Genuine Pretending

This book presents an innovative reading of Daoist philosophy that highlights the critical and therapeutic functions of satire and humor. Moeller and D’Ambrosio show how the Zhuangzi expounds the Daoist art of “genuine pretending”: the paradoxical skill of enacting social roles without submitting to them or letting them define one’s identity.

Hans-Georg Moeller is professor of philosophy at the University of Macau. His books include The Philosophy of the Daodejing (2006); The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality (2009); and The Radical Luhmann (2011), all from Columbia University Press.

Paul J. D’Ambrosio is assistant professor of Chinese philosophy at East China Normal University, where he serves as dean of the Center for Intercultural Research, Teaching, and Translation. He is the coeditor (with Michael Sandel) of Encountering China: Michael Sandel and Chinese Philosophy (2017).

Michael Nylan, editor of The Norton Critical Edition of “The Analects”:
Genuine Pretending is one of the best books, if not the best book, on the Zhuangzi, since A.C. Graham's analysis of the text in Reason and Spontaneity. The book restores humor to the Zhuangzi. It moreover liberates whole Zhuangzi passages from dense thickets of Buddhist, Christian, and Freudian interpretations. And while I suspect that some of the dividing lines between Confucians and Daoists that Genuine Pretending draws were rather less clear in early China, Genuine Pretending surely constitutes a firmer basis for vigorous debate for years to come.

Henry Rosemont, author of Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion:
Without ignoring the many and varied eccentricities found throughout the composite text of the Zhuangzi, D'Ambrosio and Moeller have presented an appropriately contextualized whole that is text-sensitive, highly original, and deeply incisive, satisfying for readers lay and expert alike. It is a new benchmark for the field.

Brook Ziporyn, author of Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism:
A highly insightful new reading of the Zhuangzi that is exceptionally sensitive to both philosophical and textual subtleties, highlighting the key theme of genuine pretending—the adoption of multiple roles while maintaining a form of radical flexibility that prevents full identification, thereby allowing all roles to be at once fulfilled and transcended.

Barry Allen, author of Striking Beauty: A Philosophical Look at the Asian Martial Arts:
[The book's] scholarship is first rate and the contribution original and timely. The authors offer genuinely illuminating and original readings of many of the widely discussed parts of the Zhuangzi.