of the Chinese philosophical texts in the line of thought represented
by the Laozi and the Zhuangzi, subsequently classified as Daojia ("the
School of the Way") or Daoist philosophy. Whether Master Lie existed
as an actual person or not, the text bears his name in order to
indicate its adherence to the line of thought and practice associated
with this name. This appears to be true of other early texts, such as
the Laozi, the Heguanzi, and the Guiguzi, for example. Despite the
controversy over its dating and authorship, this is a philosophical
treatise that clearly stands in the same tradition as the Zhuangzi,
dealing with many of the same issues, and on occasion with almost
identical passages. The Liezi continues the line of philosophical
thinking of the Xiao Yao You, and the Qiu Shui, from which it takes up
the themes of transcending boundaries, spirit journeying, cultivation
of equanimity, and acceptance of the vicissitudes of life. It also
continues the line of thought of the Yang Sheng Zhu, and the Da Sheng,
developing the theme of cultivating extreme subtlety of perception and
extraordinary levels of skill. It is noteworthy that the Liezi stands
out as more apparently metaphysical than the cosmologically oriented
texts of the Zhou and Han dynasties (such as the Laozi, Zhong Yong,
and the Xici of the Yijing). That is, it goes further towards
explicitly articulating a conception of the 'transcendent' or
'metaphysical': that which is beyond the realm of observable things
that come into and go out of existence, and that is prior to, superior
to, and responsible for it as its necessary condition. While the Liezi
does not unambiguously articulate the logical conditions that define
transcendence as such (a necessarily asymmetrical relation of
dependence between the world and its source), still, the traces of
transcendence are intriguing and worth philosophical investigation.
1. Historical BackgroundThe character after whom the text is named is
called Lie Yukou; his personal name, "Yukou," means
'guard-against-bandits.' According to the Liezi itself, he lived in
the Butian game preserve in the principality of Zheng, but was
eventually driven by famine to live in Wei. The first chapter of the
Zhuangzi refers to Liezi, and so, if this character corresponds to a
really existing person, he must have existed prior to the writing of
that chapter. This means that Liezi would have flourished some time
before the end of the fourth century BCE. W. T. Chan places him as
early as the fifth century. He was said to have been a student of Huzi
(Huqiu Zilin), and a fellow student of Bohun Wuren (wuren: "no
person"), and teacher of Baifeng. However, it is not clear whether
there ever really existed a philosopher named 'Liezi.' Liezi is not
explicitly mentioned in any of the early classifications of
philosophical schools: those of Xunzi, Zhuangzi's Tianxia chapter, and
Sima Qian. Moreover, the character is understood to be an adept with
superhuman powers. Zhuangzi, for example, says that he had the ability
to fly for fifteen days at a time. Yang Bojun insists that, despite
the mythologizing of the character, there is sufficient scattered
evidence that there probably did exist a real person on whom the
stories were based. Nevertheless, scholars have for centuries been
suspicious of the existence of Master Lie, and of the authenticity of
the text.
The ideas expressed throughout the text have clear affinities with the
philosophies expressed in the Laozi and the Zhuangzi, and so
categorizing these three as belonging to roughly the same tradition of
thought is not problematic—even if the authors, contributors, and
commentators did not think of themselves as proponents of a single
doctrine, or as belonging to the same 'school'. The Laozi is sometimes
quoted with approval, although the quotations are attributed either to
the Book of the Yellow Emperor, or to Lao Dan. While the Liezi does
not refer to the Zhuangzi, it shows clear signs of influence from the
latter (even though the character Liezi is supposed to have lived
before Zhuangzi). This indicates a later dating of much, if not all,
of the text.
Unlike the Laozi, this text displays little interest in critiquing the
Ruists or Confucians, and unlike the Zhuangzi, does not criticize the
'Ru Mo'—the Ruists and Mohists. On the contrary, it shows signs of
reconciliation of Ruist and Daoist ideas: many Ruist principles are
given Daoist interpretation, and Confucius appears in several stories
as a wise and sympathetic character, if not a sage. Incidentally, that
one of the chapters of the text is named after Confucius should not,
by itself, be taken as significant. The chapter is so named, solely
because the name of Confucius appears at the beginning of the first
story. This eclectic reconciliation of Ruism, Daoism, and on occasion
Mohism, is indication of the post-Qin provenance of the relevant
passages.
While Zhuangzi's own philosophy is believed to have exerted a
significant influence on the interpretation of Buddhism in China, the
Liezi may constitute a possible converse case of Mahayana Buddhist
influence on the development of the ideas of Zhuangzi. Stories here
and there resonate with some of the tenets of Sanlun (the Chinese form
of Madhyamaka), Weishilun (the Chinese form of Yogacara), and Huayan.
The resonances are highly suggestive, but the evidence is not decisive
enough to be sure of any influence, either of Buddhist ideas on the
Liezi, or vice versa. If the conjecture of Buddhist influence is
correct, it would also place the relevant passages of the text well
into, if not after, the Han dynasty.
2. The Liezi Text
The text, like many other early Chinese 'books,' is a collection of
various materials, written at different times, some of which can also
be found in other sources. Liu Xiang, the Western Han scholar, says in
his preface that he edited and collated material from twenty chapters
distributed in other collections, and reduced them to eight by
eliminating excess materials. The extant eight chapter version, with
Zhang Zhan's commentary, dates from the Western Jin (approximately
three centuries later).
Each chapter contains a series of stories, each developing some theme
whose antecedents can often be discerned from the Laozi or the
Zhuangzi. Several themes are developed in each chapter, and some
chapters overlap in themes, but as with the Zhuangzi, each chapter has
its distinctive 'feel'. About one quarter of the text consists of
passages that can be found in other early works, such as the Zhuangzi,
the Huainanzi, and the Lüshi Chunqiu. The remaining majority of the
text, however, is distinctive in style, and with the exception of the
"Yang Zhu" chapter quite consistent in the world view and way of life
that it expresses. Most of the text contains material of philosophical
interest. However, myths and folk tales based on similar themes, but
with no apparent philosophical value, can be found side by side with
stories that have profound philosophical significance.
The "Yang Zhu" chapter is problematic. While the earliest reference to
the text (Liu Xiang) lists a chapter with the title, the currently
extant version of this chapter has little to nothing in common with
the rest of the book, and indeed espouses a hedonist philosophy of
pleasure seeking that is inconsistent with the cultivation of
indifference toward worldly things that is characteristic of much of
the rest of the book, and of the Zhuang-Lie approach to Daoism in
general.
The "authenticity" of the Liezi text has been challenged by Chinese
scholars for centuries, and it has accordingly been taken by perhaps a
majority of scholars to be a forgery. Their claim is that the textual
material was compiled, edited, and written by a single author who
intended to deceive readers into believing that this was an ancient
text. Certainly, the text is an eclectic compilation consisting of
early materials which can be found in other texts, together with
original material dating from well after the time period from which
its supposed author is said to have lived. However, as Zhuang Wanshou
points out, the characteristics cited for classifying the text as a
forgery—being composed by several authors over several centuries, and
drawing from several sources—apply to other philosophical texts which
are not dismissed as "forgeries," including, for example, the Analects
and the Zhuangzi. Moreover, it is not clear why this should be
considered sufficient reason to reject, and neglect, the Liezi as a
philosophical text. Moreover, from a purely philosophical point of
view, whoever wrote the text, and whenever it was written, it contains
much material that expresses distinctively recognizable strands of
Lao-Zhuang thought, with sufficient complexity and sophistication to
warrant serious study as the third of the important Daoist
philosophical texts.
3. Central Concepts in the Liezi
a. Chapter 1: Tian Rui (Omens of Nature)
In the opening chapter of the Liezi we can identify the beginnings of
an articulation of a concept of a 'beyond' (wai) that bears a striking
resemblance to Western concepts of the "transcendent" or
"metaphysical." I mean these terms more or less synonymously, and in
the strong philosophical sense of: that which lies beyond the realm of
experience, and stands independently as its necessary condition. The
idea of a 'beyond' occurs several times, in different formulations,
but it is unclear how close this gets to the Western concept of a
metaphysical transcendent. In particular, while the formulations
suggest an asymmetric relation of dependence—namely, that a realm
beyond the conditions of existing things is itself a necessary
condition for the existing, changing, things that we encounter, and
not vice versa—it does not clearly and explicitly assert it as a
necessarily asymmetrical relation. Still, this chapter goes much
further than the Laozi or the Zhuangzi toward articulating anything
like this sort of transcendence, and so if we are going to claim to
find anything like it in the Daoist tradition, our best bet is with
the Liezi.
The chapter begins with an account of something that is the condition
of the existence of living and changing things. At first glance, this
appears to define a metaphysical beyond that can only be hinted at
negatively: that which is beyond birth and transformation (the
unborn/not-living, busheng, and the unchanging, buhua), and which is
responsible for all birth and transformation. It is the unborn that is
able to produce the living, and the unchanging that is able to change
the changing. This strongly suggests a dependence of the living on the
unborn, of the changing on the unchanging. However, while the text
explicitly asserts that the unborn/not-living can produce the living,
it does not explicitly deny the opposite. Without this explicit
assertion of necessary asymmetry, it has not, strictly speaking,
claimed a transcendent role for the unborn/unchanging. Thus, the
passage can still be read as entirely consistent with the typical
Daoist claim that the stages of living and not living, and of change
and not changing, are interdependent contrasts, each giving rise to
the other.
The chapter also contains an explicit cosmology (a philosophical
account of the basic makeup of the world), and, asks about the
beginnings of heaven and earth. The text postulates several great
beginnings, (taiyi, taichu, taishi, taisu), which successively mark an
undifferentiated stage, a stage of energy (qi), a stage of embodied
form (xing), and a stage of intrinsic stuff (zhi). The energies (or
perhaps forms, or stuff, the text is not explicit) divide into two
kinds: the light becomes the 'heavens' (tian), the heavy becomes the
earth, and the blending of the two becomes the human realm. Here
again, with questions about 'great origins,' we sense a possible
concern with transcendence, but everything that is explicitly stated
is compatible with an organic, naturalistic cosmology, and does not
require the imposition of the full-blooded concept of metaphysical
transcendence.
There follows an intriguing passage in which it is stated that that
which produces, shapes, and colors, has not yet tasted, existed, or
appeared. Here, an attempt is made to articulate a distinction between
a realm of form that has perceptible properties, and a realm prior to
form, shape, smell, etc which is responsible for these, and which
itself does not have these perceptible properties. This passage is
significant, because in this case, an asymmetry is for the first time
explicitly articulated. However, the asymmetry is not asserted as a
necessity, but merely as a contingent fact, thus still leaving room
for interpreting the producer and the produced as interdependent.
After considering the cosmic beginnings, the chapter ends with a
discussion of the possible end of the world. If the heavens (and the
earth) are accumulated qi, then why might they not eventually come
apart? Several answers are considered: they couldn't come apart,
because they are qi of a specific kind. Or: they could come apart, but
that is so far off it is not something we need worry about. Or: It is
beyond our knowledge whether they could ever come apart. Finally,
Liezi's answer is that both alternatives are "nonsense": to say that
tiandi will perish is nonsense, and to say that it won't is nonsense.
While the logic of this answer is left incomplete, it reminds us of
the logic of the Sanlun philosophy of Madhyamaka Buddhism. The Sanlun
philosophy tries to articulate a rejection of simplistic dichotomies,
and encourages a third way (a 'middle path') that involves
transcending the perspective from which we must choose between such
dichotomies. There are other places in the Liezi where these hints of
Sanlun emerge more explicitly, suggesting the possibility of Buddhist
influence, and thereby a later dating of the text (or at least of
these passages). It is worth noting, however, that the
anti-metaphysical stance of Madhyamaka Buddhism is inconsistent with
the positing of a realm of transcendence—thereby complicating the
issue still further.
b. Chapter 2: Huang Di (The Yellow Emperor)
The Daoists are known for extolling the marvellous abilities of people
with extraordinary skills, and the Liezi is no exception. Stories
abound of people who perform breathtaking, sometimes life-threatening,
feats with tranquil ease and flawless artistry. While these people are
not directly called sages, they are nevertheless looked up to as
exemplary of the ideals of the Daoist way of life.
What they have is extraordinary ability, but it is not to be
understood mere daring or bravery; nor is it to be understood as qiao,
skill, dexterity, or craftsmanship, in the ordinary sense of those
terms. It is not simply a matter of technique, but rather of inner
cultivation. These abilities arise when one understands and follows
the natures or tendencies of things, and it is an understanding that
cannot be put into words. As such, it is not something that one
consciously knows: one might say, using the language of Polanyi, that
it is a form of "tacit knowing." Liezi emphasizes the point with
examples of unwitting sages, people who naturally have a potent
ability, and yet have no idea of how extraordinary they are, and
indeed whose ignorance is in some cases the necessary condition of
their exceptional abilities.
In other cases, or for other people, years of fasting, training, and
discipline are necessary to cultivate such abilities. To engage
successfully with things requires penetrating through to the inner
tendencies of things, to that which lies at the root of things, beyond
their observable shape and form. The sage unifies his nature (xing),
energies, and potency, with a single-minded concentration on the task
at hand, aware of nothing except the circumstances and the goal, and
is subtly in tune with the innermost core of things. When one is able,
in this way, to penetrate to the place where things are 'forged', one
is no longer at their mercy, and then the extremes of life's
circumstances cannot 'enter' (ru) to disturb one's tranquility.
c. Chapter 3: Zhou Mu Wang (King Mu of Zhou)
What is waking experience, or dream experience? What is the relation
between them? From a realist perspective, only waking experience is
experience of reality, while dream experience is an 'imaginary'
reproduction of the experiences without there being a corresponding
dream reality. From an idealist perspective, the difference is less
radical. It is, to a large extent, a difference in degree, rather than
in kind. Waking experience is simply more coherent and more enduring,
and is shared by others. What, then, if there were a kind of dream
experience that was more coherent and more enduring? How would we draw
the distinction then? What if there a kind of dream experience that
could be shared with others? Would this not constitute a radical
challenge to the distinction between waking and dreaming?
It is notable that the term huan is used to talk of the status of
dreams, and thereby also of our waking experience to the extent that
it too is considered to be dreamlike. The term means 'illusion', and
suggests a very strong devaluation of what we ordinarily take to be
genuine experience. In some sense, all experience is for us a
magnificent, magical display, a phantasmagoria of sensory delights and
horrors. Seen in this light, dream and waking experience become
equalized: the reality of dreams is of the same order as the illusory
nature of waking experience. From an idealist perspective of this
sort, waking experience is ultimately no different from a dream. This
is reminiscent of the Vedanta conception of maya, and indeed it is
noteworthy that huan is the word standardly used to translate the
Buddhist concept of maya. If it is the case, as most scholars argue,
that there is no evidence of an indigenous Chinese tradition
developing a distinction between the realms of 'Appearance' and
'Reality', then this would seem to indicate the possibility of Indian
influence, most probably via the Yogacara incorporation of Vedanta
philosophical concepts, imparted through its Chinese form of
Weishilun.
d. Chapter 4: Zhong Ni (Confucius)
In the opening of this chapter, Confucius is found lamenting his lack
of success in life, and his beloved disciple Yan Hui reminds him to
cultivate indifference. Confucius responds in a manner that attempts
to provide a reconciliation of Daoist virtue and cultivation with
Ruist social involvement. Thus, coming to terms with tian and ming
means more than simply accepting everything that happens to us with
equanimity or indifference. Equanimity means rejoicing in nothing, but
to rejoice in nothing requires rejoicing equally in everything. And to
rejoice equally in everything requires being fully immersed in each
and every one of our concerns, in our successes and failures. Thus, it
is entirely appropriate, and consistent with Liezi's form of Daoism,
for Confucius to grieve that he did not succeed, during his lifetime,
in transforming the state. This is a very clever reinterpretation of
the Daoist cultivation of equanimity that makes it compatible with
care and concern for social ventures. It takes Daoist logic that leads
us away from worldliness, and follows it through so that it leads us
right back into the thick of things. In doing so, it anticipates the
Chan (Zen) response to Huayan Buddhism.
The intuitive 'non-knowing' of the Huang Di chapter is then applied to
the subject of governing in order to describe a Daoist kind of
'mystical' rulership. One rules most skilfully by doing 'nothing.' The
ruler cultivates an intuitive sensitivity to the natures of people and
circumstances, and becomes so sensitive to all that happens that he or
she can respond appropriately, without necessarily knowing, or
consciously planning, or taking deliberate control, or making crude
judgments regarding what is right and what is wrong.
e. Chapter 5: Tang Wen (The Questions of Tang)
This chapter opens up another kind of metaphysical problem: the
problem of what things are like 'outside' of the realms of
familiarity, and gives expression to a sense of the magnificence of
the world: vast, unencompassable dimensions, and the extraordinary
variety of things, creatures, cultures, and places. The problem is
posed, and different answers are suggested, but I think it would be a
mistake to try to find a consistent metaphysical position asserted as
the correct one. Rather, the text engages in a literary-philosophical
exploration of some possibilities. Also, several implications are
explored, drawing together concepts from other chapters: sameness and
difference, the vast and the petty, the infinite and inexhaustible,
the skill of the imperceptible.
As we move from region to region throughout its boundless extent, we
meet up with increasingly strange varieties of things. Yet despite
their differences, are they after all just variations on a theme? All
things are different, and yet is it not also the case that all things
are in a deeper sense the same? In either case, to one who is truly at
home in the universe, the extraordinary and wonderful varieties are
remarkable but not to be considered weird. Thus, unlike our typical
tendency to marvel at the peculiar weirdness of the 'exotic,' this
chapter encourages us to de-exoticize the unfamiliar.
Going beyond the limits is conceived not simply as moving outwards
along a trajectory, but as occuring between levels of containment. To
go outside, or beyond, is to move to a higher level within which the
previous level is contained. But this very movement immediately
suggests the possibility of iteration, and thus leads to the Daoist
formulation of a problem concerning finitude. Are there ultimate
limits of containment to how far we can go beyond? If so, is there
such a thing as what is beyond those limits? Or is the process
limitless? If so, can there be such a thing as what is beyond the
limitless?
Conversely, the 'inexhaustible' refers to movement in the opposite
direction, inwardly from the vast to the minuscule. At its extreme,
the inexhaustible, infinitesimal within things, approaches nothing.
The more subtle and minuscule it gets, the more it escapes the purview
of ordinary sensory awareness. It is the inexhaustible subtleties
within things that enable things to be what they are, and so
sensitivity to such subtleties can and should be cultivated. Since
such an awareness is unavailable to ordinary perception, and since as
we have seen in Chapter 2 it is also non-verbal, it is thought of as a
kind of intuitive embodied insight that remains beneath the level of
conscious awareness. When we cultivate this, we are able to sense the
innermost tendencies of things, respond to changes before they
manifest, and thus act without interfering. The sagely charioteer, for
example, does not force the horses to move, nor fight the terrain, but
has a subtle sensitivity to the terrain, and to the every movement of
the horses, and is able to guide, even to "control", merely by
following intuitively, tacitly, the tendencies of things.
This distinction between the vast and the petty also has more
familiar, less mystical application. Great things can be achieved by
focusing on the here and now: no need for a long term plan, for far
reaching vision. Just keep doing what you can, no matter how dense and
shortsighted: the results will take care of themselves. Great things
can thus be achieved unwittingly, stupidly even. Hence, the stupid man
is able to move the mountain.
f. Chapter 6: Li Ming (Effort and Circumstance)
The chapter raises the question: to what must we attribute the
vicissitudes of life, our successes and failures? Is it really
something that is in our control, that can be changed by li, human
effort? Or is it, after all, just circumstance, ming, in this case not
inappropriately interpreted as 'fate'? That is, is it something our
efforts can affect, or is it something we can do nothing about?
In the Zhuangzi, an answer is given that is reminiscent of Stoicism:
that the circumstances into which we emerge are simply the way things
are. We must learn to accept our lot, ming, with equanimity. There
appear to be two answers given in the Liezi, one of which, given at
the end of the chapter, echoes this answer of Zhuangzi. But at the
beginning of the chapter, the two alternatives of li and ming are
rejected. Instead, the answer is given that we must learn to accept
that whatever happens, it is just the way things are, Gu. In fact,
these two answers are not different, since the sense being expressed
by gu in the Liezi is precisely what is expressed by the word ming in
the Zhuangzi. The answer to this problem lies in the fact that the
word ming has two senses. In the Zhuangzi and other early texts, ming
is the circumstances that surround us, the way things are. It also has
aspects of the following senses: life, lifespan, lot (in life),
calling, naming, command, circumstance, that into which we are thrown,
and with which we must come to terms. Insofar as this does not
necessarily imply an external determining force, it differs from the
concept of 'fate.'
But it also may be used in a less sophisticated sense to refer to an
external force which is in control of things, that is "fate" or
"destiny". This sense of the word can be found as early as the Mozi,
in the Fei Ming (Against Fate) chapter. When the Liezi contrasts li
and ming, it is in this cruder sense that ming is being rejected.
Instead, the word gu is used in this text as a synonym for what was
expressed by ming in the Zhuangzi. What is being denied, then, in
these passages is that neither effort, nor any external force of
destiny is truly in control of what happens. Thus, it is the dichotomy
of personal control vs external control that is being rejected: it is
not that success or failure is determined by us, nor is it the case
that success or failure is determined by external circumstances. Nor,
incidentally, is the point that there is always a combination of both
effort and circumstance. Rather, whatever effort is involved, and
whatever the circumstances, in all cases it is always a matter of how
things just happened to turn out. In the end, even if neither effort
nor circumstance determine the outcome, yet the outcome has simply
followed its gu, the way it is.
g. Chapter 7: Yang Zhu (Yang Zhu)
The ideas of this chapter are so inconsistent with the rest of the
text that it is clearly out of place. Exactly how and why it made its
way into this collection, and succeeded in remaining there, is
unclear. It espouses a hedonistic philosophy: Life is short; Live for
pleasure alone; Don't waste time cultivating virtues. If it bears any
relation to Daoist philosophy, then it appears to be a sophomoric
misunderstanding of the ideas of the Xiao Yao You chapter of the
Zhuangzi. Graham suggests that it comes from a former Yangist phase of
the author's philosophical career, and that it was written, in part,
to provide a foil against which to understand his later philosophy.
h. Chapter 8: Shuo Fu (Explaining the Signs)
This chapter is a mixed collection of stories, exploring themes of
varying philosophical significance. A recurring theme expresses a
particularist attitude that might be thought of as a kind of casuistry
(according to which judgments are made by comparing the
particularities of individual cases), or contextualism (according to
which judgments ought to be made only when all differences of context
are factored in). Several stories are told, in each of which we have
apparently similar circumstances in which the outcome varies
significantly. The point is to emphasize that we cannot simply assume
that what appear to be similar situations require similar responses
from us. We must treat each case in the light of its own unique
circumstances. That is, instead of looking for simple rules to be
applied at all times, we must instead learn how to read the subtleties
of the 'signs'. This may be done either through a clear and explicit
awareness that arises from careful observation, or through an
intuitive and embodied understanding that arises from familiarity and
practice.
4. Key Interpreters of Liezi
The first eight chapter edition of the text may have been edited and
compiled by Liu Xiang (77—6BCE). If this edition ever existed, it is
no longer extant. Zhang Zhan's annotated edition (around 370 CE)
became popular from the Tang dynasty, and this edition with Zhang's
commentary has become the received version. A second philosophical
commentary was produced by Lu Chongxuan in the 8th century). After the
Tang, doubts began to be raised about its authenticity, beginning with
Liu Zongyuan (773—819). Unfortunately, most of the scholarly
discussion around this text has concerned its dating and
"authenticity," and consequently, there has been little to no serious
interpretation of the text regarding its philosophical content.
The concern to dismiss the text increased in the early twentieth
century. In 1919, Ma Shulun argued that it was a forgery made by
students of Wang Bi, stealing materials from many prior philosophical
sources. In 1920, Takeuchi Yoshio published a refutation of Ma Shulun,
but acknowledged that the text was a late compilation. In 1949, Cen
Zhongmian, attempted to defend the text, using modern techniques of
linguistic analysis to argue that it dated from the late Zhou, but his
argument has not been influential. In 1927, Liang Qichao even
suggested that it was in fact the commentator Zhang Zhan himself who
forged the book.
In 1979, two excellent editions of the Liezi with important critical
commentaries were published: one by Yang Bojun in Beijing, the other
by Zhuang Wanshou in Taibei. It is important to note that Zhuang's
so-called Du Ben not merely a study book, but is a significant work in
its own right.
5. References and Further Reading
Barrett, T. H. "Lieh Tzu." In Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical
Guide, ed. Michael Loewe (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early
China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of
California, Berkeley, 1993), 298-308.
Graham, A. C. The Book of Lieh-tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.
Graham, A. C. "The Date and Composition of the Lieh-Tzu." In Studies
in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1990), 216-282.
Yang, Bojun. Liezi Jishi. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1979.
Wieger, Leo. Taoism: The Philosophy of China. Burbank, CA: Ohara
Publications, 1976.
Zhuang, Wanshou. Xinyi Liezi Duben. Taibei: Sanmin Shuju, 1979.
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