The Many Lives of Yang Zhu

Presents the most important portrayals of the Daoist master Yang Zhu throughout Chinese history, from the Warring States period until today.

Presents the most important portrayals of the Daoist master Yang Zhu throughout Chinese history, from the Warring States period until today.

This volume presents the most important portrayals of an ancient Chinese master, Yang Zhu, throughout Chinese history, from the fourth century BCE till today. Due to the striking scarcity of reliable textual testimony regarding his life and thought, all these portrayals are to a large extent inspired by their own historical contexts: Mencius's criticism in the late Warring States, the creation of a Confucian orthodoxy during the imperial era, and the establishment of a Chinese philosophy in the Republic. This volume adopts a historical approach, tracing the most important portrayals of Yang Zhu in their own contexts and mutual connections. It yields new insights not only into the figure of Yang Zhu, but also into the stages of China's intellectual history. Scarcity of reliable textual support is, to varying degrees, a common predicament in the study of ancient Chinese masters, but the case of Yang Zhu is particularly illuminating. The remarkable dearth of textual material represents the almost "nothing" out of which early Chinese philosophers such as Yang Zhu have been fruitfully "created."

Carine Defoort is Associate Professor in the Department of Oriental Studies, Sinology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

Carine Defoort is Full Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Leuven, KU Leuven. Her previous books include Having a Word with Angus Graham: At Twenty-Five Years into His Immortality, coedited with Roger T. Ames, and The Pheasant Cap Master (He guan zi): A Rhetorical Reading, both published by SUNY Press. Ting-mien Lee is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Macau.

"This is the first comprehensive book-length study of the Yang Zhu figure, with respect to its appearances, expressions, and uses throughout the Chinese intellectual tradition. The studies in this book explore numerous strands and feelers that connect this figure with other Chinese thinkers and schools of thought, both those contemporaneous with 'Yang Zhu' as well as later emulators, thinkers, and critics. I believe this book is destined to become a standard reference in the field of Chinese philosophy and a must-have book for scholars of Daoism and related traditions." — Kirill O. Thompson, National Taiwan University