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Chuang Tzu: Lao Tzu
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People are well aware of Lao Tzu and his contribution to Taoism but Chuang Tzu is someone who is relatively unknown. Chuang Tzu (... referred to as Zhuangzi) was born in Wei in what is today called the Hu Nan province of China around the 4th century B.C when China was a mass of warring states. He was a small government office and was once offered a higher position which he refused saying that it would curtail his freedom.
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Chuang Tzu develops perspectivalism in a more consistent direction than did Hui Shih. Possibly because of his knowledge of the Mohist refutation, he does not fall into the trap of rejecting language (as arguably Lao Tzu did). Being natural does not require abandoning language. Human language, from the empty greetings and small talk to the disputes of philosophers, is as natural a 'noise' is are bird songs. Disputing philosophers are 'pipes of nature'. Chuang Tzu's use of this metaphor signals that nothing he is going to say entails that disputation should stop any more than it does that brooks should stop babbling.
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Chuang Tzu probably lived some time in the fourth century BC, but his dates are uncertain, as are the details of his life. His philosophy drove him to avoid all public action - he was, it is said, invited to become prime minister, but he declined, so as to retain his freedom. Later Chinese philosophers condemned this attitude as irresponsible. The twelfth century Confucian Chu Hsi said: `Lao Tzu still wanted to do something, but Chuang Tzu did not want to do anything at all. He even said that he knew what to do, but just did not want to do it.'
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Chuang Tzu's analysis of the ch'eng hsin (completed heart-mind) echoes Lao Tzu's analysis of knowledge as unconsciously acquired in the very process of learning language. Attitudes that seem natural and spontaneous may simply reflect early upbringing and experiential attitudes that have become "second nature." No innate or spontaneous dispositions survive without ch'eng influences. Chuang Tzu says that for there to be a shih-fei in the heart without its being put there in the process of ch'eng is "like going to yüeh today and arriving yesterday!"
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English versions of the Chuang Tzu were edited by Herbert A. Giles (1889; repr. 1961) and Fung Yu-lan (1963). Extracts may be found in Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (1939; repr. 1956), and in the Modern Library's Wisdom of China and India and Wisdom of Laotse. For discussions of Chuang Tzu see Fung Yu-lan, History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 1 (1952), and Herrlee G. Creel, Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-tung (1953).
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Coming several hundred years after Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu furthered the cause of Taoism using the arts of metaphor, satire, paradox, irony and argument. "The Inner Chapters" is a thought-provoking and delightful work.
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