Nicolas Le Jeune, The Art of Dialogue [Excerpted Commentary]

Many of the participants of Socrates and Chuang Tzu’s [Zhuangzi’s] dialogue are people who considered themselves as very knowledgeable or even wise and therefore who are over-confident about the truth of their opinion. This kind of individuals become enclosed in their own knowledge and their idea of themselves. The first purpose of the dialogue for Socrates and Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] is to undermine this state of mind so that can be more open to the real value of the dialogue. For them, the real value of a dialogue is not in its conclusion but in the dialogue itself. Someone over-confident about the truth of his opinions is only satisfied if the conclusion of dialogue proves that he is right. On the contrary, Socrates and Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] enjoy the dialogue in itself, even when they have been proved to be wrong.

We can see this in the following dialogue between Chuang Tzu and Huizi: “Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling along the bridge over the Hao River. Zhuangzi said, “The minnows swim about so freely, following the openings wherever they take them. Such is the happiness of fish.” Huizi said, “You are not a fish, so whence do you know the happiness of fish?” Zhuangzi said, “You are not I, so whence do you know I don’t know the happiness of fish?” Huizi said, “I am not you, to be sure, so I don’t know what it is to be you. But by the same token, since you are certainly not a fish, my point about your inability to know the happiness of fish stands intact.” Zhuangzi said, “Let’s go back to the starting point. You said, ‘Whence do you know the happiness of fish?’ Since your question was premised on your knowing that I know it, I must have known it from here, up above the Hao River.”

We see here two differing ideas of the value of the dialogue. For Huizi, a debate has a purpose: find the correct semantic relation between propositions and reality. According to this point of view, Huizi wins the dialogue. The proposition “this is the happiness of fish” has no sense because Zhuangzi and Huizi are not fishes so they cannot know what is the happiness of the fish. However, the sentence “this is the happiness of the fishes” have more a metaphorical signification in the mouth of Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]. As he says at the end, he knows the happiness of the fish “from here, up above the Hao river”. And what is he doing on this bridge? He is strolling and discussing with Huizi. When he talked about the happiness of the fishes, he was actually referring to his happiness to discuss and stroll with Huizi. He lost the discussion on the propositional ground but nevertheless, he is still enjoying the conversation. Moreover, this dialogue put in relation the practice of dialogue with another activity: strolling. Yet, strolling corresponds to the way the sage lives in the world for Zhuangzi. The activity of strolling is characterized by the absence of predetermined purpose and therefore is an activity that has its value in itself. Zhuangzi enjoys dialoguing as he enjoys strolling. For him, The value of dialogue reside in its actual practice and not in its conclusion. That is why the essential for him is not to win the debate, but to takes pleasure in the dialogue itself.

—Le Jeune, Nicolas. Socrates and Zhuangzi: The Art of Dialogue. PDF, n.d. [Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Translated by Brook Ziporyn, Page 74].