Guo Xiang: The Self-So and the Repudiation-cum-Reaffirmation of Deliberate Action and Knowledge

Abstract

This chapter explores the thought of Guo Xiang, with special attention to his complex views concerning knowledge (知zhi) and deliberate action (為wei). It is due to the complexities of Guo’s key idea of “the self-so” (自然ziran), serving as the crux of both his ontology and his axiology, and stipulated to be both the direct antithesis to both knowledge and action and also the ultimate source enabler of both knowledge and action that he is able to simultaneously repudiate both and affirm both without contradiction, and thereby provide a cogent global theory ethics and epistemology of high originality and immense subsequent influence. Of special importance for making his theory work is Guo’s conception of the self-so as the unchangeable but constantly changing “nature” of each and every entity, the source of its self-affirming value and of its being at every moment.