Abstract:

The core issue of “right or wrong” in “Qiwu Lun”, Book 2 of Zhuangzi, is essentially the contention of values caused by the rising of the plural “doctrines of things”. The issue of “right or wrong” has existed in advance of the rising of the doctrines of things, which is related to human beings’ “shaped body” and “shaped mind” in correlation to perspectives, but neither public life nor private life can do without this limitation. When “right or wrong” merely functions as an element of local life style, there is no problem of relativism. However, a doctrine of things introduces the order of name and concept into the issue of “right or wrong” and hence makes it more complicated. This is an inevitable trend in the evolution of human civilization. Zhuangzi admits the plurality and relativism of what is right and what is wrong. His philosophy, however, cannot be concluded as pluralism or relativism, both of which highlight the rationality of subjective value, but do not require the subject’s self-transformation. In contrast, what Zhuangzi requires is the “upward moving of the perspective” of the subject, the end of which is the “mechanism of the universe” from the perspective of the Dao. The “mechanism of the universe” is obviously not an absolute value or a framework value. Rather, it provides a possible domine in which various values of right or wrong can run parallelly and compatibly with one another within respectively effective boundary.

Key words: the doctrine of things, right or wrong, mind forging, plurality, relativism