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“Emperor Hundun 渾沌”: A Cultural Hermeneutic

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Abstract

Among the four reading-levels, the textual and exegetical levels of Zhuangzi’s Hundun-story are problem-free, and so we focus expository-wise on its conspicuous hospitality (not fighting as other myths) with nine implications. Then, hermeneutically, we see Hundun instructing us against clarity toward unclarity—cosmological, self-composing, cognitive, and communal—of kindly humus, in cosmic confusion, sleep and idleness, mist and pond-dragonfly, and non-ruling people-sovereignty. Pan-hospitality is our Emperor Hundun’s non-arbitrary imperative to nurture life.

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Kuang-ming, W. “Emperor Hundun 渾沌”: A Cultural Hermeneutic. Dao 6, 263–279 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-007-9016-y

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