Zhuangzi
ZHUANGZI. Zhuangzi is both the name of the second foundational text of the Daoist philosophical and religious tradition and the name of the putative author of this text after whom the book was titled, who, according to early historical sources, flourished between about 369 and 286 BCE. While what we know of the philosophy of Zhuangzi comes primarily from this work, it is important to realize that the Zhuangzi text is not the work of a single author. At the very least there are five authorial voices: the historical Zhuangzi; his disciples; a "Primitivistic" Daoist author with ideas akin to those of the Dao de jing, who responded to the challenge of the followers' individualist thinker Yang Zhu; and the "Syncretic" Daoist authors who likely compiled the original recension of the text. The received version in thirty-three chapters was established by the commentator Guo Xiang (d. 312 CE), who revised a fifty-two chapter original recension first listed in imperial bibliographies circa 110 CE by removing material he thought was superstitious and generally not of philosophical interest. This received Guo version is traditionally divided into three sections: "Inner Chapters" (1–7), "Outer Chapters" (8–22), and "Miscellaneous Chapters" (23–33). This division is longstanding and is likely to have been part of the original recension.
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