Customer Reviews

Zhuangzi (Longman Library of Primary Sources in Philosophy)

5 star:		(1)
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I bought this book and I would recommend it for anyone looking for a good copy of all the chapters of the Zhuangzi. The introduction is also outstanding because it gives the overall picture of China at the time that the Zhuangzi was written, including the different schools of thought in the "100 schools" period of Chinese philosophy. The editors also include many notes about difficult passages as well as insights into the Zhuangzi philosophy as compared to Western Philosophers.

The book contains all 33 chapters of the Zhuangzi and it is easily read...there doesn't seem to be the overly philosophical translation issues common in many other versions and it's a little more technical than the Merton version. I gave it five stars mainly because of its complete chapters and the lucid translation. I am partial to Daoism so I sometimes rate books on Daoism highly. But for a critic from the Western Tradition you'll find that Zhuangzi touches on all the major issues of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ontology, linguistics, purpose and meaning, eschatology, and other topics that are pertinent to the study of wisdom.

Zhuangzi is a very light and loose type of philosopher. I would compare him to Alan Watts because he is more of an entertainer than a meticulous bookworm. He argues with another philosopher of his day that is concerned with the nature of "hard" and "white" and leaves the impression that philosophers as a whole can get caught in their definitions and miss out on the existence they say they're studying.

This book is also great for instructors. Chapters can easily be pulled out for students in an Asian philosophy class. If you're not familiar with Chinese philosophy of the "Axial" age check this book out, the intro itself will edify you and the simple buoyont flow of Zhuangzi's words will delight the newcomer as well as the wisend sage!