dao companion to the philosophy of the zhuangzi

I argue that Stephens’s critique of realist interpretations fails because it confuses the ontological issue of what determines the existence of kinds with the semantic issue of what fixes the names for kinds. This account distinguishes kind relations from “uniting together” and part-whole relations, both of which, unlike kind relations, may be determined by convention.

But there is another tradition, beginning with the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian. I support this interpretation with a new, detailed account of the Mohist conception of a kind on which kind relations lie in inherent similarities between the intrinsic features of objects. The Daoist Zhuangzi has often been read as a mystical philosopher. Born and educated in Hong Kong, I received my doctorate in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan and taught in North America for some years before joining the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore in August 1999, where I was Assistant Head in 2000-2001. This essay defends a realist interpretation of later Mohism that I call “similarity realism,” the view that human-independent reality fixes the similarities that constitute kinds and thus determines what kinds exist and what their members are. It covers textual, linguistic, hermeneutical, ethical, social/political and philosophical issues, with the latter including epistemological, metaphysical, phenomenological and cross-cultural (Chinese and Western) aspects. In a recent article in this journal, Daniel Stephens argues against Chad Hansen’s and Chris Fraser’s interpretations of the later Mohists as realists about the ontology of kinds, contending that the Mohist stance is better explained as conventionalist. This comprehensive collection brings out the rich and deep philosophical resources of the Zhuangzi.

Dao companion to the philosophy of the zhuangzi