Christine Abigail L. Tan, "Freedom's Frailty: Self-Realization in the Neo-Daoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang's Zhuangzhi" (SUNY Press, 2024)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome to New Books in Philosophy, a channel on the New Books Network. I'm Malcolm Keating, and today we'll be talking to Christine Tan, author of Freedom's Frailty, Self-Realization in the Neo-Daoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang's Zhuangzi, published in twenty twenty four by SUNY Press. Welcome to New Books in Philosophy, Christine.
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Thanks for for coming. We're gonna be talking about your book, which explores the Jin Dynasty philosopher Guo Xiang's work, especially in relationship to his account of freedom. So before we dive into the details, can you start off just by giving us your book's thesis in kind of a nutshell?
So there are two important things that I claim here. First is that Kuo Xiang is a champion of freedom. Because initi uh generally he's thought of as someone who's a fatalist. And a lot of people actually a lot of scholars actually think that. Hu Xiang doesn't interpret the Chuangzi cor correctly, so he's an uh commentator of the Chuangzi and a lot of people think that he doesn't give a faithful account of what Twanzo is saying because Twanzo is often looked at as a champion of freedom. And they think that Gossiang is a fatalist because he makes claims about allotments and endowments. But I argue here that he is actually a champion of freedom and secondly, in fact, he actually champions a kind of freedom that's both metaphysical and political.
Which We think are separate because When we talk about metaphysical freedom we think about free will, whereas when we talk about political freedom we talk about we think about freedom from intervention. But these two things are not inseparable they these two things are not separable for Wossian. So That's th the two main things that I wanted to argue for in this uh book. And basically the main argument is that freedom is a radical form of d dependence.
Okay, great. Well we'll have a chance to unpack all of those ideas and and Guosyang's relationship to Zhuangzi as we go on, but maybe let's back up and let me ask you, how did you get to be interested in Guosjiang and his work?
Yeah, that's a really good question. I actually was always interested in metaphysics particularly. Uh ever since doing philosophy I was interested in metaphysics. And I always wanted to do Chinese philosophy. I mean I found it interesting, but the classical philosophers that we are taught in school would be, you know, typically Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang T. And I didn't feel like they were systematic enough. And this is because, you know, as someone who's trained in Western philosophy, we usually have this bias that someone needs obviously this is not true and I realize this now, but back then when I was younger, I thought, you know, they're not systematic enough to be actually philosophers.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:22
2
What is the central thesis of Christine Tan’s book on Guo Xiang’s interpretation of the Zhuangzi?
6:22–8:37
3
How did Christine Tan become interested in Guo Xiang and the Jin‑Dynasty commentary tradition?
8:37–17:00
4
Who was Guo Xiang and why is his commentary crucial for understanding the Zhuangzi?
17:00–27:59
5
What is Guo Xiang’s “logic of convergence” and how does it unite opposing concepts?
27:59–40:47
6
How does Guo Xiang’s notion of the self differ from Western ideas of free will and self‑realization?
40:47–49:29
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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