Abstract

We have named the authors of the following seven "outer" and "miscellaneous" chapters of the book Zhuang Zi as follows: "Ping mu", "Mati", "Quqie", "Zai you, shang", "Rang Wang", "Dao Zhi", and "Yufu" —the Wu Jun school among the latter-day Zhuang Zi thinkers. The intellectual viewpoint and literary style of these seven essays, and especially of the first four which are shorter, are clearly, indeed markedly, different from those of other pieces of writing in the book Zhuang Zi, and thus have a special characteristic and place in the book. This school was also disappointed with reality, yet they did not attempt to escape from reality into the realm of fantasy. Instead, they attacked reality vociferously and radically; the cutting edge of their criticism was directly headed against the sagely rulers and "good people" of legend, as well as against the monarchs of their own time. This school also advocated, indeed emphasized, letting go of things, and simply following the way of nature, but what it emphasized was not following the way of the nature of Heaven, but following the way of the nature of human nature. This school, too, had its own ideal world, but it was not an imaginary realm of pure spirit; instead, it was a Utopia with primitive society as its background. In the following we will try to examine some of the major characteristics of the ideas of this school from the perspective of the evolution of Zhuang Zi's philosophy. We do not intend, however, to analyze comprehensively every essay produced by the members of this school.