Abstract
In this study, I clarify and defend the critique of the ‘sages’ and ‘robbers’ that is found in the Zhuangzi. As detailed in Chapter 8 of the Zhuangzi, both the (non-Daoist) ‘sages’ and ‘robbers’ are equally responsible for society’s ills. This is because both the ‘sages’ and ‘robbers’ are perceptually alienated from nature. This perceptual alienation involves the inability to perceive nature as fundamentally indeterminate (wu, 無). The Daoist alternative to the ‘sages’ and ‘robbers’ is to cultivate awareness of our interdependence with nature. This study calls this process an ‘attunement to nature’ or, as Chapter 8 describes it, to not depart from ‘the actuality of their endowed circumstances’ (其性命之情) and to ‘see oneself when you see others/things’ (自見而見彼). Attunement involves an awareness of how nature primordially forms an indeterminate continuum (wu).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Ziporyn (2020), Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, 79–80.
My translation and for the original Chinese, please see Sturgeon (2019), Chinese Text Project: a dynamic digital library of premodern Chinese, ctext.org.
Although Chapter 8 of the Zhuangzi uses the term xing (性) to describe what is natural to ‘things’, this chapter of the Zhuangzi is also explicitly rejecting what the Confucians would describe as human xing (renxing, 人性). As this study will make clear, the phrase 其性命之情 in Chapter 8 is meant to signify that the Daoist rejects the Confucian interpretation of ‘human nature’ in favor of an understanding of all ‘things’ as novel focal points in a continuum of interrelationships.
For example, the Daoist claims that the ‘distorted application of benevolence and “right conduct” [仁義], the “flashiness of the blue and yellow embroideries”, and the soundings of instruments in ritual music are promoting the loss of “the actuality of endowed circumstances”’. Generally, I borrow the translation of Ziporyn (2020), Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, 77–78.
Alternatively, Ma and Brakel (2020), in Beyond the Troubled Waters of Shifei, have described what they take to be the Zhuangzian account of ‘rightness’ as ‘fitting’. Although ‘attunement’ may sound too cultivated and not wuwei (無為), I understand ‘attunement’ in a way similar to how Ma and Brakel describe ‘fitting’ in the Zhuangzi. They also compare their account of ‘fitting’ to Ziporyn’s work on li (理) as coherence. As they state, Ziporyn’s account of li as coherence ‘may be seen as a possible theoretical background for yi/fitting because “coherence” can be considered as a kind of (appropriate) fitting,’ Beyond the Troubled Waters of Shifei, 65.
See Bender (2021), ‘The “Non-Naturalistic Fallacy” in Lao-Zhuang Daoism’ for a similar account of experience and the nature of values in Lao-Zhuang Daoism.
Another scholar that has argued convincingly that the Daoist understanding of selves is an interdependent one is Karyn Lai. For example, see ‘Understanding Change: The Interdependent Self in Its Environment’ (Lai, 2007a) where she argues that ‘Daoist philosophy likewise holds a concept of self whose life is integrated with that of others, and whose actions and intentions are understood within a broader contextual environment. However, it is critical of the humanistic focus of Confucianism.’, 87. Likewise, see ‘Ziran and Wuwei in the Daodejing: An Ethical Assessment’ (Lai, 2007b) where she argues that the Daoist ‘concept of selfhood is built upon the relations of the self to others, within the context of the whole. This conception of the realization of individuals in a relational and environmental context has important implications for moral theory’, 328.
In particular, the Daoist would critique the idea that there is a ‘human nature’. Each aspect of nature is a unique and particular focal point. The Xunzi tries to harmonize ‘humans’ when they should be trying to harmonize unique ‘things’.
Perkins (2015), ‘What is a thing (wu物)?’, makes this point in his discussion of what a ‘thing’ is in the Daoist tradition. I would further add that the traditional distinctions between metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology are also blurred for the Daoist.
Ziporyn (2009), Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings, 54.
For Guo Xiang’s commentary, see Sturgeon (2019), Chinese Text Project: a dynamic digital library of premodern Chinese, ctext.org. See, https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=898238, for this passage.
Chapter 8 of the Zhuangzi twice references the ideas in Daodejing passage 12.
Ames and Hall (2003), Dao De Jing: Making This Life Significant, 92.
Hansen, drawing on Quine, for example, claims that for Classical Chinese thinkers ‘Reality is not a multitude of independent, fixed objects, but a ground out of which a linguistic community carves distinctions and marks them
with names. Each part-whole assignment is relative to some presupposed standard and purpose. A part, in turn, has parts. Any whole can be a part of some larger whole’, Hansen (1992), A Daoist Theory, 50. Although Hansen’s work has been criticized by many, this connection he draws between Quine’s ‘ontological relativism’ and the Zhuangzi I take to be a useful and accurate comparison.
My translation and for the original Chinese, please see Sturgeon (2019), Chinese Text Project: a dynamic digital library of premodern Chinese, ctext.org.
For recent examples, see Özbey (2018), ‘Undermining the Person, Undermining the Establishment in the Zhuangzi’, Moeller (2020), ‘The King’s Slaughterer—or, The Royal Way of Nourishing Life’, and Goh (2011), ‘Chuang Tzu’s Becoming-Animal’. Although I am sympathetic to these arguments, where I depart from them is with respect to why certain political practices and institutions are coercive. As this study hopes to clarify, when political institutions are based on ignorance of our interdependence, then this is when such institutions become coercive and limiting to human flourishing and freedom.
Ma and Van Brakel (2020), Beyond the Troubled Water of Shifei, also claim that ‘Zhuangzi values Hundun’s original state. He values a deep trust in life in its wholeness,’ 130. What I would further add is that an inability to see life in its wholeness is both to be alienated from nature and to be alienated from what is actually of value.
My translation and for the original Chinese, please see Sturgeon (2019), Chinese Text Project: a dynamic digital library of premodern Chinese, ctext.org.
Lai (2007b) in ‘Ziran and Wuwei in the Daodejing: An Ethical Assessment’, has also argued that for the Daoist ‘the idea of ziran as “self-so” is not a philosophy promoting complete self-determination. Ziran as spontaneity refers to the expression of individuals in their webs of interdependence and environing contexts’, 335.
My translation and for the original Chinese, please see Sturgeon (2019), Chinese Text Project: a dynamic digital library of premodern Chinese, ctext.org.
Moeller (2009), in The Moral Fool, has made a similar point in the introduction to his book.
See Daodejing passage 18 for the description and critique just described.
Ziporyn (2009), Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings, 43.
Ziporyn (2009), Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings, 38.
Ziporyn (2009), Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings, 45. The larger context of this line is that things inevitably transform. Things die and their parts are scattered. All things are ‘bound’ or ‘embedded’ to this process of transformation.
Ma and Van Brakel (2020) in Beyond the Troubled Water of Shifei, Chapter 6, suggests and develops the idea that we can think of the Zhuangzi as putting forth a broader understanding of ‘rightness’ as ‘fitting’. They also consider their position as one similar to Ziporyn’s account of Li (理) as ‘coherence’ in Ironies of Oneness and Difference.
Another similar reading of this passage can be found in Chai (2021), ‘The Temporal Experience of Fish: Zhuangzi on Perfection in Time’. The fish, in returning to the water, forget themselves in their dependence on the water and, for Chai, this also involves forgetting ‘all that is partial and selfishly motivated’ and hence, recognizing our oneness with nature, 138.
See Held (2006), The Ethics of Care, for an introduction to care ethics. As Held describes it, a care ethics is built on and informed by the universal experience of care and being animals dependent on the nurture of care givers.
My translation and for the original Chinese, please see Sturgeon (2019), Chinese Text Project: a dynamic digital library of premodern Chinese, ctext.org.
I borrow this term ‘cultural forms’ in relation to Confucianism from the recent work of Shuchen Xiang who has argued that the ‘culture’ (文) is central to the philosophy of Confucianism. Please see Xiang (2021).
Ziporyn (2020), Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, 38.
Ziporyn (2009), Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings, 60.
References
Ames, R. T., and Hall, D. (2003). Dao De Jing: Making this life significant: A Philosophical Translation. (trans: R. T. Ames & D. Hall) Ballantine Books.
Bender, J. (2021). The ‘non-naturalistic fallacy’ in Lao-Zhuang daoism. Philosophy East & West, 71(2), 265–286.
Chai, D. (2021). The temporal experience of fish: Zhuangzi on perfection in time. In L. Kohn (Ed.), Daoism and time: Classical philosophy (pp. 133–156). Three Pines Press.
Goh, I. (2011). Chuang Tzu’s becoming-animal. Philosophy East and West 61(1), 110–133. https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/philosophy_east_and_west/v061/61.1.goh.html.
Hansen, C. (1992). A Daoist theory of Chinese thought: A philosophical interpretation (p. 1992). Oxford University Press.
Held, V. (2006). The ethics of care: Personal, political, and global. Oxford University Press.
Lai, K. (2007a). Understanding change: The interdependent self in its environment. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 34:81–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6253.2007.00454.x.
Lai, K. (2007b). Ziran and Wuwei in the Daodejing: An ethical assessment. Dao, 6(4), 325–337.
Ma, L., & Van Brakel, J. A. A. P. (2020). Beyond the troubled water of Shifei: From disputation to walking-two-roads in the Zhuangzi. State University of New York Press.
Moeller, H.-G. (2009). The moral fool: A case for amorality. Columbia University Press.
Moeller, H.-G. (2020). The King’s slaughterer—or, the royal way of nourishing life. Philosophy East & West, 70(1), 155–173.
Özbey, S. (2018). Undermining the person, undermining the establishment in the Zhuangzi. Comparative and Continental Philosophy, 10(2), 123–139.
Perkins, F. (2015). What is a thing (wu物)?. In C. Li & F. Perkins (Eds.), Chinese metaphysics and its problems (pp. 33–53). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316145180.004
Sturgeon, D. (2019). Chinese text project: a dynamic digital library of premodern Chinese. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. https://ctext.org. Accessed 17 April 2020.
Xiang, S. (2021). A philosophical defense of culture: Perspectives from Confucianism and Cassirer. SUNY Press.
Ziporyn, B. (2009). Zhuangzi: The essential writings with selections from traditional commentaries. (trans: Ziporyn, B.) Hackett.
Ziporyn, B. (2012). Ironies of oneness and difference: Coherence in early Chinese thought: Prolegomena to the study of Li (p. 2012). State University of New York Press.
Ziporyn, B. (2020). Zhuangzi: The complete writings. (trans: Ziporyn, B.) Hackett.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the blind reviewers for the comments as well as Shuchen Xiang and Roger Ames for their comments on earlier drafts of this essay.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The author declares no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Bender, J. Alienation and Attunement in the Zhuangzi. SOPHIA 62, 179–193 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-022-00931-2
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-022-00931-2