Re: The Butterfly Dream 2013 Torrent
Nadia Grubb
The Zhuangzi consists of stories and maxims that exemplify the nature of the ideal Taoist sage. It contains numerous anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables, often expressed with irreverence or humor. Recurring themes include embracing spontaneity and achieving freedom from the human world and its conventions. Throughout, the text aims to illustrate the arbitrariness and ultimate falsity of dichotomies normally embraced by human societies, such as those between good and bad, large and small, life and death, or human and nature. In contrast with the focus on good morals and personal duty expressed by many Chinese philosophers of the period, Zhuangzi promoted carefree wandering and following nature, through which one would ultimately become one with the "Way" (Tao).
Today, it is generally accepted that the outer and miscellaneous chapters were the result of a process of "accretion and redaction", whereby numerous authors "[responded] to the scintillating brilliance" of the original inner chapters.[8] A limited consensus has been established regarding five distinct "schools" of authorship, each responsible for their own layers of substance within the text.[9] Despite the lack of traceable attribution, modern scholars universally accept that all surviving chapters were originally composed between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC.[10]
The Dunhuang manuscripts, discovered during the early 20th century by the Hungarian-British explorer Aurel Stein and the French sinologist Paul Pelliot, contain numerous Zhuangzi fragments dating to the early Tang dynasty. Stein and Pelliot took most of the manuscripts back to Europe, and the majority of these are presently held at the British Library and the Bibliothque nationale de France. The Zhuangzi fragments among the manuscripts constitute approximately twelve chapters of Guo Xiang's edition.[16]
The image of Zhuangzi wondering if he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man became so well known that whole dramas have been written on its theme.[22] In the passage, Zhuangzi "[plays] with the theme of transformation",[22] illustrating that "the distinction between waking and dreaming is another false dichotomy. If [one] distinguishes them, how can [one] tell if [one] is now dreaming or awake?"[23]
Zhuangzi believed that the greatest of all human happiness could be achieved through a higher understanding of the nature of things, and that in order to develop oneself fully one needed to express one's innate ability.[22]
The precise point Zhuangzi intends to make in the debate is not entirely clear. The text appears to stress that "knowing" a thing is simply a state of mind: moreover, that it is not possible to determine whether "knowing" has any objective meaning. This sequence has been cited as an example of Zhuangzi's mastery of language, with reason subtly employed in order to make an anti-rationalist point.[29]
Zhuangzi seems to have viewed death as a natural process of transformation to be wholly accepted, where one form of existence is given up one and another assumed.[31] In the second chapter, Zhuangzi makes the point that, for all humans know, death may in fact be better than life: "How do I know that loving life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death I am not like a man who, having left home in his youth, has forgotten the way back?"[32] His writings teach that "the wise man or woman accepts death with equanimity and thereby achieves absolute happiness."[31]
Zhuangzi's own death is depicted in chapter 32, pointing to the body of lore that grew up around Zhuangzi in the decades following his death.[10] It serves to embody and reaffirm the ideas attributed to Zhuangzi throughout the previous chapters.
The Zhuangzi describes the universe as being in a constant state of spontaneous change, which is not driven by any conscious God or force of will. It argues that humans, owing to their exceptional cognitive ability, tend to create artificial distinctions that remove them from the natural spontaneity of the universe. These include those of good versus bad, large versus small, and usefulness versus uselessness. It proposes that humans can achieve ultimate happiness by rejecting these distinctions, and living spontaneously in kind.[36] Zhuangzi often uses examples of craftsmen and artisans to illustrate the mindlessness and spontaneity he felt should characterize human action. As Burton Watson described, "the skilled woodcarver, the skilled butcher, the skilled swimmer does not ponder or ratiocinate on the course of action he should take; his skill has become so much a part of him that he merely acts instinctively and spontaneously and, without knowing why, achieves success".[34] The term "wandering" (遊; yu) is used throughout the Zhuangzi to describe how an enlightened person "wanders through all of creation, enjoying its delights without ever becoming attached to any one part of it".[34] The nonhuman characters throughout the text are often identified as being useful vehicles for metaphor. However, some recent scholarship has characterized the Zhuangzi as being "anti-anthropocentric" or even "animalistic" in the significance it ascribes to nonhuman characters. When viewed through this lens, the Zhuangzi questions humanity's central place in the world, or even rejects the distinction between the human and natural worlds altogether.[37]
Political positions in the Zhuangzi generally pertain to what governments should not do, rather than what they should do or how they may be reformed. The text seems to oppose formal government, viewing it as fundamentally problematic due to "the opposition between man and nature".[38] Zhuangzi attempts to illustrate that "as soon as government intervenes in natural affairs, it destroys all possibility of genuine happiness".[39] It is unclear whether Zhuangzi's positions amount to a form of anarchism.[40]
The Zhuangzi is the most influential work of pure literature written in China prior to its unification under the Qin dynasty in 221 BC. For the period, it demonstrated an unparalleled creativity in its use of language.[44] Virtually every major Chinese writer or poet in history, from Sima Xiangru and Sima Qian during the Han dynasty, Ruan Ji and Tao Yuanming during the Six Dynasties, Li Bai during the Tang dynasty, to Su Shi and Lu You in the Song dynasty were "deeply imbued with the ideas and artistry of the Zhuangzi".[45]
Outside of East Asia, the Zhuangzi is not as popular as the Tao Te Ching and is rarely known by non-scholars. A number of prominent scholars have attempted to bring the Zhuangzi to wider attention among Western readers. In 1939, the British sinologist Arthur Waley described it as "one of the most entertaining as well as one of the profoundest books in the world".[55] In the introduction to his 1994 translation, Victor H. Mair wrote that he "[felt] a sense of injustice that the Dao De Jing is so well known to my fellow citizens while the Zhuangzi is so thoroughly ignored, because I firmly believe that the latter is in every respect a superior work".[56]
The story of Zhuangzi and the butterfly must be one of the best known anecdotes in the philosophical literature. It is also, for me at any rate, one of the most annoying: the kind of philosophical whimsy that irritates rather than illuminates. But as is so often the case, it is when we are walking away from philosophical problems that we realise that they point, however unsteadily, to something we cannot entirely dismiss.
Let us go back to Zhuangzi. You will notice when you think about the story that it is written from the point of view of the philosopher, not the butterfly. It is the philosopher who wonders whether he might be a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who dreamed he was a man. If the question raised by Zhuangzi were being asked sincerely, we would expect to have heard a parallel story of a butterfly who fell asleep, dreamed that it was a philosopher, and then woke up wondering whether it is a butterfly who had dreamed of being a philosopher or a philosopher who dreams of being a butterfly. The radical uncertainty the tale invites us to entertain seems to be incomplete.
Nevertheless this story is important as well as a bit irritating, because it exemplifies what happens when philosophers put our most fundamental assumptions into question. They can do so publicly only by keeping those very assumptions in play, even as they question them. In his final notebooks, collected in the volume On Certainty, Wittgenstein returned for the last time to a theme that had preoccupied him since his earliest years as a philosopher. He pointed out that
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There is a view in philosophy known as epistemological scepticism in which it is held that we cannot know anything for certain. There are a number of arguments for why this is the case that have issued from sceptical voices over the thousands of years this has been debated. One of these arguments is known as the 'dreaming argument' and was most famously formulated by Rene Descartes in his Meditations. The idea is that if I believe that my dreams are real while I am experiencing them then how can I tell that what I am now experiencing is really real and not just a dream? This is an idea that some children think of themselves, independently of doing philosophy, and so that makes the question an interesting and relevant one for children to do in a philosophy session. However, one needs to be very careful about how it is approached and for this reason I have put this session together to make the introduction of this idea gentle and unthreatening. I have used, not Descartes, but instead an ancient Chinese Toaist philosopher called Chuang Tzu for my example of the dreaming argument. Strictly speaking it is not a formal argument but it presents the idea clearly and in an appropriate way. I continue to keep this story, and the ensuing discussion, in the third person, i.e. about Chuang Tzu rather than about the children so as to maintain an unthreatening atmosphere. So, when I anchor them back to the Task Question I always say: "so how can Chuang Tzu know which is dreaming: him or the butterfly?" They of course may make the connection to themselves, and that's fine, but I do not pursue the discussion framed in this way.
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