物無非彼，物無非是， 自彼則不見，自知則知之。 故曰：「彼出於是，是亦因彼。」
Nothing is not “that”. Nothing is not “this”. From the standpoint of “that”, it is not seen. From here, it can be known. Therefore it is said: “That” emerges from “this”, and “this” depends on “that”.
[An interval is omitted here in both languages. The two excerpts are not contiguous; see Sources / Apparatus.]
是亦彼也，彼亦是也。 彼亦一是非，此亦一是非。 果且有彼是乎哉？ 果且無彼是乎哉？
“This” is also “that”. “That” is also “this”. “That” has its own right and wrong. “This” has its own right and wrong. Is there really a “that” and a “this”? Or is there really no “that” and “this”?
彼是莫得其偶，謂之道樞。 樞始得其環中，以應無窮。
When “that” and “this” no longer obtain their counterpart, this is called the pivot of the dào. When the pivot finds the centre of its ring, it can respond without end.
The Chinese terms translated here as “this”, “that”, “right” and “wrong” carry overlapping indexical and evaluative functions that English cannot reproduce cleanly.
01 THIS SIDE
You do not normally experience your perspective as a perspective. You experience it as what is happening. Someone stands across from you and disagrees. From here, their judgment looks strange, perhaps irrational, perhaps obviously wrong. But they are not standing here. They are standing there.
The selected passage from Qíwùlùn unsettles this arrangement with two small words: this and that. Each appears to identify something immediately. Yet each also depends on a relation that the word itself leaves unspoken. This, from where? That, in relation to whom?
Every “this” quietly implies a position.
The statement does not yet prove that all positions are equally good. It removes one privilege: the assumption that my own position needs no explanation. If the other person’s judgment has a history, so does mine. What makes their view possible is a question I can ask without first deciding to accept it.
The Zhuangzi text is not simply asking us to be nicer to an opponent. It makes the apparently innocent act of identifying a side philosophically unstable. We have already begun sorting the world before we ask whether our sorting is justified.
02 WHEN THAT BECOMES THIS
彼出於是，是亦因彼。 “That” emerges from “this”, and “this” depends on “that”. The two terms arrive together. Neither supplies a position that can be understood entirely on its own.
Consider a modern illustration offered by Paragraphos, not a story told in this chapter. Two people stand on opposite banks of a river. Each calls the bank under their feet this bank, and the opposite bank that bank. Cross the river, and the labels reverse. Nothing about the earth has needed to disappear. The relation between speaker and bank has changed.
This is easy to understand geographically. It becomes harder when the bank is a judgment. We do not merely say that our opinion is here. We call it reasonable, natural or right. The opposing view becomes an error to explain. Our own becomes the explanation.
The analogy has a limit. A disagreement about a bridge’s safety cannot be settled merely by exchanging banks. Evidence still matters. But changing position may reveal which evidence someone can see, which danger they face, and which question they thought they were answering. Reversal unsettles our starting point without settling the argument.
03 RIGHT FROM WHERE?
The linguistic difficulty matters. 是非, shì fēi, does not mechanically duplicate the English pair right and wrong. Depending on context and interpretation, its field includes affirmation and denial, this and not-this, what is accepted and what is rejected. Our English translation separates functions that the Chinese can bring into contact.
In the surrounding paragraph, the Qíwùlùn chapter names Confucian and Mohist disagreement. One side affirms what the other denies. Merely reversing the verdict produces another position inside the dispute. It does not explain what would make the verdict authoritative.
Suppose each party appeals to standards already internal to its own account of a good life. The first justifies its judgment by what the second disputes; the second replies in the same manner. More confidence can make the disagreement louder without making its grounds more secure.
A perspective does not become universal merely because it cannot see its own edges.
The pressure falls on the claim to settle the matter from an unquestionable starting point. It need not erase the difference between a reason and a prejudice. The harder task is to explain why a reason should carry weight beyond the position from which it first seemed sufficient.
04 IS EVERYTHING RELATIVE?
Modern interpreters disagree. Relativist, skeptic, perspectivist and pluralist name different readings; other scholars think these labels distort the text or capture only part of its work. We should not make an English classification do the work of reading the passage.
Two claims need to remain distinct:
- Claim A
- Judgments arise from perspectives.
- Claim B
- All judgments are equally true.
The first does not logically entail the second. A situated perspective may be better informed, more responsive to a circumstance, or more capable of learning from correction. Recognizing its limits need not make it worthless. Nor does recognizing the intelligibility of another judgment establish that judgment’s truth.
Chris Fraser’s discussion of skepticism and value helps articulate this possibility: uncertainty about one ultimately correct standard can coexist with contextual reasons for preferring some responses to others. This is an interpretation within a continuing debate.
To discover that you are standing somewhere is not to discover that nowhere is better than anywhere else.
Our proposed response is therefore demanding. It asks what could correct a judgment whose standards are themselves open to question. Simply declaring every answer equal would close that inquiry as quickly as declaring our own answer beyond challenge.
05 THE PIVOT OF THE DÀO
The passage turns toward an image: 道樞, the pivot of the dào. The ring and its centre introduce another possibility besides being fixed to one side of an opposition.
To develop the image in Paragraphos’s terms: a point on a wheel’s edge travels through successive positions. A pivot permits turning. Its significance lies in the movement it allows, rather than in adding one more verdict to the contest between this and that. The text joins its image of the centre to an ability to respond without end.
This need not promise a final viewpoint from which disagreement disappears. It may suggest becoming less captive to a fixed route of response. What mattered in one encounter may require reconsideration in another. The capacity to answer is retained, but its repetition is no longer automatic.
The opposite of rigidity is not emptiness. It is responsiveness.
That is Paragraphos interpretation, informed by one family of modern readings. Some interpretations give the pivot a stronger metaphysical role; others emphasize linguistic or practical flexibility. The omitted interval’s reference to illumination by heaven is one reason to keep alternatives visible. A centre in a textual image does not, by itself, establish an absolute God’s-eye view.
06 YOU STILL HAVE TO STAND SOMEWHERE
A careless reading ends with an easy escape: everyone has their truth. But the ease should make us suspicious. We still act, choose, speak and distinguish. Calling every view a perspective does not relieve us of the consequences of a judgment.
Can we inhabit a position without mistaking it for the structure of the universe? Can we judge while remaining capable of seeing how another judgment became possible? Can we change without treating every commitment as a mistake?
These questions bring our reading toward the wider Zhuangzi tradition’s concern with adaptive response. They do not supply a technique for always getting along. Understanding can deepen a disagreement. It may show that what divides us is more substantial than ignorance or bad temper. Responsiveness can include refusal, provided refusal can still answer for itself.
Perhaps the achievement is not to escape perspective. Perhaps it is to stop being imprisoned by one.
The passage leaves that possibility difficult. Even a commitment to flexibility can become a fixed demand imposed on everyone else. The test returns to the moment of judgment: what am I taking for granted here, and what would allow that judgment to move?
“This” will always begin somewhere.
Wisdom may begin when we notice where.
Sources / Apparatus
Primary text
Zhuang Zhou / Zhuangzi tradition, Zhuangzi. Chapter 2 · Qíwùlùn 齊物論; selected this / that and pivot passages.
Received Chinese text checked against Chinese Wikisource, 莊子/齊物論, traditional-character display, revision 11117685, accessed 4 October 2026. This identified online transcription is our display base, not an independently collated critical edition. Characters and punctuation are retained, including the comma after 物無非是. Reading line breaks are Paragraphos additions. The bracketed omission is editorial, not part of the Chinese.
Paragraphos working translation, based on the commissioning editor's text and compared with Robert Eno (2019), sections 2.6–2.7, and Herbert A. Giles, chapter 2. Neither translation is reproduced. ‘From here’ compresses 自知則知之 into a standpoint reading; Eno makes self-knowledge explicit. ‘Depends on’ for 因 retains dependence without deciding every sense of following or relying on. ‘Right and wrong’ for 是非 also involves affirmation and denial. ‘Counterpart’ for 偶 leaves the opposition difficult. ‘When the pivot finds’ replaces the supplied ‘Only when’ to avoid an added exclusive condition; 始 remains open to first / beginning / only-then construals. ‘Centre of its ring’ retains 環中 as an image, not a settled metaphysical thesis.
Qíwùlùn is retained rather than given one definitive English title. Renderings such as Equalizing Things and Adjustment of Controversies already make interpretive choices. The omitted interval discusses paired birth and death, acceptance and rejection, and the sage's illumination by heaven; it cannot be treated as philosophically disposable. Our second excerpt ends at 以應無窮, before the paragraph's further reference to inexhaustible affirmation and denial. The selected characters agree with the independently inspected Guo Qingfan print recorded below. EDITORIAL VERIFICATION REQUIRED: broader critical-edition collation and specialist assessment of the provisional English for 自知, 因, 偶, 始 and 環中. No claim of agreement among all editions is made.
The commissioning editor authorized the supplied passage and working English. Chinese transcription and modern punctuation are attributed to Wikisource contributors, 莊子/齊物論, revision 11117685, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpt's added line breaks and disclosed omission are shared under the same licence. The licence and source links appear in the textual references. No modern scholarly translation or critical apparatus is reproduced.
Full Classical Chinese context
The surrounding received paragraph in the same Wikisource transcription. It includes the Confucian and Mohist dispute, the omitted interval after 是亦因彼, and the continuation after 以應無窮. Modern punctuation is retained; this is not a manuscript collation. Chinese transcription attribution and licence are recorded below.
夫言非吹也，言者有言，其所言者特未定也。果有言邪？其未嘗有言邪？其以為異於鷇音，亦有辯乎？其無辯乎？道惡乎隱而有眞僞？言惡乎隱而有是非？道惡乎往而不存？言惡乎存而不可？道隱於小成，言隱於榮華，故有儒墨之是非，以是其所非而非其所是。欲是其所非而非其所是，則莫若以明。物無非彼，物無非是，自彼則不見，自知則知之。故曰：「彼出於是，是亦因彼。」彼是，方生之說也。雖然，方生方死，方死方生，方可方不可，方不可方可。因是因非，因非因是，是以聖人不由，而照之於天，亦因是也。是亦彼也，彼亦是也。彼亦一是非，此亦一是非。果且有彼是乎哉？果且無彼是乎哉？彼是莫得其偶，謂之道樞。樞始得其環中，以應無窮。是亦一無窮，非亦一無窮也，故曰「莫若以明」。
Textual / Translation references
- Chinese Wikisource contributors, 莊子/齊物論, revision 11117685.
The full Chinese paragraph and page revision identifier were read directly. The brief's selected character sequence matches this base. The brief has a full stop after 物無非是; this base has a comma, which is retained. An interval, shown in the full context above, separates the excerpts. The revision was recorded locally; no historical printed edition behind this transcription has been independently verified.
- Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩, 莊子集釋, juan 1, chapter 2: independent printed witness.
Saoye Shanfang lithographic printing (埽葉山房石印), impression undated in the inspected imprint. In the 80-page scan, PDF p. 1 identifies the editor and imprint; p. 3 carries Wang Xianqian's 1894 preface, which does not establish the printing date. On 8 October 2026 the large-character root text was inspected visually, with context on PDF pp. 48–51 and all selected characters on pp. 49–51. The selected characters agree; OCR did not certify them. This is one identified scholarly printed witness, not a complete critical collation. Wikisource remains the attributed display base for transcription and modern punctuation; no Guo commentary is reproduced.
- Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
The Chinese source page identifies this licence. Attribution covers the transcription and punctuation; Paragraphos has added line breaks and selected excerpts. This licence notice does not describe the rights in the separately authored commentary or working English.
- Robert Eno, Zhuangzi: The Inner Chapters, 2019, version 1.1, sections 2.5–2.7.
University-hosted teaching translation and accompanying discussion consulted. The comparison checks this / that, self-knowledge, assertion / denial, and the pivot. Eno's interpretation is evidence of a translation choice, not a neutral resolution of the passage.
- Herbert A. Giles, Chuang Tzŭ, chapter 2, Wikisource transcription.
Consulted as a historical contrast. Giles's subjective / objective vocabulary and metaphysical reading of the axis differ sharply from our rendering. His phrasing is not adopted as a current scholarly consensus.
Secondary reading
- Chad Hansen, ‘Zhuangzi’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, sections 4.4–4.7.
Consulted on indexical and evaluative language, disagreement, and rival interpretations of perspective. Hansen advances a particular naturalistic reading. Our responsive reading is informed by this family of interpretations, not attributed to all scholars.
- Chris Fraser, ‘Skepticism and Value in the Zhuangzi’, International Philosophical Quarterly, 2009.
The author's full article was consulted on normative skepticism, competing standards and situated reasons for changing one's judgments. It supports distinguishing a plurality of valuable perspectives from a declaration that all judgments are equally justified.
- Chris Fraser, Zhuangzi: Ways of Wandering the Way, Oxford University Press, 2024.
Publisher metadata, abstract and contents verified. The full book was not available in this review; no passage-level claim or quotation is attributed to it here.
Textual history
- ‘Zhuangzi’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, section 2: textual history.
The extant Zhuangzi is a composite anthology of 33 chapters. Its received recension is associated with Guo Xiang, who died in 312 CE. Chapter 2 belongs to the traditional Inner Chapters, 1–7, often associated more closely with Zhuang Zhou. Direct authorship, relative dating and the privileged status of this grouping remain disputed. Late Warring States is a broad intellectual frame here, not an exact date for every line.
- Esther Klein, ‘Were there “Inner Chapters” in the Warring States? A New Examination of Evidence about the Zhuangzi’, 2010.
Bibliographic identity and relevance verified through the SEP bibliography and discussion. The full article was not inspected. Its specific historical arguments require editorial verification; they are not reconstructed here from a title or abstract.