Zhuangzi: Relativism, Freedom, and Spontaneity

Zhuangzi (Master Zhuang, personal name Zhuang Zhou, traditionally dated c. 369-286 BCE) lived in the state of Song and, according to a famous anecdote preserved in the Shiji and elsewhere in the text bearing his name, declined an offer of high ministerial office, preferring to "drag his tail in the mud" like a free turtle rather than be enshrined, dead, as a ritual object of state. The Zhuangzi, as it survives, is traditionally divided into seven "Inner Chapters" (Neipian), fifteen "Outer Chapters" (Waipian), and eleven "Miscellaneous Chapters" (Zapian); most scholars regard the Inner Chapters as the portion most plausibly attributable, in substantial part, to Zhuangzi himself, while the Outer and Miscellaneous chapters are generally treated as later additions layered on by disciples and later Daoist compilers, including strands closer to Huang-Lao syncretism and, in places, to Legalist-influenced political thought quite unlike Zhuangzi's own apolitical temperament.