Talk:Zhuang Zhou

Split ZhuangZi the person and Zhuangzi the book

The content of Zhaungzi the book are open to any interpretation and controversial.

Do take note Zhuangzi book are 2000 years old, the language are cryptic and the idea can be much ahead of the age. When old interpretation in the pass century are outdated, and people still refer to the old interpretation than reading the ORIGINAL idea, it is misleading.

I suggest separate the man from the book, so anyone can put their idea,controversial, interpretation of the Zhuangzi book content over there. And make an ambiguity link to Zhuangzi. --Littlemoo (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree the title Zhuang Zi is the title of the book that Zhuang Zhou wrote,Zhuang Zhou is the name of an historical person,Zi is an honorific title literally meaning 'Master' Zhuang.--richardlord50

May I suggest to also agree on the leading name, i.e. Zhuang Zhou and indicate that it may also be spelled like Chuang Tzu, if that is correct. At the moment Chuang Tzu all of a sudden appears and it is a little confusing. Hskoppek (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Birth & death dates

The Hundred Schools of Thought entry references Zhuang Zi and gives his lifespan as 369 - 286 BC. Is there a reason his birth and death are not given here, in his own entry? Disputed? --Ds13 06:14, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Life

This section could be much fuller, giving the information that Sima Qian in his Shiji says about him. Regarding "Meng Official, Meng Zhuang, and Meng Elder (蒙吏, Méng Lì; 蒙莊, Méng Zhuāng, and 蒙叟, Méng sǒu, respectively)" - where did this come from? I've read probably most of the books ever written about Zhuangzi and have never seen these names. Bao Pu (talk) 12:26, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Space in names

I am still wondering how the name of ancient Chinese masters should be written. Here we have three possibile forms: Zhuang Zi, Zhuang zi, and Zhuangzi. Imo, we could use first for the man and third for the book, in italic. So "Zhuang Zi wrote the Zhuangzi"

The same for many other ones: Mo Zi, Lao Zi, Xun Zi, Sun Zi, Lie Zi, and so on... gbog 17:23, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"Zhuang zi" is just weird English capitalization. You might as well write it you're nZhuang-zi.

I agree that Zhuangzi is to be used as book title.

For people's name, I'd go either way, but leaning toward Zhuangzi.

--Menchi 08:57, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I, too, support a change to Zhuangzi. --Benna 06:32, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

This isn't wise. "Zhuang" and "Zi" are separate Chinese characters. When translating names, It is customary to write separate characters in separate English words, since part of an oriental name is likely to contain a surname ("Zhuang" in this case).

The standard scholarly transliteration is now 'Zhuangzi'; this should be used. The book title is Zhuangzi. Also, it is not customary in transliterating names (according to the scheme now dominant: Hanyu Pinyin) to write characters separately; rather one separates and capitalises words, so 'Mao Zedong' and 'Beijing' but not 'Mao Ze Dong' and 'Bei Jing'. --霊村 06:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

So what if "Zhuang" and "Zi" are separate Chinese characters? They're written as "Zhuangzi" in Pinyin (albeit with tone marks). saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 07:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Copyright issues

Is Watson's translation still subject to copyright? I thought it was; perhaps the quote is illegal? Watson's translations of Zhuangzi are copyrighted by Columbia University Press.

---

Can we add the category:Eck Masters (see ECK_master#Historical_figures_as_ECK_masters) or is the Eckankar religous group too obscure and idiosyncratic? Andries 22:04, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

rm References

The list of references removed is actually pretty good. Several of those books are among the most respected scholarly works about Zhuangzi around.

Were they too peripheral to the Zhuangzi itself? Why were they removed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jiawen (talk • contribs) 06:37, 14 October 2005

They weren't referred to in the article, so weren't references. Wikipedi isn't a set of reading lists; many topics could build up bibliographies of hundreds, if not thousands, of good, scholarly, authoritative books and papers. I sympathise with your concern, butthe normal response is that, if a source has something important enough to go into the article, the material should be added; if it needn't be added, then we don't need to add the source. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

My and Mel's edits

Mel, you removed some material that I added and changed some of the language needlessly. Mention of The Matrix helps show how much influence the Zhuangzi has had in Western philosophy, and while it could be argued that that movie's solipsism was derived from other sources, I think it's clear that Zhuangzi's influence was huge.

The grammatical and typographical edits you made were also not necessary. Adding a serial comma, changing a period (aka full stop) to a semicolon and the other changes seem intended to introduce British English, not to actually correct any errors. "Do translation" is perfectly acceptable American English; "make [a] translation" is generally not.

I also don't really see the point of removing the link to Chinese language; the first link (at the beginning of the article) is easy to lose sight of, and it seems perfectly natural to me to link again to the language when discussing how Zhuangzi uses the language.

Please don't make such changes without consulation.

Thank you, though, for removing the "may may" redundancy.

Jiawen 23:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

1. Influencing The Matrix is, first, your surmise, uncited original research; secondly, it says nothing about Western philosophy (which has no relation to the film).

There are quite a few other people who think The Matrix was influenced by Zhuangzi:

• http://liber-mundi.blogspot.com/
• http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4493
• http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma6/taoneo.html

The fact that people see an influence show that there is an influence on Western philosophy. Establishing whether or not the Wachowskis were influenced is difficult, but I think it's manifestly clear that they were influenced by Zhuangzi, at least in an indirect way.

Your contention that the Matrix has nothing to do with Western philosophy also sounds very NPOV to me. You may write it off as silly or whatever (and I'd probably agree with you), but the fact is, it's one of the most influential pieces of philosophy in the past couple decades, and it's most definitely Western.

Also, having a section on Zhuangzi's influence is a good thing. As it stands, it's part of "beliefs", which is not really an appropriate heading. Why not have a section on Zhuangzi's later influence?

1. The punctuation is in line with the Wikipedia Manual of Style and normal English usage, not British English.

Serial commas are always arguable, but I disagree with your use of the semicolon. The two sentences are not connected.

1. Wikipedia is about making such changes without consultation, espcially things like punctuation or uncited material. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Typos, yes; legitimate information, no. It'd be better to ask, especially since I'm one of the people who has contributed most to this article. Otherwise, we could get into an edit war. See dispute resolution.

Jiawen 14:42, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid that your claims about the Matrix and philosophy are simply false. The Matrix is a moderately entertaining film that uses some ideas that have been discussed in philosophy for decades; philosophy may have had an influence on the film (probably indirectly), not vice versa. The film is certainly not philosophy except in the loosest, most vacuous sense of the word.

Where did I say that The Matrix had an effect on philosophy? My original statement was that Zhuangzi's philosophy had an effect on The Matrix.

And again, The Matrix is seen by many people as a deeply philosophical film. I agree that it's not actually that deep, and certainly not very academically rigorous. But it is an example of modern Western philosophy, and it's a good example of Zhuangzi's influence on modern, Western beliefs.

Simply stating again that a popular film is philosophy isn't enough. It's unclear what you mean by "philosophy", but at the very best you're committing the fallacy of equivocation, using "philosophy" to mean one thing when talking about Zhuangzi, and another when talking about the film. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:35, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

There are several meanings to the word "philosophy". I am here using it in its broad sense of "thinking about the meaning of life, the question of knowledge and the nature of reality". I am specifically not using it in its sense of "scholarly, rigorous Western-style logical derivation of truth and meaning". If that's the sense we're using, the Zhuangzi itself isn't philosophy!

Serial commas aren't arguable; they're specifically given as Wikipedia style in the MoS.

I'll concede the serial comma point.

The idea that the two sentences are connected is odd; could you explain how?

Huh? The two sentences ("However, some sinologists have tried" and "a very popular translation is the one by Burton Watson") are not connected, at least not enough to be linked by a semicolon. That was my whole point.

Your final comment comes perilously close to claiming ownership of the article. I'd back off from that idea; it's strictly against Wikipedia policy. If you start trying to edit-war over the violation of policies and guidelines such as MoS punctuation, NPoV and uncited claims, etc., I'll take steps to have the article protected. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

That is unnecessarily antagonistic. I did not suggest ownership. What I said was that I've contributed a lot to this article, and that, as per the dispute guidelines, it would've been good if you'd asked me first before reverting my edits. Why not ask "Where's your evidence for Zhuangzi's influence on the Matrix?" instead of just immediately reverting it?

If you think it's not possible for us to reach agreement, maybe we should ask for arbitration. I've submitted a request to the Mediation Cabal.

Jiawen 23:35, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

My impression was that the unnecessary antagonism was introduced by you from the beginning, but let that pass. Mediation seems somewhat over the top for a two-day disagreement over a minor part of an article. An RfC on the article would be more appropriate. I'll do that now. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:35, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the RfC. Oh, wait, I finally found it.

You state that you think the antagonism was introduced by me; I need to defend myself here. You reverted my edits -- most of which were perfectly good and really pretty much unarguable (sectional division, link to solipsism, word choice, etc.) -- without any explanation, indeed dismissively labeling them "tidying". When I tried to engage in discussion about the issue, you almost immediately resorted to the threat of locking the article. Instead of engaging my points, you have used threats and belittling, and you have carefully avoided many of my actual points. I haven't seen any constructive response to my point about the semicolon, nor about the idea of adding a section for "Influence on later philosophy", nor to my list of people who see influences of the Zhuangzi in The Matrix.

You have consistently used antagonistic language: "vacuous" -- although applied to The Matrix, this could equally well be applied to the Zhuangzi itself, as I mentioned above -- you seem only to allow a definition of "philosophy" that does not admit the very subject matter we are discussing; "moderately entertaining" -- damning by droll praise; ignoring my points rather than conceding them; suggesting that I'm trying to assert ownership when I did no such thing; not providing a link to the RfC (not everyone knows where this is!). A lot of your actions show me that you're not very interested in resolving this amicably.

The fact that you put in an RfC, though, is a bright spot. (I edited it slightly to better reflect the overall discussion.) And, thoroughly flustered though I am, I'd still like to reach consensus with you. What would you think about taking Sethie's point and saying that many people have drawn parallels between Zhuangzi and The Matrix, and leaving it at that?

Jiawen 23:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

1. Sectional division: see Wikipedia:Use subheadings sparingly
2. The solipsism link was part of the opinion concerning the Matrix, so went with it. Incidentally, what solipsistic elements?
3. Standard English is to make, not to do translations.
4. If the sentence "A very popular translation is the one by Burton Watson." isn't related to the sentence "However, some sinologists have tried.", why does it follow it? without the semi-colon the text is staccato and disjointed.
5. There is nothing anatagonistic about the use of the word "vacuous" when applied to a popular usage of the word "philosophy" (not to the Matrix, and not to Zhuangzi), any more than there is in your usage of "silly" when applied to the film. If either of us had used those words of the other, things would have been different. It's better not to look for offence where none exists.
6. Of course things turn on the correct use of "philosophy" — and it could at least equally well be said that you're insisting on a use of "philosophy" that suits what you want to say.
7. How is faint praise of a film antagonistic? Again, don't look for offence so assiduously.
8. Which of your points have I ignored? Do you really think that not conceding your points is in itself antagonistic?
9. The RfC isn't for people reading this page, but to attract new editors, which is why I didn't think to provide a link; sorry.
10. Many people have drawn parallels between a host of films and various philosophies and religions, usually dubiously, often absurdly. Your examples are blogs and on-line forums, which don't meet Wikipedia standards for citations. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 00:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

1. As I said, the way it stands now, Zhuangzi's influence on later thought is part of "Zhuangzi's Thought". The text's influence on later thought does, in fact, belong in a separate section.
2. Specifically, the butterfly story -- just what I originally noted.
3. This is wrong. No one I know says "make translations", and I am a professional interpreter. Perhaps this is standard British English?
4. They are part of the same broad thought (translations of the Zhuangzi), and therefore they belong in the paragraph together, but they are not logically connected enough to be joined by a semicolon. The first sentence is about the difficulty of doing translation work re: the Zhuangzi; the second is about which translations have been popular. Again, the first sentence is about difficulty, while the second is about popularity. Because they are not so tightly connected, they should not be joined by a semicolon. They are two separate thoughts, and should be given periods.
5. "Vacuous" is a demeaning word. I hope you don't seriously deny this. If you think that The Matrix is not academically rigorous, is not serious, doesn't really try to answer any questions or answer them -- then say so. Avoid using value-laden labels like "vacuous" when discussing another person's points.
6. The fact is, for most people, "philosophy" means just what I said: "thinking about the meaning of life, the question of knowledge and the nature of reality". Again, if you mean strict logical argument from first principles, Zhuangzi does not match this definition. I could make the argument that the popular use of a word is its meaning, but I'm not sure that I agree with that, at least where academic discussion and documentation (i.e., Wikipedia) is concerned. However, I doubt that the word "philosophy" is in fact used as you mean it throughout Wikipedia, and in the interest of consistency, it may be best to use it that way. To be honest, though, I would welcome a more strict usage of the word. We just have to find a different thing to call the Zhuangzi, then. And, whatever that new label is, it will apply equally to The Matrix.
   So, then, let's find a different word. I think that the common usage is closer to what I said than to the meaning you seem to be using, but I do welcome academically rigorous use of words. However, as I said, that new label, whatever it is, will apply equally well to the Zhuangzi and The Matrix.
7. It was very droll and perhaps sarcastic.
8. You have now responded to most of them. Previously, though, you had not.
   As for conceding points, see Wikiquette: "Concede a point, when you have no response to it; or admit when you disagree based on intuition or taste."
9. Thank you for saying that.
10. One of the references is from "Susan Napier, a professor of Japanese literature and culture at the University of Texas". Not a dubious commentor. And again: My point was that philosophy -- of whatever sort -- has been influenced by Zhuangzi. According to most people's definitions, The Matrix is philosophy, and it is most definitely very popular, even if you disagree that it's philosophy. Showing the Zhuangzi's influence on The Matrix shows how much influence the book has had in Western thought. I showed popular influence, rather than academic influence, but it was influence all the same.

What do you think of taking Sethie's suggestion and saying that people have drawn parallels between Zhuangzi and The Matrix?

Jiawen 06:00, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

1. No, any more than Copernicus is part of Plato's thought, though he was certainly influenced by Plato.
2. You'll have to explain (though a story within the film is pretty minor to make much of, especially in an article about Zhuangzi).
3. Well, I've never heard or read "do translations", and I've also been involved in translations, as well as using and working with translations and translators in my main professional career. I'll try Googling the teo phrases if I get a moment.

Actually I'm not going to bother with this point-by-point stuff. I've just seen your comments about "vacuous", and you seem determined to take offence at something that's clearly not offensive — to the extent that you're still insisting that I used the word of the film when a glance further up the page will show that I didn't (just to do the work for you: "film is certainly not philosophy except in the loosest, most vacuous sense of the word."). Note, though, that this isn't a philosophical version of 1066 and All That; we're not supposed to be explaining what most people already understand, but informing them, going beyond what they understand. If most people think of philosophy in a vague, loose way, then we need clearly to explain how it's used in this and other philosophy articles, not pander to their prejudices. And I still very strongly disagree that "According to most people's definitions, The Matrix is philosophy"; I don't know anyone, in or out of philosophy, on or out of the academic world, who thinks that. Some of them think (wrongly, in my view) that it's philosophically interesting, or involves deep philosophical ideas, but that's very different matter. As I've already said, I think that the claim that people have drawn parallels between Zhuangzi and the Matrix is weak, trivial, and at best unhelpful (at worst, misleading). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:29, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Came here via RfC.

If you find a source that shows the connection, by all means add it in. Otherwise, it is your thoughts about the movie, which would be great on a blog, but not so here.

I mean, there are SO MANY philosophies that can be connected to the Matrix.....looking over the sources you cited, the best I think you could get away with is that some people have drawn parrelss between Zhuangzi and the Matrix.Sethie 22:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

A second comment via RfC: While the matrix clearly has spiritualist roots (at least the original movie; the later episodes got a bit sophomoric, IMO), I don't think it can be traced to any specific faith or philosophical perspective. there are elements in it that could be ascribed to zhuangzi, yes, but they could also be ascribed to hindu mythological structures, or some forms of buddhism, or (perhaps most accuratelty) certain shamanic practices. the central theme - of an illusory world in which we are held in unknowing bondage - is common to all forms of mysticism, and the specifics are not all that consistent with taoist thought or practice (awakening through the artificial means of taking a pill; a population of entities that inhabit various planes of existence; the excessive emphasis on violence... what would zhuangzi think?). at best you could say that the movie demonstrates an increasing awareness of some generic mysticisms in popular thought, and that this extends itself to scientific and philosophical thinking (because scientists and philosophers probably do love these kinds of movies); but without some strong and convincing evidence that the screenwriters (or the original author of the stories the Matrix came from, whatever they were) were intentionally drawing on Z to design the story universe, I don't think the argument can be effectively made. Ted 09:03, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree pretty much with Ted above -- it is as easy to argue that The Matrix was influenced by Ken Wilber as much as Zhuangzi. Heck, they even had Wilber do a commentary track. At the moment it's original research. However, there probably ARE scholarly articles you can cite to create the connection if you want to do the homework: "Zhuangzi's influence can be felt even in Western pop culture, (reference scholarly Zhuangzi/Matrix connection here)" and link out. I don't think you're WRONG, and I think Western pop culture contains an interesting amount of "trickledown," I just think you need a source to make the tie work in a Wikipedia article. --MattShepherd 16:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the contention that the Matrix was influenced by Zhuangzi constitutes original research. Unless Jaiwen can come up with a good citation (i.e., not a blog), it should not be mentioned in the article. Sunray 07:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Dao versus Tao

It seems like Tao is the common form on the wikipedia. I'm going to disambiguate Dao in a second, then come back and change Dao to Tao in a while unless some watcher objects -- Kendrick7 21:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I object. The standard transliteration scheme for scholarly writing is now Hanyu Pinyin, which transliterates '道' as 'Dao'. I agree that 'Tao' (which conforms to a previous scheme) is more commonly seen; however, in an effort to unify usage across Wikipedia, I recommend conformance to the scheme dominant in scholarly work. --霊村 06:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

ISBN refs

Thank you for this useful page. However, some of the ISBNs are not valid and so are not retrieved by book searching sites. I realise that ISBNs have changed format, so they may all have to be revisted.

• I believe I have fixed all problematic ISBNs. If not, please advise. Keesiewonder 19:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Hakym Bey

Hakym Bey also spoke well bout Zhuangzi´s anarchism as a cultural resistance against maoism. I just couldnt find the article again but i believe he refered to Zhuangzi as Chuang Tzu. Can anyone help finding this article? --189.33.226.167 (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, here you are: Aimless Wandering: Chuang Tzu's Chaos Linguistics (1993) (as Hakim Bey; Xexoxial Editions (La Farge, Wisconsin)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skomorokh (talk • contribs) 01:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Inner Chapters Author

This articles mentions the Inner Chapters are believed to have been written by a single author. However, the introduction to my translation (by Kristofer Schipper) of the book mentions that style differences are too big to have been written by a single author. I've tagged the sentence mentioning that they were written by a single author as requiring a citation. Clearly, this is not unanimously agreed upon. DDSaeger (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Few things are unanimously agreed on, even in modern scholarship, but I have read that about the inner chapters many times. I will look for a citation for you. Msalt (talk) 19:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Anarchy

What is the source for those quotes? (the world "does not need governing; in fact it should not be governed," and, "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone.") THose don't sound familiar, or in the style of Chuang Zi.

I also have a problem with quoting Alan Watts without citation, then immediately criticizing his argument editorially. In my opinion, we'd be better off leaving such a shaky paragraph out of the article altogether. Anyone disagree?Msalt (talk) 19:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, they're not exactly in the "style" of Zhuang Zi, but the chapter of Horses's Hooves and the final chapter of his writings implies these two beliefs. Maybe take some choice quotes from those chapters? I would put Zhuang Zi as being completely anarchist, given that he even spoke out against Taoism, the base of this theories, at points. - A chicken passeth by —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.14.123.147 (talk) 16:08, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Tidied up paragraphing. Rumiton (talk) 12:32, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Name box

Zhuangzi's names need to be organized into a name box...--达伟 (talk) 17:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Horrible in many ways this article

A) leah-tzu represents the politically involved quote-un-quote anarchist turn of daoism, and then only to a minor degree. that is the third (and final) original book of the daoism cannon, alright?

B) chuang's book is the CENTRAL and most IMPORTANT of the three (four if you include the i ching, but let's not for simplicity's sake!) books of daoism! this article makes it sound like he is one of 5 people on equal footing, and that lao and his (very short) book is the centre and start of daoism. most chinese scholars i believe consider what is in the BOOK of chuang to to some degree predate lao's book. actual scholars of daoism also understand how complicatedly chuang's book was manipulated over time (much like the xian bible) to the extent that the existant version contains entire CHAPTERS of outright forgeries etc, it is very very hard to pin point anything to an actual teacher. the book itself contains three: chuang, lao, and confuscious. the point is that the BOOK of chuang tzu and especially the "heart" or central chapters is the basis of taoism. the article doesn't even come CLOSE to conveying this fact.

C) if there *is* going to be an overly simplistic comparison made to western philosophy (which there should not) good grief please don't say some BS about "relativism" or "spontaneity" and instead mention, perhaps, hegel and other philosophers of this period of german modernism. because i'm sorry but you will find NOTHING in your precious western cannon anymore comparable to what chuang acheives in his books prior to the 1800s. there is a UNIVERSAL, as in what used to be called the patriarchal philosophy, between each of the 3 books of daoism and many aspects of western thought, via the vedas via southern europe and arabia but this is no more of an actual connection than it is that all humans that speak and walk on two feet by neccessity come to a subset of identical conclusions. if one looks at the bloody i ching which is in fact the oldest book written by man you can actually see that it is freakishly different from even what any modern human could sanely consider universal, and actual escapes the purview of any vedic derived quote-un-quote european (greek?) cannon.

D) no one mentions that the historical man worked as caretaker of the emperor's laquer garden. it's not especially important but umm why isn't that even there.

E) i would just like to try to sway this article to reflect to any degree what i have continuously learned from asian scholars and my own studies of the 3 books of the daoist cannon. that chuang's is the most important and because of the irregularity of the origins of the actual chapters actually pre-date's lao-tzu. a discussion of hegel would clearly be asking a bit too much.

peace out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reetside (talk • contribs) 06:22, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

i hate to beat a dead horse

but i agree with the poster who says seperate the man from the book (this person is aware even just from reading the footnotes in the burton watson xlation that the thing has been manipulated ad infinitum) and i believe that the person who is writing about the movie the matrix would be better served studying the I ching insofar as there is nothing is lao, chuang or lieh that suggests any form of straightforward solipsism. the man blindly dives into the water for the pearl and he finds it. that's a bit more complicated in essense than just living in a dream world, eh. i would also like to note that it is insanely wrong that the i ching is not included by wikipedia as in any way shape or form associated with daoism (or the origin of human thought for that matter... but i digress). maybe we should mention some (hell, most) of the most important and beautiful acheivments of philosophy ever acheived my mankind. the storing up of knowledge is done for the benifit of a great thief (it wasn't until NEITZSCHE that western philosophy even accepted a notion such as "far out" as that) ... or maybe hm discourcing on swords. that chapter is stupid tight. no more important vessel of human knowledge exists outside of the book of chuang tze and i just am in a generally angry mood to see how this is being westocentrically treated and buddhocentrically treat (vis. lao and "Relativity") by f'in wikipedia. is there a difference between eurocentric and buddhocentric anymore when it comes to the great acheivements of asian people lately? not really. FTFO. heh. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reetside (talk • contribs) 06:36, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Title of article unclear

The opening paragraph gives all the names except Zhuang Zhou, which is the title of this article, and then the article proceeds to use Zhuang Zhou. Can someone knowledgeable about this clear this up? Wakablogger2 (talk) 06:52, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, it is there. I guess I'm confused by the book and the person's name. Wakablogger2 (talk) 10:24, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

If we follow WP:TITLE or WP:COMMON, the title should be Zhuangzi (as opposed to Zhuangzi (book)) not Zhuang Zhou. Searching Google (English usages not in WP) finds 813,000 for "zhuangzi" –wiki and 14,300 for "zhuang zhou" –wiki. Comparable article titles also use the –zi "Master" names, Laozi not Li Er, Mozi not Mo Di, Xunzi not Xun Kuang, etc. Keahapana (talk) 21:17, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it appears the page was in fact named Zhuangzi but was only moved recently, Nov 22, 2010 by a user without discussing it first or stating his reasons. As this is the case, I vote we move the article back.72.89.142.185 (talk) 17:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I just moved the page back to Zhuangzi. The move to Zhuang Zhou was un-discussed on the page. In fact, the usage was against how the philosopher was most commonly referred to in the article causing confusion. It was done only recently by the user Richardlord50 who also took it upon himself to change many of the references in article from Zhuangzi to Zhuang Zhou despite naming conventions. Please keep an eye out in case he does this again.Flygongengar (talk) 17:43, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Evolved

To justify modern concepts without faithfully uncovering all sides of the truths is much as one sees only money but can not see the responsibility for such things. Just as feminist can read this article and say this guy did not speak about women in a favorable light therefore these feminist will have to place an opinion about nothing to again coerce and manipulate meaningful words into shallow depths...... to go from simple life forms to complexities would it not require the balance of complex life forms returning back to simpleness..... does the majority of the world need three winters a year instead of one to say the world has evolved? when all the truths have been dismissed as lies, is this called evolution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.114.194.170 (talk) 06:24, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

picture

Hello. In article the first picture is not Zhuangzi's portrait. It is a korean, Park Ji-won's. Please change this picture for alternative. 210.218.33.58 (talk) 07:44, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Man vs book

We have an article Zhuangzi (book) about the book, but almost all of this article is also about the book (which most authorities say is not in a single hand). And how could it be otherwise? The only information to be had about the man is two short paragraphs from Sima Qian. Anyway, when readers search for "Zhuangzi", they are surely looking for info about the book, and that's what should be here, and not split between two articles. There should naturally be a short section about what is known of the author; there's not enough for a separate article. Kanguole 00:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Pinyin and Wade-Giles

I think we should include full pinyin (i.e. with tones indicated) and Wade-Giles spellings, as in the Mozi artice, which reads "(Chinese: 墨子; pinyin: Mòzǐ; Wade–Giles: Mo Tzu)". Solri (talk) 12:05, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggest minimizing ties with western ideas

The more experts I read, the more I conclude that Daoism in general and Zhuangzi and Lao Tzu in particular, are not clearly understood by anyone (and don't worry, I include myself in that company), especially in the West. I've seen diametrically opposed opinions (Daoists were recluses who rejected life/Daoists were not recluses and celebrated life) and such completely different takes on what these texts were saying that there seems to be an incomplete grasp. I believe that this is in part because the people who write books tend to be scholars attempting to grasp these ideas from outside rather than followers, who are grappling with them from within.

But what is clear is that they embarked on a radically different course from that which western thinking took and indeed has taken. I think that the temptation to relate these ideas to western patterns of thought (eg the several references to relativism) may be strong but it is suspect and usually flawed. Relativism of a kind can be seen in Zhuangzi's thinking but it arises in a different context from the relativism of Western thought, and to equate the two rather than merely relate the two builds flimsy bridges. The article would be better without them.

And please: I enjoyed the Matrix too, but this was a popular movie not a milestone in western thought. The only possible reason that it is getting a mention in this article is because it appears to be a favorite with the editors of the article and that is just not justification for including it in an article on Zhuangzi. Would an article on Jesus make much of the fact that Winnie the Pooh shows influences? --174.7.56.10 (talk) 16:25, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

My goodness! I think you have done a good job in illustrating your point. :) The Dao is indeed not prescriptive but interpretive. It does not follow that there is a lack of clear understanding, rather that the path is expressed in myriad ways.

On relativism, it is a common western attempt to label Dao in the context of the western pantheon of philosophy. Thus, it is reasonable to note this, with a reference, just as it is reasonable to refute this type of revisionism. I'm going to take a shot at this in the article. --Musides (talk) 15:46, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup needed on Zhuangzi's philosophy

It is challenging to characterize the philosophy of Zhuangzi within the Daoist tradition. Several published efforts have been made to this end, and those viewpoints should be represented in this section of the article. Portions of the article without citation should be removed because original research in Wikipedia is generally problematic, and with regard to this particular subject material it is quite troubling. --Musides (talk) 16:17, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe people should refrain from Chinese nationalism, and erase the quote that he was a precursor of evolution, why not of quantum physics, Relativity, Genetics and maximoronic thought, LOL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.166.157.122 (talk) 10:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't know much about the man, but he is quoted as saying "leopards produce horses and horses produce men". This is mysticism, not a version of evolution. Each comes from a totally different line of descent within mammals.--GwydionM (talk) 13:27, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Chuang Tzu sabotages Lao Tzu

Lao Tze's Tao-Te-Ching teaches masterful skill and succeeds in it superbly well. So the readers develop highly in skills and things start going easily for them, and life becomes pleasant and highly achieving, somehat like a buterfly one could compare. So some stuck others become envious: why did not the readers stay stuck too - let's attack them: "Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. (2, tr. Burton Watson 1968:49)"

Citation not needed

... some claim his writings reflect a form of Western relativism,[citation needed] while others question this revisionist interpretation.[2]

I suspect the citation given at the end of the sentence covers both (some ... and others ...). So, I suggest removing '[citation needed]'. -- kt (talk) 19:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The 'citation needed' tag was added in the same edit as the citation at the end of the sentence, as well as the anachronistic reference to Western relativism that is tagged.[1] The sentence is also grammatically broken, and relates to the book rather than the historical figure. The whole sentence would be best just deleted. Kanguole 00:17, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

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