SOURCE: Shuen-fu Lin. “Confucius in the ‘Inner Chapters’ of the Chuang Tzu.” Tamkang Review 18, nos. 1-4 (autumn 1987-summer 1988): 379-401.

In the following essay, Shuen-fu Lin argues that Chuang-Tzu uses the persona of Confucius to voice a Taoist philosophy of emptiness which repudiates the philosophy of virtue taught by Confucius.

It is interesting to note that Confucius (551-479 b.c.) figures prominently in the early Taoist philosophical text Chuang Tzu. In total he is mentioned on more than fifty occasions in the text and his appearance is also quite evenly distributed over the three divisions of the “Inner Chapters” (nei-p'ien), the “Outer Chapters” (wai-p'ien), and the “Mixed Chapters” (tsa-p'ien).¹ Confucius appears both more frequently and more regularly than any other historical, or than any semi-historical or fictional, character in the book.² The importance of Confucius in this Taoist text does not reside in the frequency of his appearance alone...