A DREAM OF THE SELF: IDENTITY IN THE “INNER CHAPTERS” OF THE<i>ZHUANGZI</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract This article examines self and identity in the “Inner Chapters” (neipian內篇) of theZhuangzi莊子. Previous scholarship on this topic has tended to support its arguments by defining the “Way” (dao道) as either a normative order or an objective reality. By contrast, this article argues that the Way is a neutral designation for the composite, ever-changing patterns of the cosmos that does not provide normative guidance. Within this cosmos, the human “self” (shen身) is likewise defined as a composite, mutable entity that displays “tendencies” (qing情) of behavior and thought. Two of these tendencies include the positing of unitary agents and the creation of “identities” (ming名)—imaginative constructs used for self-definition. As a result of combining and reifying the two tendencies, most humans conflate their identities with their larger selves. The result is a simplified vision of an essential self that gives rise to normative judgements, blinds humans to the changing cosmos, and creates problematic social structures. The text advocates that one should retrain the tendency toward identity by cultivating an inviolate “sense of self” or “virtue” (de德) that is empty of specific identity. Virtue acts as an emotionally safe space in which the mirror-like mind can temporarily take on the identities of other creatures. This practice increases practitioners’ empathetic understanding of the world, detaches them from destructive social structures, and has the potential to generate new versions of human society.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".