New Visions Of The Zhuangzi

New Visions of the Zhuangzi is a collection of thirteen essays on the ancient Daoist philosophical work, presenting new angles and approaches. It overcomes the traditional division of schools in favor of topics, sheds new light on key philosophical notions, examines Zhuangzi's use of language, and explores issues of his use of language. In addition, it also applies modern neuroscience to its instructions, explores its vision of the ideal mind, and connects Zhuangzi's teachings to issues of education and community relevant in contemporary society.

This comprehensive collection brings out the rich and deep philosophical resources of the Zhuangzi. It covers textual, linguistic, hermeneutical, ethical, social/political and philosophical issues, with the latter including epistemological, metaphysical, phenomenological and cross-cultural (Chinese and Western) aspects. The volume starts out with the textual history of the Zhuangzi, and then examines how language is used in the text. It explores this unique characteristic of the Zhuangzi, in terms of its metaphorical forms, its use of humour in deriding and parodying the Confucians, and paradoxically making Confucius the spokesman for Zhuangzi’s own point of view. The volume discusses questions such as: Why does Zhuangzi use language in this way, and how does it work? Why does he not use straightforward propositional language? Why is language said to be inadequate to capture the “dao” and what is the nature of this dao? The volume puts Zhuangzi in the philosophical context of his times, and discusses how he relates to other philosophers such as Laozi, Xunzi, and the Logicians.

Looks at the Daoist Zhuangzi’s critique of Confucianism. The Daoist Zhuangzi has often been read as a mystical philosopher. But there is another tradition, beginning with the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian, which sees him as a critic of the Confucians. Kim-chong Chong analyzes the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi, demonstrating how Zhuangzi criticized the pre-Qin Confucians through metaphorical inversion and parody. This is indicated by the subtitle, “Blinded by the Human,” which is an inversion of the Confucian philosopher Xunzi’s remark that Zhuangzi was “blinded by heaven and did not know the human.” Chong compares Zhuangzi’s Daoist thought to Confucianism, as exemplified by Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi. By analyzing and comparing the different implications of concepts such as “heaven,” “heart-mind,” and “transformation,” Chong shows how Zhuangzi can be said to provide the resources for a more pluralistic and liberal philosophy than the Confucians.

Covering the major monotheistic religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—as well as selected Eastern religions and Bahá'í, Zoroastrianism, and Mormonism, this cross-cultural book offers excerpts of sacred texts and interprets passages to enable a deeper understanding of these religious writings. Sacred Texts Interpreted: Religious Documents Explained gives readers the opportunity to examine—directly—the primary sources of different religions and to better understand these texts through expert commentary on selected passages. The interpretative material investigates the nature of sacred texts along with the relationship between sacred scripture and canon, and it explains why these sacred texts have enduring significance and influence. The author provides suggestions on how to read a sacred text before turning to the textual selections from 13 religious traditions arranged alphabetically, beginning with the Bahá'í religion and ending with Zoroastrianism. Each chapter is devoted to the primary textual sources of a particular religious tradition and is prefaced by an introduction to the literature that places it within its historical and cultural heritage. The emphasis for each religion is on its foundational scriptures that are often considered sacred by its adherents. Readers will gain a much greater appreciation of how powerful religious texts have always been across human culture and throughout millennia—and of how religious thought and ideology have shaped daily life, built civilizations, inspired art and literature, and incited wars and violence.

How would Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the fourth century BCE, have reacted to the recent linguistic reforms commonly referred to as "political correctness"? Zhuangzi was a language skeptic, which means that he did not believe that language could convey the true meanings of the world. Might Zhuangzi have argued that political correctness creates but a dream world made of rules, policies, and words—no more real than when he "dreamt he was a butterfly"? Written in a provocative tone, this book looks at political correctness through the lens of ancient Chinese philosophy, as well as through Brummell's and Wilde's aesthetic philosophy of dandyism. Several scholars have established links between Zhuangzi and dandyism, and Wilde wrote one of the first reviews of Herbert Giles's English translation of the Zhuangzi. Like Daoism, dandyism does not engage in a Confucian "correction" of language, instead preferring aimless roaming and rambling. The Daoist "carefree wanderer" is a flâneur, and both Daoist and dandy deconstruct the puritanism and correctness sought by Confucianism, Victorianism, and our contemporary neoliberal culture. Instead of seeking to induce correct opinions, they seek to liberate the mind.

Zhuangzi: Ways of Wandering the Way presents a richly detailed, philosophically informed interpretation of the personal and interpersonal ethics found in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi, introducing a unique Daoist approach to ethics focusing on the concept of a way and our capacity for following ways. Zhuangist thought reframes our relation to our social and natural setting while offering a distinctive, intriguing view of dao, agency, and the structure and grounds for action. At the same time, it embodies an ethical and epistemic modesty that rejects the idea of there being any uniquely privileged form of the good life or any authoritatively correct way to interact with others. The Zhuangist dao is inherently plural, provisional, and protean, and we are likely to find a variety of justifiable ways of wandering along it. Any number of these might contribute to a well-lived, fulfilling life, marked by appropriate social interaction, provided it is pursued with adept responsiveness to our circumstances and awareness of our place in the larger scheme of things. The book examines what prominent threads of discourse in the Zhuǎngzǐ have to say about the nature and content of dào, how we might guide our path along dào, the personal training and cultivation involved, and the criteria by which to evaluate our performance. The discussion illustrates how a Zhuangist outlook in metaethics, ethics, moral psychology, and moral epistemology remains relevant to readers today.

Time, Consciousness and Writing collects some of Peter Malekin’s essential writings on consciousness, theatre and literature, and eleven critical reflections on this body of work and its implications for the humanities.

Rhetoric is intimately related to interaction and cognition. This book explores the cognitive underpinnings of rhetoric by presenting a case study of the rhetorical use of interactional structures, namely expository questions and rhetorical questions, in the classical Chinese tradition. Such questions are generally meant to evoke silent answers in the addressee’s mind, thereby involving a fictive type of interaction. The book analyzes fictive questions as intersubjective mixed viewpoint constructions, involving a viewpoint blend of the perspectives of the writer, the assumed prospective readers, and possibly also that of the discourse characters. The analysis further shows that in addition to attention, other late developing human capacities such as mental simulation and perspective taking also have a pivotal role to play in rhetoric, on the basis of which a simulation-based rhetorical model of persuasion is proposed to account for meaning construction in rhetorical practices. The book will influence our understanding of rhetorical practices outside the Western tradition but within the framework of cognitive semantics.