Zhuangzi and the Daoist Antithesis

Philosophical Backlash: Rejecting THE Dao

In both China and the West we find philosophical reactions to the classical idealist form of thought. Confucianism was the traditional pillar of Chinese thought that affirmed cultural norms. Its dao (normative doctrine) was fixed; each person should fulfill her role in the hierarchy. Fulfilling a role meant doing what the 禮  li^ritual said. We accept our place in the hierarchy; learn from those above and care for and teach those below.  A tradition survives because we learn from our parents and teach our children and we have a duty to learn and eventually transmit that tradition.

Daoism was a more successful antithesis of Confucianism than was Mohism. It reacted against the taking any  道 dao^guide as fixed. The Daoist attitude flowed out of Mozi's challenge to tradition, but it portrayed Mohism and Confucianism as a pair. Each wanted to impose a particular "constant" 道 dao^guide on society.  They disagreed about the content of the 道 dao^guide. The ru-mo (Confucian-Mohist) debate was the target of Daoist analysis.

The Daoist "history of thought" (in The Zhuangzi ch. 33) traced their detachment from tradition to Mozi, but scholars have also traced a "Daoist spirit" back to the Hermits who confronted Confucius periodically in the Analects. An anti-social, anti-political impulse might also have spawned Yangzhu's egoism.  It is not clear, however, that either the hermits or Yang Zhu had a philosophical analysis of 道 dao^guide, although we could say that they each had their own 道 dao^guide – a dao of distrusting society and politics. Like Mencius, they seemed to champion natural, spontaneous behavior.

Other thinkers listed in the Daoist history developed sophisticated 道 dao^guide and attacks on the any positive 道 dao^guide.  Like Mencius, they began to react against the goal of governing society with any positive 道 dao^guide. This started meta-reflection (higher level reflection) on 道 dao^guides. 

Other versions of this attack shared Yangzhu's and Mencius' pro attitude toward "natural" courses of action.  They  would 是  shi^{this:approved of} tian^natural 道 dao^guides and 非  fei^{not this: dissented from} language-based 道 dao^guides. Many of them shared Mencius' confidence their intuitive access to some non-linguistic, unformulatable 道 dao^guide although they tended to disagree with each other about who had access and what the uncommensurable 道 dao^guide was. They also disagreed about the proper method of cultivating this special capacity for knowing 道 dao^guide. Some may have used breath control, fasting, hallucinogenic drugs and perhaps other mystical arts such as meditation (some even suggest these Yogic techniques were transmitted from India). All implicitly agreed, however with Mencius' formal absolutism--each thought their's was the single correct 道 dao^guide--and with his mysticism--each agreed that you couldn't use the Mohist linguistic methods to access it.

Recently scholars have unearthed evidence of a religion centered on this authoritarian intuitionism.  They worshipped the Yellow Emperor and Laozi: Huang-Lao. As the name suggests, it blended elements of Legalism and Daoism, but just how far back into the classical age its influence extended remains controversial. It certainly was highly influential in the Qin and Han in which practitioners worked out the details of dynastic rule in China. 

We will simply refer to this broad trend as "authoritarian intuitionism" without trying to settle the question of the original source. Our name reminds us of the practical implication of the doctrine of special technique for transcending one's perspective.  It freed the claimant from having to defend or answer for his judgement. They made it from a superior insight and anyone not agreeing was simply "ordinary." The person who could claim such special access to 道 dao^guide was unaccountable. He could tell the rest of us what to do without further justification or explanation. He could simply appeal to his "advanced" or "cultivated" intuition and dismiss the rest of us with "100 blows of the heavy bamboo."

Han historians categorized many Daoist figures in history as Huang-Lao students. Many scholars now believe the Daode Jing stems from early examples of this cult although the evidence is, at best, inconclusive. 

Here we will distinguish philosophical Daoists from the authoritarian intuitionists as the thinkers who first began to doubted the authority of tian^nature:sky. This meant accepting that all authority has to come from an appeal to a 道 dao^guide.  Many scholars treat this as merely the substitution of the word "道 dao^guide" in the theory of tian^nature:sky. Thus they allege that Daoists "change the meaning" of Dao and use it to refer to a cosmic deity. We will assume here that they do not change the meaning of 道 dao^guide but reject the view that nature is an ultimate authority. Thus, we are left with a multitude of guides rather than a single scheme of nature.

In the internal Daoist history, the first clear step in this process after Mozi was Shen Dao.  Like the Huang-Lao religion, both Legalist and Daoist histories of doctrine cite him. Here is the Zhuangzi account:

For the general public not cliques; changing and without selfishness; decisive but without any control; responsive to things without dividing in two. Not absorbed with reflection. Not calculating in know-how. Not choosing among natural kinds and flowing along with them. These are part of the ancient guiding methods. Peng Meng, Tian Pian and Shen Dao got wind of them and delighted in them.

They took collating all the natural kinds as the key. They said, "tian^nature:sky constancies can cover but cannot sustain; Earthly cycles can sustain but cannot cover it. The Great 道 dao^guide can embrace it but cannot distinguish it. We know the myriad natural kinds all have both that which is acceptable and that which is unacceptable. So they said, "If you select then you cannot be comprehensive, if you teach you cannot convey all of it. The guide does not leave anything out.

Hence Shen Dao "abandoned knowledge and discarded 'self'. He flowed with the inevitable and was indifferent to natural kinds. These were his guiding tendencies. He said "know to not know (what to do)." He would have reduced know how to something harmful. Naked and without responsibility, he laughed at the social world for elevating worthies. Dissolute and with no standards of conduct, he rejected the social world's great sages. Skillful and crafty he responded to natural kinds. He lived together with shi and fei, mixed acceptable and avoidable. He didn't treat knowing and deliberation as guides, didn't know front from back. He was indifferent to everything.

If he was pushed he went, if pulled he followed--like a leaf whirling in the stream, like a feather in a wind, like dust on a millstone. He was complete and distinguished (fei) nothing. In motion and rest never went too far. He was without crime. How was this? Natural kinds that lack knowledge are free from the trouble of creating a self and from the entanglements of knowing what to do. In motion or rest he did not miss the natural tendencies. And for this reason he had no high status. So he said, "reach for being like things without knowledge of what to do. Do not use worthies and sages. Even a clod of earth cannot miss the guide.

The worthy officials all laughed at him and said, "Shen Dao's guide does not lead to the conduct of a living man but the tendency of a dead man. It is really very strange. . . .

Tian Pian was the same and studied under Peng Meng and attained "not learning" Peng Meng's teaching said: "The ancient way of guiding people extends to simply not shi-ing or fei-ing anything. It's noise is silence; how could it be spoken? They made reversing what is human a constant value, didn't take the common view and couldn't avoid inconsistency. That which they called a guide was a non-guide and what they approved could not but be wrong. Pang Meng, Tian Pian and Shen Dao did not know how to guide although they had heard some of it. (Zhuangzi Ch. 33)

Shen Dao contrasted "natural" behavior with behavior produced by learning some doctrine or other.  Knowledge of prescriptive doctrines changed ones natural behavior.  The natural pattern of events does not require learning from some mouthpiece of heaven.  "Even a clod of earth follows the Dao."

Although there are many theories of how we ought to go, there is but one way we will actually go. Whatever doctrine we accept and however we interpret it, we will be following the actual dao (like the clod). We have no more need of doctrines than the clod of earth does. Hence, Shen Dao adopted an attitude similar to stoicism ^[1] .  His slogan was "abandon knowledge; discard self."  "Abandon knowledge" meant do not guide your behavior using prescriptive discourse. Thus, you would discard even Yang Zhu's discourse of self-interest. Egoistic guidance starts from the distinction between 'self' and 'other.' and draws the distinction in sophisticated ways--referring to my future states or my whole life history.  So to abandon knowledge is to discard 'self' as a prescriptive term--to give up using 'self-other' as a guiding distinction.  Yangzhu's egoism violates Shen Dao's anti-language naturalism as much as does Confucius's traditionalism or Mozi's utilitarianism.

Why does Shen Dao think we should give up guiding ourselves by shared moral prescriptions? His stoicism and some of his suggests that like the Stoics, he was a fatalist ^[2] . Does he have a good reason? To see, we need to make some distinctions between different doctrines of 命  ming^destiny.

There are two kinds of arguments that we might offer for determinism ^[3] . The first is causal. In the West, there are two dominant causal arguments, one from science and one from God.  Scientific or causal determinism assumes that all things happen according to scientific causal laws.  Thus, in principle, a scientist who knew all the laws and all about the world today could predict exactly what would happen tomorrow. Today's events fix or determine tomorrow's events. The religious version also uses God's knowledge and creation. God knows everything, hence he knows what I am going to do tomorrow. If he knows it today, what I will do tomorrow must already be fixed today.

There is another familiar way people draw the conclusion that everything is determined.  That is by sheer logic. Logic tells us that A is A. We call this a tautology. ^[4] . Moreover, as we saw, we can substitute anything we want for A.  Let us substitute "what will be."  Now it says "What will be is what will be."  This is a familiar way of saying, "everything is determined." However, notice that, like other tautologies, this one has no implications for behavior. "If I am going to pass the test then I am going to pass the test" is certainly true, but it does not give you any reason for not studying.  It does not show that studying will not help you pass the test. 

What about causal determinism?  Does it give you any important advice?  Should we stop trying and relax since the future is fixed. Seems equally absurd unless you assume that the basis for predicting the future does not include any of the actions we may take in the meantime.  In some famous cases in literature, disaster is fated. The world is constructed so that no matter what we do the outcome is the same. When we add to causal determinism that further claim about the way the future is caused, then we have fatalism.  We can be fatalistic about death in the abstract--though not about the time and manner of our death.

In the West, there is a further puzzle about free will.  Some maintain that if causal determinism is true, then even if our actions are among the causes of the future, we do no have free will because those actions themselves are predictable. We call this "hard determinism."  Others agree that causal determinism entails that we are unfree, but assuming we are free conclude determinism must be false.  They are called "libertarians ^[5] ." Still others insist that as long as certain conditions on our actions are met (we are awake, not coerced, hypnotized or drugged, etc.) then even if our actions could be predicted, we are still acting freely.  We call this "soft determinism" or "compatibalism" (because it holds that causal determinism and human freedom are logically compatible).

Shen Dao's posture is most like logical determinism. He is saying there is one future actual dao--what will be will be. He does not say anything about causation or anyone's knowledge of the future. Nor does he say anything about our freedom.  He only says we should not make 是  shi^this:right 非  fei^{not this: wrong} judgments. This has a little noticed consequence. He can not be saying that we should follow the Great Dao, because that would be, like the Stoics, to 是  shi^this:right whatever happens. In any case, it would not be necessary to tell us to. He is using the notion of the actual dao to get us to stop using any prescriptive language. He would say to Mencius, "if you are interested in people being natural, you need not say anything!"

Mencius' version of Confucianism shares Shen Dao's opposition to use of any dao that is in language. Shen Dao probably disagrees with Mencius about what natural behavior would look like.  For Mencius it is the appropriate Confucian behavior, for Shen Dao, it is anything we in fact do. We might to object to Shen Dao, as Mozi would have to Mencius, humans are by nature language-using animals.  We accumulate, transmit and follow yan^language about how to act. For humans to abandon language is as unnatural as for dogs to stop barking.

What about Shen Dao's naturalism itself?  Is it not itself another '-ism', a doctrine that he has managed to put into yan^language ?  "Abandon knowledge" is a short byte of prescriptive discourse--a 道 dao^guide.  It assumes we will distinguish between ways of acting because we know a 道 dao^guide and some other ways of acting. If we learn this 道 dao^guide from Shen Dao and follow it, we violate it. This is our first taste of Daoist paradox!

Questions for Reflection and Discussion:

1. Is 道 dao^guide as good a basis for philosophical "ascent" as "thought" is?  What would be the 道 dao^guide equivalent of "thinking about thinking"?

2. What is the difference between logical determinism and causal determinism?  Does either entail fatalism? 

3. Is Shen Dao a fatalist? What else could justify his stoic attitude?  How is his attitude different from that of the Stoics?

4. What is the paradox involved in "abandon knowledge?"

5. What is free will?  Is it compatible with some forms of determinism?

Laozi: Language and Behavior

The traditional account of Daoism treats Laozi enshrined as the founder of Daoism--the Daoist counterpart of Confucius. However, many scholars now suspect that the book attributed to Laozi, the Daode Jing, may have been written much later than the Analects.  It fits more neatly in language and theory with Mencius and Shen Dao and the history in the Zhuangzi treats Laozi as lying between Shen Dao and Zhuangzi.  Like Shen Dao and Mencius, the tone of Daode Jing is critical of zhi^know-how knowledge, especially knowledge expressed in language. It accepts a contrast between language-induced or conventional and pre-social or natural attitudes, dispositions and actions.

However, Laozi's reasons for accepting Shen Dao's anti-knowledge position are quite different. He says almost nothing about fatalism and uses concepts like the Great Dao (the actual course of the world through all time) only rarely. By contrast, his tone suggests that language controls us and abandoning it is a way to freedom, naturalness and spontaneity.

Freedom from what? Laozi's answer draws on the anti-social, anti-conventional spirit of the hermits and Yangzhu. Language is society's way of controlling our desires and with that, our actions.  Let us see how that works, according to the text.

2. Contrast of Terms

That the social world knows to deem the beautiful as 'beautiful' simply creates the 'ugly. ^[6] ' 

That the social world knows to deem worth as 'worthy' simply creates 'worthlessness. ^[7] '   

Thus 'exists' and 'not-exists' mutually sprout. ^[8]   'Difficult' and 'easy' are mutually done.

 'Long' and 'short' are mutually gauged. 'High' and 'low' mutually incline. 

'Sound' and 'tone' mutually blend.  'Before' and 'after' mutually supervene. ^[9]

(Pro-sage Commentary:)

^[10] Using this: sages ^[11] fix social issues without deeming ^[12] ; administer a 'no words' teaching. ^[13]  

The ten-thousand natural kinds work by it and don't make phrases. ^[14] They sprout but do not 'exist'.  Deem-act and do not rely on anything.  Accomplish their work and do not dwell in it.

Because they don't dwell in it, they don't lose it. (Daode Jing Ch. 2)

Laozi usually discusses names in complementary pairs--opposites.  The oppositions we have discussed in this class (real-apparent, knowledge-belief, self-other, linguistic-natural) like the more familiar oppositions (beautiful-ugly, good-bad, noble-base) divide the "universe of discourse." To know a word is to know how to make such a distinction--thus it is implicitly to know the word's opposite.

In learning this language from our culture, we acquire ways or skills at making the same discriminations that others make. When we acquire these skills, we also acquire an inclination to use them. Therefore, we like to practice these discrimination skills in the presence of social superiors.  We feel good when we get it right and shame when we do not. We respect and want to learn from models of the use of words.  We learn to deem 'beautiful' what our models deem 'beautiful'. In doing so, we inherently learn to deem other things 'ugly' as well.

The Daode Jing's characteristic insight is that in learning these distinctions, we also acquire tastes, desires, values and preferences. We would not count to our teachers as having learned the distinction between beautiful and ugly unless we also knew to choose the beautiful and shun the ugly. So in learning these distinctions, we also learn desires. The new desires are those that society and tradition instill in us.

Guide by treating nameless uncarved wood as constant.

Although small, none in the social world can treat it as vassal.

If fief-holding kings could embrace it, all the natural kinds would come to self conformity.Heaven and earth mutually coalesce to rain down sweet dew. The people, no one ordering them, balance themselves.

To begin to restrain, you have names.

As soon as you have names then, in general, you must also come to know to stop. If you know to stop, you can avoid danger. ^[15]

Compare this guide's being in the social world to the relation of brook valleys to rivers and oceans. (Daode Jing Ch. 32)

Some guide treats lacking deeming-action as a constant yet everything is deem-acted. If fief-holding kings could preserve this, all the natural kinds would come to self transformation. If they transform and desire to construct, I will mollify them with the nameless uncarved wood.

Nameless uncarved wood is, freedom from desires.

If we get calm by freeing ourselves from desire, the social world will be on the point of fixing itself. (Daode Jing Ch. 37)

However, these systems of discrimination and desire, these tastes, are not natural or spontaneous.  They limit us and our reactions. They also give us sometimes costly desires that are harder to satisfy--desires for rare things. The result is an impoverished and more frustrating life than if we had only our natural desires and tastes.

The five colors stupefy the people's eyes.

The five tones desensitize the people's ears. ^[16]

The five flavors numb the people's mouths.

Horse races and hunting derange the people's heart-minds. ^[17]

Hard to get goods pervert the people's behavior. (Daode Jing Ch. 12)

The defenders of distinctions would insist that the distinctions they teach us are really in things.  The Daode Jing suggests they are merely products of conventional language, social habit, and inheritance.  If they were really in things, then we would all see them as obvious and not have to learn them. Our applications of them would be reliable and constant. In fact, our application of our social language is a source of constant disagreement.

No matter how thoroughly you train someone in the use of terms, there will be cases where your student (child, patient, subject) will use the terms differently from how you would have and will behave differently from what you intended. Two students taught together may interpret the teachings differently.  We cannot make the use of these distinctions constant.  The name that can be named is not the constant name.

To 道 dao^guide with what can 道 dao^guide is not constant 道 dao^guideing.  

To name with what can name ^[18] is not constant naming. ^[19]   (Daode Jing Ch. 1)

These are the first lines of the Daode Jing and they reminds us that no 道 dao^guide consistently produces its goal of behavior. Since we can apply any name that we use with a different distinction, any 道 dao^guide we learn could lead to many varied courses of actual behavior. As the Confucian doctrine of 正  名  zheng-ming^{rectify names} had already hinted to us, different actors may interpret a rule of action in different ways. Writing one's 道 dao^guide down or having people recite it word-for-word, does not ensure the continuity of their behavior. No spoken or written 道 dao^guide is constant because no names have constant or fixed references. It all depends on conventions and conventions change. The distinctions are not real.

The distinctions and the desires lead to 為  wei^deem:do.  為  Wei^deem:do is thus, socially controlled behavior, not natural or spontaneous behavior.  It is action guided by social forms of knowledge, of distinctions and desires acquired in learning a language.  It may come to seem natural because we get it from such a young age.  That is why liberation from such control requires "being like a baby." We have to undo or forget all of our learning. Wu-wei (無  為 ), giving up actions guided via social or conventional standards, means giving up linguistic distinctions and discriminations.  With that, we also give up names and the linked desires and dispositions.

In 為  wei^deem:doing 'study' one daily increases.

In 為  wei^deem:doing  道 dao^guide, one daily decreases.

Decrease it and further decrease it in order to arrive at no 為  wei^deem:do.

No 為  wei^deem:do and no not 為  wei^deem:do. (Daode Jing Ch. 48)

I, alone, am placid--it's portent not yet clear.

Like an infant not yet a baby--langerous! Like having no refuge. The crowd all have plenty I alone treat it as loss. ^[20]

Mine is the heart-mind of the stupid, indeed--indiscriminate!  People of custom are lustrous, I alone am dull. People of custom are critically discriminating; I alone obfuscate. Bland! It's like the ocean; drifting! like I have no place to stop. The crowd all have the-capacity-to and I alone am dallying and wanton. I alone am different from humans, and value nursing at Mother's breast. (Daode Jing Ch. 20)

The Daode Jing suggests that the result would be a return to the pristine, primitive, agrarian, rustic life of the 'natural' village. There we tie knots in cords instead of using numbers. We lack the 'unnatural' desire to go traveling or engage in empire building.  We do not learn about a world that "needs" to be ordered by political force. People leave each other alone and do not try to make others conform or follow the same behavior we do.  We do not teach our children how to choose wines, fashion accessories, perfume, hairstyles or music styles.

If we read it this way, the Daode Jing generates a cousin to the paradox we saw in Shen Dao. Laozi is also telling us not to pay attention to any advice that uses linguistic distinctions. To say that, he must use a distinction between having and lacking distinctions. His main guiding distinction between natural, spontaneous and socially controlled behavior. He quite successfully induces in us a desire not to have desires created by doctrines.  He makes us want to take deliberate action to avoid deliberate action--to 為  wei^deem:do 無  wu^lack 為  wei^deem:do.  He is teaching an "unteachable teaching"--giving us a 道 dao^guide that cannot coherently 道 dao^guide us.

There are ways to save Laozi from these negative consequences, but we will not examine them here. What we want to do is set up the Daoist problem for Zhuangzi to solve. If Daoism is going to be a coherent anti-thesis to Confucianism and Mohism, Zhuangzi has to deal with the paradox of opposing language. Zhuangzi does value and rely on Laozi perceptive account of the nature and effect of language on our desires and actions and he uses it in his rebuttal of Mencius. Laozi shows us how easy it is to confuse very familiar and deeply socialized attitudes with "natural" or innate attitudes. If Mencius had done that, then his moral psychology would look unstable.

Questions for Review and Discussion

1. Does learning a word involve learning its opposite? Is there anything else we learn when we learn how to use language in our ordinary lives?  What?

2. Does Laozi's analysis of the formation of unnatural or social desires undermine Mencius' theory of moral psychology?

3. Why is a spoken 道 daoguide not constant?  Is there a paradox in that statement?  Is it related to Shen Dao's paradox?

4. Is there a problem with advocating primitivism as a form of naturalism?

Zhuangzi: Daoist Pluralism

Otherwise, the Daode Jing is quite in the spirit of Mencius' form of Confucianism.  Its opposition, like his, is to convention and language. Mencius maintained that his Confucianism was natural and did not depend (was in fact distorted by) being put in language.  He differed from Laozi only in his elaborate assumptions about the content of the natural or pre-linguistic distinctions we make.  Mencius thinks the preferences shown by the Confucian gentleman--for knowledge, status, political power, natural fibers and male dominance are all innate.  Our 是  shi^this:right 非  fei^{not this: wrong} distinction-making is built into our 心  xin^heart-mind as a structured set of dispositions which naturally grow into sage-like virtue.

The full Daoist antithesis to Mencius' Confucianism comes from Zhuangzi--the most fun philosopher in China. Zhuangzi is hard to find any agreement on though everyone seems to like him. Like Socrates, he shows the absurdity of the conventional Confucian world-view, but he does not use the notion of reason, logic or anything resembling Socratic method. His writing is a model of classical literary style.  He uses humor, parody, irony, poetry and self-deprecating satires.  He puts doctrines in the mouths of strange creatures in his stories--including Confucius and Laozi.  He invents characters, toys with their meanings, engages in word play and typically ends his reflections with a double rhetorical question--then is it, or is it not?

Zhuangzi does use the word 道 dao^guide but is more "mildly" anti-social than other Daoists. He seems to want to formulate a freeing doctrine that one can follow while still in society--though Zhuangzi himself likes to fish and "drag his tail in the mud."  The history of Daoism in the Zhuangzi Ch. 33 suggests that he learned from but did not totally accept what Laozi said. ^[21] He seems to share with Laozi the aspiration of a kind of freedom from the limitations of convention--particularly the Confucian and Mohist goals of constraining moral conventions.

Clearly, the Chinese dialecticians (the 名 家  School of Names) influenced Zhuangzi.  His closest friend, companion and possibly his teacher was Hui Shi, one of those specializing in ancient Chinese linguistic philosophy. To understand how Zhuangzi differs from Laozi, we have to take a brief look at their doctrine.

One trend within the school of names was a common-sense realism about language that was directly opposed to Laozi's conventional analysis of names. The distinctions that are correct, they argued, are not built into the heart as inclinations, but are in the world as differences among 物  wu^thing-kinds. They argued that humans sense real similarities and differences in the world in similar ways. This makes our shared use of names possible. Which similarities and differences we group under a name is still a matter of convention. However, once the convention is in place, a name is used wherever the similarity extends and stops where it is different.

The realists also diagnosed the paradox in any anti-language position. The point they were making is related to the famous paradox of the liar. When someone says "I am lying" we cannot tell if he is lying or telling the truth.  Consider sentence (1).

(1) Sentence (1) is false.

If it is false, then it is true.  If it is true, then it is false. We can't make any sense of it. The paradox can create larger puzzles.  Consider the following proof of God.

(1) God Exists.

(2) Both numbered sentences in this list are false.

This does not produce a paradox, strictly speaking. There is a way to avoid contradiction--by accepting the first sentence as true and the second as false.

Now consider a generalized version.

All sentences are false.

This, too, is not a paradox. To say it is true lands you in a contradiction. But there is no problem with saying it is simply false.  So its opposite:

Some sentence is true.

Must be true.

In classical China, however, the thinkers in the school of names did not have words for 'sentence' or for 'true/false'.  They debated about what 言  yan^language  was 可  ke^assertible.  But they could use these to make a similar point.

To regard all language as perverse (not acceptable) is perverse. The explanation is in his own words. 

Perverse is "not acceptable."  If this person's language is acceptable, then there is acceptable language.  If this person's language is not acceptable, then one would think it correct only if he did not examine it well. (Mohist Canon B71)

This leaves Zhuangzi with a problem.  How can he salvage the liberating character of Daoism without being anti-language?  Zhuangzi's friend, Hui Shi, seemed to have a line of criticism of the Mohist project.  He was fascinated with terms of comparison and pointed out that for these, it did not make sense to think of them as corresponding to objective similarities and differences in the world. A big ant does not have its size in common with a small elephant. Hui Shi began to notice many terms whose proper application depended more on some perspective of the speaker than on the object. 'Big' and 'small', 'high' and 'low', 'yesterday' and 'today', 'north' and 'south' are examples of common words that resist realistic analysis.

The key to a Daoist response to the realist was that "similar" and "different" themselves appeared to be perspective based.  It depended on what similarities and differences we are looking for.  My black cat is similar to my black horse in color, but to my orange cat in size. For any two things, no matter how unlike they seem to be, there is some respect in which they are similar and for any two things, no matter how alike, there is some difference. The question is what similarities and differences matter to us and why.

Hui Shi, according to the fragments surviving of his theses, drew a conclusion a little like Shen Dao's and a little like Parmenides. Since all distinctions are arbitrary imposed by humans, reality, in itself, must have no distinctions. 

Love all things equally. The World is one part. (Attributed to Hui Shi in the Zhuangzi Ch. 33)

However, Zhuangzi was more careful than Hui Shi. He noticed that the claim that there were no distinctions in reality is itself be made from a perspective. Hui Shi cannot appeal to a relativist account of language and reality to justify an absolute claim about how the world is. In any case, the claim that there are no distinctions in things turns out, on Zhuangzi's analysis to amount to the claim that all language distorts things.  And that claim, like the Mohists' example, is self-refuting. "All language distorts reality" distorts reality.

Since the claim that reality is an absolute one implies that the distinctions in language are distorting, it too must be self-refuting.  Zhuangzi considers and rejects Hui Shi's reasoning to his conclusion.

"Nothing in the world is bigger than the tip of an autumn hair, and Mount Tai is small; no one lives longer than a doomed child, and Pengzi died young; sky and earth were born together with me, and the myriad things and I are one."

Now that we are one, can I still say something? Already having called us one, did I succeed in not saying something? One and saying so makes two; two and one make three. Proceeding from here even an expert calculator cannot get to the end of it, much less a plain man. So, if we take the step from nothing to something we arrive at three, and how much worse if we take the step from something to something! Take no step at all, because 是  shi^this:right ends. (The Zhuangzi Ch. 2)

 In any case, as we have already argued, it is a little strange for people to advocate being natural and abandoning language. If he can not coherently reject language, perhaps the trick is to accept that language is natural--all language. This is Zhuangzi's route to revive the Daoist sardonic view of Confucianism--and it will give him a devastating criticism of Mencius as well.

Ziqi of Nanguo reclined elbow on armrest, looked up at the sky and sighed, as if he lost his "other." Yancheng Ziyou stood by him. 

'What is this?' he said. 'Can the frame really be made to be like withered wood, the heart like dead ashes? The reclining man here now is not the reclining man of yesterday.' 

' You do well to ask that, Ziyou ! This time I lost my "me", do you understand? You know the pipes of men, don't you, but not yet the pipes of earth; the pipes of earth but not yet the pipes of Heaven?' 

'May I ask about it.' 

'The clump of earth blows out breath; its name is 'wind'. Were that it never started, for when it does, ten thousand hollows burst out howling. Have you not heard the hubbub grow! The gaps in mountain glades, the hollows that pit great trees a hundred spans round, are like nostrils, mouths, ears, sockets, bowls, mortars, pools, and puddles hooting, hissing, sniffing, sucking, mumbling, moaning, whistling, and wailing. The winds ahead sing out AAAH!, the winds behind answer EEEH!, The breezes strike a tiny chorus, the whirlwind a mighty crescendo. When the gale has passed, the everything drains from the hollows, and have you not felt the quivering, slow settling!' 

'The pipes of earth: these are the natural hollows; the pipes of men: these are rows of tubes. What are the pipes of Heaven.' 

'Well, blowing out the ten-thousand differences and causing them to stop of themselves, gives content to their choosing for themselves, from whom does this energy come? (The Zhuangzi Ch. 2) ^[22]

Zhuangzi's theory of language starts from accepting that language and social 道 dao^guides are as natural as any other sounds. Our distinctions and noises are expressions of nature--all of them. To the extent that any is dictated by 天  tian^nature:sky , all are. So 天  tian^nature:sky cannot be a guide to choosing among them. It is perfectly natural for us to create such doctrines about things and to argue about them and try to get others to adopt our discourse and action. The cosmos is neutral.

It is 可  ke^assertible if we 可  ke^assertible it, not-可  ke^assertible if we do not. A 道 dao^guide takes shape as we walk it; a 物  wu^thing-kind becomes 然  ran^so  when we call it 'so'. Wherein does its 'so' lie? It's 'so' in being 'so'ed'? Wherein does its 'not-so' lie? In being 'not-so'ed'. 物  wu^thing-kinds do inherently have that with which we can 然  ran^so just as they inherently have that with which we 可  ke^assertible .   There is no 物  wu^thing-kinds that is not some 然  ran^so  and no 物  wu^thing-kinds that we don't 可  ke^assertible.  In deeming something as a 是  shi^this:right we might include a stalk and a pillar, a hag and the beautiful Xishi. No matter how unlike and incongruous, there is a way to treat them as one. When their divisions are completed, the completion begins to dissolve. All 物  wu^thing-kinds in their completing and dissolving thus linked revert to being deemable as 'one'. Only the most general names know to link and deem as one. Do not use deeming it "this" but find the lodging-places in the usual. The usual is usable; the usable is the interchangeable; to see things interchangeably is to get it; once you get it, you are almost there. (The Zhuangzi Ch. 2)

Now, accepting usual or conventional language, what makes Zhuangzi seem anti-conventional or different from Confucians and Mohists?  It is his insistence that 天  tian^nature:sky  doesn't pick out any of the rival 道 dao^guides as the correct one and his lively awareness of all the unrealized possibilities of other ways of classifying and guiding social behavior. He gives the Ru-Mo what they want most--your 道 dao^guide is indeed the language of 天  tian^nature:sky but then takes it away--and so is your opponents including lots of opponents you haven't even thought about.

Indeed, there is no reason to abandon language, even conventional language. That is, after all, useful because we can communicate and get things done--and that, after all, is the point of having it.  But we can reform and change language in lots of ways.  As soon as a Mozi comes along, the conventions have changed.  Now our conventions include raising questions about the standards for choosing conventions.  Now that our conventions include those, we can raise further questions about more subtle and appropriate standards than just material well-being. 

Our imaginations, like our desires, are too often limited by taking the conventional standards as absolute instead of viewing them useful and changeable tools. This is Zhuangzi's adaptation and modification of Laozi's point.

'Moreover, let me try a question on you. When a human sleeps in the damp his waist hurts and he gets stiff in the joints; is that so of the loach? When he sits in a tree he shivers and shakes; is that so of the ape? Which of these three knows the right place to live? Humans eat the flesh of hay-fed and grain-fed beasts; deer eat the grass; centipedes relish snakes; owls and crows crave mice. Which of the four has proper taste? Gibbons are sought by baboons as mates; elaphures like the company of deer; loaches play with fish. Men found Maoqiang and Lady Li beautiful but when fish saw them, they swam and hid; when the birds saw them they flew away; when the deer saw them they broke into a run. Which of these four knows the world's real 'sexy'? From my perspective, the seeds of 仁 ren^humanity and 義 yi^morality and the windings of 是 shi^this:right and 非  fei^{not this: wrong} are complicated and confused. How can I know to 辯  bian^{distinction dispute} them?' 

'If you do not know benefit from harm, would you deny that the utmost man knows benefit from harm?' 

'The utmost man is pure energy! When the wide woodlands blaze they cannot sear him, when the Yellow River and the Han freeze they cannot chill him, when swift thunderbolts smash the mountains and whirlwinds shake the seas they cannot startle him. A man like that yokes the clouds to his chariot, rides the sun and moon and roams beyond the four seas, death and life alter nothing in himself, still less the seeds of benefit and harm!' . . . .

How do I know that our valuing life is not an error? How do I know that we who hate death are not exiles since childhood who have forgotten the way home? Lady Li was the daughter of a frontier guard at Ai. When the kingdom of Qin first took her the tears stained her dress; only when she came to the palace and shared the King's square couch and ate the flesh of hay-fed and grain-fed beasts did she begin to regret her tears. How do I know that the dead do not regret that ever they had an urge to life? (The Zhuangzi Ch. 2)

The reference to seeds of 仁  ren^humanity  and 義  yi^morality , of course, reminds us of Mencius' naturalistic doctrine.  Mencius would like to resist Zhuangzi's tone of neutrality among 道 dao^guides.  Indeed some patterns of 是  shi^this:right and 非  fei^{not this: wrong} are conventional, but others are rooted in the very constitution of our 心  xin^heart-minds. The natural cosmos is not neutral, there are tendencies built into its 氣 qi^breath that permeate all things including our motivational structure. So one of those 道 dao^guides is indeed picked out by nature and the others are distortions.

Zhuangzi in the above passage makes explicit the point implicit in Laozi's analysis.  The real and conventional are so mixed and intertwined in our perspectives, there is no real hope of disentangling them to find the purely natural 是  shi^this:right and 非  fei^{not this: wrong}.  What seems natural to us, is a result of applying a scheme of distinctions that we base on a set of presupposed values. If we isolate any of those values, we also do so from some perspective.  If we say nature builds certain preferences into the heart and therefore we should cultivate them, we are showing a preference for the natural heart over, say, the natural stomach. Even if we agree to prefer the heart, in cultivating its preferences, we must reject some of its distinctions and accept others. 

Pleasure, anger, sadness, joy, forethought, regret, change and immobility: random influences initiating attitudes, like music coming out of empty pipes or vapor condensing into mushrooms.  They alternate in front of us day and night and we have no way of knowing from what they arise. Enough worrying! That we get them day and night is all there is to that from where they arise. Without them, there would be no 'I' and without an 'I' there would be no choosing. 

This is close to it and yet we do not know for what purpose they are deployed. It is as if there were a reality-based authority though we don't have a clue what it could be. That we can act on them makes them reliable enough and yet we do not grasp their shape. The 'I' responds to reality but has no shape.

Of the hundred joints, nine openings, six viscera all present and complete, which should I treat as more 'me' than the others? Are you pleased with them all? Or, is there a 'self' among them? If there is, does it take the rest as vassals and concubines? Are its vassals and concubines incapable of mutual order? Could they not mutually change off as ruler and minister? They have a reality-based ruler among them and when we seek for its responses to reality we can't find any and this doesn't make it more or less real. 

Once we have a completed shape, we do not lose it as we move toward extinction. We carve and grind among 物  wu^thing-kinds , our walking through life much like a gallop which nothing can stop. Is it not sad!  Our whole lives we struggle away and we do not know what counts as success. We wear ourselves out with toil and do not know what we are returning to.  Can we fail to despair?

We may say that it never dies, but what good is that?  When the shape transforms, the 心  xin^heart-mind  does so along with it. Can we not call this a great regret? Is human life really as pointless as this? Is it only my life that is pointless and some select others get the point?

If you follow the actual 心  xin^heart-mind and take it as your teacher, who could lack this authority? Why would only be the person who knows the alternation and whose 心  xin^heart-mind  chooses for itself have such an authority? The fool has one just as he has.

For there to be 是  shi^this:right and 非  fei^{not this: wrong} before they are completed in the 心  xin^heart-mind would be like going to Yue today and arriving yesterday. This would be treating non-being as being; treating non-being as being, even if we had the energetic Yu, he still could not understand it. And as for me, what hope do I have? (The Zhuangzi Ch. 2)

Mencius' attempt to get guidance from his theory of moral psychology based on the 心  xin^heart-mind  presupposes a 是  shi^this:right many times. 

• in thinking there must be some deep authority within the self.
• in choosing the heart from among the organs as that authority.
• in selecting a method of cultivation guided by his present judgment of who is and is not a sage.

None of these value choices are obviously warranted by 天  tian^nature:sky. They all originate in a 道 dao^guide that Mencius has layered on his view of nature--the Confucian 道 dao^guide.

Zhuangzi's formula, "You can't get a 是  shi^this:right out of the heart without putting one in" is analogous to a famous dictum from the Western skeptic, David Hume.  Hume's version of the point was in logical terms.  He said "You can't get an 'ought' from an 'is'." That is, no set of premises about facts in the world, entails that we ought to do something. In order to get that entailment, we need at least one premise with 'ought' in it.  That is, we presuppose some value whenever we make a value judgment. So, claims about moral psychology can never, by themselves, justify any particular 道 dao^guide. Ultimately our authorities are 道 dao^guides not 天  tian^nature:sky.

The same point would apply to any other attempt to base 道 dao^guide on intuition or nature. Thus he demurs from the attempts by Shen Dao, Hui Shi and possibly Laozi to get some mystical guidance from a conception of an absolute one with no distinctions.  Even if we could make coherent sense of this metaphysical position, it would have no implications for our action. The preference for distinctionless silence and inactivity is grounded in an arbitrary distinction and value.

Much of this makes Zhuangzi sound like he agrees with the realist Mohists, and in much of it he does.  He accepts their implicit correction to his "pipes of nature" analogy--language differs from mere noise in that there is some content or direction to it--it seems to be about something. However, he then develops Hui Shi's analysis to argue that what language is about is never constant, but, as Laozi had claimed, constantly changing.

Zhuangzi makes his point against the Mohist realists by focusing on the character 是  shi^this:right in ways that exploit both of the English translations we use. In classical Chinese (文言  ) 是  shi^this:right  was not a copula—not like 'is'.  Its most common use was like English 'this'.  What is interesting about 'this' is it does point to things—it makes our language about things in the world.  However, when we consider 'this' and 'that' we realize that what they point to does not depend in any way on the features of the thing.  What they refer to is always relative to the user. Thus anything can be a this and anything can be a that. The reference is constantly changing.

We call these kinds of terms 'indexicals' and sentences that include them "indexical sentences." An indexical is a word whose reference changes with each use.  Besides 'this' and 'that' indexicals include 'I' –it refers to Chad Hansen when I use it but not when you do.  And who does 'you' refer to?  It depends on who is reading this right now.  And, what does 'now' refer to?  The time it picks out changes each time we utter, write or read it. Other examples are 'here' 'today' 'her' and so forth. 

An indexical sentence, then, will change truth-value when considered in different contexts.  Almost all sentences have this kind of indexical variation. "It is raining" is in the present tense so depending on where and when we utter it, its truth-value changes. Some words have relatively indexical properties.  For example, 'Monday' is more specific than 'yesterday' but what day it refers to depends on where in the week the statement occurs. January 15 is quite specific, but may presuppose a contextual year.  A year presupposes a dating convention and so forth.

The Zhuangzi's use of 是  shi^this:right exploits its indexical character by first contrasting it with 比  bi^that and then shifting focus to its contrast with 非  fei^{not this: wrong}.  Used with 非  fei^{not this: wrong} the concept 是  shi^this:right reminds us that all terms of language pick out some parts of reality and reject others. So, Zhuangzi implies, all terms and thus all language is indexical.  It is not based on how the world really is, but on our relationship with it—our purposes, our conventions and so forth.  We do not use language to refer to the world, we live in and are part of a language-world.

Language is not blowing breath. Those who use language have language but what it languages is radically un-fixed. Do we, then, really have language? Or has there never been a language? If one treats it as different from the twitter of chicks, is there a 辯bian^{distinction dispute} or no 辯bian^{distinction dispute}? How can 道 dao^guides be hidden so there could be 'real' and 'artificial'? How can language be hidden so there would be 是  shi^this:right and 非  fei^{not this: wrong}? Where can we go on a 道 dao^guide that it isn't there? Where can a language exist that is not 可  ke^assertible?   Whatever the standpoint how can saying be unallowable? A 道 dao^guide is hidden by its small completions and language is hidden by its rich elaboration. So we have the 是  shi^this:right and 非  fei^{not this: wrong} of the Confucians and Mohists. What is 是  shi^this:right for one is 非  fei^{not this: wrong} for the other; what is 非  fei^{not this: wrong} for one is 是  shi^this:right for the other is. If you want to 是  shi^this:right what they 非  fei^{not this: wrong} and 非  fei^{not this: wrong} what they 是  shi^this:right, then nothing beats discernment. 

No 物  wu^thing-kinds is not 'that' and no 物  wu^thing-kinds is not 是  shi^this:right. From the 'that' perspective you don't see it.  From some perspective you know, you know them. So we say: 'That' comes from 是  shi^this:right and 是  shi^this:right also is because of 'that'.  This is the explanation of the simultaneous production of 'this' and 'that'.

However, simultaneously live and die, and die and live. Simultaneously 可  ke^assertible and not 可  ke^assertible , not 可  ke^assertible  and 可  ke^assertible . Because of this 是  shi^this:right, because of this 非  fei^{not this: wrong}. Because of this 非  fei^{not this: wrong} and because of this 是  shi^this:right. Because of this the "sage" resists going along and tries to reflect his on 天  tian^nature:sky. And still because of this he has a 是  shi^this:right and his 是  shi^this:right has a 'that' and the 'that' a 是  shi^this:right and the 'that' also a 是  shi^this:right 非  fei^{not this: wrong} and the 'this' also a 是  shi^this:right 非  fei^{not this: wrong}.  So in the end, is there a 'that'-是  shi^this:right or in the end is really no 'that'-是  shi^this:right? 

Where neither 是  shi^this:right nor 'that'  finds its opposite, call it the axis of 道 dao^guides. When axis starts you get the centre of the circle where you can respond with no limitations.  是  shi^this:right has no limits and 非  fei^{not this: wrong} has no limits.  That's why I say, it is best to use discernment.' (The Zhuangzi Ch. 2)

It is not that language distorts the dao but that language could be used to create an indefinite number of different daos.  Each dao divides things and generates preferences for action in different ways. We can not get any answer to our questions by separating ourselves from language.  If we went back to the axis, to before we ever made our first shi-fei^{this-not this} 是  非  judgment, we would not get any answer—since an answer would consist of a shi-fei^{this-not this} 是  非 .  Once we get that, we have stepped off the axis and started down one of the limitless number of possible 道 dao^guides  that we might pursue.  From the axis, anything might be called 是  shi^this:right – anything might be called 非  fei^{not this: wrong}.  Guidance assumes we are already walking some 道  dao^guide and making a choice against the background of where we came from.

We cannot, as we saw, advocate abandoning language--that is incoherent.  So what does follow from Zhuangzi's analysis?  What should we do—what possible advice can we extract from his relativist analysis of 道 dao^guides and language? Zhuangzi doesn't lack preferences himself, of course, and he tells us all this because he thinks that the perspective will be of some use. However, his perspective requires him to be quite circumspect and careful in giving any—so mostly he merely hints at it.

For all his doubts and caveats, The Zhuangzi does seem to favor flexibility and tolerance about points of view. We should be open to acquiring new skills--conceptual and other skills. That openness is characteristic of the mental flexibility of youth. Getting too committed to one way of thinking that you cannot learn, say new languages or technologies like computers is characteristic of old age and impending death. The Zhuangzi reminds us that whenever we make a distinction, we fail to make some other possible distinctions. We must remember that we cannot be sure we should prefer youth to old age or life to death! There are points of view (say that of the mammal kingdom competing with us for food sources) from which the extinction of the entire human race is best.

We have to take Zhuangzi's advice from where we stand, not from where he does. We cannot get a shih out without putting one in, remember. The value of flexibility and adaptability in a 道 dao^guide still must be indexed—linked to a context. Our judgment of whether another 道 dao^guide is worth looking at and what is of value in it must be made from where we stand relative to the axis of 道 dao^guides.

Some possible 道 dao^guides or ways of making distinctions and organizing society acting might enable us to fly, overcome disease, make incredibly powerful explosions, listen to people chatting thousands of miles away, or do 7,000,000 calculations every nanosecond, or more efficiently commit genocide. That we should pursue any or all of these possible 道 dao^guides presupposes some 是  shi^this:right. It is not a given in pre-social nature that we should perfect any particular art nor that we shouldn't follow any particular one. Each of us makes those judgments from our actual, historical perspectives.

Another bit of advice that he broaches mainly in occasional comments is that while, like Laozi he regards conventional behavior as restrictive, he does not say we should reject it.  Conventions are useful because without them we could not 通   tong^communicate and that is all we can ask of them. That is, they do not have to be right. It is enough for their being useful that they are common and shared. However, again, we must remember that Zhuangzi's position is that usefulness is relative to where we stand in the scheme of possible 道 dao^guides. Ordinary ways of talking to allow us to interact beneficially (given our concept of 'benefit') with others in our community. 

Finally, Zhuangzi seems to value the exercise of skill itself. The practice of behavior patterns acquired carefully is a real satisfaction to us.  He describes a famous case in his chapter called "The Secret of Caring for Life" 

Butcher Ding was carving beef for Lord Wenhui. As his hand slapped, his shoulder lunged, his foot stamped, and his knee crooked then with a hiss! With a thud! The sparkling blade sliced, never missed a beat as if in time with the Mulberry Forest dance then with an orchestra playing the Jingshou. 

'Oh, excellent!' said Lord Wenhui. 'That skill should attain such heights!' 

'What I care about is 道 dao^guide. I passed through skill on the way. When I first began to carve beef, I saw nothing but oxen wherever I looked. Three years later and I could not view beef as a whole. Nowadays, I sense it through my energy and do not look with my eye. The senses know to stop, the energy desires to proceed. I rely on the natural tendencies, cut along the splits and follow the key cavities, follow is inherent 然  ran^so.  I never touch a ligament or tendon, much less solid bone. A good butcher changes his chopper once a year, because he hacks. A common cook changes it once a month because he smashes. Now I have had this chopper for nineteen years, and have dismembered several thousand oxen, yet the edge is as fresh as just whetted. At each joint, there is a gap and the knife-edge has no thickness.  If you put what has no thickness where there is an interval, then, you need no more, there is ample room to move the edge about. So after nineteen years, the edge of my chopper is as though just off the grindstone. 

However, when I come to something intricate, I see it will be hard to handle and cautiously prepare myself. My gaze settles on it; my action slows. You scarcely sense the flick of the blade, then at one stroke it unravels the tangle. Like a clod it crumbles to the ground. I stand, knife in hand, look all around and feel an ease come over me. I pause to enjoy it until I am quite calm. Then I wipe my knife and sheath it.' 

'Excellent!' said Lord Wenhui. 'Listening to the words of Butcher Ding, I have learned from them how to nurture life.' (The Zhuangzi Ch. 2)

The profession of Zhuangzi's hero in the story is relevant. The point is that no matter what 道 dao^guide we follow or what style of it we learned, we can take it to a level of " completion" where it's flow yields a unique human satisfaction. You can do this being a musician and distinguishing between flat and correct tones or a butcher distinguishing between muscle and tendon. Any skills can be perfected to a point of almost spiritual mastery in which you are totally absorbed and satisfied with your art. At the highest level of skill, you make it look easy and profess almost to have no deliberate consciousness guiding you action. We experience it as the world guiding us.  The skills have become second nature, like walking or speaking our mother tongue.

Zhuangzi also notes, however, that that from various points of view, specialization and skill mastery have a cost. Everyone who masters an art must ignore some other aspect of life. This is as true of a Zither player as of a debater (like Hui Shi) or flutist. We may be superb at our skill and still unable to teach it to our children. Knowledge is limitless and our lives are limited. The first and the third piece of advice pull in opposite directions. You cannot get as good at your specialty you try to be a jack-of-all-trades.

Questions for Review and Discussion

1. Why does "All sentences are false" not pose a paradox? Is that sentence related to "All language distorts 道 dao^guide?"

2. How is Shen Dao's paradox different from the liar paradox?

3. Do relativist terms undermine a realist picture of language?  Does it matter more when the realist picture is set in a contrast theory of terms?

4. Is it wrong to draw the conclusion that the world is an indivisible "one" from the premise that all distinctions are drawn from a point of view?  Why or why not? How is the conclusion related to an anti-language stance?

5. Is the claim that all claims are made from one of perspectives made from one of many perspectives?  Does that make the claim self-undermining?  Is it different in any way from "all truth is relative?"

6. Can we get an "ought" from an "is?"  Who argues that we can not.

7. What is an indexical? Why do indexicals figure so centrally in Zhuangzi's analysis of language and 道 dao^guides ?

8. Is Cook Ding claiming that he has contact with a mystical or transcendent 道 dao^guide.  What problems can you see with a philosopher who says that the point of life is to get really good a something?

9. Explain the three parts of Zhuangzi's criticism of Mencius' innatism?

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Philosophy of Religion

Some Introductory Readings on Daoism

Zhuangzi and the Daoist Antithesis

Philosophical Backlash: Rejecting THE Dao

Shen Dao: The Great Dao

Laozi: Language and Behavior

Zhuangzi: Daoist Pluralism

Refutation of Mencius

Realism and Indexicals