Ancient philosophy within a global purview: Parmenides and Zhuangzi on expressing what can (and cannot) be known

Thesis

This Thesis argues that widespread misconceptions about the early history of philosophy hamper engagement with ancient philosophy within a global purview. I identify and challenge an influential narrative according to which philosophy emerges through a shift from mythos to logos (Chapter 1). This framework misrepresents the history of ancient Greek philosophy and simultaneously underpins the perceived illegitimacy of ‘non-Western’ traditions as philosophical traditions. I examine how this same narrative creates major interpretive blind spots within specialist work on ancient philosophy (Chapters 2–5). I do so by exploring two consequential cases, two foundational philosophers in early Greek and classical Chinese philosophy, respectively: Parmenides and Zhuangzi.

I show how problematic assumptions inherited from mainstream macro-narratives prime us to see Parmenides as exhibiting thoroughly optimistic attitudes toward human knowledge, and Zhuangzi as either an anti-rational mystic who dismisses language or as a negative dogmatist who rejects objective knowledge (Chapter 2). I demonstrate that adopting a dialogical approach to specific questions in epistemology as they arise in Parmenides and Zhuangzi helps substantiate alternative interpretive routes which have been obscured by received historiographical frameworks. I bring Zhuangzi and Parmenides in dialogue on the issue of the limits of human cognition (Chapter 3); on the potential of analogies and indirect argumentation to push the boundaries of what can be known (Chapter 4); and finally, on whether numerical monism is defensible (Chapter 5).

From these inquiries, Parmenides emerges as someone quite other than the unmitigated epistemological optimist he is usually assumed to be, which raises fruitful questions about the status of his constructive claims. Conversely, Zhuangzi is not the anti-rationalist or negative dogmatist he is widely taken to be; instead, his own circumspect stance on the question of what can (and cannot) be known leads him to forgo all unqualified claims to knowledge.

Authors: Cantor, L

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-54ybpbkre
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: Greek, Ancient (to 1453), Classical Chinese, English
• Keywords: Chinese philosophy; Greek philosophy; comparative philosophy; historiography of philosophy; Parmenides; Zhuangzi; monism; Presocratic philosophy; ancient epistemology; early Greek philosophy; Daoism; ancient philosophy; scepticism
• Subjects: Taoism; Monism; Philosophy, Chinese; Philosophy, Chinese--To 221 B.C.; Philosophy, Ancient; Skepticism--Early works to 1800; Pre-Socratic philosophers