Epistemic detachment from distinctions and debates: an investigation of yiming in the ‘qiwulun’ of the Zhuangzi

This article investigates a central yet perplexing term yiming in the ‘Qiwulun’ chapter of the Zhuangzi. Yiming describes a crucial way to detach from epistemic distinctions and debates. This term is often explained as ‘using ming’ or contradictorily as ‘stopping ming’. Yet neither of the two explan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asian philosophy
Main Author: He, Fan (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Carfax 2021
In: Asian philosophy
Further subjects:B Zhuangzi
B Tian
B Debate
B Metaphor
B Yiming
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:This article investigates a central yet perplexing term yiming in the ‘Qiwulun’ chapter of the Zhuangzi. Yiming describes a crucial way to detach from epistemic distinctions and debates. This term is often explained as ‘using ming’ or contradictorily as ‘stopping ming’. Yet neither of the two explanations can provide a full understanding of how yiming is adopted. I take three steps to explain yiming. First, taking an etymological approach, I argue that ming can be formulated as ‘X shining on Y’. Second, I use the formula of ‘X shining on Y’ to account for yiming and argue that this term refers specifically to ‘using tian to shine on everything’. Third, I unpack a cluster of tian-associated metaphors, which provides a deep understanding of yiming as an ideal way to mental tranquility.
ISSN:1469-2961
Contains:Enthalten in: Asian philosophy
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/09552367.2021.1899433