The Philosophy of Life: A New Reading of the Zhuangzi By ChenGuying. Translated by Dominique Hertzer. Brill's Humanities in China Library, 9. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. x + 221. Hardback, $135.00
Hendrischke B (2016)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2016
Journal
Book Volume: 42
Pages Range: 310-311
Issue: 4
DOI: 10.1111/rsr.12764
Abstract
In the post-Mao era of the 1980s and 1990s Chen Guying 陳鼓應 played an immense role in promoting the tradition of Daoist thought, which he sees as a cornerstone of a new and modern China. His teaching career includes professorial positions both at National Taiwan and at Peking University. The book in hand reaches back to a first version published in Taiwan in 1975. It therefore instructs about the Zhuangzi and about its meaning for the contemporary Chinese reader. The philosophy of life that is here envisaged is that of the spirit whose life the Zhuangzi see as one “of boundless freedom” and as “perpetually transmitted.” Self-cultivation and control of the heart are meant to set the spirit (jingshen 精神) free. Chapter by chapter the text's essential passages are retold, analyzed and very thoughtfully put into a wider philosophical and cultural context that includes the pre-modern West. There is, for instance, an intriguing reading of the phrase “past is like present” (Zhuangzi, Chapter 15) and the conclusion that it is a Daoist and, the author adds, Chinese aim to imitate heaven and earth in not coming to an end. In agreement with his trans-academic agenda Professor Chen presents the historical figure of Zhuangzi as author of most of the text and as a coherent and always constructive thinker. Confusing elements, as for instance the meeting between Zhuangzi and the gamekeeper at Diaoling with Zhuangzi's ensuing gloom, are left out (Chapter 20). The book's imperfections do not lie in its contents. The translation does not always read well and is burdened by mistakes that reach to the transcription and rendering of Chinese terms. The book's production is amazingly careless. Identical names and terms occur in many different forms. Therefore the index, sketchy as it is, is almost useless, which is of particular consequence in a book that follows the sequence of Zhuangzi's text and necessarily leaves isolated arguments that a good index might have helped to connect.
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APA:
Hendrischke, B. (2016). The Philosophy of Life: A New Reading of the Zhuangzi By ChenGuying. Translated by Dominique Hertzer. Brill's Humanities in China Library, 9. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. x + 221. Hardback, $135.00. Religious Studies Review, 42, 310-311. https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.12764
MLA:
Hendrischke, Barbara. "The Philosophy of Life: A New Reading of the Zhuangzi By ChenGuying. Translated by Dominique Hertzer. Brill's Humanities in China Library, 9. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. x + 221. Hardback, $135.00." Religious Studies Review 42 (2016): 310-311.
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