Abstract
The concept of ‘vastness’ (da 大), and its contrary, ‘minuteness’ (xiao 小), occupies a central role in the philosophy of the Zhuangzi. It is the main theme of the first of the Inner Chapters, the Xiao Yao You (逍遙遊, which I translate as “Wandering Beyond” [PWS 2018]), and structures the cosmological worldview of the ‘Zhuangzian’ strand of the text. The discussions of the vast and the minute have multiple inter-related dimensions of significance—ontological, phenomenological, epistemological, existential, and ethical—and these are explored holistically and simultaneously. Although the terms are primarily spatial, they have more general metaphorical applications. The expansion and contraction may, for example, also be understood temporally, phenomenologically, and pragmatically. Indeed, even the most abstruse discussion is understood to have pragmatic application. So, “da” or ‘vastness’ may characterize spatial size, temporal duration, phenomenological and spiritual perspective, or pragmatic context. In fact, this discussion of size expresses a deeper, more general concern with all kinds of ‘measure’ (or ‘value’): larger and smaller, enduring and ephemeral, more and less, higher and lower, better and worse. As we shall see, it raises the question: what happens to such measures (and values) when we realize that comparison is iterable, that is, that it can be repeated indefinitely?
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Notes
- 1.
Zhuang Zi. Chapter 17, Qiu Shui (“Autumn Floods”). I shall be quoting extensively from my translation in Philosophers of the Warring States (Coutinho and Hagen 2018). I shall refer to it with the abbreviation “PWS” in this essay.
- 2.
The Zhuangzi text contains several strands of Daoist philosophical thought. The Inner Chapters and a good proportion of the rest of the anthology (especially Chapter 17, the Qiu Shui), expound a broadly consistent philosophical approach, although they certainly embrace variations in different passages. I refer to this strand of thought with the loose adjective ‘Zhuangzian’. I prefer to avoid ‘Zhuangist’, which is too strongly suggestive of a follower (or worse, ‘disciple’) of ‘Zhuangism’. Another strand that I refer to below is the Utopian strand (roughly equivalent to Graham’s Primitivist and Yangist chapters).
- 3.
This sensibility is intensified in the Liezi.
- 4.
The title of Chapter Four of the Inner Chapters, Ren Jian Shi (人間世), refers to the world of human concern, the ‘realm’ (世) of human interconnection (人間).
- 5.
Note, however, that ‘the perspective of tian’ is not a coherent concept. This is because the Cosmos is not situated at a point. There can be no Cosmic perspective, because there is no point of view whose range is the Cosmos, because there is no point of view outside the Cosmos from which to view it. This tension, as we shall see, gives rise to different interpretations (from absolutist to relativist) of the Zhuangzian philosophy of vastness: from both the contributors to the original anthology and from later interpreters.
- 6.
Reference is made to a text called “The Questions of Tang”. There is also a chapter in the Liezi, perhaps deliberately given the same name, in which the issue of the relationship between the vast and the minute is developed further.
- 7.
Conceptually, the Utopian chapters read as though they are a direct response to Xun Zi. If this is correct, these chapters of the anthology must have been written later.
- 8.
As Xunzi says in Chapter 21, Dissolving Beguilement, “Zhuang Zi was beguiled by tian and did not appreciate the role of the human.” (PWS 2018: 204)
- 9.
It is interesting to note that this type of critique of Daoist concerns is consistent with Mohist functionalism (though Hui Zi is not usually taken to be a Mohist). (PWS 2018: 341)
- 10.
In a meta-philosophical move, some of these daos (those of Xun Zi, the Syncretists, and the Daoists, for example) claim to represent higher or more inclusive perspectives than others.
- 11.
This is, indeed, the line of interpretation favored by perhaps the majority of modern western interpreters, for example, A. C. Graham, Chad Hansen, Hans-Georg Moeller, and Brook Ziporyn.
- 12.
That is, its usefulness for wandering beyond the restrictions and limitations of the human condition, into a natural realm of indeterminacy that has the potential to enable us to extend our lives to their natural limits. (PWS 2018: 340)
- 13.
There are, moreover, several problems with Guo Xiang’s approach. Firstly, we must be careful not to hastily equate conditions with limitations. To assert that something has specific conditions (even conditions hard to achieve) is not necessarily to critique it as having limitations, except in the most trivial sense that any condition can be thought of as a kind of limitation. The fact that all things have their own conditions does not, by itself, constitute a reason for equalizing either the things or their conditions. Prima facie, some conditions are more limiting than others. In fact, the statement that Peng must exert extraordinary effort to attain its higher perspective is simply a description of the kind of effort required to attain a Cosmic perspective of the kind cultivated by the Daoist. It takes a great effort to attain wisdom, though this wisdom may seem ‘foolish’ from a conventional perspective; a naïve or narrow-minded person cannot understand the world from the perspective of the wise. And there is an important sense in which the perspective of a narrow-minded person may make no sense to a wise person. But it does not follow that this condition of wisdom is a ‘limitation’ on a par with that of the narrow-minded person’s inability to understand the perspective of the wise.
- 14.
The Shang emperor Tang asks whether in the process of expansion one reaches the outer extremes, ji 極, and whether the process of contraction inwards is exhaustible, jin 盡.
- 15.
In Qiu Shui, the notion of the infinite is first raised, and is characterized as that which is neither increased when added to, nor decreased when subtracted from. (PWS 2018: 343) We will also see another formulation of the infinite and the infinitesimal discussed in section (c) of the Qiu Shui, below.
- 16.
But this passage also seems to hint at a notion of the transfinite: infinities beyond infinity. “Beyond (wai 外) the limitless is another limitless nothing; within the inexhaustible is another inexhaustible nothing.” See Coutinho 2014: 160–162 for further discussion.
- 17.
This, incidentally, is directly contrary to the Greek concept of the atom, according to which the smallest physical form must be indivisible.
- 18.
Some terminology: Perspective A is ‘higher’ than that of B if the region (or scope) over which A ranges contains that over which B ranges. The range of a perspective, A, is broader than that of B if the realm revealed by B is contained within the realm revealed by A.
- 19.
This will lead to a paradox regarding the possibility of overcoming such limitations, which we will explore in section III.
- 20.
Conversely, if a mountain top could be seen from the window of a cellar, it might take up a smaller fraction of the visual field than a jar. The proportion of the visual field it occupies is of course inversely proportional to the objective distance of the object. But note that this does not change anything about the objective relation between the mountain and the jar. Indeed, it depends on the objective proportions remaining constant.
- 21.
Recall, however, that in the Xiao Yao You, equality in value between the short- and long-lived is not the explicit conclusion of the text (though it is often the conclusion of interpreters). Rather, it is that the small cannot match the vast, either in understanding or in years.
- 22.
However, even is such cases, phenomenological commensurability cannot be ruled out altogether. What are we to say about the following cases, for example: What appears small from one perspective (a mouse to a human, perhaps) may conceivably be interpreted as appearing larger from some higher perspective (perhaps with the acute vision of an eagle, or with some kind of divine perception). Or again, consider a larger creature that has a large realm of vision, but has cataracts, and is unable to distinguish anything within it. Compare this with a microscopic creature that has fine-tuned microvision within its own realm (if such a thing were biologically possible). It seems intuitively plausible that we might want to say that the smaller creature has a larger realm than the larger creature (though the corresponding ontological region is smaller).
- 23.
I am grateful to my esteemed colleague, Linda McGuire, Professor of Mathematics, for her enlightening discussions of the mathematics of infinity.
- 24.
If the ‘relativist’ point is only that a mountain is smaller than some things, while a wisp of down is larger than other things, this is not a particularly interesting point. And it does not, by itself, undermine any deep ontological intuitions.
- 25.
In section (e), a form of pragmatic contextualism is briefly considered regarding the specialized abilities in specific contexts. But this promising response is, unfortunately, rather hastily undermined by drawing a skeptical conclusion regarding all evaluation. Skepticism, however, does not follow logically from pragmatic contextualism.
- 26.
And to preserve the fullest extent of our natural lifespan we must escape the world of social and political intrigue.
- 27.
Note that this stands in uneasy tension with the relativism expressed in the Qiu Shui, insofar as the latter draws the conclusion that all values and perspectives are to be equalized. If the vast and the petty are equalized then why should we adopt the supposedly flexible perspective of the Way? How can we clam that a flexible perspective is in any sense preferable to an inflexible one without abandoning our radical relativism? There appears to be no internally consistent answer to this question.
- 28.
“If, however, you were to mount the axis of the Cosmos, and harness the changes of the six energies (qi) in order to wander through the inexhaustible, what then would there be to depend on (dai 待)?” (PWS 2018: 336)
- 29.
Even a disembodied consciousness would have to have its particular conditions under which an object could be made available to it.
- 30.
Kant argues that reason leads us to antinomies: mutually contradictory possibilities that are apparently unresolvable.
References
Coutinho, Steve. 2014. Introduction to Daoist Philosophies. New York: Columbia University Press.
Coutinho, Steve and Hagen, Kurtis. 2018. Philosophers of the Warring States. Peterborough: Broadview Press.
Graham, Angus Charles. 1989. Disputers of the Tao. Peru: Open Court.
Graham, Angus Charles. 1990. The Book of Lieh-tzu. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hansen, Chad. 1992. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Moeller, Hans-Georg. 2004. Daoism Explained. Peru: Open Court.
Ziporyn, Brook. 2009. Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett.
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Coutinho, S. (2022). The Ontology of the Vast and the Minute (daxiao 大小). In: Chong, Kc. (eds) Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92331-0_7
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