Broken Paragon

We will continue our journey through the Chinese philosophical work Zhuangzi. We will discuss "Section 5: The Sign of Virtue Complete". If you missed any previous meetings, it doesn't matter. The passages are stand-alone and disjoint.

An interesting observation about Zhuagzi, well-reflected in this section, is Daoist paragons and exemplars of Daoist sagacity being eerily often physically broken in some way, with an especial emphasis on feet. A spiritually-inclined thesis is that physical bodies and manifestations are ephemeral shells - fleeting and ever-changing - to be used by the spirit and the eternal Dao; things are only useful insofar as spirit and Dao work through them.

An interesting comparison on this can be made to the New Testament in the Christian bible. Jesus invests disproportionate effort and time preaching to and healing the broken. According to Christian scripture, Jesus mentions spiritual salvation is often more available to the broken than to the wealthy, material-invested, reputation-oriented, and ostentatious, for the latter’s concerns are directed toward the fleeting and material. Their lack of loss and hardship prevents the distance from the material required for an understanding of the importance of the immaterial as well as an acceptance of the fleeting shallowness of things.

Indeed, in Christianity, the body of the messiah must hang from a cross, broken and humiliated, for he, and us, to be one with God again. Oneness, too, plays an important role in Doaism.

The reading is short. It is highly recommended to read these sections before we meet but not required. We will also read parts in-person at our meeting.

I use Burton Watson's translation. Links to this translation are below.
Zhuangzi - Burton Watson Online
Zhuangzi - Burton Watson Book PDF

They link to the same translation, but the first presents it with a strange color palette, and the second presents it with strange formatting. Pick your poison.

You are free to use any translation. It may be interesting to compare different translations, as I have not looked at any other. Countless free versions of Zhuangzi and various translations are provided by a simple google search.

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First Meeting Description

Much of the reason I chose Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? for our last meeting was due to it being an exemplar of analytic philosophy. Much of the reason I choose Zhuangzi for this meeting is due to it being an examplar of a radically different approach to philosophy.

Many of the challenges involved are so different they could be considered opposite. Zhuangzi is rife with paradoxes and contradictions. It is written in an unfamiliar style. It comes from a culture endemic to ancient China - a foreign context in time and location. Difficulties arising due to translation from ancient Chinese are compounded by copious wordplay and metaphor.

Yet, Zhuangzi is too playful and lighthearted to prevent these difficulties from dissolving - if we free effortlessness and allow them to.

The passages are discrete and disorganized; there is no continuity from one to the next. Much like painting given a palette containing an unexpectedly large array of colors but unexpectedly little of each, we must make due with what we are given and compensate for the paucity of one color through creative use of the rest.

This lack of continuity - this discreteness - liberates us to traverse any permutation of the work’s passages. It also liberates an advantage often held captive when addressing a single work across many meetings – missing a meeting doesn't matter as much.

Capricious, facetious, and blithe, yet often derisive, vulgar, and irreverent, Zhuangzi addresses life’s heaviest burdens by prancing around and mocking them as well as our attempts at dealing with them.

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Links to some of my previous meetups are below.

The Blind Spot of Knowledge's Physiology
Are You Elsewhere?
What to morality, is proof to truth?
Back to the Roots – Man’s Search for Meaning