Beyond the Troubled Water of Shifei: From Disputation to Walking-Two-Roads in the Zhuangzi
May 2019 · State University of New York Press
Ebook
308
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
In recent decades, a growing concern in studies in Chinese intellectual history is that Chinese classics have been forced into systems of classification prevalent in Western philosophy and thus imperceptibly transformed into examples that echo Western philosophy. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel offer a methodology to counter this approach, and illustrate their method by carrying out a transcultural inquiry into the complexities involved in understanding shi and fei and their cognate phrases in the Warring States texts, the Zhuangzi in particular. The authors discuss important features of Zhuangzi's stance with regard to language-meaning, knowledge-doubt, questioning, equalizing, and his well-known deconstruction of the discourse in ancient China on shifei. Ma and van Brakel suggest that shi and fei apply to both descriptive and prescriptive languages and do not presuppose any fact/value dichotomy, and thus cannot be translated as either true/false or right/wrong. Instead, shi and fei can be grasped in terms of a pre-philosophical notion of fitting. Ma and van Brakel also highlight Zhuangzi's idea of "walking-two-roads" as the most significant component of his stance. In addition, they argue that all of Zhuangzi's positive recommendations are presented in a language whose meaning is not fixed and that every stance he is committed to remains subject to fundamental questioning as a way of life.
About the author
Lin Ma is Associate Editor of Philosophers at the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China. She is the author of several books, including Heidegger on East-West Dialogue: Anticipating the Event. Jaap van Brakel is Professor Emeritus in the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the University of Leuven in Belgium. He is the author of Philosophy of Chemistry: Between the Manifest and the Scientific Image. Together, Ma and van Brakel are coauthors of Fundamentals of Comparative and Intercultural Philosophy.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
