Chuang Tzu: Skeptical Perspectivalism.
Chuang Tzu had a unique philosophical style that contributes to the tendency to treat him as an irrationalist. He wrote philosophical fantasy rather than direct argument. Western readers interpret this style as signaling a romantic rejecting reason and analysis. The dichotomy, however, is hard to motivate in the Chinese philosophical context. We find no counterpart of the human faculty of reason (or its logical correlate) still less of the contrast of reason and emotion. Chuang Tzu's highleted the term, ch'ing which Buddhist's eventually co-opted to translate 'passion' or 'emotion'. However, it makes most sense in the Chuang Tzu it as 'reality', or 'the facts'.
A more plausible hypothesis is that he presents his positions in fantasy dialogues to illustrate and conform to his perspectivalism. He puts positions up for consideration as if endorsing them, then reflectively abandons them. He does this either in the form of a fanciful conversation carried on among fantastic creatures (rebellious thieves, distorted freaks, or converted Confucians) or as an internal monologue. In his fantasy dialogues, Chuang Tzu seems to challenge us to guess which voice is really his. Even his monologues typically end a double rhetorical question in place of a conclusion."Then is there really any X? Or is there no X?"
One key to Chuang Tzu's use of Hui Shih's relativism is his application to the concept of "use." Everything is useful from some position or other and there are some positions from which even the most useful thing is useless. Chuang Tzu illustrates this theme with his famous parables of the huge "useless" tree that, consequently, never got chopped down and the huge gourd that was useless to eat, but might make a good boat. Thus pragmatic arguments (like those of MO TZU) will always be relative to some controversial values. This observation does not justify our abandoning pragmatic arguments (which as we will see below, Chuang Tzu still uses). It only prompts us to be sensitive to how controversial our assumptions about "success" might be.
Chuang Tzu develops perspectivalism in a more consistent direction than did Hui Shih. Possibly because of his knowledge of the Mohist refutation, he does not fall into the trap of rejecting language (as arguably Lao Tzu did). Being natural does not require abandoning language. Human language, from the empty greetings and small talk to the disputes of philosophers, is as natural a 'noise' is are bird songs. Disputing philosophers are 'pipes of nature'. Chuang Tzu's use of this metaphor signals that nothing he is going to say entails that disputation should stop any more than it does that brooks should stop babbling.
Then he considers an objection to his opening metaphor:
Language is not blowing breath; language users have language. That which it languages, however, is never fixed.
He develops this critique (perhaps initiated by Hui Shih's relativism) with his own analysis of the indexicality of all distinctions. His argument relies heavily on the core terms of Chinese philosophical analysis, shih (is this: right) and fei (not this: wrong). (For details, especially in why reflections about shih-fei extend to language in general see SHI-FEI.) He starts by highlighting the indexical content of shih by contrasting it with pi (that). Chuang Tzu asks if anything is inherently 'this' or 'that'? Is there anything that cannot be 'this' or 'that'? These key terms in language illustrate the claim that it does not have any rigid, naming relation to an external reality. Language traces our changing position relative to reality.
This perspectival pluralism differs from Western subjectivity in that Chuang Tzu does not highlight the perspectives of individual consciousness or internal representations--subjectivity. Arguably Chinese thinkers did not generate anything comparable to Western folk psychology. (See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.) In fact, Chuang Tzu seems as fascinated with the shifting perspectives of even the same person at different times and in different moods as he is in the difference of perspective between different individuals. His main theoretical focus, however, is on the kinds of perspective arising from using language differently, i.e., being influenced by a different moral discourse.
Chuang Tzu does reflect briefly on the perspective of "self." Recalling Laozi's emphasis on contrasts, he sees it as arising as a contrast or distinction with "other." He suggests the deeper source of the distinction is our inability to identify the source of "pleasure, anger, sadness, joy, forthought, regret, change, and immobility". They "alternate day and night" and not knowing where they come from we give up and merely accept that they come. Without them there would be no "self" and without "self," no "choosing of one thing over another." He notes the inevitability of our assumption that there is some "true ruler" harmonizing and oganizing the self, then adds, skeptically, that we never find any sign of it.
