one night, Zhuang Zi dreamed that he was a carefree butterfly flying happily. After he woke up, he wondered how he could determine whether he was Zhuang Zi who had just finished dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who had just started dreaming he was Zhuang Zi. It hints at many questions in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and epistemology, such as Descartes' famous question of how one knows one exists. The name of the passage has become a common Chinese idiom, and has spread into Western languages as well.
1 comment:
These philosophy questions always take more time for me to digest and think about and as is usual for me ask more questions than they give answers...but definitely do cause me to ponder. BH
Post a Comment