This course is a close reading of the Zhuangzi, focusing on its “Inner Chapters” as curated by Guo Xiang (d. 312). The Zhuangzi is a wildly imaginative text featuring discussants of myriad “piping of Heaven”: from a summer cicada to a toeless amputee to the emperor of the Southern Sea to a talking skull. As philosophy, the Zhuangzi is deeply personal, sensitive, and ingenuous. Yet, at the same time, the text presents the utmost abstract and elevated thinking about the world and beyond. Furthermore, through close reading the Zhuangzi, students learn to see how foundational concepts in Western philosophy, such as the self, emotion, and well-being, could be carved out differently and the radical new possibilities of philosophy the Zhuangzian building blocks mount to. Applies to the Ethics requirement for the philosophy major.
At least one course in Philosophy; or consent of instructor.