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The Dialectics of Yangsheng: Healing by Argument in the Zhuangzi
- Philosophy East and West
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 71, Number 2, April 2021
- pp. 431-450
- 10.1353/pew.2021.0027
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
This essay articulates a model of 'philosophical therapy' in the Zhuangzi by demonstrating methodological as well as conceptual affinities that the text shares with the widespread therapeutic traditions of yangsheng 養生. Where, in the medical context, therapeutic tools are used to administer cures for physical pathologies, the Zhuangzi develops a unique diagnostic framework centered on the pathology of knowledge (zhi 知) and enumerates a set of dialectical strategies for a therapeutic response. Such a philosophical regimen is arguably the most telling feature of the text's unique approach to 'nourishing life'.