Re-visiting the role of craft in Zhuangzi’s philosophy

In the ‘Cook Ding cutting up an ox’ parable, Zhuangzi advanced a doctrine on craft and its relationship with Dao. With reference to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy in conjunction with an analysis of Zhuangzi’s epistemological position, we argue that Zhuangzi understood craft as involving the supersession...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asian philosophy
Main Author: Lau, Raymond W. K. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Carfax 2021
In: Asian philosophy
Further subjects:B ‘doing away with knowing’
B craft and Dao
B Cook Ding cutting up an ox
B wuwei
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:In the ‘Cook Ding cutting up an ox’ parable, Zhuangzi advanced a doctrine on craft and its relationship with Dao. With reference to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy in conjunction with an analysis of Zhuangzi’s epistemological position, we argue that Zhuangzi understood craft as involving the supersession of the cognitive. In craft, the relationship between human and world is non-cognitive and ‘pre-objective’, the living of this kind of relationship gives rise to a non-cognitive ‘practical sense’ which enables the craftsman’s movements to spontaneously constitute wuwei. Zhuangzi’s ideal is that this kind of relationship is generalized to life as a whole, thereby enabling human actions to spontaneously constitute wuwei generally. This is why he stipulated ‘doing away with knowing’ as a self-cultivation technique required for attaining Dao. Thus, craft constitutes an embodiment of Dao in the double-sense of wuwei and the non-cognitive and ‘pre-objective’ relationship between human and world which enables wuwei.
ISSN:1469-2961
Contains:Enthalten in: Asian philosophy
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/09552367.2021.1918367