ZIRAN (pronounced “dse” [as in (ki)ds] “ron”): literally, “self-so”; nature, as in law of nature, natural selection; in due course, naturally, of course; unaffected, natural. “…one of [Guo Xiang’s] most readily apparent features…is its emphatic denial of any transcendental essence or metaphysical absolute. Indeed, it goes to great lengths to refute the idea that there is any ground or creator of things outside themselves, be it Laozi and Zhuangzi’s Dao, Wang Bi’s non-being, or a creator in some other form. As Wing-tsit Chan has said, ‘the major concept [in Guo Xiang] is no longer Dao, as in Zhuangzi, but Nature (Ziran). Things exist and transform themselves spontaneously and there is no other reality or agent to cause them. Heaven is not something behind this process of Nature but is merely its general name…. Everything is therefore self-sufficient and there is no need of an overall original reality to combine or govern them, as in the case of Wang Bi…. While Wang Bi emphasizes the one, Guo emphasizes the many. To Wang Bi, principle transcends things, but to Guo, it is immanent in them.’ To borrow Wang Bi’s terminology, this means that Guo did not recognize any “substance” apart from “function,” nor any overriding single essence or principle that is expressed through unessential manifestations or phenomena. At he same time we do find certain pairs of categories in Guo Xiang’s writing that suggest the same kind of relation as that which was usually taken to pertain to substance and function. In particular… although Guo’s philosophy “sought to abolish the original substance (benti) that transcended things themselves,” and, “only admitted the concrete existence of each existent thing,” he often employed the concepts of “traces” (ji, literally “footprints”) and, “that which leaves the traces” (suoyi ji) in a sense that superficially suggests a relationship like that between function and substance, for the traces seem to be the expressions of that which leave the traces, while that which leaves the traces is the fundamental essence behind the unessential traces.” -from “The Penumbra Unbound: The Neo-Taoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang” by Brook Ziporyn
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 06:58:58 +0000
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