Chuang-tzu's argument (driven h o m e in section 13) is that all such disputation is pointless. The assignment of names to things only has warrant from the perspective of some accepted system of naming. The Neo-Mohists, the philosophical realists of the period, would object. There is a world that supports the distinctions in our language, and some systems of discourse, some patterns of distinction making, more closely reflect the differences in that world than do other systems. Chuang-tzu considers that objection: "Saying is not blowing breath, saying says something." The only trouble is that what it says is never fixed. 4 1 Do w e really say something? O r h a v e w e never said anything? If you think that saying is different from the twitter of fledglings, can you prove a distinction o r is there no distinction?

Language seems to have a certain "aboutness." Chuang-tzu suggests that if nothing can "fix" what language is about, then there is no reason to

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distinguish it from any other sounds in nature. Suppose we grant that there is some reality to which language is related. If that relation constantly changes, how are we to explain the difference between language and sounds? If we point to the complexity of these systems or ways of speaking, then Chuang-tzu's original observation will seem appropriate again—despite differences in complexity, all such ways of speaking are equally natural. All are part of the sound of nature. Chuang-tzu develops this analysis and introduces the term "tao/ ways." Notice here, as throughout this chapter, that talk about taos is tied to talk about language. How are taos 4 2 hidden such that there can be real and artificial ones? H o w are words hidden such that there can be shih and fei? H o w can a tao be practiced and yet not exist? H o w can there be words which are not admissible? Taos are hidden in small accomplishments. Words are hidden by elaborate style. And so we have the shih'mg and /Wing of the Confucians and Mohists, whereby one shihs what the other feis a n d / e i s what the other shihs. If you want to shih what the other feis and fei what the other shihs then nothing is better than using clarity.

Ways of life are represented in systems of names. Like language, taos are all natural. What Chuang-tzu seems to be asking about taos works rather well in translation: " h o w can a way of doing something be practiced and not be a way?" Our ways of life are sets of conventional practices usually involving prescriptive language. The rhetorical questions suggest that both taos and words are inherently social and conventional. There is nothing that makes taos "correct" or that makes some word the appropriate one for shih/this. Conversely, there is a tao for every pattern of action, and every existing linguistic practice of any community is admissible from some perspective. All judgments of shih and/ei are relative to existing community practices. So the Confucian tao and the Mohist tao produce different and contrary patterns of shihing and fei'mg. When you understand the nature of taos and words, then you will see that you could in principle reverse any conventional judgment from some opposite system of assigning names and prescribing behavior. There is nothing that is not pi/that, there is nothing that is not shih/this. From pi/that you do not see it; from chih/know:mastery you c h i h / k n o w it. Thus it is said: " p i / t h a t comes from shih/this and shih/this is based on pi/that." This is the theory of the simultaneous birth of shih-pi.

This argument about indexical demonstratives is near the heart of Chuang-tzu's relativism. The strategy is to show that all discrimination, evaluation, classification, and so forth are relative to some changeable context of judgment. His argument shows this for the indexical pronoun

46

HANSEN

shih/this, viz., that it has no fixed reference. W h e n e v e r we use a "that," there is always a perspective in which what we referred to as "that" would be referred to as "this." These two indexical terms "are born together" but divide the world differently on each occasion of use. Each token, each particular utterance of such an indexical term has a different referential value. This is the argument behind the earlier claim that the reference of language is not fixed. Chuang-tzu extends this argument about indexicals to claim that all dichotomies of language behave in the same way. This extension equivocates on different meanings of shih. Shih is both an indexical "this" and a generalized judgment "right," "correct." Chuang-tzu's argument transfers the essentially token reflexive character of demonstrative shih/this to its more general use. He thus jumps from the perspectival relativity of reference to the conventional relativity of judgment. Still, the c o m m o n theme of relativism links the two cases. That is, Chuang-tzu does not claim that all shihirig is wrong because the absolute is without any distinctions. He claims instead that all shihirxg is right— from some perspective or other. He does not claim that all language is pei/perverse but that all is admissible—in some conventional practice or another. Shih/this is also pi/that. Pi/that is also shih/this. There is one shih-fei, here is one shih-fci. Is there really shih/this and pi/that? Or is there no shih/this and pi/that? Where neither shih/this nor pi/that is in opposition we call "axis of taos." When the axis begins to generate a circle you can respond without limit. There is no limit to what you can shih and no limit to what you can fei. So I say nothing is better than clarity.

Ming/clarity is apparently to be understood here as the awareness that there is a possible tao which would generate any desired pattern of shihing and /eiing. Whatever pattern of response we adopt b e c o m e s a way. The conventionality and artificiality of taos and language are underlined again. If we are k'o/permitting something, then it is k'o/permissible. If we are treating something as nonassertable, then it is nonassertable. A tao is formed by our conduct. If things are called such, then they are such. How are things such? They are such from being such. H o w are things not such? They are not-such from being not-such. If things really provide something to " s u c h " or to "k'o," then there is nothing that is not such or not k'o.

The Tao Is One? The Taoism of Shen Tao held that there was only one tao and that it was correct in the sense that one could derive prescriptions from it ("follow it"). His famous slogan, " A b a n d o n wisdom, discard self," is a prescrip-

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tion. T h a t c o n c e p t i o n o f t a o is r e p r e s e n t e d b y t h e f o r m u l a , " A l l t h i n g s a r e o n e . " C h u a n g - t z u i n c l u d e s a s i m i l a r f o r m u l a c e n t r a l l y in the " C h ' i W u Lun." However, Chuang-tzu's argument u n d e r m i n e s S h e n Tao's absolute m o n i s m . C h u a n g - t z u is c a r e f u l to a v o i d n o t o n l y m e t a p h y s i c a l b u t e v a l u a t i v e c o m m i t m e n t . H i s a r g u m e n t s a b o u t m e t a p h y s i c s b e a r n o r e s e m b l a n c e to t h o s e of P a r m e n i d e s or a n y classical m o n i s t . T h i s r e n d e r s d u b i o u s a n y monistic interpretation. Further, Chuang-tzu invokes no contrast bet w e e n a w o r l d o f a p p e a r a n c e , a s e n s i b l e w o r l d that is in flux, a n d a w o r l d o f t h o u g h t o r r e a s o n , an a b s t r a c t u n c h a n g i n g " o n e . " E v e n if w e t r e a t shihfei a s r o u g h c o u n t e r p a r t s o f " i s " a n d " i s n o t , " C h u a n g - t z u ' s o b s e r v a t i o n s a n d c o n c l u s i o n s a b o u t t h e m a r e totally u n l i k e t h o s e o f P a r m e n i d e s . F a r f r o m h o l d i n g that w h a t e v e r is c a n n o t n o t b e a n d w h a t is n o t c a n n o t b e c o m e , C h u a n g - t z u says, to t h e c o n t r a r y , that w h a t is shih c a n befei

and

w h a t is/ei c a n b e shih. T h i s is n o t a m e t a p h y s i c a l c l a i m that all is in flux. It is an o b s e r v a t i o n a b o u t t h e relativity of j u d g m e n t s (shih-feis) to w a y s ( t a o s ) of using yen/words: language. C h u a n g - t z u ' s i n s i g h t is p r e c i s e l y t h e o n e that w o u l d d e f u s e

any

m o t i v a t i o n to a P a r m e n i d e a n m o n i s m . O u r j u d g m e n t s o f w h a t is a n d w h a t is n o t a r e n o t a b s o l u t e d i c t a t e s of r e a s o n or i n t u i t i o n . T h e y a r e n o i s e s m a d e in a c o n t e x t a n d f r o m a p e r s p e c t i v e f r a m e d b y s y s t e m s of j u d g m e n t . E a c h s y s t e m is i n t e r n a l l y self-justifying. N o n e is p r i v i l e g e d o r a b s o l u t e . A n y a t t e m p t to talk a b o u t a real o r a b s o l u t e p e r s p e c t i v e is i n c o h e r e n t . 4 3 L e t u s c o n s i d e r , n o w , s o m e o f t h e p a s s a g e s that s h o w C h u a n g - t z u ' s insight i n t o t h e p r o b l e m s o f m o n i s t i c T a o i s m . T h e first f o l l o w s o n t h e h e e l s o f t h e last p a s s a g e q u o t e d . A f t e r n o t i n g that all j u d g m e n t s a r e p o s s i b l e f r o m s o m e p a r t i c u l a r p e r s p e c t i v e , C h u a n g - t z u o b s e r v e s that s o m e tao can classify different things together n o matter h o w unalike they seem. This passage reflects Chuang-tzu's use of o n e of the central t h e s e s of H u i S h i h , C h u a n g - t z u ' s S c h o o l of N a m e s p r o t a g o n i s t , viz., that t h e r e is a p o i n t o f v i e w f r o m w h i c h a n y c h o s e n t h i n g s a r e a l i k e a n d s o m e p o i n t o f v i e w f r o m w h i c h t h e y a r e different. Therefore deeming something shih denotes stalks along with pillars, lepers with (the beautiful) Hsi Shih. However unlike and incongruous, (some) taos link and deem them one. Their divisions are the development of things. Their development is their decay. When no thing develops or decays, (we) again link them as one. 4 4 S o " o n e - i n g " t h i n g s is e i t h e r a r e s u l t o f a d o p t i n g a p e r s p e c t i v e that t r e a t s t h e m as s i m i l a r or a r e s u l t o f r e f u s a l to a d o p t a n y s y s t e m o f d i s c r i m i n a t i o n . T h e latter r e p r e s e n t s p r i m i t i v e T a o i s m . C h u a n g - t z u d o e s not, h o w e v e r , e n d o r s e t h e m o n i s m o f S h e n T a o or its a s s o c i a t e d s t o i c i s m . In fact,

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HANSEN

Chuang-tzu goes on to pragmatic endorsement of "residing in the usual"—using names and shihmg in the conventional, shared, therefore useful and understandable ways. 4 5 Chuang-tzu notes that there is "an end" to that kind of shihmg and says that when we deal with what comes after that end, we do not know "what is so of things." We christen that ignorance of things "tao." [ C o n f o r m i s t s/11'Mng] c o m e s to an end; a n d w h e n it is at an end, that of w h i c h w e d o not k n o w what is so of it w e call [the] tao . . . . T o w e a r out one's wits treating things as one without k n o w i n g that these are the s a m e I call " t h r e e every morning."46

The mystical monist's formula, "all things are one," has no role beyond the skeptic's " w e don't know what is so of things." To know is to make a distinction; to fail to know is not to make a distinction. To fail to make the distinction is enough. The further assertion, that there is some unitary whole without distinction, adds nothing. To "wear out our wits" trying to make sense of monism without realizing that it is nothing beyond an admission of our ignorance is to make a distinction without a difference. 47 That is, nothing distinguishes the claims made by a skeptic and a mystic. The basis for this conclusion in Chuang-tzu's system is not hard to see. The skeptic asserts that no distinction or term unqualifiedly reflects reality. The mystic similarly holds that no distinction or term does so, but goes on, paradoxically, to make a distinction (between one and many) and apply a term (one). He seeks, that is, to make a discriminative judgment about the making of distinctions.. He asserts that distinctions divide something that is mystically and incommunicably "one." The only intelligible distinction between the two positions is the emotional stance of the skeptic versus the mystic—the difference ridiculed by analogy with the monkeys who preferred four biscuits in the morning and three in the evening to three in the morning and four in the evening. "Ming/name shih/stuff wei/not-yet k'uei/lack, erh/and-yet hsi/joy nu/anger wei/ make:deem yung/use." 4 8 There is no difference in the words or substance between skepticism and mysticism. There is a characteristic attitudinal difference—the wonder and awe of the mystic versus the critical frustration of the skeptic. Chuang-tzu's insight is that there is no reason to go beyond skepticism and assert the further claim of absolute mysticism. That is the step that leads to the paradox of talking about what you simultaneously claim cannot be talked about. Theoretically, Chuang-tzu stops with relativistic skepticism while emotionally he adopts the wonder, humor, and optimism of the mystic.

A TAO OF TAO IN CHUANG-TZU

49

T h e r e w e r e m e n in a n c i e n t t i m e s w h o a r r i v e d at t h e u t m o s t in k n o w l e d g e . W h e r e had they arrived? There were s o m e w h o thought there had never b e e n a n y w u / t h i n g — t h e u t m o s t , all that c a n b e said, t h e r e is n o m o r e t o a d d . T h e next t h o u g h t that t h e r e w a s w u / t h i n g - k i n d , but that t h e r e h a d n e v e r b e e n a n y b o r d e r s . T h e n e x t t h o u g h t that t h e r e w e r e b o r d e r s b e t w e e n things, b u t t h a t t h e r e h a d n e v e r b e e n shih o r fei.

The second level of knowledge is that which characterizes the Taoism of Shen Tao. It holds that there is a thing without distinctions—a " o n e " which is indivisible and thus incommensurate with language (with shihfei distinctions). In this passage, then, Chuang-tzu ranks skepticism above mystical monism. The most famous statement of the " T a o is o n e " along with Chuangtzu's dismissal of any such assertion as incoherent follows. As Graham has argued, the passage opens with an assertion to be analyzed. " H e a v e n a n d Earth w e r e b o r n together with me, a n d the myriad things a n d I a r e o n e . " N o w that w e a r e o n e , c a n t h e r e b e a n y y e n / w o r d s : l a n g u a g e ? N o w that I h a v e called it o n e , c a n t h e r e b e n o y e n / w o r d s : l a n g u a g e ? O n e a n d y e n / w o r d s : l a n g u a g e m a k e two. T w o a n d o n e m a k e t h r e e . P r o c e e d i n g f r o m h e r e e v e n a n e x p e r t c a l c u l a t o r c a n n o t g e t t o t h e e n d o f it, m u c h less a plain man.

49

Chuang-tzu gives us a version of the claim that if assertion of the mystic's position is meaningful, then it is false. How can we put into yen/words:language a denial of distinctions? Mysticism amounts to no more than an admission of our ignorance of what is so of things. 5 0 Language is distinct from mere sound only if we assume a language/ world distinction ("saying says something"). The function of language is rooted in the activity of distinguishing things. "Therefore the man w h o knows how to stay in the sphere of his ignorance has attained the utmost. W h o knows a wordless disputation, an untold tao?" 5 1 Skepticism Chuang-tzu's skepticism, though different from that generated by an appearance-reality or belief-knowledge distinction, does have its own paradox. Chuang-tzu acknowledges that one cannot even say that he does not know anything for this requires adopting some system of distinguishing between chih/know and pu/neg. chih/know. " W o u l d y o u k n o w s o m e t h i n g w h i c h all t h i n g s a g r e e d in a c c e p t i n g ? " " H o w would I k n o w that?" " D o y o u k n o w w h a t it is that y o u d o n o t k n o w ? " " H o w would I k n o w that?" " T h e n d o e s n o thing k n o w a n y t h i n g ? "

50

HANSEN

"How would I know that? However, let me try to yen/words: language it—"How do I know that what I call chih/know is not pu/neg. chih/know? How do I know that what I call pu/neg. chih/know is not chih/know? 52 F r o m beginning to end, C h u a n g - t z u develops the t h e m e of relativism. All the distinctions, judgments, and evaluations we m a k e are from s o m e perspective, from s o m e accepted or arbitrary practice of distinguishing and naming. T h e f a m o u s closing m e t a p h o r of this c h a p t e r — t h e Butterfly D r e a m — s h o u l d b e u n d e r s t o o d in the same light. Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He did not chih/know that he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou. Between Chuang Chou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.53 W e are understandably tempted to hang a theory of s e n s e skepticism on Chuang-tzu in explaining this passage, and s o m e writers go on to treat that as the underlying insight b e h i n d all of C h u a n g - t z u ' s skepticism. Chuang-tzu's point h e r e is o n e which fits better into the ways of talking about language and thought that distinguishes classical China from eighteenth-century Europe. This issue is stated in t e r m s of distinctions, not representations. Chuang-tzu suggests that the distinction b e t w e e n dreaming and waking, real and imaginary is itself a part of a system of arbitrary conventional ways of discriminating. T h e point is the d e p e n d e n c e of such discriminatory j u d g m e n t s on a perspective, not the possibility that the s e n s e s might present us with things that are not really there. T h e distinction b e t w e e n the butterfly and C h u a n g C h o u is the distinction b e t w e e n dreaming and waking. T h e transformation of things, therefore, is not a Heraclitus-like metaphysical theory of change in the world of appearace, but a sociolinguistic theory of the infinite possibility of changing our m o d e s of dividing and distinguishing. T h i s is a skepticism b a s e d on a view of the conventionality and function of yen/words:language to which all judgment, all shih and fei, is relative. CONCLUSION

Of course there are passages in the Chuang-tzu that suggest the S h e n T a o version of Taoism. However, the Inner Chapters, in particular the "Ch'i/equalize Wu/thing-kind Lun/discourse," can b e m o r e c o h e r e n t l y

A T A O O F T A O IN C H U A N G - T Z U

51

understood as a whole if we regard Chuang-tzu as a relativist and a skeptic. Outside the "Ch'i Wu Lun," most of the Chuang-tzu Inner Chapters are filled with parables and stories whose point can often be ambiguous. It is essential to note that the parables and stories in the Inner Chapters can all support nonabsolutist interpretations. For example, when Chuang-tzu talks of the differences in perspective between a frog in a well and a giant sea turtle or between a cicada and a giant bird, we need not suppose that he is taking the view that bigger is better. When he talks about a butcher with extraordinary skill, we can understand that as someone who has perfected a particular tao/way until it has become spontaneous or second nature, not that there is some mystical insight anyone can adopt that will put her in harmony with " T h e Tao" and thereby transform her into a perfect butcher (dancer, gardener, president, logician, boxer, Star Wars pilot)! If we can break the persistent prejudice that all Taoism must be of the Shen Tao variety, that there must be some absolute Tao, then we will find Chuang-tzu's position consistently intelligible. What I have offered here is a way to understand tao. The interpretation is itself a tao—a way of doing something, viz., reading the text from a perspective. The perspective shihs the standards of objectivity of Western science. It does not justify absolute claims about reconstructing an inaccessible inner mental state of someone long dead who wrote the "Ch'i Wu Lun." It is an attempt to explain as coherently as possible how Chuang-tzu's perspective looks from our perspective. From Chuangtzu's own point of view, I have shihed one side of a distinction (relativism) and feied the other (absolutism) in talking about this chapter. It is important to my view of Chuang-tzu that this needs no defense. Of course this interpretation presupposes standards for choosing among interpretive theories. If, as Chuang-tzu argues, such presuppositions are inescapable, then that one has presuppositions can hardly be a criticism. Any particular presupposition can, of course, be criticized, but the criticism will itself be from some perspective. The mere adoption of one or another perspective needs no d e f e n s e — just as Chuang-tzu's writing in the first place needs no defense. It is just as natural for me to prefer and proffer interpretations motivated by Western theoretical rationality of what Chuang-tzu wrote as it was for him to write from the perspective of classical Chinese pragmatic views of language. From the point of view of the universe, both activities are just as natural as a bird's song or an earthquake.

HANSEN

52 NOTES 1.

T h e first e l e m e n t is t h e W a d e - G i l e s r o m a n i z a t i o n of t h e c h a r a c t e r , a n d t h e s e c o n d a s t a n d a r d translation, e.g., c h i h / k n o w . T h e E n g l i s h t r a n s l a t i o n will u s u a l l y b e i d e n t i f i a b l e as o n e of the m o s t c o m m o n in a l p h a b e t i c d i c t i o n a r i e s u s i n g W a d e - G i l e s r o m a n i z a t i o n ( s e e C. H. F e n n , The Five

Thousand

Dictionary

[ C a m b r i d g e : H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1 9 7 6 ] ) . E n g l i s h s p e a k e r s c a n u s e this a l p h a b e t i c a l l y a r r a n g e d d i c t i o n a r y t o find t h e c h a r a c t e r s a n d e x p l o r e

other

p o s s i b l e m e a n i n g s for t h e m in t h e s e n t e n c e s . T h e s l a s h - w o r d t e c h n i q u e for r e p r e s e n t i n g t h e g r a p h s of t h e text w a s d e v i s e d b y D a v i d N i v i s o n a n d P. J. I v a n h o e . T h e a n a l y s i s of t e x t s u s e d h e r e e m p l o y s b a s i c logical s y m b o l s a n d c a t e g o r i e s . A n a d v a n t a g e of u s i n g logical t o o l s is that, b y a v o i d i n g r e f e r e n c e t o traditional g r a m m a t i c a l c a t e g o r i e s , w e c a n i g n o r e s o m e p o i n t l e s s d i s p u t e s a b o u t " p a r t s o f s p e e c h " in C h i n e s e . I will try t o m a k e s o m e f e a t u r e s of C h i n e s e s t r u c t u r e clear b y t h e u s e of v a r i a b l e s of logic (X, Y, Z , . . .) to r e p l a c e m i s s i n g t e r m s f r o m C h i n e s e sentences. T h u s " X p a i / w h i t e " represents the basic C h i n e s e s e n t e n c e that is n o r m a l l y translated " ( I t ) is w h i t e . " F o r readability, t h e t r a n s l a t i o n a f t e r t h e slash m a y b e i n f l e c t e d d i f f e r e n t l y w h e n t h e c h a r a c t e r p l a y s d i f f e r e n t r o l e s in t h e s e n t e n c e . W h e r e t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n is b a s e d on or e x p l o i t s a n o t h e r r e n d e r i n g o f t h e t e r m t h a n that in F e n n , that E n g l i s h w o r d — a p p r o p r i a t e l y

inflected—will

f o l l o w a c o l o n after t h e first translation, e.g. t a o / w a y : s p e a k . 2.

Chuang-tzu,

9 0 / 3 3 / 4 3 - 5 0 . T e x t u a l r e f e r e n c e s will b e g i v e n b y the l o c a t i o n in t h e

Harvard-Yenching Concordance. 3.

J a m e s L e g g e , The Texts of Taoism

4.

Ibid., p. 2 7 7 .

5.

A. C. G r a h a m ,

Later

Mohist

( O x f o r d , 1 8 9 1 ) , vol. 1, p. 1 7 5 .

Logic,

Ethics

and

Science

(Hong Kong:

Chinese

University Press, 1978). 6.

C h a d H a n s e n , Language

and Logic

in Ancient

China

(Ann Arbor: University of

M i c h i g a n P r e s s , 1 9 8 3 ) , o f f e r s a n a l t e r n a t i v e a n a l y s i s to G r a h a m ' s for t h e m a j o r a s p e c t s of t h e N e o - M o h i s t t h e o r i e s of l a n g u a g e . 7.

H e r b e r t A. G i l e s , Chuang-tzu:

Mystic,

Moralist,

and

Social

Reformer

(London:

B e r n a r d Q u a r i t c h , Ltd., 1 9 2 6 ) , p. xiv. 8.

L e g g e , Texts of Taoism,

p. 1 7 7 . O n e m u s t take e x c e p t i o n , h o w e v e r , to L e g g e ' s

i d e n t i f y i n g t h e m i n d as t h e " t r u e r u l e r . " S e e t h e a r g u m e n t b e l o w ( s e c t i o n e n t i t l e d " A T r u e R u l e r " ) that C h u a n g - t z u r e j e c t s t h e C o n f u c i a n v i e w that t h e r e is a n i n n a t e h e a r t - m i n d w h i c h s h o u l d r u l e t h e o t h e r o r g a n s of t h e b o d y . 9.

F o r simplicity, I c o m b i n e v a r i a b l e s a n d t e r m s . T e c h n i c a l l y a s e n t e n c e w i t h a v a r i a b l e ( a n d w i t h o u t o t h e r logical a p p a r a t u s ) w o u l d b e d i s t i n g u i s h e d a s a n o p e n s e n t e n c e — n o t true or false b u t satisfied b y s o m e o b j e c t . T h e r e is a s u g g e s t i v e c o i n c i d e n c e h e r e . C h i n e s e s e n t e n c e s r e g u l a r l y d i s p e n s e with t h e s u b j e c t t e r m . C h i n e s e s e m a n t i c t h e o r y r e f l e c t s o n l y t h e v a g u e s t h i n t of t h e c o n c e p t s " t r u t h " or "sentence."

Analysis

of l a n g u a g e

is in t e r m s

of t h e

k'o/permissibility

of

y e n / w o r d s : l a n g u a g e . K ' o / p e r m i t is, like o t h e r I P s of C h i n e s e , f r e q u e n t l y u s e d as a 2 P , e.g., if w e t h i n k a linguistic e x p r e s s i o n is a p p r o p r i a t e , w e /c'oit. S o m e t i m e s a n o b j e c t is said t o k'o s o m e e x p r e s s i o n — t h e r e it w o u l d b e m o s t natural t o t r a n s l a t e t h e 2 P k'o a s " s a t i s f y . " 10.

T h e r e a r e t h o s e w h o c l a i m that this c h a p t e r w a s n o t t h e w o r k of C h u a n g - t z u . S e e F u S s u - n i e n , " O n t h e A u t h o r s h i p o f t h e Ts'i W u L u n in Chuang-tzu," Academia

11.

Sinica

Bulletin

of

6, n o . 4 ( 1 9 3 6 ) : 5 5 7 - 5 6 7 .

W i n g - T s i t C h a n , A Source

Book

U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1 9 6 3 ) , p. 1 3 6 .

in Chinese

Philosophy

(Princeton:

Princeton

A TAO OF TAO IN CHUANG-TZU

53

12.

Herrlee Creel, What Is Taoism? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 9 7 0 ) , p. 2.

13.

Confucius, The Analects 8:8. This passage reflects the close relation between tao/way and its cognate tao/lead:guide and illustrates the prescriptive nature of taos. Mo-tzu, 39/25/75-81.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

22.

Chuang-tzu, 3/2/9, translation by A. C. Graham, "Chuang-tzu's Essay on Seeing Things as Equal," History of Religions 9, no. 2 - 3 ( 1 9 6 9 - 1 9 7 0 ) : 150. Graham, "Chuang-tzu's Essay." This translation was one of the first fully to appreciate the philosophy-of-language aspects of Chuang-tzu's philosophy. Much of the present argument starts from the insights of Graham, but I have departed in significant ways from that interpretation. T h e departures are intended more radically to excise the traditional mystical assumptions from the interpretation. This is explained in part by the eliminability of the subject term in most sentences of classical Chinese. G r a h a m suggests that the grammatical similarity may partly explain the development of shih into a copula in Mandarin Chinese. pt=grammatical particle. The function of yeh/pt is not fully understood. I regard it as both an assertion marker and a copula for predicate nominative sentences. In our analysis the latter should be treated as " X fei/not niu/ox yeh/pt." This is a pattern of use that Chuang-tzu might arguably have purloined from the linguistic discussions of the Neo-Mohist Canon, where n u m e r o u s technical terms are used as 2P, e.g., k'o/admissible. Herbert Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred ( N e w York: Harper and Row, 1972). Hsiin-tzu, heavily influenced by Chuang-tzu, can be interpreted as less of an absolutist than either Confucius or Mencius. Herrlee G. Creel, " W h a t Is Taoism," in his "What Is Taoism?" and Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), p. 2, n. 4.

23.

Canon 11:66.1 have argued for interpreting this passage as horse-stuff is one, i.e., o n e kind of thing. S e e my Language and Logic in Ancient China, ch. 4.

24. 25.

Mo-tzu, Canon 11:70. S e e my "Ancient C h i n e s e T h e o r i e s of Language," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 2, no. 1 (June 1 9 7 5 ) : 2 4 5 - 2 8 3 . I have relied mainly on A. C. Graham's translation for the sequence discussed. Since I alter translations either to highlight my idiosyncratic rendering of s o m e particular character and my idiosyncratic analysis of grammar (making tao/way plural) or to insert slash-words, I am responsible for any errors in translation. I do undertake to argue for my interpretation of passages where my grammatical explanation and analysis seem to depart from accepted tradition or from Graham. Disagreements with such departures in translation should address those arguments.

26.

27.

Readers may want to consult o n e of the full translations of the chapter to satisfy themselves that the approach is not contradicted by any of the context. It is translated by Burton Watson in Chuang-tzu: Basic Writings ( N e w York: Columbia University Press, 1964), partially by Wing-tsit Chan in his A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, and extensively analyzed in Graham's "Chuang-tzu's Essay."

28. 29.

Graham, "Chuang-tzu's Essay," p. 150. S e e A. C. Graham, " T h e Background of the Mencian T h e o r y of H u m a n Naure," Tsing Hua Journal n.s. 6 ( D e c e m b e r 1967).

30.

David Nivison, " T w o Roots or O n e , " Presidential Address—Pacific Division APA. Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association 53 (August 1980): 741-742.

54

HANSEN

31. 32. 33.

Mencius 6A:6. Graham, " C h u a n g - t z u ' s Essay/' p. 151. Chuang-tzu 4 / 2 / 1 4 - 1 8 . 1 have relied heavily on G r a h a m ' s analysis as a basis f r o m which to i n t r o d u c e m y interpretation of this passage. Graham, " C h u a n g - t z u ' s Essay," p. 148. For example, The Chinese Philosophy Institute a n d Peking University Philosophy D e p a r t m e n t edition of the chapter p u n c t u a t e s the reference to a t r u e ruler as a question. Chung-kuo li-tai che-hsueh w e n - h s u a n , Vol. 1A (Peking: C h u n g - h u a Book Co., 1964), p. 261. Chan, Source Book, pp. 181-182. Chuang-tzu, 4 / 2 / 1 4 . A. C. G r a h a m h a s suggested in an u n p u b l i s h e d analysis of t h e Chuang-tzu that this pattern is the giving of an alternative after a question. Chuang-tzu, 4 / 2 / 1 7 - 1 8 . David Nivison first b r o u g h t to m y attention the symmetrical pattern of these questions and suggested that it is a s e q u e n c e of " m o d a l ch'is." G r a h a m , as n o t e d above, says t h e two "ch'i . . . yen" structures are statements of alternatives in indicative voice, although, he says, the structure is m o r e often interrogative. However, G r a h a m ' s interpretation seems to be that C h u a n g - t z u m e a n s to refute one of those alternatives a n d retain the other. The a r g u m e n t , in fact, r e f u t e s both. It would appear, given the argumentative context a n d the grammar, that an interrogative t r e a t m e n t is a better choice. f u / a d v : n o w y e n / w o r d : l a n g u a g e fei/not c h ' u i / b l o w y e h / p t . Y e n / w o r d : l a n g u a g e c h e / n o m . p t . y u / h a v e y e n / w o r d : l a n g u a g e . Ch'i/x's suo/place:relative-pronoun y e n / w o r d : l a n g u a g e c h e / n o m . p t f e / p u r p o s e l y w e i / n o t ting/fix y e h / p t . As noted above, " w a y " is a good translation for tao except that it is a c o u n t n o u n . Tao is like yen—a mass noun. Yen can be translated as " w o r d s " or "language." " W o r d s " is slightly preferable because Chinese theorists of language focus on w o r d s rather t h a n sentences, b u t the syntax of yen is different. What w e n e e d is a w o r d that is to " w a y " as "language" is to "words." In the meantime, we shall e m p h a s i z e t h e parallels by translating tao as "ways" and yen as "words." R e m e m b e r that w h a t is being said of tao is grammatically the sort of thing w e would say of l a n g u a g e — e v e r y o n e uses language, e v e r y o n e follows tao, a n d so on.

34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

42.

43.

44. 45. 46. 47.

O n e of the great insights of G r a h a m ' s translation of this chapter lies in the correct analysis of C h u a n g - t z u ' s position on mystical monism. According to G r a h a m , C h u a n g - t z u r e f u s e s to e n d o r s e the monistic formula traditionally taken as t h e heart of his view. C h u a n g - t z u argues that the f a m o u s " T h e world a n d I w e r e b o r n together, t h e ten t h o u s a n d things and I are o n e " is incoherent. It r e q u i r e s immediate c o m m i t m e n t to two, then three, t h e n an infinity. S h e n Tao's m o n i s m is not t h e quintessence of Taoist philosophy. C h u a n g - t z u criticizes and rejects t h e naive Taoist assertion of the o n e n e s s of all things. Chuang-tzu 4 / 2 / 3 5 - 3 6 . Ibid. 4 / 2 / 3 6 - 3 7 . Graham, " C h u a n g - t z u ' s Essay," p. 153. (I have m o d i f i e d the translation slightly.) C h u a n g - t z u ' s story is one in which the emotional impact of a rule is c h a n g e d while the substance of the rule is the same. This passage is usually s u n d e r e d in translation, a n d C h u a n g - t z u is treated as criticizing those w h o say that everything is o n e w i t h o u t realizing that everything is the same. It is hard to imagine w h o w o u l d have held such a view (it is not Hui Shih w h o asserts b o t h claims) or w h y C h u a n g - t z u w o u l d go to such lengths to deal with it.

55

A TAO OF TAO IN CHUANG-TZU 48.

Chuang-tzu

49.

G r a h a m , " C h u a n g - t z u ' s Essay," p. 1 5 5 (again with slash-word substitutions). I

5/2/39.

have avoided h e r e and in other contexts discussing at length the

wci-shih/yin-

shih (contrived and adaptive shih) in G r a h a m ' s interpretation. G r a h a m regards it as speculative. I find it a little hard to m a k e a distinction b e t w e e n nature and artifice consistent with C h u a n g - t z u ' s skepticism about shih and fei. 50.

C h u a n g - t z u ' s explanation for the absurdity of claims of essential o n e n e s s of things has t e m p t e d m e in the past to draw parallels with m o d e r n formal theories, e.g., Russell's paradox of s e t s — t h e r e can b e no set of all sets. It is, h o w e v e r , implausible that C h u a n g - t z u ' s a r g u m e n t has anything to d o with " s e t s " or a n y counterpart related to the one-many, universal-particular problematik

of tradi-

tional W e s t e r n philosophy. S u c h systems are basically u n k n o w n and difficult to motivate in t h e context of p r e - H a n philosophy. T h e r e are, on the o t h e r hand, m a n y e x a m p l e s of the N e o - M o h i s t s wrestling with semantic paradoxes. S e e m y " M a s s N o u n s and 'a White H o r s e is not a Horse,' "Philosophy 2 (April 1 9 7 6 ) : 1 8 9 - 2 0 9 . 51.

Graham, " C h u a n g - t z u ' s Essay," p. 156.

52.

Ibid., p. 1 5 7 .

53.

Watson, Chuang-tzu:

Basic Writings, p. 45.

East and West 26, no.

Chuangtse The Happy Fish HIDEKI YUKAWA

CHUANGTSE

Even before going to primary school, I had studied various Chinese classics. In practice, this means merely that I repeated aloud after my grandfather a version of the Chinese texts converted into Japanese. At first, of course, I had no idea of the sense at all. Yet, oddly enough, I gradually began to understand even without being told. Most of the works I studied were connected with Confucianism, but, with the exception of historical works such as The Historical Records, the Confucian classics held little interest for me. They dealt almost exclusively with moral matters, and I found them somehow patronizing. Around the time when I first went to middle school, I began to wonder if the Chinese classics might not include other works that were more interesting, with a different way of thinking, and I searched my father's study with that in mind. I hauled out Laotse and Chuangtse and began reading them, and soon found that The Book of Chuangtse in particular was interesting to me. I read it over and over again. I was only a middle school boy, of course, and, looking back on it later, I sometimes wondered whether I had really understood it or not, and what exactly I had found interesting. Four or five years ago, I was thinking one day about elementary particles when, quite suddenly, I recalled a passage from Chuangtse. Freely translated, the passage in question, which occurs in the last section of the inner part of Chuangtse, runs as follows:

"CHUANGTSE" AND "THE HAPPY FISH"

57

The Emperor of the South was called Shu and the Emperor of the North, Hu. [Both characters mean " v e r y fast," "to run swiftly," and the two characters together in Chinese signify something like "in a flash".] The Emperor of the Center was known as H u n - f un ["chaos"]. One time, the emperors of the South and the North visited Hun-t'un's territories, where they met with him. Hun-t'un made them heartily welcome. Shu and Hu conferred together as to how they could show their gratitude. They said, "All men have seven apertures—the eyes, the ears, the mouth, and the nose—whereby they see, hear, eat, and breathe. Yet this Hun-t'un, unlike other men, is quite smooth with no apertures at all. H e must find it very awkward. As a sign of our gratitude, therefore, let us try making some holes for him." So each day, they made one fresh hole; and on the seventh day Hun-t'un died.

W h y should I have recalled this fable? I have been doing research on elementary particles for many years, and by now more than thirty different types of elementary particle have been discovered, each of which presents something of a riddle. W h e n this kind of thing happens, one is obliged to go one step ahead and consider what may lie beyond these particles. O n e wants to get at the most basic form of matter, but it is awkward if there prove to be more than thirty different forms of it; it is more likely that the most basic thing of all has no fixed form and corresponds to none of the elementary particles we know at present. It may be something that has the possibility of differentiation into all kinds of particles but has not yet done so in fact. Expressed in familiar terminology, it is probably a kind of "chaos." It was while I was thinking on these lines that I recalled the fable of Chuangtse. I am not the only one, of course, who is occupied with this question of a fundamental theory of elementary particles. Professor Heisenberg in Germany, speculating on what lies beyond elementary particles, has used the term Urmaterie ("primordial matter"). Whether one calls it "primordial matter" or " c h a o s " does not matter, but my ideas and Professor Heisenberg's, while alike in some respects, also have their differences. Recently, then, I have found a renewed fascination in Chuangtse's fable. I amuse myself by seeing Shu and Hu as something like the elementary particles. S o long as they were rushing about freely nothing happened—until, advancing from south and north, they came together on the territory of Hun-t'un, or chaos, when an event like the collision of elementary particles occurred. Looked at in this way, which implies a kind of dualism, the chaos of Hun-t'un can be seen as the time and space in which the elementary particles are enfolded. Such an interpretation seems possible to me.

5«

YUKAWA

It may not make much sense, of course, to fiddle with the words of men of old in order to make them fit in with modern physics. Chuangtse, who lived some twenty-three hundred years ago, almost certainly knew nothing of the atom. Even so, it is interesting and surprising that he should have had ideas that, in a sense, are very similar to those of people like myself today. Science developed mostly in Europe. Greek thought, it is often said, served in the broad sense as a basis from which all science was to develop. Professor Schrodinger, who died recently, once wrote that where there was no influence from Greek thought science underwent no development. Historically speaking, this is probably correct. Even in the case of Japan since the Meiji Restoration, the direct influence of G r e e k thought may have been small, yet indirectly at least it has provided the starting point for her adoption of the science developed in Europe; and in this way we Japanese have inherited the Greek tradition. Concerning what happened in the past I have nothing further to add. Yet when one considers the future, there is surely no reason why Greek thought should remain the only source for the development of scientific thought. The Orient produced all kinds of systems of thought. India is a good example, and the same is true of China too. The ancient philosophies of China have not given birth to pure science. So far, this may have been true. But one cannot assume that it will remain so in the future as well. Today, just as in my middle school days, Laotse and Chuangtse are the two thinkers of ancient China for whom I feel the most interest and affection. In some ways Laotse's ideas are, I realize, more profound than those of Chuangtse, but the precise meaning of what Laotse writes is far from easy to grasp. His use of words and phrasing is difficult, and even the commentaries often fail to elucidate the obscurities. What one gets, in the end, is only the framework of his thought. Chuangtse, on the other hand, has all kinds of interesting fables; biting irony is balanced by a grand imagination. Under the surface, there is a profound and consistent philosophy. Simply seen as prose, moreover, the work is incomparable. There are many things in Chuangtse, I feel, that stimulate the reader's mind and make it work better. The fable I quoted earlier was in itself almost certainly written, not about a microcosm, but about the great universe as a whole. Quite obviously, it does not deal with the infinitesimally small particles that form the basis of the natural world, nor with the correspondingly small time and space in which they move. Yet in practice I have the feeling that in it one can discern dimly the microcosm that we have arrived at finally as a result of our studies of physics; one cannot dismiss the parallel as a coincidence. W h e n one looks at things in

"CHUANGTSE" AND "THE HAPPY

FISH"

59

this way, I feel that one cannot say that Greek thought is the only system of ideas that can serve as a basis for the development of science. T h e ideas of Laotse and Chuangtse may appear to be essentially alien to Greek thought, yet they constitute a consistent, rationalistic outlook that holds much that is still worthy of respect today as a natural philosophy in its own right. Where both Confucianism and the mainstream of Greek thought grant significance to man's self-determined, voluntary actions, believing them to offer a valid prospect of realizing the ideals that he cherishes, Laotse and Chuangtse believe that the power of nature is overwhelmingly the greater, and that man, surrounded by forces beyond his control, is simply tossed now one way, now the other. During my middle school days, I found this outlook extreme, yet was attracted to it. From my high school days on, I began to find the idea of man's impotence intolerable, and for a long time I stayed away from the philosophy of Laotse and Chuangtse. Yet all the while I cherished at the back of my mind a suspicion that, however unpalatable it might be for human beings, their ideas harbored an incontrovertible truth. Laotse has a passage that runs as follows: H e a v e n and Earth a r e without c o m p a s s i o n ; they s e e all things as straw dogs. The wise ruler is without c o m p a s s i o n ; he s e e s the c o m m o n p e o p l e as straw dogs.

The brevity and the air of finality are typical of Laotse. Chuangtse, on the other hand, prefers attractive metaphors such as the following: A certain m a n w a s afraid of his o w n s h a d o w a n d loathed his o w n footprints. S o he started running, thinking to rid himself of t h e m . But the oftener he raised his feet as he ran, the g r e a t e r the n u m b e r of his footprints b e c a m e ; and h o w e v e r fast h e ran, still his s h a d o w followed him. Telling himself that he w a s still not going fast e n o u g h , h e ran faster and faster without stopping, until finally he e x h a u s t e d his strength a n d d r o p p e d dead. Foolish man: if h e had stayed in the shade, he w o u l d h a v e had n o s h a d o w ; if h e had been still, t h e r e w o u l d h a v e b e e n n o footprints.

The outlook expressed here is without doubt fatalistic—a mode of thinking usually described as "Oriental"—but it is far from irrational. Indeed, for us who, with the advance of scientific civilization, find ourselves, ironically enough, increasingly hard pressed by time, the story contains an uncomfortable home truth. Half my mind revolts against this outlook and half of it is attracted by it, which is precisely why it remains forever in my memory. Books make their appeal in many different ways, but I am particularly fond of the kind of work that creates a world of its own in which, if only for a short time, it

6o

YUKAWA

s u c c e e d s in immersing the reader. Chuangtse for m e ranks as a typical example of that type of book. THE HAPPY

FISH

P e o p l e are constantly c o m i n g and asking m e to write s o m e words for them on the traditional strip of paper used for the purpose, or to do a piece of calligraphy for t h e m to frame. In the former case, I can usually get by with a p o e m of m y own, but with a request for calligraphy—where s o m e suitable short phrase from the classics is usual—I have trouble in finding something suitable. In s o m e cases recently, though, I have b e e n writing the three C h i n e s e characters that mean, literally, " k n o w , " "fish," and " p l e a s u r e . " W h e n I do so, I am invariably asked to explain the meaning. T h e phrase comes, in fact, from the seventeenth chapter, " T h e A u t u m n Flood," of The Book of Chuangtse. T h e general m e a n i n g of the original passage is as follows: One day, Chuangtse was strolling beside the river with Huitse. Huitse, a man of erudition, was fond of arguing. They were just crossing a bridge when Chuangtse said, "The fish have come up to the surface and are swimming about at their leisure. That is how fish enjoy themselves." Immediately Huitse countered this with: "You are not a fish. How can you tell what a fish enjoys?" "You are not me," said Chuangtse. " H o w do you know that I can't tell what a fish enjoys?" "I am not you," said Huitse triumphantly. "So of course I cannot tell about you. In the same way, you are not a fish. So you cannot tell a fish's feelings. Well—is my logic not unanswerable?" "Wait, let us go back to the root of the argument," said Chuangtse. "When you asked me how I knew what a fish enjoyed, you admitted that you knew already whether I knew or not. I knew, on the bridge, that the fish were enjoying themselves."

This conversation, which looks rather like a Z e n question-and-answer session, is in fact very different. Z e n always carries the a r g u m e n t to a point b e y o n d the reach of science, but the exchange b e t w e e n C h u a n g t s e and Huitse can be seen as an indirect c o m m e n t on the question of rationalism and empiricism in science. T h e logic of Huitse's m a n n e r of arguing s e e m s to be far better throughout than Chuangtse's, and the refusal to accept anything that is neither well-defined n o r verifiable such as the fish's e n j o y m e n t is, of course, closer to the traditional scientific attitude. Nevertheless, although I am a scientist myself, I find myself m o r e in sympathy with what Chuangtse wanted to imply. V e r y generally speaking, the ways of thinking of scientists lie somew h e r e b e t w e e n two e x t r e m e s — b e t w e e n the outlook that will not believe anything that is not verified, and the outlook that will discount nothing that was not verified not to exist or not to have h a p p e n e d .

"CHUANGTSE" AND " T H E HAPPY FISH"

6l

If all scientists had clung to either one of these extremes, science as we know it today could hardly have come into being. Even in the nineteenth century, much less in the time of Democritus, there was no direct proof of the existence of the atom. Despite this, the scientists who worked on the assumption that there were atoms achieved a far deeper and broader perception of the natural world than those who sought to understand it without such an idea. The history of science makes it absolutely clear that the attitude that will not accept anything that is not already proven is too stringent. It is equally clear, on the other hand, that the attitude that refuses to discount anything that cannot be completely denied empirically or logically is too easygoing. In the processes of his thinking or experiments, a scientist must carry out an inevitable task of selection. In other words, he must either discount or forget for the moment, consciously or unconsciously, the majority of all the possibilities he can conceive. In practice, there is no scientist who clings obstinately to either extreme of outlook; the question is, rather, to which of the two extremes one is closer. The most puzzling thing for the physicist at the moment is the true nature of the so-called elementary particles. O n e thing that is certain is that they are far smaller even than the atom, but it seems likely that, viewed more closely, they will themselves prove to have their own structure. In practice, it is next to impossible to distinguish such detail directly by experimental means. If one wanted to take a good look at one elementary particle, one would have to find out what kind of reaction it showed when another elementary particle was brought up very close to it. In practice, however, our experiments can give us knowledge of what happens before and after, but not of what happens at the actual moment of the reaction. In such a state of affairs, physicists tend to lean towards one or the other of the two extremes I have already described. S o m e of them take the attitude that scientists should confine their consideration to the situation when the two elementary particles are apart, and that there is no point in speculating on the detailed structure of elementary particles. I myself believe, conversely, that it will be possible by some means or other to obtain a logical grasp of the structure of elementary particles, and I am constantly racking my brains for possible answers. The day will come, I believe, when we shall know the heart of the elementary particle, even though that will not be achieved with the ease with which Chuangtse knew the heart of the fish. To do so, however, we may well have to adopt some odd approach that will shatter accepted ways of thinking. O n e cannot exclude such a possibility from the outset. In September,

1965, an international conference on

elementary

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YUKAWA

particles w a s held in K y o t o to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the meson theory. It was a small gathering of some thirty scientists. At a dinner held during the course of the conference, I translated the exchange between Chuangtse and Huitse into English for the benefit ofthe physicists from abroad. T h e y seemed to find it interesting, and it amused me to imagine each of them considering which of the two philosophers, Chuangtse or Huitse, he himself was closer to.

A Metaphorical Analysis of the Concept of Mind in the Chuang-tzu HAROLD H. OSHIMA

The question posed in this paper is a simple one: how did the authors of the Chuang-tzu understand what we have come to call the "concept of mind?" The search for an answer will lead us far afield from the text of the Chuang-tzu, and into the realms of archaeology and art history. Several objections, however, have already been raised that challenge the possibility of even beginning such a study, no less successfully completing it. Addressing these objections at the outset will serve the dual purpose of clarifying a few misconceptions about the Chuang-tzu as well as providing an early opportunity to disclose the base of assumptions upon which this, and every, hypothesis ultimately rests. The first objection questions the spirit and substance of the text itself. It claims that the Chuang-tzu is a literary or religious, rather than philosophical, text and that it is, therefore, inappropriate to subject it to excessive analysis. Like any specimen of pure literature or mystical revelation it may be broadly interpreted. One should not expect, however, to uncover well-defined ideas or concepts in it—no matter how diligently the philosophical dissection is performed. 1 The second objection contends that the concept of mind is too indeterminate and fuzzy to be meaningfully discussed. One would be required, at the beginning of any such study, to establish which of the myriad Western concepts of mind is to be used as the benchmark. Given the volumes that have been written on the subject, as well as the tremendous variety of opinions as to what the "mind" is (some denying its existence altogether), 2 the task seems impossible. Which definition of

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" m i n d " do I propose to use, and how does this compare with the " m i n d " found in the Chuang-tzu? T h e groundwork of defining one's terms before chasing them in some distant and foreign text seems hopelessly undermined. Let us consider these objections separately. The first argument, though well-worn, is not without merit. It correctly argues that the Chuang-tzu is not a rigorous philosophical treatise. Those who have read it attest to its beauty as literature, and historians of religion are quick to point out its religious import. But whatever it may possess in literary or religious significance, it unhappily lacks in philosophical clarity. Important ideas and concepts are rarely the focus of sustained elaboration and numerous passages completely defy comprehension. No wonder so many stand convinced that obfuscation, rather than illumination, was the goal of its authors. This is not to imply the extreme view, however, that nothing can ever be understood about the Chuang-tzu. I wish to suggest in this paper that we may not have been sufficiently prepared to recognize its significantly different method of presenting ideas. This may explain the failure of traditional hermeneutics. No doubt the Chuang-tzu provides only cursory explanations for its most critical terms largely because many of these terms already enjoyed a wide currency. The writers did not feel it necessary to dwell on the obvious. But this is not the entire story. What we discover is that we are dealing with an underlying worldview—a picture of the world widely grasped or intuited by the writers' contemporaries and consequently never explicitly described. The exact understanding of most of its ideas, we will see, lies buried, so to speak, in the parable and imagery of the text, and must be salvaged from them. O n e also discovers that the Chuang-tzu's ideas and concepts are not simply and plainly stated in neat, verbal formulas. This is why terms are never clearly defined even when they are the topic of discussion. Instead, the Chuang-tzu employs word-pictures, preferring to portray its concepts with images rather than define them with words. 3 As one reads and rereads the book, there emerges a vision of how the various ideas were imagined. A larger world-picture, a Weltanschauung, develops within which individual philosophical concepts take shape and b e c o m e intelligible. Metaphors and analogies, long recognized as important to early Chinese thinking, are discovered to be indispensible when trying to interpret the Chuang-tzu's world vision. This understanding of the world, in terms of a set of interpenetrating images and pictures, bears little resemblance to the systematic, logical elaboration of ideas to which we are accustomed. Because of this, we must not succumb to the temptation of imparting a philosophical clarity or precision to the text which, in all probability, never existed.

THE CONCEPT OF MIND

I intend to circumvent the second objection by resisting the heretofore routine identification of the Western concept of " m i n d " with Chuangtzu's concept of hsin. " M i n d " has its roots in the Latin mens and the G r e e k nous,4 which connects it immediately with thinking. Hsin originally referred to the heart, its pictograph representing the anatomical organ. 5 The compelling reason for their identification through translation lies in the fact that both are imagined to be the loci of thought in man. Our question is whether or not this constitutes sufficient grounds for the customary translation. The final judgment on this question is, of course, best reserved for those who read to the end of my paper. I believe, however, that little would be gained, and much threatened, by even implying their equivalence at the outset. " M i n d " and hsin share little more than this c o m m o n property of thinking. The area of congruence is small, the dissimilarities significant. The modern Western notion of mind, whatever one may wish to include in it, is unquestionably laden with philosophical, theological, and, in more recent times, psychological trappings. Categories like ego, subconscious, and imagination never existed in ancient China. And although thinking is a property of the hsin, it by no means exhausts its functions. O n e gets the impression, in fact, that the hsin's ability to think is only incidental to its real significance, which goes far beyond mere human calculation. I will argue in favor of retaining the Chinese hsin, with all its ambiguities, over translating it as "mind." This is not without precedent, for other Chinese terms, which have resisted accurate translation, also have been preserved in their original form. T h e fact that several scholars have begun to refer to the hsin as the "heart-mind" or to designate it with a slash-word demonstrates an increasing awareness of the difficulties involved. Hsin and " m i n d " are simply not the type of words which acquiesce in one-to-one correspondence. If they represented stable and clearly circumscribed objects or ideas, there would be little problem. Objects such as turtles and slippers, actions like screaming and snoring which, as we believe, have remained relatively unchanged over historical time, submit satisfactorily to this correspondence technique of translation. The amount of caution required when dealing with abstract and vague concepts, however, cannot be overstated. Those words representing the most novel, characteristic, and dynamic ideas of an era are those most vulnerable to misinterpretation. Scholars aware of this danger have responded by demarcating a small set of terms (e.g., tao, yin and yang, and so forth) as largely untranslatable, thus making explicit the difficulties of finding equivalent words in our own language. Hsin is sufficiently important to merit the same consideration. "Mind," ostensibly equivalent to hsin, has been used uncritically to

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lend a measure of intelligibility to hsin at the cost of fidelity to its original sense. Once " m i n d " is inserted as a translation, all of its unconsciously associated ideas slip in effortlessly right behind. It is our task, inasmuch as it is possible, to attempt to understand the hsin within its own imaginative context. We must try to exclude all modern biases, lest we project our own superficially similar ideas onto the Chuang-tzu's words—a danger made even more insidious by our tendency to allow translation to do the thinking for us. Hsin is understood and portrayed at two levels in the Chuang-tzu—the literal and the metaphorical. The literal understanding will be discussed in this section, the metaphorical in the next. Taken literally, hsin represents the physical heart: that four-chambered muscle and its associated plumbing located in the center of the chest. This is hsin's original meaning and, as we shall see, "heart" is its most accurate translation. The heart has several unique properties that recommend it as an important organ, even to those who lack precise anatomical and physiological knowledge about it. Its regular beating, which stops only upon death, seems to be equated with life itself. The heart is an accurate barometer of the passions, pounding rapidly in times of excitement and fear, and quiet and unnoticed during periods of calm. Many early thinkers interpreted the heart's central location in the body, as well as its connections via the arterial and venous systems with the other internal organs, as highly significant. Although the hsin was considered the premier organ, 6 it differed qualitatively from the other internal organs only in its imagined function as the center of thought. " T h e eye is part of the body," the Chuang-tzu says, "I have never thought any differently, yet the blind man cannot see with his," and further, "the hsin is part of the body, I have never thought any differently, yet the madman cannot comprehend with his" (W 250). If it seems inconceivable that the Chuang-tzu could associate something as exalted as human thought with something as mechanical as the pump we call the heart, all we need do is r e m e m b e r that the heart was discovered to be the physiological organ for the circulation of blood only recently in medical history. 7 Until the seventeenth century in both the East and West, considerable mystery surrounded the heart, the source of its heat and constant beating, and its relation to the rest of the circulatory system. 8 Keeping this in mind, we can more fully appreciate the fact that the Chuang-tzu was, in reality, associating the mysterious process of thinking with an equally mysterious internal organ—the hsin. References to the hsin are most c o m m o n in the Chuang-tzu's descriptions of the sage. The important differences between the c o m m o n man

THE CONCEPT OF MIND

and the sage are believed to reside in the hsin. Moreover, this seems to be the sole point of difference. To emphasize this fact, the Chuang-tzu devotes an entire chapter to describe men mutilated on the outside, but still virtuous on the inside. 9 Their bodies may have been deformed, they may have been ugly enough to "astound the whole world" (W 72), yet they had reached the acme of spiritual life. In each of the numerous cases discussed, the crucial difference was the status of the man's hsin on the inside, rather than his physical body on the outside. 1 0 "If he lost a foot and is still superior to the Master, then how far above the c o m m o n man he must be! A man like this, what unique way does he have of using his hsin?" (W 69). In that religious quest for the perfection of man, the Chuang-tzu believed that the hsin was the critical organ. N o matter one's health or wealth, physical or material condition. All men are the same save for h o w they use their hsin. But what is the proper way to use the hsin, hopefully one that will result in sagehood? Chuang-tzu entreats his disciples to "sit and forget" 1 1 and to practice the "fasting of the hsin."12 By forgetting he means to empty the hsin, just as one empties one's stomach by fasting. This idea of "forgetting" is essential, frequently cited as the most important hurdle in the quest for sagehood. It does not refer, however, to the simple displacing of facts from the mind. The meaning of "forgetting" is intimately tied to the concept of hsin, and, fortunately, the Chuang-tzu goes to considerable lengths to illustrate the exact sense in which we should understand and practice this "forgetting." Chapter 19, entitled "Mastering Life," addresses this issue almost exclusively. 1 3 In response to the question of why a good swimmer, here representing the sage, would be able to handle any trouble in the water, Chuang-tzu replies that he has "forgotten" the water (W 200). When pressed for an explanation, he offers the analogy of a man on firm ground. Just as a man accustomed to the land would have no trouble righting an overturned cart on the road, so would a man have no trouble righting a boat in his own natural element. The man in the water, the good swimmer, has "forgotten" the water, just as the land-dweller has "forgotten" the land. This gives us a fairly good perspective on what "forgetting" means. " Y o u forget your feet when the shoes are comfortable, you forget your waist when the belt is comfortable" (W 2 0 6 ) . 1 4 In modern terms, this suggests that "forgetting" is some sort of contentment or at-homeness resulting from a lack of conscious concern. O n e of the benefits of being able to "forget" is a powerful efficacy in action. A story describes the archer who, in a contest with mere tiles at stake, is apt to shoot very well. When the ante is upped to fancy belt buckles, his aim b e c o m e s disturbed. When betting for gold, he can't shoot

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at all (W 206). The archer cannot "forget" about his situation; he is consciously and painfully concerned. 1 5 This, in turn, causes his normal skills to fail him. The Chuang-tzu describes his malady thus: "You emphasized outside considerations. He who looks too hard on the outside gets clumsy on the inside" (W 201). "Forgetting" is also the means whereby one becomes identical with the tao, which is, of course, the ultimate goal of sagehood. Yen Hui 1 6 is described as systematically "forgetting" benevolence, righteousness, rites, music, and, ultimately, everything, thus "making himself identical with the Great Thoroughfare" (W 90). Like the excellent swimmer who feels at ease in his element, the water, the perfected man is completely at ease in his element, the tao. And just as the man who is able to "forget" his situation can concentrate his powers and be effective, like the archer, the sage can maneuver in the world and beyond with tremendous ease. The sage's realm is the tao. In it he "forgets" the rigors of everyday, mundane life. He floats along the tao, going wherever it takes him. Confirming this metaphor, the Chuang-tzu says, "Fish thrive in water, and man thrives in the tao. For those who thrive in water, dig a pond and they will find nourishment enough. For those who thrive in the tao, don't bother about them and their lives will be secure. So it is said, the fish forget each other in the rivers and lakes, and men forget each other in the arts of the tao" (W 87). Metaphors comparing the tao to winds and water abound. 1 7 Even more prevalent is the Chuang-tzu's practice of using terms normally associated exclusively with fluids to describe the tao. Thus, the tao can be pictured as "flowing" or being "dammed," just as water is. Both are described as "clear" and "bright," "still" and "calm," all using the same characters. 18 It is clear from the above that both the tao and water were imagined to have similar properties. At the very least, they were considered alike enough to justify their sharing of the same body of descriptive terms. This is why the sage is so often pictured as "floating on the mists" or "flowing with the wind." Another story in chapter 19 elaborates on this idea. In it, we find Confucius standing by the banks of a powerful waterfall. So treacherous are the currents that not even fish can survive in them long. He sees a man jump into the swirling waters and, afraid that he is committing suicide, orders his disciples to pull him out, only to find the swimmer quite unscathed by the incident. "May I ask if you have some special way of staying afloat in the water?" Confucius inquires. "I have no way . . . , " the swimmer answered. "I go under with the swirls and come out with the eddies, following along the way the water goes and never thinking about myself" (W 204-205). The swimmer

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merely flows with the water, never thinking about how or why, forgetting about himself. Likewise, the sage flows with the tao, wandering through life and never knowing how or why he does what he does. 1 9 The sage has "forgotten" the world and the tao. He is at h o m e and comfortable with whatever he encounters, never paying anything any mind. Reconstructing the metaphorical imagery, man is seen as totally immersed in the tao, which streams through the cosmos. By "forgetting," not being concerned with earthly matters but rather by flowing with the tao and so becoming, in a sense, one with it, man can achieve sagehood. If you can feel at home, contented and untroubled with where the tao is taking you at any given moment, then there should be no problems. It is when you resist its flow that trouble arises. By placing your own desires and ambitions ahead of the tao's natural current, you go against the tao, and this can only result in calamity. The image of the sage flowing with the tao and floating on the mists is one of the most recurrent pictures in the Chuang-tzu. It is clear from the very preponderance of such metaphors that the images of flowing water, winds, and mists served as the concrete models for the visualization of the tao. This is how the tao was understood and imagined, and the stories in the Chuang-tzu conjured up powerful pictures depicting man's relationship with the tao and the heavens. 2 0 Now that we have suggested how the sage can achieve harmony with the tao by forgetting, we must next ask the question, "how does one 'forget'?" for this is not a simple task. What does "forgetting" involve, and how does one go about achieving such a state of mind? This question will bring us back to consideration of the hsin, for it is in the hsin that "forgetting" occurs. In chapter 6, a dialogue between Confucius and Yen Hui is employed to detail the practice of "sitting and forgetting" ( W 9 0 91). Elsewhere this process is referred to as " t h e fasting of the hsin" (W 57, 205). The "fasting of the hsin" is described as the clearing and emptying of the heart, for the "tao gathers in emptiness alone, and emptiness is the fasting of the hsin" (W 58). Here is described that crucial intersection between the personal, individual man and the greater tao. They meet in that most important of organs, the hsin. When we rebuild the original metaphorical picture, we see that the hsin, as the physical heart, is imagined as the conduit for the flow of the ethereal tao. 2 T h e common man, however, has allowed his hsin to b e c o m e clogged and so is blocked off from the tao. In order to return to a harmonious relationship he must practice the "fasting of the hsin" which reams the heart of the artificial and permits the tao to pour into it naturally. By "sitting and forgetting," one can glide freely on the winds of

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change, as unconcerned and comfortable as the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. And because we are at home and at ease within the tao's ever-changing flow, our actions are at once powerful and efficacious, unhindered by the worries of the archer and as focused and free as the excellent swimmer. This imagery is consistent with observations of the heart as the internal organ containing the flows and surges of the blood. It is consistent because it derives from these very observations. The blood's role as the carrier of oxygen and nutrients was, of course, unknown at the time. Only two facts were obvious—flowing blood signified life, and coagulated blood choking the heart marked death. The tao, though obviously not equated with the blood, was conceived as analogous to it (and to all other fluids as well). 2 3 And just as coagulated blood clogging the heart was the cause of biological death, obstructions that block the flow of the tao into the hsin were the cause of "spiritual" death. 24 Excerpts from throughout the Chuang-tzu corroborate this reconstructed model of the hsin. It is heaven which is thought to open up the passages in a man's body. "But man on the contrary blocks up the holes. The cavity of the body is a many-storied vault; the hsin has its heavenly wanderings. But if its chambers are not large and roomy [lit. "empty"], then wife and mother-in-law will fall into quarreling" (W 300-301). If man cannot clear his hsin and allow the tao free access, it certainly bodes the most inauspicious consequences. This is why the Chuang-tzu has Confucius say, "I examine what is within me and am never blocked off from the tao" (W 319). The obstruction of the tao's flow through the hsin is pictured in much the same way as the blocking of rivers when they are dammed. In fact, the same character is used in both cases. But what causes these obstructions so detrimental to the religious quest? The Chuang-tzu explains that "likes and dislikes, sounds and colors cripple what is on the inside" (W141) and documents the achievements of past sages who did not allow "titles and stipends . . . and life and death to get inside their hsin" (W 228). 2 5 These things are imagined to mix with the tao and so impede its flow. They contaminate the tao as it flows through the hsin, mixing with it and sullying its purity. "The tao doesn't want things mixed in with it. When it becomes a mixture, it becomes many taos;... then there is trouble which has no remedy" (W 54). This same passage is described in metaphorical terms later and provides insight into how the tao must be cared for as it passes through the hsin. The water metaphor is used here to represent the tao. "It is the nature of water that if it is not mixed with other things, it will be clear, and if nothing stirs it, it will be level. But if it is dammed and hemmed in and not allowed to flow, then, too, it cannot be clear" (W169).

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Translating this passage out of its metaphorical language, the tao is believed to be, by nature, clear and bright. But if it is mixed with impurities (such as desires and fears), it will cease to be pure. Also, if the tao is blocked up in the hsin and not allowed to flow through it, like stagnant water it will deteriorate. 2 6 The question of h o w external influences contaminate the hsin is more revealingly discussed in the next section of this paper, dealing with the metaphorical understanding of the hsin. Since I claim that the hsin was primarily understood through the use of metaphors, I open with a general discussion on the role of metaphors in philosophical thinking. Although the Chuang-tzu makes numerous references to the hsin (it appears over 170 times in the text), it never tackles head on the question of how the hsin operates. Most passages merely employ the term, rarely venturing any details. W h e n descriptions of the hsin are attempted, however, they almost always utilize metaphors. T h e fact that we consistently discover the hsin in a metaphorical nest compels us to take these metaphors seriously. We can only h o p e that some information on how the hsin was conceived still lies embedded within them. The suggestion that the concept of hsin in the Chuang-tzu can be understood by examining the metaphors describing it raises interesting possibilities. Yet if, as is normally believed, metaphors are merely those literary trimmings which decorate philosophical ideas, how can they provide any information about the concepts themselves? To confuse the metaphor with the concept in this way would be tantamount to mistaking the full-color brochure for the vacation. T h e brochure highlights some features of the holiday at the expense of others, in much the same way as metaphors are believed to emphasize specific and limited facets of a concept without seeking to exhaust that concept. It will be useful, at this point, to distinguish between two types of metaphor and their respective functions in language. " M e t a p h o r " has its etymological roots in the Greek metapherd, which literally means " t o carry (phero) from one place to another." 2 7 We are familiar with this aspect of metaphorical language. It refers to the transfer of a set of terms from one place, or context, to another with the aim of illuminating or clarifying an idea. For example, in the phrase, "Mussolini was a pawn in Hitler's hands," the term "pawn," which ordinarily designates the lowest-ranking and most-expendable man on the chessboard, is used to describe a person who is being manipulated in order to further the ambitions of another. In this case, " p a w n " has been carried from its normal context (the game of chess) to a different context (the " g a m e " of war) in order to describe a similar situation. This first use of metaphor is purely

OSHIMA

descriptive; its purpose is solely to illustrate and enliven the situation being described. Metaphors used in this manner are descriptive analogies, as I use the term, and their value is by and large literary. If these are the types of metaphor used by the Chuang-tzu to designate the hsin, little could be gained from an inquiry into them. ' However, the Greek word possesses another meaning which will serve at once to both expand and qualify our foregoing characterization of metaphor. Metapherd can also mean "to change or alter, even to pervert." 28 In this case, something is changed or perverted in the process of carrying over. The Greek word warns of the danger of applying powerful metaphors to ideas and concepts too weak to resist their perverting influence. This second type of metaphor, instead of being content with illuminating ideas, turns and begins to mold and shape those same ideas. When the metaphor is applied to something that lacks the substance to resist being altered, it can more easily take over and dominate. For example, when we speak of the "river of time" or being "frozen in time," the metaphor of water, which at first served only to aid in our understanding of time, now begins to condition how we imagine time to be. When time "freezes" metaphorically, motion freezes literally. The initial conceptualization of electricity was that of tiny electrons "flowing" through wires, in much the same way as water flowed through pipes. We wonder to what extent the metaphor of flowing water shaped the concepts of electricity, particularly in the minds of the common man. Have these metaphors merely clarified concepts and ideas already firmly understood, or have they actually determined them? This power of the metaphor to alter and shape the understanding of ideas is more pronounced when the metaphor is applied to concepts that are themselves poorly understood. When we say, "In Boston, money flies right out of your wallet," there is little danger of misinterpretation. The concepts of money and flying are firmly enough established to prevent us from actually envisaging dollar bills zooming out of our pockets. Likewise, we could never really confuse a chessman with Mussolini. In other words, we could never take these metaphors literally. The situation is quite different with, say, electrons. Having never seen one, and professing no profound understanding of them, it is very easy to picture a stream of tiny particles and to mistake this picture as the actual fact. Whereas the phrase "a stream of coins" is clearly recognizable as a metaphor, "a stream of electrons" is often mistaken as literal. This second type of metaphor has more significance for the study of philosophical terms. When employed to describe things unseen and less firmly understood than "pawns" or "coins," the metaphor, itself drawn

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from the world of common experience, tends to shape and mold the ambiguous idea it was imported originally only to describe. The metaphor goes beyond merely elaborating an idea already clearly understood. It functions, instead, as the model whereby the abstract idea is actually imagined and pictured. More than just a descriptive analogy decorating an idea, it is the determinative model for the understanding of that idea. 2 9 I have already alluded to the prevalence of certain water and wind metaphors in the early Chinese understanding of the tao. By comparing the tao with rivers and blood, and trying to demonstrate that close conceptual connections existed between them, I hoped to show that reallife observations of the world served as the determinative models for the tao. Similarly, I will argue that a single, powerful metaphor, the mirror, was the determinative model for many of the Chuang-tzu's ideas about the hsin. This practice of using metaphors to explain and understand ambiguous concepts is not unique to the Chuang-tzu. Numerous examples can be found if one turns to the history of science and philosophy in the West. Students frequently employ the metaphors of pressure and current, derived from plumbing and fluid dynamics, to help understand the more abstract concepts of voltage, resistance, and current in electronics. 30 In this case, something more tangible, more familiar to the imagination than electrons is being used as the model for the visualization of unobservable electrical events. Along the same lines, the Democritean atomos, invisible because of its size, depended upon a metaphor taken from the world of experience to explain its own peculiar properties. These atoms were pictured to have hooks and holes on their surfaces, facilitating their adhesions with each other. The metaphor of the machine was employed to organize the complex functions of the body and of Nature. 31 Mechanical metaphors were especially prominent during the Industrial Revolution, when machines had become ever more common in the daily lives of people. Wondrous machines with their numerous mechanical intricacies were potent models for the unknown "mechanisms" by which the body of man and Nature were also moved. Specific examples of metaphors for the heart and mind are even more common. Like electrons, atoms, and life forces, the organ of thought is a relatively abstract concept which is dependent upon the substantializing properties of metaphors to tether it to the world of visible experience. In Aristotle, for example, the metaphor of the cooking pot hanging over the fire was enlisted as the model for the conceptualization of the hitherto mysterious functionings of the stomach and heart. 3 2 Food entered the stomach and was "cooked" by the heat of the heart. The heart, for

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Aristotle, was also the source of thought and sensation. 3 3 The metaphor of the mind as the "ghost in the machine" was extensively dealt with in Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind. Ryle claims that the modern notion of mind, as derived from Descartes, is that of a ghostly inner self which is the source of the thoughts that both precede and produce our physical actions. We are fortunate to live in an age which has witnessed the birth of another metaphor, that of the computer, to describe the workings of the mind. Even now, to hear of people being "programmed" and "deprogrammed," with or without the quotation marks, is commonplace. This is an example of a familiar and easily understandable metaphor, the computer, being used as the model by which to conceive the functionings of an abstract and uninvestigable mind. On the whole, these historical examples illustrate the general process by which metaphors, taken from the world of concrete experience, are used as the determinative models to imagine less substantial, less clearly understood ideas. 3 4 If, as I hope to demonstrate, the metaphors surrounding the hsin are of this second type, not mere descriptive analogies but actually the determinative models by which hsin was imagined, then it is only by probing into its accompanying metaphors that we can arrive at what hsin may have meant to the authors of the Chuang-tzu. " T h e Perfect Man uses his hsin like a mirror—going after nothing, welcoming nothing, responding but not storing. Therefore he can win out over things and not hurt himself," the Chuang-tzu claims (W 97). " T h e sage's hsin in stillness is the mirror of the Heaven and earth" ( W 1 4 2 ) . The mirror metaphor is the only explicit description offered for the understanding of the hsin. An important precondition, if we intend to use the mirror metaphor to clarify our conception of the hsin, is an accurate understanding of what a mirror is, or perhaps more correctly, what a mirror was in the times of the Chuang-tzu. It is an essential part of this metaphorical analysis not only that the importance of metaphors in the formulation of concepts be recognized, but also that the metaphors themselves be understood in the same manner in which they were originally used. We must engage in a "metaphorical archaeology," so to speak, in order to reconstruct faithfully the metaphorical imagery available to its original creators. By examining archaeological, art historical, and literary evidence, we can get some sense of the form, function, and religious significance of ancient Chinese bronze mirrors. 3 5 The first thing to become apparent from such a study is that the bronze mirrors of the late Chou and early Han were not simply reflecting surfaces. Mirrors, for us, are little more than cosmetic devices, and it is this use which prevails in our thinking about them. Though mirrors in ancient

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China could also be found among the toiletry articles of a court lady or empress, they had a significance that went far beyond the boudoir. Mirrors, from earliest times, were invested with a broad range of mysterious powers. D e m o n s were said to be exposed in mirrors. Many a traveler, when passing through the mountains, hung mirror amulets from his back in order to protect himself from malicious mountain spirits. Also, certain mirror cults evolved from the belief that beneficent spirits could be conjured, given the proper incantations, in that nether realm within the mirror's borders. In a culture possessing neither the benefits of a theory of reflection nor an understanding of the principles of light, religio-magical beliefs about mirrors were rampant. This is not meant pejoratively as our own Western culture, until quite recently, professed a belief not only in vampires and apparitions, but also that they could be detected by their inability to produce reflections in mirrors. 3 6 The great sense of mystery surrounding mirrors, and likewise the hsiri, is best illustrated by describing a mirror that purportedly had the power to generate fire. The Chou Li records a Chou dynasty office, the sole function of which was to draw, at the correct times of the year, fire from the sun. What the Chou Li is referring to here is the concave mirror, which, as we all know, can focus sunlight and produce heat. In fact, archaeological evidence has shown that "this is clearly one of the earliest uses to which mirrors were put, and the art of producing them was doubtless well known in the C h o u . " 3 8 T h e fires for the entire kingdom were thus continually renewed and purified by gathering fire from the sun with a concave mirror. The Huai-nan-tzu says, " W h e n the yang sui mirror sees the sun, there is a burning and fire is produced." 3 9 The concave mirror, when turned towards the heavens concentrates and focuses light, thereby miraculously creating fire. 4 0 Certainly this mirror symbolized a powerful connection with the greater powers of the heavens and, as such, would have served admirably as a model for the hsin. To be sure, the mirror metaphor for the hsin appears quite pedestrian and unexciting until we realize that the mirror itself was imagined to possess broad and mysterious powers. The more we can uncover about how mirrors were used and understood, the more we potentially know about how the hsin was conceived. With some sense of what a mirror was in ancient China, we can more fully appreciate the significance of the mirror metaphor for the hsin. Perhaps we can even use the metaphor to interpret a few cryptic passages. For example, the Chuang-tzu claims that " H e whose inner being rests in the Great Serenity will send forth a Heavenly light" (W 254) and characterizes sagehood as forming "a triad with the light of the sun and

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m o o n " ( W 1 1 6 ) . These paradoxical statements make little sense until they are interpreted within the context of the mirror metaphor. The sage, whose hsin was pictured to be the "bright mirror," could " s e n d forth a heavenly light" when in the proper alignment with the heavens and the tao, just as a mirror can project light when in view of the sun. In chapter 11, we find the following: Gentle and shy, the hsin can bend the hard and strong; it can chisel and cut away, carve and polish. Its heat is that of burning fire, its coldness that of solid ice. Its swiftness such that, in the time it takes to lift and lower the head, it has twice swept over the four seas and beyond. At rest, it is deep-fathomed and still; in movement, it is far flung as the heavens, racing and galloping out of reach of all bounds. This indeed is the hsin of man! ( W 116)

It is apparent that this particular selection retains much of its sense were we merely to replace the word hsin with the word "mirror." Taking special note of the burning mirrors of the Chou, we can easily see how the mirror has the " h e a t of burning fire" while itself remaining unaffected, with a "coldness of solid ice." At rest, the mirror, like clear and calm water, is " d e e p fathomed and still." Yet, w h e n reflecting light, "it is far flung as the heavens." "Hsin" and " m i r r o r " can be interchanged in these and many other passages principally because they shared so many qualities. This is, of course, because the mirror was enlisted as the determinative model for the hsin. Many of the mirror's powers nominated it for this lofty position, and its spectacular properties were appropriated both to conceptualize and elaborate the Chuang-tzu's notion of hsin. As already noted, when in the proper relationship with the sun, the concave mirror could inexplicably generate fire, thereby drawing upon the hitherto untapped reservoirs of the yang element. In much the same way, the hsin was pictured as the organ by which man communed with the forces of the tao. That the hsin's association with the heavens is conceived of in much the same way as the mirror's relationship with the sun is further evidenced by data gathered from the backs of bronze mirrors. " S h i n e on men's hsin as bright as the sun and m o o n " is a c o m m o n inscription. The mirror metaphor for the hsin is one of the most pervasive in Chinese philosophy. Insofar as its locus classicus is found in the Chuang-tzu, it is appropriate that its study begin h e r e . 4 1 We have yet to discuss how the metaphorical conception the mirror is related to the literal understanding of the hsin What possible similarities could the physical heart and the given that they both contribute equally to the metaphorical

of the hsin as as the heart. mirror have, understand-

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ing of the hsin? How are the mirror and heart related, and how are their properties conceptually combined in the Chuang-tzu's notion of hsin? The tao, we remember, was considered as a substance analogous to water. It flowed through and collected in the hsin, much as water flowed into lakes and blood gathered in the heart. Not surprisingly, water metaphors routinely accompany mirror metaphors when describing the hsin. The "stillness" of water at rest is compared with the "stillness" on the face of a mirror. Since a basin full of water more than likely sufficed as the first mirror, the clear, calm surface of a bowl full of water and the bronze mirror were naturally identified. " T h e sage's hsin in stillness is the mirror of the Heaven and earth, the glass of the ten thousand things," the Chuang-tzu explains ( W 1 4 2 ) . The tao, when calm and level in the hsin, like water at rest, is the mirror of the universe. This idea of "stillness," gleaned from the water and mirror metaphors discussed above, is applied, in turn, as a fundamental quality of the purified hsin in the sage. Thus, in explanation of why men flock around the sage, we are given this reply: " M e n do not mirror themselves in running water—they mirror themselves in still water. Only what is still can still the stillness of other things" (W 69). The metaphorical image here is that of the tao, flowing into and reposing in the cleared and empty heart. Its surface, still and calm, like the mirror, reflects all things without prejudice, not being affected by anything. 4 2 The all important idea of "forgetting" can now be interpreted within the mirror metaphor. "Sitting and forgetting" is the practice of emptying one's hsin, clearing it of all impurities and allowing the tao free access. Likewise, the mirror must be polished and kept clear of all dust. Only then can the sage "wield his hsin without wearying it, responding to things without prejudice" (W 239). This seems to be the definitive quality of the sage—-his complete lack of desires, ambitions, prejudices, and concerns. He has "forgotten" everything, not allowing normal human concerns entry into his hsin. If we consider some of the properties of a mirror surface, many of these ideas will begin to make sense. A mirror reflects everything and anything presented to it. It therefore "responds to things without prejudice," just as the sage's hsin is able to do. Tempting situations, personal tragedies, mundane c o n c e r n s — n o n e of these have any effect on the sage because they do not get "inside" him to do harm. The sage, using his hsin like a mirror, merely reflects all the chaos about him. Reflections make no real impression on the mirror—images only dance and play on its surface and never damage the mirror itself. Similarly, the world's most catastrophic events can never make a permanent or even lasting impression on the

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sage. If only he can keep his mirror free from dust, clear of all the concerns that stick to the ordinary man's hsin, he can e n j o y perfect freedom and detachment. External influences affect man's hsin in much the same way as impurities muddy a pond's clarity and dust obscures the mirror's brightness. Likes and dislikes, concerns and fears were not conceived of as psychological states, but were actually envisioned as material impediments to the hsin's functionings. Human concerns pile up in a man's hsin. O n e who cannot "forget" and clear himself of these accumulations is forever lost. As the dust piles up on his mirror, he slowly fades; the mirror of his hsin is no longer able to c o m m u n e with the light of heaven. " T h e y grow dark as though sealed with seals—such are the excesses of their old age. And when their hsin draw near to death, nothing can restore them to the light" (W 37). Light is another potent metaphor for the tao, and one that has special significance for the mirror metaphor of the hsin. The sage's relationship with the tao parallels the mirror's associations with the sun and light. Just as the mirror can project light (in the case of the concave mirror, with remarkable results), the sage who has cleaned his bright mirror, " w h o s e inner being rests in the Great Serenity will send forth a Heavenly light" (W 254). The king who can successfully "forget" will be the ruler who "will shine mirror-like over the earth below . . . " (W 1 5 4 - 1 5 5 ) . As in the case of water metaphors, the Chuang-tzu makes numerous references to the special relationship between the sage, the hsin, and " l i g h t . " 4 3 Consequently, the sage who "rides the clouds and mists" is also described as letting his "spirit ascend and mount upon the light" (W 33, 46, 137). We have seen that the tao is conceived within two imaginative schemes—the first appropriating water metaphors and the second intense with light metaphors. T h e ubiquity of passages which conjoin light and water terms with the tao and hsin reflects the seriousness of these associations. The bifurcation of the Chuang-tzu's discussion of the tao into light and water themes is significant for the development of the theory of yin and yang. It is an idea which, though only nascent in the Chuang-tzu, was destined to assume a central position in the cosmologies of all subsequent Taoist philosophers. Yin and yang, the water and fiery elements, respectively, were imagined to be the two major c o m p o n e n t s of the tao. Consequently, when the Chuang-tzu describes man's union with the perfect tao, it speaks of an ascent to " t h e Great Brilliance, to the source of the perfect yang," as well as to "the Dark and Mysterious Gate, to the source of perfect yin" (W 120). I have made the claim that the mirror was the determinative model for

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the understanding of the hsin. Observations of the mirror's many mysterious properties were used to elaborate and understand the hsin— not vice versa. T h e mirror's relationship to light and fire, and consequently to the yang component of the tao, has already been discussed. What remains yet uncovered is the mirror's connection with the water, or yin, component. If the mirror truly was the underlying model for the interpretation of the concept of hsin, we must be able to account for this aspect. How does the mirror metaphor illuminate obscure passages that speak of the hsin's ties with the yin, water and moon? W e already know how the mirror collects fire, the yang element, from the sun. But h o w does the mirror, as the model for the hsin, gather water, or the yin element, from the moon? There is a mysterious, yet highly important, association between mirrors and water that passes unnoticed in our modern world. T h e Huainan-tzu records the concave mirror which, " w h e n it sees the sun, produces a burning and fire," and also another type of mirror which " w h e n it sees the moon, there is a dampness and water is produced." 4 4 This passage describes, in prescientific terms, the p h e n o m e n o n of condensation. The cold bronze mirror, when placed outside in view of the moon, condenses moisture from the atmosphere and miraculously produces water. Such is the modern scientific explanation, but there is powerful evidence here of an ancient belief that the mirror, by virtue of its intimate link with the heavens, could not only draw fire from the sun, the source of yang, but could also concentrate water from the moon, the source of yin. Passages that speak of the sage "concentrating his spirit" (W 2 0 0 ) 4 5 and "forming a triad with the light of the sun and m o o n " (W 120) make new sense if the mirror metaphor, as articulated above, formed the imaginative backgrounds behind them.

In the preceding pages, I have attempted to reconstruct the metaphorical imagery underlying the concept of hsin in the Chuang-tzu. I have tried to show h o w concrete, visible objects in the world of everyday experience functioned as the determinative models for the visualization of man's hsin and its relationship with the greater powers of the world. The literal, and perhaps most archaic, understanding of the hsin as the physical heart forms the base of assumptions upon which the Chuang-tzu builds. T h e mirror metaphor both expands and refines this understanding, incorporating new ideas about the tao and the sage. T h e ancient bronze mirror, when understood in its original context, possessed numerous qualities that were subsequently appropriated to describe the hsin46

8o

OSHIMA NOTES F o r c o n v e n i e n c e , all r e f e r e n c e s to t h e Chuang-tzu Complete

Works

of Chuang

a r e in B u r t o n W a t s o n , tr., The

Tzu ( N e w Y o r k : C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1 9 6 8 ) ,

a l t h o u g h slight m o d i f i c a t i o n s a r e s o m e t i m e s m a d e in t h e translation. 1.

C o n f o u n d e d by t h e a m b i g u i t i e s a n d c o n t r a d i c t i o n s so p r e v a l e n t in t h e text, m a n y h a v e a r g u e d that t h e Chuang-tzu

is w r i t t e n in a n e c s t a t i c l a n g u a g e typical o f

mystical e x p e r i e n c e . S i n c e s u c h mystical v i s i o n s a r e i r r e d u c i b l e to w o r d s a n d s p e e c h , t r a d i t i o n a l m e t h o d s of i n t e r p r e t a t i o n a n d e x e g e s i s a r e d e e m e d inapplic a b l e . I m a k e n o a t t e m p t s e i t h e r to c o n f i r m o r t o d e n y this a s s e r t i o n , b u t d o m a i n t a i n that it m a k e s little d i f f e r e n c e to this study. A r e l i g i o u s e x p e r i e n c e m a y h a v e i n s p i r e d , b u t c e r t a i n l y did n o t c o m p l e t e l y d e t e r m i n e , t h e f o r m a n d c o n t e n t o f t h e Chuang-tzu's

writings. A n y e x p e r i e n c e s e e k s u n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d e x p r e s -

s i o n in s p e e c h , a n d it is that u n d e r s t a n d i n g w h i c h is t h e c o n c e r n o f this p a p e r . W e can f o l l o w a l o n g as t h e a u t h o r s a t t e m p t to e x p r e s s t h e m s e l v e s in a set o f t e r m s t h e y h a v e a l r e a d y d e c l a r e d i n a d e q u a t e f o r t h e task. L a n g u a g e , in t h e b r o a d e s t s e n s e , is t h e s o l e m e d i u m t h r o u g h w h i c h o n e c a n rationally e x p l a i n a n y insight. W e shall f o c u s on this p r o c e s s o f e x p l a n a t i o n a n d l e a v e t o o t h e r s q u e s t i o n s on t h e n a t u r e of m y s t i c a l e x p e r i e n c e . 2.

G i l b e r t R y l e c l a i m s that t h e c o n c e p t o f m i n d as w e k n o w it is n o t h i n g m o r e t h a n a myth, a c a t e g o r y m i s t a k e , a n d that it s i g n i f i e s n o t h i n g real or e x i s t e n t . H i s a r g u m e n t , f o u n d in t h e first c h a p t e r o f The Concept

of Mind ( N e w Y o r k : H a r p e r

a n d R o w , 1 9 4 9 ) , is e x t r e m e l y c o n v i n c i n g . 3.

A s h o r t d i s c u s s i o n o n this t o p i c a p p e a r s in J o s e p h S. W u , " C h i n e s e L a n g u a g e a n d C h i n e s e T h o u g h t , " Philosophy

East and West 19, n o . 4 ( O c t o b e r 1 9 6 9 ) : 4 2 3 - 4 3 4 .

W u r e f e r s to B e n e d e t t o C r o c e ' s d i s t i n c t i o n b e t w e e n intuitive k n o w l e d g e a n d logical k n o w l e d g e , t h e f o r m e r r e l y i n g o n i m a g e s a n d c o n c r e t e p a r t i c u l a r s , t h e latter o n a b s t r a c t i d e a s a n d u n i v e r s a l s . S e e B e n e d e t t o C r o c e , Aesthetic Expression 4.

Henry

and General G.

Lidell a n d

Linguistics, Robert

as Science

of

rev. ed. ( N e w Y o r k : N o o n d a y P r e s s , 1 9 5 3 ) . Scott,

Greek-English

(London:

Lexicon

Oxford

U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1 9 7 4 ) , p. 4 6 7 . 5.

L W i e g e r , S.J., Chinese

6.

" T h e hsin

Characters

( N e w Y o r k : D o v e r P u b l i c a t i o n s , 1 9 6 5 ) , p. 2 5 8 .

(heart) has the function of ruler g o v e r n i n g by m e a n s of the

( s p i r i t ) . " The Yellow Emperor's

Classic

of Internal Medicine

(Huang-ti

nei-ching

shen

su-wen,

T a o - t s a n g e d i t i o n ) , c h a p . 8, p. l a - b . 7.

H a r v e y a n d M a l p h i g h i in t h e s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y t h e o r i z e d t h e c i r c u l a t i o n o f t h e b l o o d t h r o u g h t h e arterial a n d v e n o u s s y s t e m s via t h e capillaries. B e f o r e t h e d i s c o v e r y o f t h e m i c r o s c o p i c c a p i l l a r y s y s t e m , a r t e r i e s a n d v e i n s h a d n o way to b e c o n n e c t e d . T h i s t h e o r y u s u r p e d t h e tidal t h e o r y of b l o o d flow. F o r e a r l i e r Chinese

ideas on the circulatory system, see Joseph

Craftsmen

in China

Technology

and the West; Lectures

and Addresses

Needham,

on the History

Clerks

and

of Science

and

( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1 9 7 0 ) , p. 2 9 6 . S e e also Ilza

Veith, Huang-Ti

Nei Ching Su Wen: The Yellow Emperor's

Classic

of Internal

Medicine,

n e w ed. ( B e r k e l e y : U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a P r e s s , 1 9 6 6 ) , pp. 3 4 a n d 1 4 0 ff. 8.

G a l e n , i n f l u e n t i a l until n e a r - m o d e r n times, b e l i e v e d that t h e arterial s y s t e m w a s the carrier of "spirit" ( p n e u m a ) and the v e n o u s system was the carrier of blood. T h e s e v i e w s p e r s i s t e d , in t h e f o r m o f t h e t h e o r y o f h u m o u r s , w e l l into t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y . R e a l i z i n g that s o - c a l l e d m e n t a l p h e n o m e n a depressions,

nightmares, and so on)

were understood

(headaches,

within a t h e o r y of

THE CONCEPT OF MIND

8l

h u m o u r s adds c r e d e n c e to our suspicions that the concept of hsin as articulated in the Chuang-tzu likewise could have b e e n conceived of in quite material terms. 9.

In chapter 5, " T h e Sign of Virtue Complete," a n u m b e r of m e n are described who have b e e n afflicted with some sort of physical mutilation. This chapter gives the clearest explication of the differences b e t w e e n that which is exterior and interior, " i n s i d e " and "outside" man.

10.

"With likes and dislikes, sounds and colors you cripple what is inside; with leather caps and snipe-feathered bonnets . . . you cramp what is on the outside" (W 141). T h e Chuang-tzu routinely contrasts the " i n s i d e " and " o u t s i d e " of man, giving higher priority to what is "internal." It is our predilection, as moderns, to interpret such "inside" and "outside" language as equivalent to " m e n t a l " and "physical" language. For example, when we speak of " b e a u t y as skin d e e p " and maintain that what really matters is what a person is like " o n the inside," we are not claiming that the arrangement of a particularly charming girl's viscera is more important than h e r looks. By "inside," we mean a person's mind or personality— entities irreducible to physical matter. Gilbert Ryle summarizes our understanding of these words: " . . . things and events which belong to the physical world, including o n e ' s body, are 'external', while the workings of his mind are 'internal'. This antithesis of outer and inner is of course meant to be construed as a metaphor, since minds, not being in space, could not b e described as being spatially inside anything else . . ." (Ryle, The Concept of Mind, p. 12; single quotation marks are my own). W h e r e a s we use "internal" and "external" metaphorically when speaking of people and their minds, the Chuang-tzu with few exceptions uses them literally. T h u s " i n s i d e " and "outside" refer to interior and exterior portions of the physical body, without the physical-mental or real-superficial biases so c o m m o n to our thinking.

11. 12. 13.

Tso-wang (W 90). Hsin-chai (W 57). This, and many other quotations used in this paper, are taken from an "outside" chapter. I will be drawing my examples from the whole of the Chuang-tzu, not limiting m y investigation to the first seven, or supposedly most authentic, chapters. I am less concerned with the disputed thought of one man than I am with the world view of an age—a world view shared by many people over a relatively long period of time—which forms the base of assumptions underlying any particular philosophical structure.

14. 15.

Cf. W 2 0 4 - 2 0 5 . The English word forget does retain a sense of this meaning. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 7th ed., partially defines "forget" as " t o put out of mind." Note the metaphor which treats the mind as some sort of container of thought. O n e puts thoughts out of his mind in much the same way as he puts the cat out of the house.

16.

Yen Hui was Confucius's favorite disciple, referred to throughout the as the e p i t o m e of the sincere seeker on his religious quest.

17. 18.

W 80, 142, 2 2 6 - 2 2 7 . Cf. also Lao-tzu, chaps. 8, 32, 34, 43, 66, 78. " F l o w " is used not only to describe water ( W 1 6 9 ) but also spirit (169), sound and light (156), and yin and yang (144). Damming and blockage are metaphors applicable equally to water (366) and the tao (162, 3 1 9 ) .

19.

It is an important property of sagehood that the perfected man act without knowing why (see W 8 8 ) . Thus, reaching perfection does not merely entail a superior vantage point from which the sage directs his life. Neither does it imply

Chuang-tzu

82

OSHIMA an " u n c o n s c i o u s " or " m e c h a n i c a l " e x i s t e n c e — i d e a s which h a v e m e a n i n g only w i t h i n o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e m i n d . R a t h e r , f o l l o w i n g t h e m e t a p h o r e l a b o r a t e d t h u s far, life is a " f l o w i n g " f o r t h e sage, as h e floats o n t h e t a o g o i n g w h i t h e r it m a y t a k e h i m . W i t h i n t h i s i m a g e r y , a n o t h e r i m p o r t a n t c o n c e p t , wu-wei " i n a c t i o n , " is a l s o e a s i l y p i c t u r e d . Wu-wei

or

is a " f l o w i n g " with t h e natural c u r r e n t s

of t h e w o r l d a n d t h e tao. It b e s t o w s p o w e r b e c a u s e it d o e s n o t w o r k a g a i n s t t h e s e forces. 20.

In t h e first l i n e s of t h e first c h a p t e r o f t h e Chuang-tzu

is d e s c r i b e d a g r e a t m y t h i c a l

bird P ' e n g , w h o floats o n t h e w i n d . T h i s is, o f c o u r s e , a m e t a p h o r of t h e s a g e w h o , l i k e w i s e , floats u p o n t h e tao. T h e l e g e n d a r y e m p e r o r F u H s i is d e s c r i b e d as entering

the " m o t h e r

of b r e a t h " a n d

t h e L o r d o f t h e River, P ' i n g - i ,

also

r e p r e s e n t i n g t h e sage, " w a n d e r e d in t h e g r e a t r i v e r " ( W 8 1 ) . T h e t a o h a d its m e t a p h o r i c a l m o o r i n g s in t h e i m a g e s of w i n d , w a t e r , a n d light, all of w h i c h w e r e c o n c e i v e d of as flowing. 21.

Wang. T h e c h a r a c t e r wang c o n t a i n s t h e h e a r t radical a n d is e t y m o l o g i c a l l y r e l a t e d to

22.

hsin.

T h e r e is a l a r g e n e t w o r k of c o r r e s p o n d e n c e s o p e r a t i n g h e r e . T h e t a o f l o w i n g t h r o u g h t h e w o r l d is c o n s i d e r e d a n a l o g o u s t o r i v e r s r u n n i n g i n t o t h e sea a n d b l o o d f l o w i n g i n t o t h e h e a r t . S e e a l s o Lao-tzu,

23.

chap. 32.

T h e t a o t a k e s o n m a n y f o r m s a n d , c o n s e q u e n t l y , m a n y n a m e s . W h e n it f l o w s t h r o u g h t h e b o d y , it is i n d i s t i n g u i s h a b l e f r o m t h e shen, o r spirit. W h e n it f l o w s t h r o u g h t h e p h y s i c a l l a n d s c a p e , it is often c a l l e d t h e ch'i or

24.

pneuma.

B y p o s t u l a t i n g a " p h y s i c a l i s t i c " i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of t h e Chuang-tzu's

hsin, it m a y b e

a r g u e d that I a m c o n f u s i n g t h e d i s t i n c t i o n s b e t w e e n t h e a b s t r a c t c o n c e p t s of " p h i l o s o p h i c a l " T a o i s m a n d t h e b o d i l y c o n c e r n s o f " r e l i g i o u s " or " a l c h e m i c a l " T a o i s m . T h e t w o a r e n o r m a l l y v i e w e d a s m u t u a l l y e x c l u s i v e . T h u s hsin,

in

r e c o g n i z e d p h i l o s o p h i c a l texts, is t r a n s l a t e d as " m i n d , " a n d in a l c h e m i c a l t e x t s as " h e a r t , " reinforcing our dualistic biases which d e m a n d a clear-cut separation b e t w e e n m e n t a l a n d p h y s i c a l c o n c e r n s . I w o u l d s u g g e s t , h o w e v e r , that b o t h " T a o i s m s " s h a r e a f u n d a m e n t a l u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e hsin d i f f e r i n g o n l y in t h e i r t e l e o l o g i c a l priorities. Hsin is n o t " m i n d " for o n e g r o u p a n d " h e a r t " f o r a n o t h e r . T h e s e a r e artificial d i s t i n c t i o n s w h i c h d e r i v e f r o m o u r i n s i s t e n c e o n a p p l y i n g m o d e r n c a t e g o r i e s of t h o u g h t t o a n c i e n t w r i t i n g s . 25.

T h e r e a r e q u i t e a f e w p a s s a g e s w h i c h w a r n a g a i n s t t h e h a z a r d of l e t t i n g " l i k e s a n d

26.

J u s t a s a lake w h i c h is c o n t i n u a l l y fed b y s t r e a m s a n d r i v e r s r e m a i n s c l e a r a n d

d i s l i k e s " g e t in to h a r m t h e hsin.

Cf. W 7 4 , 1 1 9 , 1 3 5 , 1 4 1 , 1 6 2 , 2 2 8 .

p u r e , s o t h e hsin m u s t b e k e p t o p e n t o t h e t a o ' s flow. M a n y g e o m a n t i c i d e a s exist, t h o u g h s o m e w h a t t r a n s f o r m e d , in t h e Chuang-tzu's

c o n c e p t i o n s of t h e hsin.

The

b o d y c o r r e s p o n d e d to t h e n a t u r a l l a n d s c a p e . It w a s w i d e l y b e l i e v e d t h a t t h e tao ( o r ch'i) c i r c u l a t e d t h r o u g h t h e w o r l d , o f t e n c o l l e c t i n g in lakes. S i m i l a r l y , it w a s also t h o u g h t that t h e tao ( o r shen) the

f l o w e d t h r o u g h t h e h u m a n b o d y , c o l l e c t i n g in

hsin.

27.

Lidell a n d S c o t t , Greek-English

28.

Ibid.

Lexicon,

p. 4 4 0 .

29.

M a n y p h i l o s o p h e r s , e s p e c i a l l y recently, h a v e e x p r e s s e d t h e c o n v i c t i o n m e t a p h o r s a r e t h e k e y for t h e u n d e r s t a n d i n g of all p h i l o s o p h i c a l

that

concepts.

H a n n a h A r e n d t c l a i m s that " . . . all p h i l o s o p h i c a l t e r m s a r e m e t a p h o r s , f r o z e n a n a l o g i e s a s it w e r e , w h o s e t r u e m e a n i n g d i s c l o s e s itself w h e n w e d i s s o l v e t h e t e r m i n t o t h e o r i g i n a l c o n t e x t , w h i c h m u s t h a v e b e e n vividly p r e s e n t in t h e m i n d of t h e first p h i l o s o p h e r t o u s e it" ( T h e Life of the Mind:

Thinking

[ N e w York:

THE CONCEPT OF MIND

30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

»3

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977], p. 104). Colin Turbayne, in a fascinating book dealing exclusively with the subject of metaphors and their centrality in philosophical thinking, says, " W e tend to forget that there are many subjects we speak of only in metaphor or, at least, predominantly, for example the mind and God" (The Myth of Metaphor [Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970], p. 96). Here voltage is imagined as the "pressure" of electrons, resistance is related to the size of the "pipe" used to conduct the electron flow, and current, whether it is used to describe water or electricity, designates the actual amount of flowing "material." The metaphor of the machine for the body was considered as early as Aristotle, who pondered the similarities between mechanical toys and the animal body. Cf. Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1941), p. 564. Sir David Ross, Aristotle, Parva Naturalia, A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 42. Turbayne, The Myth of Metaphor, p. 96. "The histories of the sciences of psychology and theology record, in large part, the unending search for the best possible metaphors to illustrate their unobservable subjects." For a fascinating study of the metaphors underlying modern Associationist psychology, see Milic Capek, "Simple Location and the Fragmentation of Reality," Process and Divinity, ed. William Reese (LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court, 1964), p. 79. For a general discussion on this subject, see Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4, pt. 1 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1962). For an excellent summary of ancient bronze mirrors, see also J. J. M. DeGroot, The Religious System of China (Taipei: Literature House, 1964, 1st reprinting), vol. 4, pp. 1000-1005. Other useful accounts may be found in William Watson, Ancient Bronze Mirrors (London: Charles Tuttle, 1962), pp. 8 1 - 1 0 0 ; Paul Demieville, "Le Miroir Spirituel," Sinologica 2, no. 1 (1947): 1 1 2 - 1 3 7 ; Ardelia Hall, " T h e Early Significance of Chinese Mirrors," Journal of the American Oriental Society 55 (1935): 182; and R. Swallow, Ancient Chinese Bronze Mirrors (Peiping: Vetch, 1937). Once detected, vampires and apparitions can be kept at bay with a variety of talismans. "The traditional preservative instrument is, of course, the Christian cross, often to be found to this day in isolated places, as in the middle of a field or on mountain tops in Transylvania. In such instances, the cross protects the wayfarer from evil." Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally, Dracula (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973), p. 170. The mirror served an identical protective function in China. See DeGroot, The Religious System of China, pp. 1 0 0 1 - 1 0 0 3 . Cited in Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, p. 87. O. J. Todd and Milan Rupert, Chinese Bronze Mirrors (Peiping: San Yu Press, 1935), p. 14. Cf. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, p. 88. Komai Kazuchika was the first to document the significance of the yang-sui. He states, "The yang-sui which is frequently mentioned in the ancient classics is now proved to be a tool for producing fire from the sun's rays by means of a concave mirror" (personal communication from Nishida Morio, translating from the introduction of an unpublished monograph: Tokyo, 1978). This, of course, depends upon how one chooses to date the Chuang-tzu. Regardless of the outcome, few would disagree that the mirror metaphor receives its first extensive treatment in the Chuang-tzu. For references to the mirror metaphor in Buddhist philosophy, see Alex Wayman, "The Mirror-like

84

OSHIMA

42.

Knowledge in Mahayana Buddhist Literature," Asiatische Studien 25 ( 1 9 7 1 ) : 3 5 3 363, and his " T h e Mirror as a Pan-Buddhist Metaphor-Simile," History of Religions 13, no. 2 ( 1 9 7 3 ) : 2 5 1 - 2 6 9 . Images and reflections do not taint the mirror's surface.

43. 44.

Cf. W 40, 83, 120, 126, 136 ff, 144, 154, 168, 238. Cited in Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, p. 87.

45.

T h e perfected man is described as one who has "concentrated his spirit (shen)." In much the same way as the spirit is concentrated in the hsin, water is "concentrated" on the mirror surface. The history of the concept of hsin in C h i n e s e thought would m a k e a fascinating subject for further study, particularly if one traced the evolution of the m e t a p h o r s used to describe it. F o r example, Seng-chao, a fourth-century Buddhist philosopher, made such extensive use of the mirror metaphor for his expositions on the hsin that his book, the Chao tun, is as much a treatise on catoptrics and optics as it is on Buddhist theories of mind. Hui-neng's Platform Sutra introduces the metaphor of the fertile soil to describe s o m e of the facets of the mind. Later, with the ascendency of the concept of "Buddha-nature," the mind (hsin) is relegated to the position of the "mirror-stand."

46.

Chuang-tzu and Erasmus: Kindred Wits VICTOR H. MAIR

"All life is a stage and a game: either learn to play it, laying by seriousness, or bear its pains." Palladas of Alexandria, tr. J. W. Mackail

What manner of man was Chuang-tzu? In the first place, we know very little about him other than that he was from Meng a County in the Kingdom of Sung, b that he lived during the Warring States Period and was a contemporary of King Hui of Liang c (370-319 B.I.E.) and King Hsuan of Ch'i d (319-301 B.I.E.), and that he was surnamed Chuang, e named Chou/ and may have used the sobriquet Tzu-hsiu. 8 Even Ssu-ma Ch'ien's h (145-86 B.I.E.) biographical notice in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shih-chi') does not help much in filling out the details. Secondly, although the man named Chuang Chou did write a book known as the Chuang-tzu ("Master Chuang"), time and its editors have been so unmerciful with it that we can hardly claim that what we possess now are the ipsissima verba. The thirty-three chapter edition of Kuo Hsiang' (?-312 I.E.) which we now take to be The Chuang-tzu was only one of several recensions of the work. There were also fifty-two chapter editions by Ssu-ma Piao k (?-306 I.E.) and someone surnamed Meng, as well as a twenty-seven chapter edition by Hsiang Hsiu m (third century I.E.), none of which survive. The details of the textual problems are far too complicated and difficult to discuss in an essay of this sort. 1 My relatively uncritical approach to the text is to consider it as an anthology of Taoist writings in which the dominant impress derives from the corporate

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MAIR

personality that I shall, for the sake of simplicity, refer to as " C h u a n g - t z u . " Passages that are totally out of keeping with the general t e n o r of the anthology will b e ignored. W h a t did this " C h u a n g - t z u " stand for? W a s h e a mystic, a satirist, a nihilist, a hedonist, or a romantic? All of these labels, and m a n y m o r e besides, have b e e n applied to him, but n o n e of t h e m will suffice. C h u a n g tzu is too protean to be c o n f i n e d securely u n d e r any single rubric. This is because, it s e e m s to me, h e is quintessentially Homo ludens ( m a n the player). To call C h u a n g - t z u Homo ludens is, of course, to pin a n o t h e r label on him, but the advantage of this particular designation is that it defies all specificity and rigidity. Playful man is ever shifting and roaming. H e refuses to b e p e g g e d doWn b y a n y given stereotype. W e m a y say that the raison d'etre of Homo ludens is to stand in a perpetually antithetical relationship to all fixed categories. C h u a n g - t z u is, indeed, such a man. H e is a p r o f o u n d and brilliant jester w h o d e m o l i s h e s our c o n f o u n d e d seriousness. His confreres in the W e s t include Rabelais 2 and J o y c e . 3 I have also noticed a p r o n o u n c e d affinity b e t w e e n the Chuang-tzu and certain e n c o m i u m s . In fact, so pervasive are the positive images of ludic errancy in the Chuang-tzu that it might well b e called A Planetary Encomium or In Praise of Wandering. Technically, an e n c o m i u m is a sort of oration asking and giving praise of its subject, which m a y range a n y w h e r e from one of the g o d s to an ass (Lucian and Apuleius) to baldness (Synesius). T h e r e are e n c o m i u m s on m u d (Luti Encomium b y M. Antonius Majoragius), flies, parasites (Lucian), and any n u m b e r of other delectable subjects. T h e e n c o m i u m that is m o s t a p r o p o s for our present inquiry, h o w e v e r , is the Moriae Encomium (Mogia< Eyxoi/xiov ) 4 of Erasmus. To understand Erasmus, w e must go back briefly to Lucian, a Syrian of late R o m e w h o died around 2 0 0 I.E. Lucian was a favorite a u t h o r during the Renaissance. A n epigram on the title page of his Opera5 m a y h e l p to explain why: " T h e s e are the works of Lucian, w h o k n e w that folly is of ancient birth, and that what s e e m s wise to s o m e m e n appears ridiculous to others; t h e r e is no c o m m o n j u d g m e n t in m e n , but what y o u a d m i r e others will laugh at." 6 E r a s m u s translated twenty-eight of Lucian's dialogues 7 and T h o m a s M o r e four. Together, their translations w e r e published in Paris by Badius in 1506. T h r e e years later, in 1 5 0 9 , Moriae Encomium was written. After h e had published the book, E r a s m u s wrote to a friend saying that it was M o r e ' s p e n c h a n t for levity and f o n d n e s s for Lucian that had prompted him to write it. T h e p r o b l e m of discerning Erasmus's intent in The Praise of Folly is a rather c o m p l e x and difficult undertaking. For Folly s o m e t i m e s is, but often is not, Erasmus's s p o k e s m a n . S h e is an improbably dramatic

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creature w h o m Erasmus, once he has created her, seems to allow to go on her own muddleheaded way. Even Folly herself b e c o m e s a bit confused at times by the many levels of meaning that are possible with the ironic mode in which Erasmus deploys her. S h e rhetorically asks her audience what is life without pleasure and they enthusiastically concur. " Y o u r applause," she says, "has answered for you. I was certain that none of you is so wise, or rather foolish—no, I mean wise—as to be of that opinion" (M 19, italics mine). 8 And again, "I myself once heard an eminent fool—I beg your pardon, I mean scholar—who was going to explain the holy Trinity . . . " (M 102). This leads to an intensely convoluted, yet highly conscious, satirical (Erasmus refers to satire three times in the last paragraph of his prefatory letter to More) purpose: " F o r just as nothing is more trivial than to treat serious matters in a trivial way, so too nothing is more delightful than to treat trifles in such a way that you do not seem to be trifling at all" (M 4). An indication of the double-edged intention of Erasmus is his prediction, in the prefatory letter to More, that the Folly would be criticized both for being "too light and frivolous" and for being " m o r e biting than is compatible with Christian moderation" (M 2). If that be the case, he writes, they can imagine that I was simply playing with pawns for my own amusement or, if they prefer, that I was riding a hobbyhorse like a child. But surely, since we grant every other state in life its own recreations, it is quite unfair to allow students no amusement at all, especially if trifles lead to serious ideas and if a frivolous subject is handled in such a way that a reader who has any sense at all can profit by it a good deal . . . . (M 3 - 4 )

Chuang-tzu, however, would never have sought to justify his efforts by referring to profit. That he would leave to the Mohists, for whom it was a central tenet. Later, even Mencius (1.1) would dismiss it as being inappropriate in his discussions of statecraft with King Hui of Liang: " W h y must you talk about 'profit'? There is only humanity and righteousness, and that's all." Erasmus, too, would probably have preferred to avoid any direct mention of utility but, as a Christian theologian who within a decade would be caught between Luther and the pope, he could hardly sidestep the issue altogether. Still, he emphasizes in the letter to More (written in 1509 or 1510) that he is a man of wit surveying funny vices and hopes that his readers will not be "offended by the levity (and playfulness) of the subject matter." (M 3; the words and playfulness were added to the letter in 1514.) Erasmus knows very well that Folly is ridiculing everyone who passes under her purview, but he does not want her to know it. Thus he has her

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disclaim any such intention, "lest I should seem to be composing a satire rather than delivering an encomium" (M 115). Likewise, the various spokesmen-personae in the Chuang-tzu are not always aware of the full implications of what they say and do. The same figure (including "Chuang-tzu") may at one moment be the butt of Chuang-tzu's wit and the mouthpiece for it the next. Neither Erasmus nor Chuang-tzu considered what he wrote in "the moronic mode" to be merely trifling entertainment. While Erasmus has Folly advocate being "foolishly wise" (morosophos, i.e. "foolosophical") (M 13), Chuang-tzu declares that "He who knows he is a fool is not the biggest fool" (W 139). Each, in the words of Shakespeare, "uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit" (,4s You Like It, V. iv). The danger in this sort of indirection is that it may be misread. A reader whose wit is not comparable to that of the author will be unable to plumb the multiple levels of irony. Walter Kaiser justly praises Erasmus's great originality in conceiving of Moriae "as being simultaneously both objective and subjective genitive." The implications of this fact, however, lead "to a vertiginous semantic labyrinth." For the praise of folly, being a mock praise, is in fact the censure of folly; but if Folly is thus censuring folly, Wisdom would presumably praise folly. Or, to look at it from another angle, if the praise of folly is, by its mock-encomiastic nature, actually the praise of wisdom, Folly must be praising wisdom. But if Folly praises wisdom, then Wisdom would presumably censure wisdom. One is obliged to surrender to the manner of Gertrude Stein and say: to praise folly is fooling, but if Folly is foolish and Folly is praising folly, then the foolish is fooling—that is, wisdom is being praised. Vet, if the unwise is praising wisdom, it is folly to do so, and wisdom to praise folly. If the reader is by now thoroughly lost, I am not surprised. Nor, for that matter, would Erasmus be; for it is in just this way that he intended to confuse his reader. 9

But very few readers are adequately equipped to cope with this sort of confusion. The chances that a work such as the Folly or the Chuang-tzu will be understood are very slim indeed. Hence, our task is to attempt to discover—as best we can—the modus operandi, if not always the intent, of Chuang-tzu and Folly. 10 We may embark on this task by examining, first of all, some of the general resemblances between these comic creatures. One glance at Folly's close associates is enough to tell us what sort of figure she is meant to portray. She "was nursed at the breasts of two most elegant nymphs: Methe (Drunkenness), begotten by Bacchus [who 'is most pleased when his followers worship him with games and jokes' (M 25)], and Apaedia (Stupidity), the daughter of Pan [who 'makes

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e v e r y b o d y laugh b y singing s o m e silly song' ( M 2 7 ) ] " ( M 1 7 ) . H e r h a n d m a i d s i n c l u d e Misponia (Laziness), Hedone ( P l e a s u r e ) , a n d Anoia ( M a d n e s s ) , the v e r y sort of misfits with w h o m C h u a n g - t z u consorts. It is a p p r o p r i a t e that, of Folly's h a n d m a i d s , the f o r e m o s t is F o r g e t f u l n e s s (Lethe). T h i s i m m e d i a t e l y calls to m i n d C h u a n g - t z u ' s a d v o c a c y of "sitting a n d forgetting' ( W 9 0 ) w h e r e b y w e can rid o u r s e l v e s of c o n s t a n t a n d c o n f o u n d e d ratiocination. It is t h e exact o p p o s i t e of "sitting b u t racing around" ( W 58). A n y sensitive reading of e v e n a few p a g e s in the Chuang-tzu a n d in the Folly quickly reveals that b o t h p o s s e s s a sportive character. E r a s m u s h i m s e l f r e f e r r e d to the Folly as " t h i s jeu d'esprit of m i n e " (hunc ingenii nostri lusum) and called it a " j o k e " w h i c h h e h o p e d w a s " n o t utterly deficient in w i t . " 1 1 T h o s e w h o attacked it, in the w o r d s of C l a r e n c e Miller, " w e r e racking a butterfly on a w h e e l . " 1 2 This is a peculiarly suitable m e t a p h o r for a n y o n e w h o w o u l d a t t e m p t a c o m p a r i s o n with the Chuang-tzu. T h e first c o m m e n t a t o r on the Folly, G e r a r d Lister, r e m a r k s a b o u t the title of the Folly that " I t was fitting for h e r to call it a d e c l a m a t i o n , to let you k n o w that it w a s written as a witty exercise, for fun a n d e n j o y m e n t . . . . " 1 3 A n d h u m o r , as B u r t o n W a t s o n says so aptly of C h u a n g - t z u , is " t h e very c o r e of his style" ( W 5). Yet the sly h u m o r of the Folly a n d the Chuang-tzu, as w e h a v e a l r e a d y seen, m a k e s t h e m infinitely m o r e c o m p l i c a t e d than if t h e y w e r e straightforwardly serious. C h u a n g - t z u s o m e t i m e s has C o n f u c i u s s p e a k like a Taoist sage a n d s o m e t i m e s h a s h i m act his a u t h e n t i c r o l e of p o m p o u s scholar-politician. This multi-levelled satire, t h o u g h far less biting than that of Erasmus, is c o m p a r a b l e to his. S i n c e it is Folly w h o is praising Folly, can w e trust h e r w o r d s ? S i n c e it is C h u a n g - t z u w h o is p o k i n g fun at C h u a n g - t z u , can w e trust his w o r d s ? B y all m e a n s , w e m a y rely on b o t h of t h e m , but o n l y to b e utterly unpredictable. T h e G r e e k title of the Folly is a p u n on t h e s u r n a m e of T h o m a s M o r e , to w h o m the b o o k was dedicated. M o r e u n d e r s t o o d p e r f e c t l y a n d res p o n d e d with Utopia. Like E r a s m u s and C h u a n g - t z u , M o r e w a s playing with his readers, w h i c h is b o r n e out by t h e fact that the s p o k e s m a n for his social p h i l o s o p h y is Ralph H y t h l o d a e u s (Ralph the Fool). M o r e ' s imitation of E r a s m u s in the Utopia was s w e e p i n g in its scope. H e b o r r o w e d n u m e r o u s p r o v e r b s and o t h e r materials f r o m the Adagia, satirized m a n y of the s a m e t y p e s of individuals as a r e m e t with in the s e c o n d section of the Folly, a n d w a s u n d o u b t e d l y i n s p i r e d b y t h e a d v i c e to k i n g s g i v e n at length in t h e Education of a Christian Prince.14 E d w a r d S u r t z n o t e s that the c o n t e m p o r a r y reaction to the Utopia clearly e m p h a sized its playful qualities:

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Erasmus in 1511, Pace in 1517, and Rhenanus in 1518 all lay stress on More's jesting. In this respect, humanists in 1516 most probably found the Utopia to be much more a libellusfestivus, "an entertaining, merry handbook," than we. "What is to prevent one from telling truth as he laughs?" as Horace had said. The range of the comic element is great: irony, as in the reference to the popes (such as Alexander VI and Julius II) who conscientiously keep their own promises and religiously require that those called the "faithful" should "faithfully adhere to their alliances"; satire, as in the ridicule of foolish pleasures like hunting and gambling; humor, as in the dazzling entrance and subsequent humiliation of the Anemolian ambassadors; farce, as in the conversion of gold bullion into chamber pots or chains for slaves; and outright laughter at the incongruous, as at the custom of pre-marital inspection of prospective bride and groom. A remarkable feature of the frequent comic tone is not only that it helps to furnish relief. In almost every case it also emphasizes the thought and reinforces the emotional context. 1 5 T h e d e d i c a t i o n of t h e Folly to M o r e , therefore, is m o s t a p p r o p r i a t e a n d b e a r s out that t h e m o o d in w h i c h it w a s written m u s t h a v e b e e n a truly playful one. If t h e Chuang-tzu,

o n t h e o t h e r h a n d , is d e d i c a t e d to a n y o n e , it

is, o d d l y e n o u g h , to t h e logician H u i - t z u . H e a p p e a r s f r e q u e n t l y t h e r e i n as t h e sparring p a r t n e r of C h u a n g - t z u a n d is a w a r d e d the final a n d m o s t significant p o r t i o n of t h e i m p o r t a n t thirty-third c h a p t e r , w h i c h r e v i e w s t h e p h i l o s o p h i e s of t h e day. C h u a n g - t z u ' s g e n u i n e affection for this m a n w h o r e p r e s e n t e d his p h i l o s o p h i c a l antithesis is, h o w e v e r , best e x p r e s s e d in t h e following t o u c h i n g p a s s a g e : Chuang Tzu was accompanying a funeral when he passed by the grave of Hui Tzu. Turning to his attendants, he said, " T h e r e was once a plasterer who, if he got a speck of mud on the tip of his nose no thicker than a fly's wing, would get his friend Carpenter Shih to slice it off for him. Carpenter Shih, whirling his hatchet with a noise like the wind, would accept the assignment and proceed to slice, removing every bit of mud without injury to the nose, while the plasterer just stood there completely unperturbed. Lord Yuan of Sung, hearing of this feat, summoned Carpenter Shih and said, 'Could you try performing it for me?' But Carpenter Shih replied, 'It's true that I was once able to slice like that—but the material I worked on has been dead these many years.' Since you died, Master Hui, I have had no material to work on. There's no one I can talk to any m o r e " (W 269). H u i - t z u ' s role in the Chuang-tzu

is to act as C h u a n g - t z u ' s foil. W i t h o u t

him, it w o u l d n o t b e so e a s y for C h u a n g - t z u to g o o n his r o m p against ratiocination. E l s e w h e r e , I h a v e tried to s h o w h o w C h u a n g - t z u w a s basically Homo ludens16

This

is c e r t a i n l y

true

of E r a s m u s .

Rather

than

trying

to

d e m o n s t r a t e this e n t i r e l y o n m y o w n , it is b e t t e r to refer to t h e o p i n i o n s of s c h o l a r s w h o h a v e s p e n t m a n y y e a r s studying his life a n d w o r k s . A l f o n s

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Auer declares that, aside from being Homo religiosus for his piety and Homo duplex for his ambiguity, Erasmus is Homo ludens}7 "And, at that, he is Homo ludens right in his deepest being. His entire work, not only the Moria, is deeply imprinted with this characteristic." " H e loved not only play with words, but also with thought, and even literary play with life and men." "His innate joy in play is a sign of his creative artistry." " T h i s impulse toward the playful is one of the ways he displayed his passionate love for freedom. The clairvoyant vision of Homo ludens recognizes the relativity of all temporal forms." All of these statements could be applied without modification to Chuang-tzu as well, but n o n e more fittingly than the last (cf. W 178 ff.). It bespeaks an attitude of Homo ludens toward the phenomenal world which I have often referred to as "absolute relativity." But, to continue with some of Auer's characterizations, " T h e r e is often in Erasmus a purer sportiveness that impels him to unrestrainedly playful creations." "Erasmus is a literary man. He sets up no configurations of thought that have been worked out to the last detail. He plays, and that always. He is a man of extemporaneity and improvisation, not of rigorously logical construction. Inspiration would c o m e to him, flowing here and there in free, unrestrained play, and he gave it free rein within the scope of his themes according to the caprice of his fantasy." "It was the Homo ludens in Erasmus that captivated the world." " T h e element of playfulness is evident not only in the way his writings originated and in his literary method but also clearly in the various literary forms which he chose for his expositions." Indeed, each of these statements could also, with equal applicability, be spoken of Chuang-tzu. The affinity between these two sportive souls is uncannily close. It is no accident that the foremost student of Homo ludens in this or any other century, Johan Huizinga, was also an eminent Erasmanian. His enthusiasm for this great thinker and writer can scarcely be contained: Erasmus! his whole being seems to radiate the play-spirit. It shines forth not only in the Colloquies and the Laus Stultitiae but in the Adagia, that astonishing collection of aphorisms from Greek and Latin literature commented on with light irony and adorable jocosity. His innumerable letters and sometimes his weightiest theological treatises are pervaded by 19 that blithe wit he can never completely do without.

To be sure, the same playful spirit that is found in the Folly is plentifully evident in Erasmus's other works. Whether he is poking fun at venal friars or satirizing pedantic grammarians, the barb of Erasmus's wit is always at work in the Colloquies. As Huizinga remarks elsewhere, " I n each of the Colloquies, even in the first purely formulary ones, there is the sketch for a comedy, a novelette or a satire. There is hardly a sentence without its

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'point', an expression without a vivid fancy." 20 The dialogue form in which they are couched is attractive to the reader and offers unlimited opportunity for the exercise of the playful creativity of the author. The clever defense of profane literature in the Antibarbari, his first comprehensive work, also bears the characteristic stamp of his wit. The nimble and skillful interpretations of the Greek and Latin Adagia bear the clear impress of Erasmus's brilliance. And his letters constitute a virtuoso display of intelligence, erudition, and esprit. Even in his more obviously theological writings, Erasmus cannot suppress his ludic propensities. But it is the Folly, nonetheless, which is the example par excellence of Erasmus's wit and levity. His ludic advocacy stands out prominently in an overview of the speech. In the first part of Folly's encomium, she praises herself as being that quality which allows men and women to persist in the illusions which give pleasure to life. The second part focuses on the leaders of government and of the ecclesiastical establishment who are so preoccupied with their own pursuit of pleasure that they fail to see how ridiculously foolish (and perfidious) is their behavior. In the final section of her speech, Folly sets up a theology of play in which she argues that it is only the "fool in Christ" who shall be happy in this world and see God in the next. It is obvious that Folly has a high estimation of her worth: " . . . I and I alone pour forth joy into the hearts of gods and men alike" (M 9). On the other hand, she compares herself "to pitchmen, low comedians, and jokesters." Folly intends, she says, "to play the sophist" with her audience for a while (M10). Chuang-tzu, likewise, realizes that words like his "will be labeled the Supreme Swindle" (W 48). But no matter that they are full of "sham and waggery . . . for they are crammed with truths that never come to an end" (W 373). Folly declares that she is "the one and only deviser of such delicacies as laughter, jokes, and witticisms" (M 30). And she considers herself to be even more beneficial than Bacchus's wine, for she provides "a sort of continuous inebriation which fills the mind with joy, delight, and exquisite pleasure . . . " (M 73). Similarly, in the Chuang-tzu, we read that a drunken man who falls from a carriage "keeps himself whole." But "how much more could he keep himself whole by means of Heaven!" (W 1 9 8 199). Drunkenness is an artificially induced play condition: both Folly and Chuang-tzu advocate an uninterrupted and genuine attitude of play. Folly's claims are grand, indeed. She stresses her "role as the fountain and nursery of life" and maintains that "all the benefits of life depend completely on [her] good offices" (M 19). She also contends that she has an important social function, for it is the "laughable absurdities that fit and join together the whole framework of society and make the wheels of life

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run smoothly" (M 33). While Chuang-tzu is not so explicit in publishing his program, there is, nevertheless, an evident confidence that it will lead to decreased friction in dealings between people and hence to greater social harmony. For both Chuang-tzu and Folly, the path to political peace begins with the cultivation of natural ludic tendencies in individuals. Where Chuang-tzu counsels each of us to adopt a more flexible attitude towards life by accomplishing things spontaneously and without forethought (wu-wei n ), Erasmus's heroine urges us all to accept the inescapable reality that "human life is nothing more than an entertainment staged by F o i l / ' (M 41; see also pp. 43—44 and 120). 2 1 In so doing, both advocate the recognition of the importance of the play element in human existence. To play is to perform effortlessly and without consciousness of or hope for the eternality of one's actions. Kaiser points out that happiness is the very essence of Folly's teleology. "The words for pleasure and joy and happiness—felicitas, laetitia, voluptas, oblectio, iucunditas, delectatio—run as a kind of leitmotif through her oration." 2 2 The same might also be said of Chuang-tzu, who is so fond of pi° ("[to be] content")/ yuehP ("to delight in "), huan* ("to enjoy"), hsiao1 ("to laugh"), hsis ("to like"), yu1 ("to be pleased"), chih-tsuu ("[to know how to be] satisfied"), and—last but not least—lo v ("[to be] happy, joy[ful]"). Compounds in which lo figures are particularly numerous, e.g., chih-low ("perfect happiness"), tzu-lox ("self-happy"), wang-loy ("happiness of a king"), t'ien-loz ("heavenly joy"), jen-loaa ("human joy"), and yin-lohb ("lascivious joy"). Needless to say, neither Chuang-tzu nor Folly is a proponent of mere sensual pleasure. The life of j oy that they advocate is of a more metaphysical nature. Folly and Chuang-tzu put such emphasis on happiness because of their advocacy of the play spirit. For, in order to live a playful life, one must be happy. And they are very much in agreement as to how to increase joy. Folly says that "among mortals those who seek wisdom are furthest from happiness" (M 54); Chuang-tzu maintains that "your life has a limit but knowledge has none" (W 5 0 ) . " . . . Much knowledge," in fact, "will do you harm" (W 119). Folly's formula for "life with a mod'cum of mirth and merriment" is to "[lock] out the wiseman right o f f (M 117). To Chuangtzu, "wisdom is a device for wrangling" (W 55; cf. 109-113), but he who wrangles cannot obtain perfect happiness. Both evince a basic distrust of total reliance on learning and its attendant disputation. Conversely, Folly has many positive things to say about "fools, dolts, simpletons, nincompoops" (M 54). They are the happiest of humans because they are virtually insensate with regard to such troublesome issues as death, conscience, the underworld, apparitions and ghosts, and

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so on. Chuang-tzu, too, has his ashen sages, drunks, and grotesques who are invulnerable to all aggression and hurt. Put simply, Chuang-tzu's "sage" is a fool of w h o m Folly herself would heartily approve. He is "stupid and blockish" but yet he "leans on the sun and moon, tucks the universe under his arm, merges himself with things, leaves the confusion and muddle as it is, and looks on slaves as exalted" (W 47). There are certain advantages to being an ignoramus. The ultimate happiness for Folly is a type of insanity in which the spirit leaves the body to become "absorbed by that highest mind of all, whose power is infinitely greater, in such a way that the whole man will be outside himself, and will be happy for no other reason than that he is located outside himself, and will receive unspeakable joy from that Highest Good which gathers all things to H i m s e l f (M 136-137, slightly changed). Granted that Folly has a different conception of the relationship between spirit and body, her position is nevertheless consonant with Chuang-tzu's wherein the True Man abandons himself (i.e., his ego) to become absorbed in the Way. David L. Miller mentions Erasmus and his Praise of Folly in a list of theologians (including Nicholas of Cusa, St. Augustine, Kierkegaard, and Clement of Alexandria) "whose life- and writing-style prefigured a contemporary theology of play." 23 This is an accurate assessment since Folly holds that "the Christian religion taken all together has a certain affinity with some sort of 2 4 folly and has little or nothing to do with wisdom" and that "the happiness which Christians strive for with such great effort is no more than a certain kind of madness and folly" (M 132). Folly's positive characterization of childhood as "distinguished by a weak grasp of reality and a wandering mind" [this could be yu-hsin\cc] and whose principal charm is "the fact that it knows nothing" (M 21) is fraught with Taoistic affinities. Old people, furthermore, are not much different from infants: "both have whitish hair, toothless gums, a small bodily frame, and a liking for milk; both stutter and babble and engage in tomfoolery; both are forgetful and thoughtless; in short, they resemble each other in every respect. And the older they get the nearer they come to childhood, until like children, without being bored by life or afraid of death, they depart from this life" (M 22). Chuang-tzu and the "Old-boy," Lao-tzu himself, would have been proud to write such a passage. Folly goes on to say that, for mortals, the secret of growing old gracefully is to "refrain completely from any contact with wisdom and live their entire lives with me." For "these grave and sober personages... grow old before their time because they are forever worrying and beating their brains out about knotty problems, so that their vital spirits gradually dry up, leaving them exhausted and juiceless, as it were. My fools, on the other hand . . .

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never feel the slightest discomfort of old age, except that they are occasionally infected with a bit of wisdom by contagion" (M 2 2 - 2 3 , italics mine). In spite of the fact that these words were written by a man of the Renaissance, there is about them an authentically Taoistic ring. It is curious that Folly's position leads her to enunciate a principle that is very much akin to the basic notion of reversion in The Book of Change: . . . w h a t a p p e a r s " a t first b l u s h " ( a s t h e y s a y ) to b e d e a t h , will, if y o u e x a m i n e it m o r e c l o s e l y , t u r n o u t t o b e life; c o n v e r s e l y , life will t u r n o u t t o b e d e a t h ; b e a u t y will b e c o m e u g l i n e s s ; r i c h e s will t u r n t o p o v e r t y ; n o t o r i e t y will b e c o m e f a m e ; l e a r n i n g will b e i g n o r a n c e ; s t r e n g t h , w e a k n e s s ; n o b l e b i r t h will b e

ignoble;

joy

will b e c o m e

sadness;

success,

failure;

friendship,

e n m i t y ; w h a t is h e l p f u l will s e e m h a r m f u l ; in brief, y o u will find e v e r y t h i n g s u d d e n l y r e v e r s e d if y o u o p e n t h e S i l e n u s ( M 4 3 ) .

As stated by Chuang-tzu, " T h e principle of following one another in orderly succession, the property of moving in alternation, turning back when they have reached the limit, beginning again when they have ended—these are inherent in things" ( W 292). T h e difference is that, for Folly, the one may actually be the other, but illusion prevents us from seeing it in its true colors. In this case, there is n o need to wait for reversion to take place. In the same way that Chuang-tzu belittles elaborate disquisitions on moral learning, so does Folly attack the scholars w h o are responsible for making a science of morality: . . . t h e b r a n c h e s of l e a r n i n g c r e p t in a l o n g with t h e o t h e r p l a g u e s of m a n ' s life, a n d f r o m t h e v e r y s a m e s o u r c e f r o m w h i c h all s h a m e f u l c r i m e s arise, n a m e l y , t h e d e m o n s — w h o a l s o d e r i v e t h e i r n a m e f r o m this fact, s i n c e " d e m o n " c o m e s from