The Multi-level Structure of “Transformation” and the Philosophy of “Transformation of Things” in the Zhuangzi

This article analyzes all the uses of the terms “transformation “change” “the transformation of things” “change and transformation” and other related terms and proposes a four-fold categorization of the Book of Zhuangzi’s theory of “transformation”: (1) the transformation of organisms, (2) the transformation between life and death and different organisms, (3) the transformation of perception, and (4) the transformation of all things imaginable. Next, this chapter discusses the meaning of these four categories and the function each plays in Zhuangzi’s description of “transformation.” Aside from the four types of meaning mentioned above, Zhuangzi’s concept of “transformation” also has two important functions: (1) the change or development of subjects and arguments from individual paragraph level to comprehensive whole chapter level, and (2) the synthesis of initially distinct subjects into more integrated ones. These two functions of the concept of “transformation” display the unique, multilevel meaning of Zhuangzi’s “the transformation of things.” In this way, Zhuangzi’s multifaceted, multilayered theory of “transformation” becomes the foundation for his characteristic idea that “because all things transform into other things, different things are all one thing.” In this way, the “the transformation of things” also becomes the foundation for Zhuangzi’s idea that wanwu qitong(“all things are equal”).