In this episode, we take up one of the most puzzling and fascinating passages in the Zhuangzi: the “happy fish debate” between Zhuangzi and Huizi. Can Zhuangzi really know that the fish are happy if he is not a fish? Along the way, we explore skepticism, language, animal minds, and the ordinary but surprisingly sophisticated ways we recognize joy in other living things.
Key passage
The “happy fish debate” (also known as the “debate on the Hao [river] bridge”)
莊子與惠子遊於濠梁之上。
Zhuangzi and Huizi were wandering on a bridge over the Hao River.
莊子曰：「儵魚出遊從容，是魚樂也。」
Zhuangzi said, “Look at those mottled fish out wandering at ease. That’s the happiness of fish!”
惠子曰：「子非魚，安知魚之樂？」
Huizi said, “You are not a fish. How do you know the fish’s happiness?”
莊子曰：「子非我，安知我不知魚之樂？」
Zhuangzi said, “You are not me. How do you know I don’t know the fish’s happiness?”
惠子曰：「我非子，固不知子矣；子固非魚也，子之不知魚之樂全矣。」
Huizi said, “I’m not you, so I certainly don’t know what you know. And since you’re not a fish, you don’t know fish’s happiness. There, perfect!”
莊子曰：「請循其本。子曰『汝安知魚樂』云者，既已知吾知之而問我，我知之濠上也。」
Zhuangzi said, “Let’s go back to the beginning. When you asked how I knew fish’s happiness, you had to know I knew already in order to ask. I know it by the Hao River—that’s how.”
(Zhuangzi, chapter 17, “Autumn Floods” [Qiushui 秋水], Paul Kjellberg’s translation with some modifications)
Sources and phrases mentioned
- Curtis Franks, logician and professor of philosophy at Notre Dame (the one who assigned the Happy Fish Debate in his introduction to philosophy course)
- Huizi 惠子 / Hui Shi 惠施 (Zhuangzi’s good friend and regular interlocutor)
- Haoliang zhi bian 濠梁之辯 “the debate on the bridge over the Hao [River]”
- Mingjia 名家 (the “School of Names,” the “Sophists”)
- Hui Shi’s ten theses (as reported in the final chapter of the Zhuangzi)
- Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two late justices of the US Supreme Court who strongly disagreed with one another and yet were good friends
- Lin Xiyi 林希逸 (1193=1281), a highly influential commentator on the Zhuangzi
- In section 36 of this commentary, Lin seems to suggest that the very fact of communication (or perhaps communication between good friends who really understand each other) assumes some ability to know the thoughts or intentions of the other.
- Guo Xiang 郭象 (252-312 CE) the most influential traditional commentator on the Zhuangzi
- In section 431 of this commentary, Guo says that what Hui Shi “already knew” about Zhuangzi’s knowledge is that the latter’s knowledge didn’t depend on being the fish in the first place.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein on the public nature of language
- you 遊 (wandering — pronounced like “yo?”)
- Philip J. Ivanhoe (also known as “PJ” Ivanhoe)
- Cheng Xuanying 成玄英 (fl. 631–655), influential traditional commentator on the Zhuangzi
- Justin referenced Cheng’s comments in sections 421 and 427 of this commentary
- Harold Roth, Original Tao and “Bimodal Mystical Experience in the “Qiwulun” Chapter of Zhuangzi” (These two pieces defend mystical readings of the Zhuangzi in general. According to sources cited below under “some notable works,” Roth defended a mystical interpretation of the “fish happiness debate” in his Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Zhuangzi, which was published in 2008 but is now out of print)
- fasting of the mind (xinzhai 心齋)
- “Heavenly perspective” (an interpretive frame for reading the Zhuangzi, discussed in episode one)
- David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
- Calvin and Hobbes (a popular comic strip by Bill Watterson, about a young child with an active imagination, who sometimes entertains radical doubts)
- Elizabeth Anscombe, Intention
- Some notable works on the happy fish debate
- Ames and Nakajima, Zhuangzi and the Happy Fish, with chapters by Hideki Yukawa, Hans Peter Hoffmann, Chad Hansen, Eske Møllgaard, SHAM Yat Shing, Norman Y. Teng, KUWAKO Toshio, ZHANG Longxi, Takahiro Nakajima, Franklin Perkins, HAN Xiaoqiang, PENG Feng, Hans-Georg Moeller, and Roger Ames
- Michael Beaney, The Joy of Chinese Philosophy
- Lea Cantor, “Zhuangzi on ‘happy fish’ and the limits of human knowledge“
- John R. Williams, “Two Paradigmatic Strategies for Reading Zhuang Zi’s ‘Happy Fish’ Vignette as Philosophy“
Hey guys, as always I’m totally smitten with the podcast and the job you do re. bringing complex ideas to a general audience (and looking forward to Justin’s teaming up with Peter Adamson on the History of Chinese Philosophy Without Any Gaps, though hopefully Justin will still have time for This is the Way so we don’t lose access to Richard’s great insights).
But I’m also really happy to finally have something I can slightly disagree with you guys on, and that’s that the ordinary experience and mystical interpretations are as distinct as you make them out to be. It feels to me more like a continuum. I.e. I agree that watching dogs in a dog park seems like it would require an “unnatural” degree of misanthropy to interpret the dog’s experience as anything but joyful. But the fish might be a slightly subtler case, and maybe a worm in soft soil even subtler still…
I know a number of people that are engaged in contemplative practices that don’t consider themselves as special, i.e. sages or enlightened beings but do feel like their practices have enabled them to experience things in a subtler and more nuanced way than they had previously. So maybe they now get the fish too… :-). So even without positing some endpoint like enlightenment (which in fact is often warned of as a fools errand, e.g. Chan teachers) people may have access to the types of subtler, less self centered, forms of perception that perhaps Zhuangzi is pointing at.
Lastly it seems there are good examples of this view in the literature on mystical practices, e.g. the Chan Ox Herding pictures where one starts with ordinary experience, undergoes some mystical training, and ends up with ordinary experience (perhaps with a little less baggage).
Anyway, always love your deep insights; carry on !
Thank you Karl, for these great points. I’m sorry it took so long to respond–we are both really busy with many things. Indeed mystical practice comes in many forms, an important point that I’m quite sympathetic with. Hope to say more about this in the future! Thank you for listening.
“Fish in the sea, you know how I feel” – Nina Simone, “Feeling Good”
Bill: Love that reference…and that song!
Now that you mention it, “Feeling Good” opens with the line “Birds flying high, you know how I feel.” The song itself feels like an elaboration on the most quoted line from the Shijing, “鳶飛戾天，魚躍于淵” (roughly, “the hawks, soaring as high as the heavens; the fish, diving deep into the dark waters”). My Neo-Confucians would quote and allude to that line as an illustration of how living things can flourish in their own distinctive elements, and to illustrate how far our humane love of life (or living things) can reach.
Wonderful to get this feedback from you, Karl!
Great point that mystical experience needn’t necessarily be difficult or rarefied. If we suggested that it’s necessarily so, that was a mistake. My sense is that Harold Roth’s mystical interpretation of the Zhuangzi does presuppose some very rarefied sorts of mystical insight, achievable only after a great deal of what he calls “inward training” (his translation of neiye 內業). That said, appreciating the happiness of fish doesn’t necessarily have to be an instance of the more rarified sort of mystical experience. It could be more like appreciating Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” and less like appreciating John Coltrane’s “Ascension.” Even if Zhuangzi ultimately wants us to experience the mystical equivalent of appreciating “Ascension,” he might allow that we get there by way of baby steps that are more intuitive and accessible to ordinary people, and perhaps knowing the joy of fish is one of those baby steps.
I cherish your description of the series, “…bringing complex ideas to a general audience.” If we can succeed in doing exactly that, I can rest easy.