Guo Xiang and the Problem of Self-Cultivation in Daoist Naturalism

摘要

Recent research on Daoism has distinguished various models of self-cultivation present in the tradition, in particular those which aim at returning humanity to a natural, spontaneous form of existence (often associated with early pre-Qin “philosophical” Daoism), and those which aim at transcending human nature through technical practices (often associated with later “religious” Daoism). During the Wei-Jin period, organized Daoist religion was still in its early stages, yet the difference between the two models was very much an issue in the Dark Learning ( xuanxue ) thought of the intellectual elite. In this paper, I trace this debate as expressed in Wei-Jin thinker Guo Xiang’s Commentary to the Zhuangzi , in particular in Guo’s criticisms of the desire or attempt to exceed the limits ( ji ) of one’s inherent nature and his reinterpretation of the Zhuangzi ’s criticisms of technical practices. While Guo follows Xiang Xiu in rejecting many of the claims of radical transcendence through self-cultivation, I argue that this does not imply that he lacks any positive conception of self-cultivation, but rather that he sees such cultivation as only possible through an immanent historical process in which both natural spontaneity and artificial techniques have a role to play.