Tension between “Protecting the Self” and “No-Self” in Zhuangzi: The “Paradox of the Self-Cultivation of ‘No-Self’”
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Kwong, Chun-Man
Abstract
Zhuangzi seems to hold contradicting attitudes toward “self” : on one hand, he tells us that we should lose ourselves and merge into the myriad things － “the utmost man is selfless至人無己” in Xiaoyaoyou逍遙遊for example; on the other, he also advocates that we should protect ourselves from the world － “holding on the distinction between internal and external定乎內外之分” in Xiaoyaoyou for example. It seems puzzling whether the ideal person in Zhuangzi’s philosophy is one who loses himself, or one who preserves himself. In this thesis I attempt to solve the tension between these two notions by arguing that what Zhuangzi really advocates is that we should cast off our “self-consciousness” rather than “self” or “fake-self”. This interpretation leads to what I call the “paradox of the self-cultivation of ‘No-Self’” since self-cultivation conceptually requires self-cultivation and thereby cannot help us cast off our self-consciousness. This thesis hence also attempts to show that the metaphor of animal and “knack-training” are of great importance for the solution of the paradox.
Subjects
莊子
真我
無我
自我意識
「無我的自我修養」悖論
Type
thesis
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