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Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling along the bridge over the Hao River. Zhuangzi said, “The minnows swim about so freely, following the openings wherever they take them. Such is the happiness of fish.”
Huizi said, “You are not a fish, so whence do you know the happiness of fish?”
Zhuangzi said, “You are not I, so whence do you know I don’t know the happiness of fish?”
“I’m not you”, said Master Hui, “so I certainly do not know what you do. But you’re certainly not a fish, so it is irrefutable that you do not know what the joy of fishes is.”
“Let’s go back to where we started,” said Master Chuang (Zuangzi). “When you said, ‘How do you know what the joy of fishes is?’ you asked me because you already knew that I knew. I know it by strolling over the Hao.”
The last answer has a bit of snarky element lost in this translation. 安知 (translated to “whence do you know” here) in ancient Chinese can mean both “how do you know” and “where do you know”. Here clearly they intended the former meaning at the start of the discussion.
In his last comment, Zhuangzi deliberately interpreted it as “you asked me where do I know, I know it here, just above the river”. You can either interpret that as an evasion of the question or a statement that the question is meaningless.
Ah, so a kind of “Where did you get the notion the fish was happy?”
“Where? On the bridge over the Hao.”
The great thing about ancient philosophers is sometimes the difference between wisdom and being a smartass is a very thin line.
In Daoism, you don’t necessarily even care about “happiness” as that’s a quality internal to oneself. It is understood though that all things have a Way (a dao) which they ideally align with. Being at odds with your dao causes strife.
So a fish, swimming in the water “like it’s supposed to be,” can be thought of as happy because it is living it’s Dao. Zhuangzi perhaps interprets the “how/where do you know” question as bad form on his friends part. Daoists often dismiss a lot of learned knowledge as obfuscsting one from the dao (a principle I don’t fully agree with the old masters on) so trying to dig deeper into the question “but how can you know what a fish thinks?!” is missing the point entirely. Fish are “happy” because, as animals, they naturally live in accordance with Dao.
With daoism being what it is, both are probably correct as well as a secret third interpretation
That’s an asnine argument. A human being having an intuitive understanding of another human being’s experience is more reasonable than a human being having an intuitive understanding of a fish’s experience. Even if we don’t account for this, it’s reasonable to expect that people are able to explain how they know things.
I’m guessing the point of the story is to motivate the discussion on the subject of knowing another beings’s experience. Unfortunately it’s written in the ancient Chinese philosophy style, very foreign to modern audiences. Maybe it sounds better in the original Chinese, idk.
Here’s a modern take on that idea
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F
This is more parable than anecdote, meant to highlight the wisdom of Zhaungzi and invoke questions about how we know what we know. Zhaungzi in particular likes to be extra and speak in vague and often nonsensical ways that rely on contradiction and fundamentally unknowable aspects of reality to make/not make his point
it’s reasonable to expect that people are able to explain how they know things.
Epistemological externalism enters the chat
Chuang sounds like a douche. Got called out and was all quick to “let’s just forget about reasons, I know it because I do”.
Ancient China’s ‘trust me bro’.
Off topic, but I remember in China, they made us memorize AN ENTIRE FUCKING STORY exact word for word, don’t remember what story it was (btw, great job teachers, bet none of the kids still remember this useless shit) probably because its some “classic literature” or whatever.
That’s when I just know these ancient philosophers is just BS. Philosophy aint gonna pay for food, lmfao.
Memorizing things word for word is the best way to make kids hate literature.
It’s probably a good or at least historically important work but you will forever hate it because of the way you were taught.
Ah, brings me back to the days of memorizing Bible verses word-for-word. I don’t remember any of them now. And I was such a good little student then too!
When my father was a kid they made him memorize the opening of the First Catilinarian. This was in Spanish. One time when he was particularly annoyed with me he was like: “When, Sergio, do you intend to stop testing my patience…?!”
Tikki Tikki Tembo-no Sa Rembo-chari Bari Ruchi-pip Peri Pembo has fallen into the well.
