In the Library
Zhuangzi
Zhuang Zhou, 300 BCE
- Form
- Form Philosophy
- Difficulty
- Difficulty Moderate
- Reading time
- Reading time 7.5 hours
- Translated by
- Translated by Herbert Giles (1889)
- Chapters
- Chapters 33
- Length
- Length 100k words
£1.99
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Whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
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About the book
Two philosophers stand on a bridge over the Hao river, watching minnows dart in the current. Look how happy the fish are, says one. You are not a fish, the other answers, so how can you know what fish enjoy, and back comes the reply: you are not me, so how do you know that I don't? The Zhuangzi thinks this way throughout, by joke, parable, and sudden reversal, each turned to loosen your grip on a certainty that felt, a sentence earlier, like solid ground. Zhuang Zhou wrote in the chaos of the Warring States, and against that chaos he set not a system but a laugh. A man dreams he is a butterfly and wakes unsure which of them is dreaming the other. Few books hold their deepest thought so lightly, or trust delight to carry what argument cannot. Two thousand years on, the joke has not worn out.