QUESTIONING DAO: SKEPTICISM, MYSTICISM AND ETHICS IN THE ZHUANGZI

ERIC SEAN NELSON

ABSTRACT

Few things seem less appropriate to the multiple transitional perspectives of
the Zhuangzi than their reduction to one philosophical or religious standpoint.
Nonetheless, two prevailing readings do this: One suspends the proto-Daoist
religious context of the Zhuangzi and discovers a linguistically oriented skepticism;
the other interprets the Zhuangzi’s critical strategies as a means subordinated to
the ultimate stereological purpose of becoming a Daoist sage through mystical
union with an absolute called “the Dao.” Although both interpretations have
plausibility, they are inadequate to the Zhuangzi’s ethical and existential
character. Since this text cannot be appropriately interpreted according to any
one discourse, including skepticism and mysticism, the Zhuangzi’s destructuring
and poetic strategies are not simply techniques serving an ulterior philosophical
or religious purpose. Oriented by the immanent cultivation of the self (zhenren),
linguistic and biospiritual practices performatively enact a critical, fluid, and
responsive comportment or disposition in relation to the myriad things.