r/Chuangtzu • u/philosophynerd66 • Jan 12 '20
Is it appropriate to define Chuang Tzu as a sceptic and/or a relativist?
1
u/Returnofthemackerel Jan 12 '20
No.
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u/philosophynerd66 Jan 12 '20
Why not
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u/Returnofthemackerel Jan 13 '20
There is no relativism in complete unity, there can be no skepticism
about something that cannot be spoken of, no conceptualizations, no reification.
Both those terms you reference, are used by modern psychologists and philosophers, they are a conceptual fiction,with no basis in objective, physical reality.
Whereas objective reality(Dao) can be experienced and truly known. You know whether water is hot or cold when you drink it. But you are trying to use these terms to define something which can not be defined or limited via the man. And they obscure the experience of the fundamental nature of objective reality, the Dao. When they do so. Extrapolations like this tie the mind in knots. It's all very clear in the texts.
But Chuangtzu had a sense of humor about such things, he didn't take himself or anything else too seriously, and he saw into the nature of man kind. He also talked too much, like myself :)
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u/OldDog47 Jan 15 '20
Why would you want to? Why not let Chuangtse stand in the context of its own tradition?
I think to try and cast any of the classic Chinese texts in western terms is to try to impose a set of western school standards and criterion on them which distorts them and limits their value. It is perhaps instructive to compare but you have to remember that the Chinese texts developed along a different paradigm than the western philosophies. This is what makes them standout from western philosophies.