Zhuangzi's Response To Confucianism

What are the problems that Chuang Tzu's philosophy wants to deal with?What is the key problem in his philosophy? Was Chuang Tzu engaged in the contention of the hundred schools of thoughts, putting forward his own argument around the focuses of the contention and setting forth his philosophy thereby? This is the starting point of the thinking in this article and the ultimate problem it intends to solve.It is hold in this article that, faced by the chaotic social reality of the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period, the schools of Pre-Qin era had made their responses, put forward their own ways of addressing these social problems, and therefore quarreled severely with each other. Confucianism, represented by Confucius, advocated the restoration of the rule of King Zhou and the rehabilitation of Zhou Li, and promoted to maintain the social and political order of Zhou dynasty by virtues such as filial piety, humanity and justice. To the middle of the Warring States Period, the ideal of restoration of the rule of King Zhou and the rehabilitation of Zhou Li have become impossible, however, Confucianism still held to the establishment of kinship-based hierarchic system, and maintained the core spirit of Zhou Li. As far as Confucianism's attitude is concerned, the debates of the philosophers from different schools regarding social problems were actually centering on Confucianism's ideas. In another word, their ideas were the results of reflecting on the ideas of Confucianism. In brief, whether to restore the rule of King Zhou and to revive Zhou Li, to say the least, if not in favor of the restoration of the rule of King Zhou, or revival of Zhou Li, whether to establish a kinship-based hierarchic system, became the focus of the debates among those philosophers.Chuang Tzu was also considering his problems in the background of hundred schools of thought contending with each other and in the discourse system of those schools. With his problem awareness arising from the interaction of those schools, he explored and addressed the issues of common concern, that is, Chuang Tzu's perspective and starting point of thinking social problems is based on his view about whether the ideas of Confucianism were correct, which is focusing on the problems that whether it was reasonable to implement Zhou Li in the Warring States Period, whether virtues such as filial piety, humanity and justice can be applied to maintain social and political order, and whether it was rational to establish a kinship-based hierarchical order; so as to respond to Confucianism. Concerns about the social reality and the relevant responses of those Scholars, especially, that of Confucianism, are the focus of the philosophy of Chuang Tzu. The philosophy of Chuang Tzu is also revealing closely around the theme of his era, and the theme of his philosophy remains focusing on addressing current matters of his time. Based on these, this article has been divided into several parts:The introduction part mainly reviews the history and research status of the major studies on the relationship between Chuang Tzu and Confucianism?This part is meant to achieve two goals:firstly, clarifying the relationship between Chuang Tzu and Confucianism, making sure whether there is ground for the study of this article, that is, exploring the validity of the premise of Chuang Tzu's response to Confucianism;on the other hand, examining the studies about the relationship between Chuang Tzu and Confucianism, making sure whether there is any space left to explore, how much there is that can be explored or what other problems can be further Discussed. In addition, the introduction part also explains the origin of the problem awareness, the themes and the thoughts of this article.The first chapter mainly explores the theme of Pre-Qin contention of the hundred schools of thoughts and the focuses of the issues, with the purpose of describing the relationship of Chuang Tzu's philosophy with other philosophers, and clarifying the source of the problem awareness of Chuang Tzu, thereby to clarify the problem Chuang Tzu's philosophy was intended to solve and the focus of Chuang Tzu's philosophy.The second chapter mainly deals with the problem that, in contrast to the proposition of Confucianism that social chaos should be concluded and social order be regained by the restoration of Zhou Li, Chuang Tzu revalued the eternity, universality, validity of Zhou Li from the perspective of the development of society and the relationship between name and reality, reflected the funeral ceremony system of Confucianism through exploring the essence of life and death, and analyzed the similarities and differences between Chuang Tzu and other philosophers. This chapter highlights that Chuang Tzu's intention of examining the relationship between name and reality was to address the problems that whether it is reasonable to establish ceremonial institution artificially, whether it is possible to build new social political system and orders and ceremonies after the university and eternity of Zhou Li has been negated, and whether it is possible to solve these social problems once for all. Hereby the apparent differences between Chuang Tzu and other schools are made very clear, and it is where the genuine nature of the philosophy of Chuang Tzu lies.Chapter?is an analysis of Chuang Tzu's challenge of humanity and justice as the guarantee of Zhou Li and its premise, mainly related to Chuang Tzu's reflection on the social function, emotional basis of Confucius's virtues such as filial piety, humanity and justice, and the natural goodness in Mencius'philosophy, as well as questioning of the ways of the ancient kings hold by Confucianism from the perspective of the relationship between language and meaning.Chapter?analyzes the theoretical basis of Chuang Tzu's response to Confucianism, mainly about the meaning of "Equality of Things" and its consequent ideas of bringing order to the world. It is argued that, since Chuang Tzu held that there is no unique standard in the world, and that the ideas of Confucianism as well as other philosophers have no universality, therefore, doing nothing to rule, letting nature takes its course, is the inevitable end of the philosophy of Chuang Tzu.In short, this article begins with an examination about the formation and features of the social political system of West Zhou Dynasty and the reaction of Confucianism after the collapse of the social order of Zhou Dynasty, then clarifies the sources and focuses of the problems in the Hundreds school's thoughts, and explores the debates among the schools in both Pre-Chuang Tzu era and Chuang Tzu era, and on that basis, especially analyzes and explains Chuang Tzu's response to the key ideas of Confucianism and his views about the debates of these schools, finally, probes into Chuang Tzu's approach of "bringing the world into order".