Wednesday, November 2

The major Paper assignment for E374 is now posted; it will be due November 16.

Reading:  Zhuangzi, pp. 45-48, 97-113, 121-132

The reading for Wednesday covers three chapters of the Zhuangzi:  "The Secret of Caring for Life," "Autumn Floods," and "Mastering Life."  These three chapters include sections dealing with a variety of themes, but in class we will focus on a single theme which is featured in all of them: the way in which natural or cultivated skills allow us fulfill our lives and link ourselves to the Dao. These chapters bring out certain structural similarities between Daoism and Confucianism (although they are, in spirit, clearly anti-Confucian). Can you spot such similarities as you read?  These are the first chapters in which you will encounter Confucius playing a major role in the text. (in the next set of readings he is even more prominent). Why do you suppose the author(s) of the text make him a spokesman for their way of thinking? What do you think is the relation of the Zhuangzi's Confucius to the Analects'? (You may want to look, once again, at Book XVIII of the Analects.)

-- Remember to read the chapters section by section, and ask yourself in each case, what is the point? Try not to let the individual sections blur together.