Zhuangzi’s questioning of distinctions

Abstract

Certain distinctions need to be made when it comes to understanding Zhuangzi’s questioning of distinctions. Among them is the distinction between Descartes’ use of dreaming, which presents us with the problem of how we can justify reliance on (waking) perceptions for access to the world, and Zhuangzi’s use of it to pay tribute to the power of the imagination and help us to become open to change as providing the opportunity for transformation. Zhuangzi is not questioning whether the distinctions that language projects onto the world really are in the world, a reading of him that appeals to philosophers who are conventionalists. To take such a position he would have to make the questionable assumption that there is such a thing as language that has its own mode of existence, and there is no evidence that he makes it. Zhuangzi’s remarks about language should be read as being about what people, especially philosophers who dispute about the dao, have to say, and not about the language that is used in saying it. Zhuangzi does object to the distinction making philosophers do when they mark off their positions from those of their opposition, and his various skill stories may be understood not to rule out philosophical disputation but to suggest that there is a way of doing philosophy that unites rather than divides.