Graham comments, 'the Lieh-tzu has the merit of being by far the most easily intelligible of the classics of Taoism. In his 1990 second edition preface, he mentions that his research on dating was published in 1961 and by now it is the prevailing dating in the west.īeing in Western Philosophy Compared with Shih-Fei and Yu-Wu in Chinese Philsophy: Graham admits that at the time of his first publication in 1960, his position of the later date was not universally accepted by western authors. Graham remarks on the historical date ranges put forth as from 600bc to 300ad the latter would place it closer to the first known commentary by Chang Chan in 370. Graham: (originally in 1960 second preface in 1990 )

Many of them evince not only a keen sense of dramatic effect, but real insight into human nature. His stories are almost invariably pithy and pointed. Giles said, 'Lieh Tzu, who surpasses Chuang Tzu himself as a master of anecdote. He also notes that Zhuangzi mentioned him and thus should pre-date him, but the Grand Historian Sima Qian does not. Giles mentions a date for Liezi near 400 BC due to references of the prime minister Tzu Yang.

It follows as a matter of course that his precepts are mostly of a negative order, and we are led straight to the doctrine of Passivity or Inaction, which was bound to be fatally misunderstood and perverted.' 'It was man's business, he thought, to model himself as closely as possible on the great Exemplar, Tao. 'To this Essential Principle, the Power underlying the sensible phenomena of Nature, he gives, tentatively and with hesitation, the name of 'Tao', 'Way', though fully realizing the inadequacy of any name to express the idea of that which is beyond all power of comprehension.' Giles is not making the argument that Nature is Tao but rather that 'Laozi, interpreting the plain facts of Nature before his eyes, concludes that behind her manifold workings there exists an Ultimate Reality which in its essence is unfathomable and unknownable, yet manifests itself in laws of unfailing regularity.' Giles presents the simple phrase, 'Follow Nature' as the terse injunction of Laozi. To try and keep the sections back to back, I will likely get the sections consolidated and then create that thread. I plan to put each chapter in its own thread. This is a section break and I'll follow the Library of Classical Chinese edition that simply uses: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc.Īlso, Giles has editorial notes mixed in with the translation, and I'll try to put that in brackets.

I'll provide something else when we get there.Īs I will follow Giles, his work has '* * *' in certain parts of the text. I'll provide two online links to Giles but he openly admits to not including the chapter on Yang Zhu.

I will share the eight chapters of Liezi.

Lieh-tzu by Liezi