Prolonging Disfigures, Exertion Deranges

We will continue our journey through the Chinese philosophical work Zhuangzi. We will discuss "Section 4: In the World of Men". If you missed any previous meetings, it doesn't matter. The passages are stand-alone and disjoint.

In this section, inquiries for advice on how to be successful at specific tasks are journeys to exhibition of Dao (The Way). As is usual for Zhuangzi, all paths lead to the same destination; the prescription for success in strikingly variegated tasks is the same for all of them.

But how is it possible for there to be a single answer to being successful at apparently unrelated tasks? Quite simply, Dao binds them. Thus, yielding to Dao dislodges skill at being skilled – success at being successful. This is a sort of skill at the meta-level, or "metaskill", if you will. This idea is not as foreign as it seems, for prudence is a well-known Platonic virtue that shares this property. Prudence is a virtue that contributes to success in what appears to be unrelated instances of its application. This is why prudence is said to be the "crown" or "mother" of the virtues in Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition.

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