Zhuangzi · Philosophy
Zhuangzi’s <em>Qiwulun</em> - the argument that fixed distinctions of right and wrong, this and that, are not carved into reality but arise from limited standpoints, so the sage abandons rigid judgment and rests at the ‘pivot of the Way,’ responding without end to endlessly changing views.
The second chapter of the Zhuangzi, the Qiwulun, is one of the strangest and deepest things in world philosophy. Legge translated its title as ‘the adjustment of controversies’; others render it ‘the sorting that evens things out’ or ‘making all things equal.’ Its target is the endless quarrelling of the philosophers of Zhuangzi’s day - above all the Confucians and the Mohists, each certain of what is right and what is wrong, each affirming exactly what the other denies. Zhuangzi does not join the argument. He steps back and asks a more corrosive question: where do these confident distinctions come from? Look closely, he says, and you will find that ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ ‘this’ and ‘that,’ ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ are not fixed features of the world but the shadows cast by a particular point of view. Change the standpoint and the distinctions shift. The philosophers mistake the borders of their own perspective for the borders of reality.
Zhuangzi’s tool is a piece of ordinary language turned into a lever. In classical Chinese, shi means both ‘this’ and ‘right/affirmed,’ and bi means ‘that,’ while fei means ‘wrong/denied.’ Now notice: what I call ‘this’ (here, near, mine, right) is exactly what you, standing over there, call ‘that’ (there, other, yours). The very same thing is ‘this’ from one side and ‘that’ from the other; each springs into being only against its partner. There is no ‘this’ without a ‘that’ to set it off, no ‘right’ without a ‘wrong,’ no up without down. The opposites are born together and define each other, so neither can be the final, standpoint-free truth. Rather than pick a side and be trapped in the seesaw, Zhuangzi says, the sage declines to travel that road at all, and instead ‘views things in the light of Heaven’ - sees each thing from the widest openness rather than from the cramped angle of a self with something to defend.
The image of the pivot is the positive heart of the chapter, and it saves Zhuangzi from mere negativity. He is not a cynic who says ‘nothing is true, so believe nothing.’ He is describing a way of holding views - lightly, responsively, without the clenched insistence that my right is the only right. When the disputers are locked in ‘it is / it is not,’ each exhausting themselves affirming and denying, they are like a door slamming endlessly against its frame. The sage at the hinge lets the door swing. He can say ‘yes’ here and ‘no’ there as situations genuinely require, because he is not defending a fixed self-image. Legge’s Zhuangzi calls this ‘the illumination of the obvious,’ a clear responsiveness that has given up the exhausting project of proving itself right against all comers. To find the pivot is to be released from the war.
This is the opening of the lesson. The rest — the dialogue, the primary source, and the recall — is in the app.
You learned that in the Qiwulun (‘the adjustment of controversies’) Zhuangzi argues that ‘this’ and ‘that,’ right and wrong, are mutually dependent and standpoint-relative, so the sage stops trying to win disputes and takes his stand at the ‘pivot of the Way.’ Explain the argument and the image of the pivot in your ow…
Leads to Laozi.
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