“Such terms as ‘nature’, ’tiandi’ (heaven and earth),’world’, and ‘Dao’ which appear in Zhuangzi’s and Nietzsche’s works have no reference to any metaphysical reality or being. Neither of them admits any transcendent ‘Lord’ nor Being behind, above, or prior to the apparent world in which we are living. Zhuangzi stated many times in his writing that we should not even ask what that ‘Lord’ or ‘Dao’ was, if we were never able to know whether it exists or not. Nietzsche, in a similar antimetaphysical posture, accuses metaphysics of negating this world in favor of fictitious or imaginary ones. It is true that both Zhuangzi and Nietzsche have no intention of constructing a new system of metaphysics by their critique. But it is also true that they have no intention of denying this world as a natural unity while they reject traditional metaphysics.” (Ge Ling Shang – Liberation as Affirmation p 118)
Two kinds of interpretations of Nietzsche and Zhuangzi exist with regard to their worldviews
Whoever is writing about metaphysics today is walking on a tight rope as it is a topic that is still hotly debated among scholars and philosophers, at least in the West. Shang is aware of this. On one hand, the word “metaphysics” can refer either to the original views of Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle – this is the case for Shang – or as synonymous with “structures of reality,” which has led analytic philosophers to include processual descriptions of reality into metaphysics.
Shang, therefore, is careful to first introduce what he means when he describes both Zhuangzi and Nietzsche’s worldviews as non-metaphysical. He writes: “One construes each as a metaphysician because he does talk about the world as a whole; the other counts each as a relativist, skeptic, and even nihilist because of their objection to metaphysics. I think both interpretations have evidence to support their arguments but at the price of missing something essential. The major contribution the two great thinkers made is that they have created a new way, or as we now like to call it ‘strategy’, ‘paradigm’, and ‘discourse’ of philosophizing which apparently paralyzes or devalorizes customary conceptions. They are antimetaphysicians in the sense that they reject metaphysics, which subjectively divides or differentiates the world into a dualistic, either/or system and then absolutizes one abstraction out of it as Being. And they are skeptics and relativists trying to undermine such traditional beliefs in metaphysical truth whose real essence is to negate and say “No” to this life and this world (Nietzsche) or to devastate nature (Zhuangzi). Nevertheless, they seem to know that being skeptical or antimetaphysical could still be metaphysical if one struggles within the old metaphysical schemes of a metaphysical world. More profoundly, they have indicated, explicitly and implicitly, that skepticism, relativism, and finally nihilism are precisely the inevitable consequences of metaphysics.”
Both Zhuangzi and Nietzsche insist that there is no way to reach anywhere by merely being skeptical
In the Book of Zhuangzi, Huishi (Huizi) is presented as Zhuangzi’s ”best friend,” who is at the same time the interlocutor with whom Zhuangzi repeatedly engages in order to criticise the endless disputations of the members of the School of Names (Mingjia (名家) – also referred to as the Sophists. Shang writes that, at the end of the book his comment on Huishi is thus recorded as an attempt by Huishi “to introduce a more magnanimous view of the world and to enlighten the sophists.” These were engaged in arguments, such as ‘an egg has feathers’; ‘a chicken has three legs’ . . . ‘eyes do not see’ . . . ’T square is not right-angled’; ‘compass cannot make circle’…’the shadow of a flying bird never moves’ . . . “white dog is black, etc.” All based on word play, and meant to trigger skepticism.
In contrast, Shang writes, “Zhuangzi insists that there is no way to reach anywhere by merely being skeptical and making endless arguments based on language, logic, and knowledge. A person of Dao should cross over or clean up all these relative opinions and arguments in order to see, to touch, and to live the genuineness of nature.”
Nietzsche also speaks of skepticism in The Gay Science and On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. He too was characterised as a skeptic, for the same reason as Zhuangzi was: both sought to deconstruct claims about objective truth. Nietzsche rejected this label in The Gay Science on the grounds that skepticism “has an inhibiting effect” on the will. Skeptics “no longer know independence of decisions and the intrepid sense of pleasure in willing—they doubt the ‘freedom of the will’ even in their dreams. (The Gay Science, 208). He also wrote: “But how is skepticism possible? It appears to be the truly ascetic standpoint of thought. For it does not believe in belief and thereby destroys everything that prospers by means of belief. (On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, 177).
None of these attributions, neither ’metaphysician’, ‘relativist’, ‘skeptic’, nor ‘nihilist’ can fairly be made of Zhuangzi or Nietzsche.
In Shang’s view, pinning such words on these philosophers amounts to “jump to conclusions too soon without carefully examining the nuances and tricks of the words they actually use.” In his view, “they are something else.They have tried to draw different pictures of the world from those we are used to seeing, they try to communicate the world in which they religiously lived and affirmed.The affinity of the pictures of the world that Zhuangzi and Nietzsche have is not so hard to locate. They both confirm that this world, the world of our everyday life, is the only real world; the nature of this world lies is not its metaphysical or religious underpinning but what it appears to be and becomes as it is (ziran). Dao is no-thing (wu) and hence everything (wu-wu, wudao) that exists and dies, appears and disappears everywhere, all by itself. Anything prior or foundational that we have so far conceived is either illusory or suspicious; it could do no more than conceal the real nature of the world. Nietzsche was worried that the term appearance could suggest ‘Reality’ or ‘Form’ prior to his ‘apparent world’. Shang suggests that “Nietzsche might have been very happy to see how Zhuangzi’s term ziran could work more adequately than ‘appearance’. In fact, Shang asserts that both “see the world as a flux of changing and becoming and therefore see it as chaotic, accidental, and unable to be fixed by any language, doctrine, or laws.”
For Zhuangzi, ziran never stops changing and transforming itself (zihua)—from nothingness to becoming, from birth to death, from construction to destruction, from darkness to light, and from void to fullness
Such a statement will surprise no one, as not only the concept of flow, but also that of ziran, is a well-known Chinese worldview, which Zhuangzi has put at the very heart of his philosophy. Shang gives two examples: In chapter 17, Autumn Floods, North Sea Ruo tells the Lord of the River, Zhuangzi writes: “Dao has no beginning and end, things live and die, there is no completion that can be gotten hold of; now empty now full, there is no form that can be occupied … Thus I talk about the ‘trace’ of Dao and the ‘necessity’ of ten-thousand-things. Things are becomings, either violently or at ease they alter by every movement and shift in every moment. Does it matter that one should or shouldn’t do anything about this? Everything has its intrinsic tendency of self-transformation (zihua)! (27/1, Watson, 182). And this is what Shang now explicitly equates with Nietzsche’s concept of “will to power.” He writes: “Within the flow of zihua or self-transformation everything will fulfill its destiny as good with no extra effort, help, and ‘will to power’ required: ‘[D]o nothing and everything will be done’.
Nietzsche’s “will to power” corresponds to Zhuangzi’s “ziran.” It is the dynamism of what we sometimes call a “self-organising universe.”
The two words do have different feel. Ziran has the aura of a “natural dynamism” that keeps the universe alive, whereas “will to power” sounds like a drive for domination. No wonder “will to power” has been misunderstood in the West as something that must be contained. But the very opposite is the case: rather than trying to control our spontaneous response to “nature,” we should refrain from any attempt at restraining it. The story given by Zhuangzi as an example is that of Emperor Chaos in chapter 7:
“The emperor of the South Sea was called Shu [Swift], the emperor of the North Sea was called Hu [Sudden], and the emperor of the central region was called Hun-tun [Chaos]. Shu and Hu from time to time came together in the territory of Hun-tun, and Hun-tun treated them very generously. Shu and Hu discussed how they could repay his kindness. ‘All men’, they said, “have seven openings of organs so they can see, hear, eat, and breathe. But Hun-tun alone doesn’t have any. Let’s trying boring him some!”
Everyday they bored another hole, and the seventh day Hun-tun died (7/6).”
“To adapt oneself to ziran is to yield completely to the flux of creation (sheng) and transformation, or to say Yes and affirm life unconditionally.”
So Zhuangzi’s ziran corresponds to Nietzsche’s “will to power” and Zhuangzi’s flow corresponds to Nietzsche’s “becoming,” which as an antimetaphysician stance he opposes to “being.” In fact, Shang says “Nietzsche would likely emphasize something more in addition to Zhuangzi’s notion of spontaneity or ziran—the notion of will to power, the active force of will to power. Wuwei would very likely sound too passive or reactive to him, because what he is calling for is not the recognition of transformation in nature but creative, noble, and aggressive transformation of the self. This might be seen as another major difference between the two: Zhuangzi’s wuwei of ziran seems more conservative and adaptive than Nietzsche’s ziran of will to power, which commands, imposes, transgresses, appropriates, and overcomes.” Shang, however, adds: “Nevertheless, Zhuangzi’s wuwei of ziran could be conceived of as just as radical as Nietzsche’s will to power.” And he explains: “First of all, ziran as self-so and self-transformation affirms the changing nature of things, which is the precondition of the will to power. Every thing things, that is, becomes or creates (ran, 然) … Second, the word transformation (hua) in Chinese and Zhuangzi’s use is sometimes ‘sheng’, which literally means produce, give birth, and grow, but can also be extended to creation and creativity. Wuwei, therefore, would be to do nothing against this creative (shengsheng, 生生) process. But, does it mean “to let our instincts of sensuality, creativity, and the will to power flourish exuberantly as the spontaneous dynamic of our life and our self- transformation” as Shang seems to imply? If self-adaptation (zishi, 自适) is to adapt self to the nature of self-transformation or self-overcoming, as Nietzsche puts it,” the answer is yes. “To adapt oneself to ziran is to yield completely to the flux of creation (sheng) and transformation, or to say Yes and affirm life unconditionally.”
Another invaluable idea the two philosophers initiated in a very similar fashion is their special understanding of unity
The relation between the Dao and the One (yi) was dealt with in detail on the page titled “The Dao throughs as One.” In a nutshell, the One is not, as Laozi saw it, that out of which the ten-thousand things arise of, through the process of differentiation. It is the unity arrived at through ziran that reunifies the ten-thousand-things into One. In other words, just as is the case with the Buddhist doctrine of original enlightenment, the “absolute affirmation of all phenomena, including one’s most ordinary acts and deluded thoughts, just as they are,” is only accessible to those who have actualised enlightenment in their lives. It is a transformation of consciouness, whereby one no longer sees one’s self as located at a particular point within the landscape, but instead, one feels one with the landscape, i.e., everywhere at once.
In Shang’s words: “From the perspective of Dao everything is seen as One.” The world (tian) of Dao or ziran is One because ten-thousand-things are becomings (sheng) in a constant (chang, 常) process of impermanence (wuchang, 无常). In the same respect, the ten-thousand-things transform, and in this transformation are the totality of Oneness; they are equally drops of the flowing stream; they are identically parts of permeating air (qi, 气). There is nothing in this Oneness that should be privileged or marginalized, for all of its elements are dependent on each other as inseparable ones of the One. Difference itself originates from differences; difference becomes difference only amidst relation to others. Therefore, One is also the relation which makes everything come to be and become different. From the perspective of relationship one sees the Oneness of all things.”
Thus, Zhuangzi’s unity “is not a homogeneous unity but a heterogeneous One of differences and multiplicity, which makes things equal by connecting them (qi, tong, 同) through differences, … Inasmuch as all things are different they are equally the same and one; inasmuch as all things are equally same and one they are able to create and transform differently all by themselves. This is what Zhuangzi called the “chaos,”“harmony,” and “throughness” of the world (tianjun, tianni, tiandao, daotong, 大通, etc.); this is the music of heaven (tianlai) Zhuangzi enjoyed with a liberated mind.”
In Zhuangzi’s own words: “Things all must have that which is so (ran); things all must have that which is okay (ke). There is nothing that is not so; there is nothing that is not okay. For this reason you see the differences between a little stalk and great pillar; a leper and the beauty Xi-shi; things ribald or shady and things grotesque or strange. Dao throughs as One. Their differentiation is their completion; their completion is their dissipation. Out of completion and dissipation things return to throughness as one. (2/4).”
It is in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and in Ecce Homo that Nietzsche came close to Zhuangzi’s views
In the case of Nietzsche, Shang notes that, though glimpses of his mature thought are found in The Birth of Tragedy, his first book, written in 1872, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-85) and Ecce Homo, written in 1888, is where he came close to Zhuangzi’s views. That Nietzsche finally arrived at views that resonate with the thought of a Chinese sage of fourth century BCE, using Greek concepts as a starting point, is quite extraordinary. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche sees the world as the result of “the synthesis of two divine forces, Dionysian and Apolinian, the dark force of destruction and the bright force of individuation … This primitive unity of two ever-contradicting and reconciling original forces is the essence of Greek tragedy and the tragic spirit of that time. Later, Nietzsche overcame the still too Hegelian duality of the two deities and established Dionysus alone as the only tragic unity of the world. The primal unity or Dionysus aims no longer to resolve or reconcile the eternal and original contradictions of existence and life but to affirm them as such, as the nature of the world of becoming and appearance.”
“The will to power is the dynamic force that determines what becomes and appears in the world … it is simultaneously one and many, difference and identity, unity and multiplicity.”
It is in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) that Nietzsche coined the phrase “will to power” (Wille zur Macht) which already applied to both humans and life as such, to which he returns in Ecce Homo. For Nietzsche, Shang explains, “the will to power is the dynamic force that determines what becomes and appears in the world. Everything becomes what it is supposed to be as a manifestation of the will to power. On the other hand, will to power is itself different and multiple forces, such as active and reactive, creative and conservative.Therefore, the will to power is simultaneously one and many, difference and identity, unity and multiplicity.
The inseparability of one and many, unity and difference is essential in both Zhuangzi’s and Nietzsche’s vision of the world. Likewise, Nishida Kitaro, the founder of the Kyoto School of Philosophy, said that “The world is “the many as the self-negation of the One and the One as the self-negation of the many.”(Nishida, “The logical structure of the actual world,” lecture delivered at Otani University in 1934 quoted by Yusa, Zen and Philosophy, 256).
Shang holds that “it is their emphasis on such inseparability that has distinguished Zhuangzi and Nietzsche from both traditional metaphysics and skepticism or relativism.” A similar conclusion is held by John W M Krummel in two research papers on Nishida and Nishitani Keiji, his direct disciple. In these, he coined the word “an-ontological” as an alternative to the word “metaphysical” to ensure that East Asian philosophies are not misunderstood as having simply replaced a substratum of being – ontology – by a substratum of emptiness, which would be called “me-ontological.”
With regard to Zhuangzi and Nietzsche, Shang is now able to conclude: “First, [Zhuangzi and Nietzsche] have overcome the dualistic view of the world that is the fundamental presupposition of metaphysics. Second, the oneness or unity in both philosophers is not static Being but difference per se. It is the unity of multiplicity, plurality, and different types of transformation. Third, the unity is an ever-changing, trans- forming, and impermanent process of becoming that cannot fit in any metaphysical or onto-theological category. Fourth, apart from individual differences there is no unity, hence everything or every different individual is the manifestation of the whole or unity. Every process of becoming, creation, and annihilation realizes the whole world of ziran, Dao, and will to power. Finally, the world as such is thus affirmed: say Yes not only to individual things and happenings but to all of them, to life and the world as a whole.”
Nishitani said likewise: “The double negation of things and self results in a restoration of both things and self on the field of emptiness, which could be called “the field of ‘be-ification’ or, in Nietzschean terms, the field of the Great Affirmation, where we can say Yes to all things.”
Sources:
Ge Ling Shang – Liberation as Affirmation: The Religiosity of Zhuangzi and Nietzsche (2006)
Nishida Kitaro – “The logical structure of the actual world,” lecture delivered at Otani University in 1934 quoted by Yusa, Zen and Philosophy, 256)
Nishitani Keiji – Religion and Nothingness (1961)