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Skepticism and Pluralism Ways of Living a Life Of SKEPTICISM AND PLURALISM WAYS OF LIVING A LIFE OF AWARENESS AS RECOMMENDED BY THE ZHUANGZI #±r A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY AUGUST 2004 By John Trowbridge Dissertation Committee: Roger T. Ames, Chairperson Tamara Albertini Chung-ying Cheng James E. Tiles David R. McCraw © Copyright 2004 by John Trowbridge iii Dedicated to my wife, Jill iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completing this research, I would like to express my appreciation first and foremost to my wife, Jill, and our three children, James, Holly, and Henry for their support during this process. I would also like to express my gratitude to my entire dissertation committee for their insight and understanding ofthe topics at hand. Studying under Roger Ames has been a transformative experience. In particular, his commitment to taking the Chinese tradition on its own terms and avoiding the tendency among Western interpreters to overwrite traditional Chinese thought with the preoccupations ofWestern philosophy has enabled me to broaden my conception ofphilosophy itself. Roger's seminars on Confucianism and Daoism, and especially a seminar on writing a philosophical translation ofthe Zhongyong r:pJm (Achieving Equilibrium in the Everyday), have greatly influenced my own initial attempts to translate and interpret the seminal philosophical texts ofancient China. Tamara Albertini's expertise in ancient Greek philosophy was indispensable to this project, and a seminar I audited with her, comparing early Greek and ancient Chinese philosophy, was part ofthe inspiration for my choice ofresearch topic. I particularly valued the opportunity to study Daoism and the Yijing ~*~ with Chung-ying Cheng g\Gr:p~ and benefited greatly from his theory ofonto-cosmology as a means of understanding classical Chinese philosophy. I am indebted to Jim Tiles not only for his keen expertise in Greek philosophy, particularly that ofthe Hellenistic Age, but also for his intensive proofreading ofmy work and providing me with many useful comments on it. I had the benefit oftwice auditing a seminar on the Zhuangzi frr with David McCraw. His love ofthe Classical Chinese language, and his feedback in those seminars v both on poetic and philosophical points has greatly enriched my text. I am further indebted to Tom Jackson ("Dr. J") for serving as a proxy at my Dissertation Proposal Defense. His interest in the precise means by which withholding assent leads to imperturbability for the ancient skeptics, encouraged me to look more closely at this largely psychological and ethical phenomenon. I am also grateful to Eliot Deutsch for serving as a proxy at the final oral defense ofmy dissertation. His explanation ofhow philosophical pluralism is distinct from epistemological relativism was oftremendous value to this research project. In addition I would like to thank the following members ofthe Department of Philosophy at the University ofHawai'i at Manoa. Much ofthis research was supported by my involvement as a Graduate Assistant and Editor ofPhilosophy with the Shuhai Wenyuan .~Ei)O~ Classical Chinese Digital Database and Interactive Internet Worktable, which is a project ofthe National Science Foundation's Digital Libraries Initiative, in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities. In this connection, I wish to thank my co-workers on the project, Brian Bruya for initiating it and recommending me for inclusion in it, Mary Tiles for her guidance, and Wen Hai­ ming rEidEif.lJ3 for his moral support. Speaking ofmoral support, it is vital for me to thank the department's administrative staff. I would like to express my gratitude to Jackie Young for managing all ofthe bureaucratic paperwork related to my Graduate Assistantship and other matters, and Renee Kojima-Itagaki, who painstakingly arranged the dates and times ofmy Area Exams, Dissertation Proposal Defense, and Dissertation Defense with the committee. In addition, Roger Ames' assistant, Marilyn Farrell was VI helpful in providing moral support and the e-mail addresses ofmany senior colleagues in the field. This research was also supported by a four-year Graduate Degree Fellowship, awarded to me by the East-West Center. It was truly a wonderful experience to be able to interact with representatives from countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region and to bounce ideas offpeople representing a wide variety ofdisciplines during the course of this research. I especially appreciate the feedback and support I received in presenting research papers at the annual East-West Center Participants' Conferences. I am particularly indebted to the following members ofthe Education Program for their support: Mendl Djunaidy, June Sakaba, Larry Smith, and Terry Bigalke. I also benefited from working closely with Peter Hershock and Betty Buck ofthe Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP) at the East-West Center on two "Infusing Asian Studies into the Undergraduate Curriculum Institutes." Peter is a philosopher and scholar of Buddhism, whose comments on my papers at the aforementioned conferences have been very insightful and helpful. It is also important to thank some ofmy significant teachers along the way. I thank my ninth-grade history teacher, Bob Braren, for his support ofmy writing a comparative essay on Bushido jg;±.i1[ and Chivalry, which three years later, he recommended I submit to the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies Essay Contest, where it took first prize. Chad Hansen taught me "Comparative East-West Philosophy" in my freshman year at the University ofVermont and was a significant influence in my choice ofcareer. The late Allan A. Andrews' course on Asian religious traditions was also influential in my appreciation ofthe contribution that the methodology Vll ofcomparative religion has to offer to research such as this. At Washington University in St. Louis, I benefited from several faculty members in the Asian Studies program. Robert E. Hegel, a specialist in Ming-Qing E)j1W fiction, taught an excellent survey class on East Asian philosophies, a course on Daoism and Chinese folk religion, and provided me with my first exposure to the Classical Chinese language. My advisor in Asian Studies, the intellectual historian, George C. Hatch, Jr. helped me to navigate my way through my undergraduate education and taught useful courses in the socio-political history ofearly China and the history ofChinese thought. Robert E. Morrell gave a lucid scholarly account ofBuddhism in his class, "Buddhist Thought and Values" that has contributed greatly to my understanding oflater Chinese philosophy and Zhuangzi's influence on the Chinese development ofChan ffr~ (Japanese: Zen) Buddhism. I also wish to thank J. Claude Evans in the Philosophy department at Washington University for encouraging me to pursue my interests in comparing S0ren Kierkegaard's notion of despair in Either/Or and the classical Buddhist notion ofdukkha (turbulence, trouble, suffering, or craving) in a term paper for his course on Existentialism. I also wish to express my gratitude to my teachers at The Ohio State University, where I earned my Masters' degrees in Philosophy and East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese). I am indebted to Thomas P. Kasulis for arranging a Graduate Research Associateship for me as well as serving as my M.A. thesis advisor. I benefited a great deal from his insight and his career advice, which was unique in that it took factors other than academics into account. I further benefited from his courses on comparative Christianities, the Japanese religious tradition, and the methodology of comparative philosophy, wherein he developed his fascinating heuristic ofintimacy and Vlll integrity. Alan Code taught me courses on Plato and Aristotle, and in addition to his brilliant interpretations ofthese philosophers, encouraged me to pursue my interests in Greek philosophy as well as my comparative interests. Richard T. Gamer taught an unforgettable class on moral anti-realism, and I benefited from auditing his undergraduate course on Asian philosophies as well as an independent study on Chad Hansen's then recent book, A Daoist Theory ofChinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. Without the linguistic training ofFrank F.S. Hsueh l'i¥li\,~ and Yan-shuan Lao ~~m in Classical Chinese, this project would not have been able to go far. Professor Hsueh's training as a linguist and his traditional Chinese education was a winning combination for learning Classical Chinese grammar with precision. I especially appreciated Professor Lao's traditional education and his willingness to read the Zhuangzi #f.:r with me independently. During my year abroad at the Mandarin Training Center &IDBBf~~~,~\ on the campus ofNational Taiwan Normal University ~:lLIE~gffiiliB*~, I had the benefit ofreading the Laozi Daodejing :1S.:rmt~*~, the seven Inner Chapters ofthe Zhuangzi, and more than halfofthe Analects ofConfucius (Lunyu ~A'HBtD with Fang Mu­ lien 1r~.. Her requirement that I write Classical Chinese passages from memory (moxie ,,X~) on a daily basis was at once a very desirable exposure to traditional Chinese methods ofteaching Classical Chinese and a wonderful way offamiliarizing me in a very intimate way with the texts. Lindsay Jones, also at Ohio State, offered two courses on the methodology ofreligious studies that have encouraged me to examine the materials under consideration here from a perspective broader than philosophy alone. And last but not least, I am indebted to Peter Nani, Victoria Wohl (both ofthe Department ofGreek and ix Latin at Ohio State), and J.D. Ellsworth (ofthe Department ofLanguages and Literatures ofEurope and the Americas at the University ofHawai'i) for their instruction in the Ancient Greek language. I have also benefited from collaborating with Wen Hai-ming and with Tian Chenshan EEJ.J:Rw, colleagues ofmine at the University ofHawai'i. x ABSTRACT In recent years, interpreters ofthe fourth century BCE Chinese Daoist text, the Zhuangzi aT, have increasingly appropriated the term, 'skepticism' as a label for the philosophical contribution ofthat text to classical Chinese philosophy.
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