| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 哲學研究所 === 99 === “Qiwulun” is the most important chapter with the most various interpretations in Zhuangzi. In addition to the explanation on words and sentences, there are two main difficulties of interpretation: First, the difference with the strength of argument, what kind of skepticism Zhuangzi is? How strong does he deny language and knowledge? Second, the difference with the theme of allegory, what is the meaning of “the pipe from heaven” and “the butterfly dream”? Why Zhuangzi wrote them?
These two difficulties are from the writing features of “Qiwulun” itself: the question form and the analogy. Because “Qiwulun” always doubts concepts like language or knowledge by questions, when the meaning of questions could be interpreted as negative, interrogative or affirmative, then there is a large space for various interpretations with the strength of argument; Because “Qiwulun” often used the allegory by analogy, which means to show the abstract meaning by specific situations or things, when the context does not clear, then all the similarity between allegory and specific situations and things could be the meaning Zhuangzi want to presented. So there is a large space for various interpretations with the meaning of allegory.
To deal with these two difficulties, this article offers a basic structure to comprehend “Qiwulun”: First, the writing purposes, the stopping of debate and the describe of ideal personality. Second, the discussing strategies, the double answerable questions and the analogy. Third, the function of strategies, the strength of argument and the meaning of metaphor or allegory. Double answerable question is a extremely unique question form in “Qiwulin” which has the following characteristics: First, the author questions and answers himself. Second, the author gives two or more answers for the questions. Third, the author does not point out that he prefer only one of the answers.
By double answerable questions, “QiWulun” shows that the possibility for many different claims exist, so the debating with only one claim is absolutely right could be canceled; By analogy, “Qiwulun” avoids bias and misunderstanding caused by direct statement, describes the better attitude and way of ideal personality by metaphor and allegory. These shows that the stopping of debate and the describe of ideal personality are complementary writing purposes, provide the behavior guidance to resolve conflicts and response infinite situations.
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