An Introduction to Daoist Thought: Action, Language, and Ethics in Zhuangzi

by M°llgaard; Eske

• ISBN13: 9780415423830
• ISBN10: 041542383X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-09-07
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

P This is the first work available in English which addresses Zhuangzi's thought as a whole. It presents an interpretation of the Zhuangzi, a book in thirty-three chapters that is the most important collection of Daoist texts in early China. /P P The author introduces a complex reading that shows the unity of Zhuangzi's thought, in particular in his views of action, language, and ethics. By addressing methodological questions that arise in reading Zhuangzi, a hermeneutics is developed which makes understanding Zhuangzi's religious thought possible. /P P A theoretical contribution to comparative philosophy and the cross-cultural study of religious traditions, the book serves as an introduction to Daoism for graduate students in religion, philosophy, and East Asian Studies. /P

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. ix
On reading Zhuangzi	p. 1
Can we understand Zhuangzi?	p. 1
What bothers the other?	p. 3
Is Daoist thought philosophy?	p. 5
The religious	p. 9
The figure of Zhuangzi	p. 11
Zhuangzi's fundamental figures of thought	p. 14
The view of the world	p. 14
Life against completion	p. 15
Human life	p. 17
The life of Heaven	p. 20
The Way	p. 22
Two kinds of transcendence	p. 24
Non-understanding	p. 27
The drive towards completion	p. 30
Technique negates the Way	p. 30
The Confucian view of technical action	p. 32
Totalitarianism and strategic thinking	p. 36
The metaphysics of action	p. 39
Form (eidos) and completion (cheng)	p. 43
Unraveling the drive towards completion	p. 47
Care for life	p. 47
From potentiality to actuality	p. 52
In-between Heaven and man	p. 57
The occurrence of the ordinary	p. 61
Saying the unsayable	p. 67
Indicative and logical discourses	p. 67
Saying and disputation	p. 70
The double-question	p. 71
Shifting signifiers	p. 72
The intended meaning	p. 74
Language in itself	p. 76
Impromptu words	p. 80
Bungled discourse	p. 85
Suddenly there is nothing	p. 85
Just now something is born	p. 89
Accept "this" for what it is	p. 94
Is Zhuangzi a Sophist?	p. 97
Zhuangzi and Socrates	p. 101
Ethics	p. 105
Confucian concern	p. 105
Mutilation	p. 109
Beyond the will to power	p. 113
The moral law	p. 117
The ethical subject	p. 120
On Zhuangzi's supposed naturalism	p. 124
Spiritual exercise	p. 126
Loss of self	p. 126
Emotions are like music from empty spaces	p. 130
Techniques of inner training	p. 132
Completion without lament	p. 137
To see the unique	p. 138
Glossary	p. 142
References	p. 149
Index	p. 156
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